Ziska | Page 6

Russian winter
climate is inclement, I believe."
"That would be a very neat arrangement," yawned Lord Fulkeward.
"But my mother thinks not. My mother thinks there is not a husband at
all,--that there never was a husband. In fact my mother has very strong
convictions on the subject. But my mother intends to visit her all the
same."
"She does? Lady Fulkeward has decided on that? Oh, well, in THAT
case!"--and Sir Chetwynd expanded his lower-chest air-balloon. "Of
course, Lady Chetwynd Lyle can no longer have any scruples on the
subject. If Lady Fulkeward visits the Princess there can be no doubt as
to her actual STATUS."
"Oh, I don't know!" murmured Lord Fulkeward, stroking his downy lip.
"You see my mother's rather an exceptional person. When the governor
was alive she hardly ever went out anywhere, you know, and all the
people who came to our house in Yorkshire had to bring their pedigrees
with them, so to speak. It was beastly dull! But now my mother has
taken to 'studying character,' don'cher know; she likes all sorts of
people about her, and the more mixed they are the more she is
delighted with them. Fact, I assure you! Quite a change has come over
my mother since the poor old governor died!"

Ross Courtney looked amused. A change indeed had come over Lady
Fulkeward--a change, sudden, mysterious and amazing to many of her
former distinguished friends with "pedigrees." In her husband's lifetime
her hair had been a soft silver-gray; her face pale, refined and serious;
her form full and matronly; her step sober and discreet; but two years
after the death of the kindly and noble old lord who had cherished her
as the apple of his eye and up to the last moment of his breath had
thought her the most beautiful woman in England, she appeared with
golden tresses, a peach-bloom complexion, and a figure which had
been so massaged, rubbed, pressed and artistically corseted as to appear
positively sylph-like. She danced like a fairy, she who had once been
called "old" Lady Fulkeward; she smoked cigarettes; she laughed like a
child at every trivial thing--any joke, however stale, flat and
unprofitable, was sufficient to stir her light pulses to merriment; and
she flirted--oh, heavens!--HOW she flirted!--with a skill and a grace
and a knowledge and an aplomb that nearly drove Muriel and Dolly
Chetwynd Lyle frantic. They, poor things, were beaten out of the field
altogether by her superior tact and art of "fence," and they hated her
accordingly and called her in private a "horrid old woman," which
perhaps, when her maid undressed her, she was. But she was having a
distinctly "good time" in Cairo; she called her son, who was in delicate
health, "my poor dear little boy!" and he, though twenty-eight on his
last birthday, was reduced to such an abject condition of servitude by
her assertiveness, impudent gayety and general freedom of manner, that
he could not open his mouth without alluding to "my mother," and
using "my mother" as a peg whereon to hang all his own opinions and
emotions as well as the opinions and emotions of other people.
"Lady Fulkeward admires the Princess very much, I believe?" said
another lounger who had not yet spoken.
"Oh, as to that!"--and Lord Fulkeward roused himself to some faint
show of energy. "Who wouldn't admire her? By Jove! Only, I tell you
what--there's something I weird about her eyes. Fact! I don't like her
eyes."
"Shut up, Fulke! She has beautiful eyes!" burst out Courtney, hotly;

then flushing suddenly he bit his lips and was silent.
"Who is this that has beautiful eyes?" suddenly demanded a slow, gruff
voice, and a little thin gentleman, dressed in a kind of academic gown
and cap, appeared on the scene.
"Hullo! here's our F.R.S.A.!" exclaimed Lord Fulkeward. "By Jove! Is
that the style you have got yourself up in for tonight? It looks awfully
smart, don'cher know!"
The personage thus complimented adjusted his spectacles and surveyed
his acquaintances with a very well-satisfied air. In truth, Dr. Maxwell
Dean had some reason for self-satisfaction, if the knowledge that he
possessed one of the cleverest heads in Europe could give a man cause
for pride. He was apparently the only individual in the Gezireh Palace
Hotel who had come to Egypt for any serious purpose. A purpose he
had, though what it was he declined to explain. Reticent, often brusque,
and sometimes mysterious in his manner of speech, there was not the
slightest doubt that he was at work on something, and that he also had a
very trying habit of closely studying every object, small or great, that
came under his observation. He studied the natives to such an extent
that he knew every differing shade