The Palace of Darkened Windows | Page 3

His mother was French, however, and he was
educated at Oxford and he is as cosmopolitan as any man I ever met.
It's unusual to meet anyone so close to the reigning family, and it gives
one a wonderful insight into things off the beaten track----"
"The beaten--damn!" said the young man, and Billy's heart went out to
him. "Oh, I beg pardon, but you--he--I--" So many things occurred to
him to say at one and the same time that he emitted a snort of warring
and incoherent syllables. Finally, with supreme control, "Do you know
that your 'gentleman of rank' couldn't set foot in a gentleman's club in
this country?"
"I think it's mean!" retorted the girl, her blue eyes very bright and
indignant. "You English come here and look down on even the highest
members of the country you are pretending to assist. Why do you?
When he was at Oxford he went into your English homes."
"English madhouses--for admitting him."
A brief silence ensued.
The girl ate a cake. It was a nice cake, powdered with almonds, but she
ate it obliviously. The angry red shone rosily in her cheeks.
The young man took a hasty drink of his tea, which had grown cold in

its cup, and pushed it away. Obstinately he rushed on in his mad career.
"I simply cannot understand you!" he declared.
"Does it matter?" said she, and bit an almond's head off.
"It would be bad enough, in any city, but in Cairo--! To permit him to
insult you with his company, alone, upon the streets!"
"When you have said insult you have said a little too much," she
returned in a small, cold voice of war. "Is there anything against
Captain Kerissen personally?"
"Who knows anything about any of those fellows? They are all
alike--with half a dozen wives locked up behind their barred windows."
"He isn't married."
"How do you know?"
"I--inferred it."
The Englishman snorted: "According to his custom, you know, it isn't
the proper thing to mention his ladies in public."
"You are frightfully unjust. Captain Kerissen's customs are the customs
of the civilized world, and he is very anxious to have his country
become modernized."
"Then let him send his sisters out walking with fellow officers.... For
him to walk beside you----"
"He was following the custom of my country," said the girl, with
maddening superiority. "Since I am an American girl----"
The young Englishman said a horrible thing. He said it with immense
feeling.
"American goose!" he uttered, then stopped short. Precipitately he

floundered into explanation:
"I beg your pardon, but, you know, when you say such bally nonsense
as that--! An American girl has no more business to be imprudent than
a Patagonian girl. You have no idea how these people regard----"
"Oh, don't apologize," murmured the girl, with charming sweetness. "I
don't mind what you say--not in the least."
The outraged man was not so befuddled but what he saw those danger
signals now. They glimmered scarlet upon his vision, but his blood was
up and he plunged on to destruction with the extraordinary remark,
"But isn't there a reason why you should?"
She gazed at him in mock reflection, as if mulling this striking thought
presented for her consideration, but her eyes were too sparkly and her
cheeks too poppy-pink to substantiate the reflective pose.
"N-no," she said at last, with an impertinent little drawl. "I can't seem to
think of any."
He did not pause for innuendo. "You mean you don't give a piastre
what I think?"
"Not half a piastre," she confirmed, in flat defiance.
The young man looked at her. He was over the brink of ruin now;
nothing remained of the interesting little affair of the past three weeks
but a mangled and lamentable wreck at the bottom of a deep abyss.
Perhaps a shaft of compunction touched her flinty soul at the sight of
his aghast and speechless face, for she had the grace to look away. Her
gaze encountered the absorbed and excited countenance of Billy B. Hill,
and the poppy-pink of her cheeks became poppy-red and she turned her
head sharply away. She rose, catching up her gloves and parasol.
"Thank you so much for your tea," she said in a lowered tone to her
unfortunate host. "I've had a delicious time.... I'm sorry if I

disappointed you by not cowering before your disapproval. Oh, don't
bother to come in with me--I know my way to the lift and the band is
going to play God Save the King and they need you to stand up and
make a showing."
Billy B. Hill stared across at the abandoned young man with supreme
sympathy and intimate understanding. He was a nice and right-minded
young man and she was an utter