The Palace of Darkened Windows | Page 8

which was in reality his mother
tongue. "My sister thinks she can arrange that invitation. You are sure
that you will be returned at Cairo, then?"
"Oh, dear, yes! I would come back by train," Arlee declared eagerly,
"rather than miss that wonderful ball!"
She thought how astonished a certain red-headed young Englishman
would be to see her at that ball, and how fortunate she was compared to
his haughty and disappointed friend, the Lady Claire, and the chill of
her resentment against the Captain's intrusion vanished like snow in the
warmth of her gratitude.
"Good!" He smiled at her with a flash of white teeth. "Then my sister
herself will see one of the household of the Khedive and request the
invitation for you and for your chaperon, the Madame----"
"Eversham."
"Eversham. She will be included for you, but not the daughter--no?"
"Is that asking too much?" said Arlee hesitantly. "Miss Eversham
would feel badly to be left out.... But, anyway, I'm not sure that I shall
be with them then," she reflected.
"Not with them?" The young man leaned forward, his eyes curiously

intent upon her.
"No, I may be with some other friends. You see, it's this way--I didn't
come abroad with the Evershams in the first place. I came in the fall
with a school friend and her mother to see Italy. The Evershams were
friends of theirs and were stopping at the same hotel, and since my
friends were called back very suddenly, the Evershams asked me to go
on to Egypt with them. It was very nice of them, for I'm a dreadful
bother," said Arlee, dimpling.
"But you speak of leaving them?" he said.
"Oh, yes, I may do that as soon as some other friends of mine, the
Maynards, reach here. They are coming here on their way to the Holy
Land and I want to take that trip with them. And then I'll probably go
back to America with them."
The Turkish captain stared at her, his dark eyes rather inscrutable,
though a certain wonder was permitted to be felt in them.
"You American girls--your ways are absolute like the decrees of
Allah!" he laughed softly. "But tell me--what will your father and your
mother say to this so rapidly changing from the one chaperon to the
other?"
"I haven't any father or mother," said the girl. "I have a big, grown-up,
married brother, and he knows I wouldn't change from one party unless
it was all right." She laughed amusedly at the young man's comic
gesture of bewilderment. "You think we American girls are terribly
independent."
"I do, indeed," he avowed, "but," and he inclined his dark head in
graceful gallantry, "it is the independence of the princess of the blood
royal."
A really nice way of putting it, Arlee thought, contrasting the
chivalrous homage of this Oriental with the dreadful "American
goose!" of the Anglo-Saxon.

"But tell me," he went on, studying her face with an oddly intent look,
"do these friends now, the Evershams, know these others, the--the----"
"Maynards," she supplied. "Oh, no, they have never met each other.
The Maynards are friends I made at school. And Brother has never met
them either," she added, enjoying his humorous mystification.
"The decrees of Allah!" he murmured again. "But I will promise you an
invitation for your chaperon and arrange for the name of the lady
later--n'est-ce-pas?"
"Yes, I will know as soon as I return from the Nile. You are going to a
lot of bother, you and your sister," declared Arlee gratefully.
"I go to ask you to take a little trouble, then, for that sister," said the
Captain slowly. "She is a widow and alone. Her life is--is
triste--melancholy is your English word. Not much of brightness, of
new things, of what you call pleasure, enters into that life, and she
enjoys to meet foreign ladies who are not--what shall I say?--seekers
after curiosities, who think our ladies are strange sights behind the bars.
You know that the Europeans come uninvited to our wedding
receptions and make the strange questions!"
Arlee had the grace to blush, remembering her own avid desire to make
her way into one of those receptions, where the doors of the Moslem
harem are thrown open to the feminine world in widespread hospitality.
The Captain went on, slowly, his eyes upon her, "But she knows that
you are not one of those others and has requested that you do her the
grace to call upon her. I assured her that you would, for I know that you
are kind, and also," with an air of naïve pride which Arlee found
admirable in him, "it is not all the world who is invited to the home of
our--our haut-monde, you understand?... And then it will