The Fortieth Door | Page 4

A phantom-like
small person, with the black silk hubarah of the Mohammedan
high-caste woman drawn down to her very brows, and over the entire
face the black street veil. Not a feature visible. Not an eyebrow. Not an
eyelash, not a hint of the small person herself, except a very small
white, ringed hand, lifted as if in defense of his clumsiness.
"Sorry," said Ryder quickly, and driven by the instinct of reparation.
"Won't you dance?"
A mute shake of the head.
Well, his duty was done. But something, the very lack of all invitation
in the black phantom, made him linger. He repeated his request in
French.
From behind the veil came a liquidly soft voice with a note of mirth. "I
understand the English, monsieur," it informed him.
"Enough, then, to say yes in it?"
The black phantom shook its head. "My education, alas! has only
proceeded to the N." Her speech was quaint, unhesitating, but oddly
inflected. "I regret--but I am not acquainted with the yes."
A gay character for a masked ball! Indifference and pique swung Ryder
towards a geisha girl, but a trace of irritation lingered and he found her,
"You likee plink gleisha?" singularly witless.

He'd tell McLean just how darned captivating his outfit was, he
promised himself.
And then he caught sight of a familiar pair of gray eyes smiling over
the white veil of an odalisque. Jinny Jeffries was wearing one of the
many costumes there that passed for Oriental, a glittering assemblage
of Turkish trousers and Circassian veils, silver shawls and necklaces
and wide bracelets banding bare arms.
As an effect it was distinctly successful.
"Ten thousand dinars could not pay for the chicken she has eaten,"
uttered Ryder appreciatively in the language of the old slave market,
and stepped promptly ahead of a stout Pantalon.
"Jack! You did come!" There was a note in the girl's voice as if she had
disbelieved in her good fortune. "Oh, and beautiful as Roderick Dhu!
Didn't I tell you that you could find something in that shop?" she
declared in triumph.
"Do you imagine that this came out of a costumer's?" Ryder swung her
swiftly out in the fox trot before the crowd invaded the floor. "If Andy
McLean could hear you! Why this, this is the real thing, the
Scots-wha-hae-wi'-Wallace-bled stuff."
"Who is Andy McLean?"
"Andrew is Scotch, Single, and Skeptical. He is a great pal of mine and
also an official of the Agricultural Bank which is by way of being a
Government institution. These are the togs of his Hieland Grandsire--"
"Why didn't you bring him?"
"Too dead, unfortunately--grandsires often are--"
"I mean Andrew McLean."
"It would take you, my dear Jinny, to do that. You brought me--and I
can believe in anything after the surprise of finding myself here."

Jinny Jeffries laughed. "If I could only believe what you say!"
"Oh, you can believe anything I say," Jack obligingly assured her. "I'm
very careful what I say--"
"I wish I were."
"You'd have to be careful how you look, Jinny--and you can't help that.
The Lord who gave you red hair must provide the way to elude its
consequences.... I suppose the Orient isn't exactly a manless Sahara for
you?"
She countered, her bright eyes intent, "Is it a girl-less Sahara for you,
Jack?"
"The only woman I have laid a hand on, in kindness or unkindness,
died before Ptolemy rebuilt Denderah."
"That's not right--"
"No? And I thought it such a virtuous record!"
"I mean," Jinny laughed, "that you really ought to be seeing more of
life--like to-night--"
"To-night? Do you imagine this is a place for seeing life?"
"Why not?" she retorted to the irony in his voice. "It's real people--not
just dead and gone things in cases with their lives all lived. I don't care
if you are going to be a very famous person, Jack, you ought to see
more of the world. You have just been buried out here for two years,
ever since you left college--"
Beneath his mask the young man was smiling. A quaint feminine
notion, that life was to be encountered at a masquerade! This motley of
hot, over-dressed, wrought up idiots a human contact!
Life? Living?... Thank you, he preferred the sane young English
officials ... the comradeship of his chief ... the glamor of his desert

tombs.
Of course there was a loneliness in the desert. That was part of the big
feeling of it, the still, stealing sense of immensity reaching out its
shadowy hands for you.... Loneliness and restlessness.... These tropic
nights, when the stars burned low and bright, and the hot sands seemed
breathing.... Loneliness and restlessness--but they gave a man dreams....
And were those dreams to be realized here?
The music stopped and the ever-watchful Pantalon bore