“Zalithea,” said John Cumberland, beckoning to Jack, “I want you to know Jack Lorrimer, my niece, and”—he drew Jim forward—“Mr. Sakers. Princess Zalithea has very little English, so excuse her.”
Zalithea, beyond a slight smile, offered no sort of acknowledgment. Barry, covertly watching his friend and his cousin, noted that the girl’s queer aloofness had created its usual effect. He noted something else. Jack Lorrimer was very pretty (what Jim termed “A 1 at Cupid’s”), and Barry, like many another, had often wondered where the dividing line lay between prettiness and beauty. To-night he knew that Zalithea was beautiful.
Jim’s reaction to the lovely, cold vision on the throne was good to study.
“Delighted!” he said. “Been counting the hours until—— No, of course, you don’t know what I’m talking about! … Cooler this evening, I fancy.… Wrong again! How’s Egypt looking these days? … Let me out, somebody! …”
Danbazzar stood at his elbow. He spoke to Zalithea in that monotonous language which no one else understood. Under half-lowered lids she watched him, and then replied briefly. He turned to Jim.
“She says you talk too much!” he translated.
Jim turned fiery red.
Barry laughed delightedly, and Professor Blackwell, who had just come in, endeavoured to console poor Jim.
“She is a young lady of very definite ideas,” he said, groping with one large, bony hand for a dress tie which, having become unknotted, had evidently dropped off somewhere. “For instance, she has a settled belief that I’m funny!”
“Please, Mr. Danbazzar!” whispered Jack. “Ask her if she likes me!”
Danbazzar, whom nothing annoyed more than to be addressed as “mister,” conversed briefly, and unintelligibly, with Zalithea; then:
“She is a little undecided,” he announced. “She has got hold of the idea that you’re a dancing girl and wants to know when you are going to begin!”
CHAPTER XXVII.
ABOUT IT AND ABOUT
Danbazzar, in these days, was constantly at the Cumberland home. Next to Barry, it was evident that Zalithea preferred his society to that of anybody else. John Cumberland she respected, but he, for all his knowledge of the old, mysterious land in which they had found her, groped in vain with the strange tongue which she spoke and which Danbazzar alone understood. Nor was he so successful as his son in establishing a link of understanding. Perhaps because he did not speak the language of love, which is God’s esperanto.
Nevertheless, and largely with Danbazzar as interpreter, he had begun his ambitious work. The first and second sections of the book came within scope of his personal knowledge. He believed that they were, now, comparatively valueless without the third. Therefore, beyond arranging his bulky notes, he had done little in this direction. His interest was with Zalithea’s story, and this she surrendered only in provoking fragments, imperfectly understood by Danbazzar.
For instance, urged on one occasion to describe Pharaoh’s court, she became unusually voluble. Danbazzar looked puzzled, thought over what she had said for some time, and then:
“It sounds to me,” he confessed, “uncommonly like back stage at the Metropolitan Opera House!”
And a day was to come when those words should recur to Barry Cumberland.
Social invitations hailed upon them. No door in New York was closed to Princess Zalithea. But She Who Sleeps was as capricious as she was lovely. Modern ideas of good behaviour she simply didn’t understand. They had learned from painful experience, to consult her, vide Danbazzar, before accepting proffered hospitality.
She would inquire closely into the character of the household and the probable guests before consenting to go. More often than not she flatly declined to be present.
And they knew that social embarrassment would almost inevitably follow if Zalithea were urged against her will. This knowledge had come as result of a disaster at the apartment of a prominent member of Washington’s diplomatic set who was entertaining in New York.
Zalithea, reluctantly, had agreed to go. She had looked radiant. She was the sensation of a brilliant gathering. Then, Mrs. Uffington had arrived. As that gushing lady crossed with extended hands:
“Bahree,” Zalithea had said, in her imperious way.
Ignoring Mrs. Uffington, ignoring everybody, she had glided, a slender, stately figure, out of the room—and out of the building!
It was a moment which Barry sometimes lived over again, memory of which brought cold perspiration. He had been furiously angry with her, and had been unable to conceal his anger. Unmoved, apparently, as an ivory statue, she had sat beside him in the car, while he had poured out the vials of his wrath. Perhaps she had understood, perhaps she had not.
But when he saw her face, as they alighted before the door of his home, he would have given much for power to recall those words. Her beautiful eyes were glassy, like those of a tortured animal. Then, as she turned to run up the steps, he saw the long-repressed tears gathering under the dark fringe of her lashes.…
She had refused to see him that night and for half of the next day. His father, and Aunt Micky, who had been left behind to face the appalling task of explaining, arrived later—and were denied admittance to Zalithea’s apartments!
Danbazzar was summoned. Barry knew no sleep that night. He paced the big library, a man demented, knowing—if he had ever doubted it—that the happiness of this girl meant more to him than the opinion of every hostess in America; than any friendship; than anything in life.
Reconciliation had come. But they had all learned their lessons.
Invitations to the Cumberland home were eagerly sought for. It came to be regarded as a sort of mark of distinction to be honestly able to say that Princess Zalithea had consented to know one. What guided her in her selections and rejections, John Cumberland could never make out.
Slowly, provokingly slowly, Zalithea was learning English. There was no lack of voluntary (male) tutors. In fact, by painful degrees, the fact dawned upon Barry that he had to count not only with that intangible dread, his knowledge of the true age of Zalithea, but also with more than one rival.
“There’s something I want to know, young Cumberland,” said Aunt Micky on a certain afternoon when Barry was lounging in her private sanctum.
This room was notable chiefly because of the fact that it differed from every other in the house; it contained not a single Egyptian relic.
“What’s that, Micky?”
Aunt Micky puffed reflectively at her cigarette; then:
“When is Zalithea going home?” she inquired.
“What!”
Barry sat up with a jerk.
“Don’t get excited,” she went on. “It’s a perfectly reasonable question. And as I can’t talk to the girl, and your father won’t talk to me, I’m asking you. Have we adopted her?”
Barry laughed to hide his embarrassment.
“I suppose in a way we are responsible for her,” he answered evasively. “What does Dad say?”
“Nothing!” Micky replied promptly. “That is, nothing sensible. He told me, only yesterday, that her history was so strange I should never be able to believe it.” She took a fresh cigarette from the box. “He’s very likely right,” she added.
“No, Micky!” Barry protested. “Something has upset you. What is it?”
“It isn’t one thing; it’s several.”
“Tell me one of them.”
“In the first place, who is this girl?”
“It’s very difficult to explain, Micky.”
“Ha!” She lighted her fresh cigarette with the stump of the old one. “That’s what John says—and Blackwell! You’re all lying—all the damn’ lot of you! You can’t tell fairy tales to Micky Colonna! And where, exactly, does the man Danbazzar come in?”
Again Barry hesitated. It was hateful to lie to Aunt Micky. Hitherto, by skillful evasion, he had dodged the necessity. He determined to endeavour to do so again.
“Well,” he replied, “Danbazzar is the only one of the party who knows her language. He knows—all about her father, too.”
Aunt Micky stared at him hard; then:
“I’ve been in Egypt, young lad,” she said, “and although I never went so far, I know where the desert Arabs live—and what they look like. This girl isn’t one! Also, when Dr. Davidson called, why did old Blackwell hurry him away without seeing Zalithea?”
“I don’t know, Micky.”
“But I do! Because Dr. Davidson has just come back from a journey through Zalithea’s home country, among the Senussi Arabs! Teach your grandmother to suck eggs, young Cumberland!”
“Does all this mean you don’t like her?”
“I’d like her well enough if I knew who she was. But all I know is that she’s a little impostor and the whole gang of you are backing her up.”
“She isn’t an impostor,” Barry retorted hotly. “No! I didn’t mean to be abrupt, but you don’t understand, Micky. It’s the rest of us who are impostors!”
Aunt Micky shaded her unflinching gray eyes with one upraised hand, a mark of disapproval; then:
“Liars! all the lot of you!” she commented. “I knew it. But what’s the object? Is she wanted by the Egyptian police?”
Barry laughed.
“Not exactly,” he replied. “But there is a likelihood of complications, all the same. You see, we brought a stack of stuff away. It’s all at Danbazzar’s place, now.”
“What has this to do with Zalithea?”
“Well, in a way—— Oh, I can’t explain, Micky! What’s the use of trying?”
“Tell me what your father told me yesterday—that I wouldn’t understand—and I’ll heave this ink-well at you!”
The interview left Barry in a very unsettled frame of mind. He simply could not foresee the future otherwise than through a storm cloud. As he came down into the lobby, Zalithea was just crossing. She was going out to dinner and a theatre with a party that included Monty Edwards, a moneyed undesirable whom Barry detested. She disliked parties but loved theatres, they had discovered.
She was dressed already, and made a sweet picture against a background depicting the wars of Rameses II.
Barry’s heart jumped ridiculously; for she was so close to him that by extending a hand he could have touched her. He suppressed an impulse—which seemed quite natural—to take her in his arms and hold her and kiss her.
“Zalithea,” he said, “you are adorable.”
She paused, looking sideways at Barry. Her smile maddened him.
“You like?” she asked naïvely.
“Yes.”
“Bahree-geeve me-er-kiss,” she invited.
He felt a hot flush rising to his forehead. Truly his sins had found him out! At some time he had murmured those words, and Zalithea, who seemed so slow to learn many things, had seized upon them mysteriously. Perhaps the syllables chanced to resemble those of her own language.
“I shall have to, one day!” he said. “I shan’t be able to help myself!”
The maddest impulses surged up in his brain. Her eyes were beckoning to him. But she was helpless—their guest—to be guarded and protected.
He laughed—quite mirthlessly—turned, and walked across to the library. He never glanced back.
Jim Sakers was calling for him later. They were dining at a club and doing nothing in particular; what Jim termed “a night of well-earned rest.” Barry was looking forward to the evening with great interest, because he had determined, guardedly, to voice his difficulties to his friend and to get the opinion of this honest, worldly soul.
Of Zalithea he purposely saw no more. He heard the others arrive and heard the car drive off. A few minutes later Jim arrived.
At a corner table, placed before a high oak settle, they presently found themselves in one of the Bohemian clubs of which Jim was a member. And Barry began by outlining the position that Zalithea occupied in the Cumberland home.
“I gather,” said Jim, “that your former flaming passion for the balcony princess has now been transferred to the Egyptian princess?”
“Don’t be silly,” Barry returned irritably. “I’m serious. Can’t you understand that that was a vision of the girl I was going to meet?”
“No,” Jim admitted, “I can’t. I have seen Mr. Brown’s house, and I have interviewed Mr. Brown’s housekeeper. There’s nothing visionary about either. Why should there be about Mr. Brown’s balcony?”
“I don’t know; but there is. It’s utterly impossible that I should have seen Zalithea there. It’s utterly impossible that I should have seen her on Fifth Avenue.”
“You saw her twin sister.”
“Her twin sister, if she had had one, would have been dead long ago——”
He broke off. He had said more than he had intended to say. Jim stared curiously.
“How so?” he inquired. “Do they drown one of the twins in those parts? Which one do they keep? Who decides? Answer me that—the local witch doctor?”
“Forget it!” Barry urged, “and talk sense. You have seen Zalithea—many times, now——”
“Undoubtedly. She’s A 1 at Cupid’s—a first-class risk—Bachelor’s Bane, Incorporated.”
“You know her rather imperious spirit.”
“I do. She has practised hard on me.”
“But I’m crazy about her, Jim! And I’m dying to tell her so! But how can I?”
“How can you? Easily. You’re not dumb.”
“She has scarcely any English.”
“Press your hand to your heart and kneel at her feet.”
“It isn’t that. She’s our guest. I have no right——”
“Cable the sable parent. Say, ‘Dear Sir: With reference to your charming daughter——’ ”
“Jim! you’re not helping me! And, anyway, that’s not all.”
Jim realized that his friend was really serious. He listened, without facetious comments, while Barry hesitantly outlined a hypothetical case. He spoke of a famous physician of the East who had discovered a method of prolonging life for several hundreds of years. He could not bring himself to speak of thousands! He asked him if he should expect the offspring of a marriage between such a subject and an ordinary mortal, to be normal.
But Jim was merely bewildered.
“Are you hinting that Zalithea’s mother is three hundred years old?” he demanded, incredulously. “Is this the skeleton in the cupboard?”
His tone was sufficient for Barry. Jim would never understand. How could he be expected to understand? He was glad he had been no more definite; and he clutched at this straw gratefully.
“So we were led to believe,” he replied.
Jim’s stare became that of a man hypnotized; but finally:
“Does your father believe this?” he asked. “And old Blackwell, and Danbazzar—do they believe it?”
“Yes,” said Barry. “You would have believed it if you had been there.”
But he knew, now, that he could look for guidance to no man. He and those others who had entered the tomb of She Who Sleeps had entered a world controlled by laws other than those known to the rest of mankind.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A DOOR CLOSES
Barry returned home comparatively early. Neither Jim’s airy philosophy nor his more serious sympathy, which was not without a salting of worldly wisdom, had lifted the cloud of despondency that had settled upon him. He felt utterly alone. Never, in the loneliest hours he had known in the desert, had he experienced anything quite like his mood of to-night.
He had fallen in love with a shadow—a mirage; the shadow had materialized; and now, the substance was less real than the shadow.
The whole thing seemed to have gone out of tune. The Zalithea he pictured as he walked along, the Zalithea who went to theatres and parties, was this the sleeping princess they had delivered from an Egyptian tomb? Could it be the same, pale, slender girl from whose lifeless body Danbazzar had torn those age-old wrappings?
In short, where had delusion begun? Where did delusion end?
The tired man smoking a soiled cigar lolled on the corner as Barry approached his home. It occurred to him that it was the same cigar that he had always smoked. It was unreal.
Without removing the root, the man touched his hat as Barry went in and took out his key. John Cumberland kept early hours; and, except when entertaining, his household was abed by midnight. Barry did not expect to find anyone up.
On the tray in the lobby he discovered two letters. Neither was important, but he switched on the light above the table and glanced at them. As he stood there, dimly he could hear steamer whistles on the river. One of them, a deep-throated blare, he thought he recognized as the voice of the Berengaria. Even as his glance ran over the typed page, in spirit he had crossed again to Southampton upon that quest never to be forgotten which had led to Zalithea.
Then, thrilling in the stillness of the big house, came a soft cry!
Barry dropped the letter and turned, standing stock still, with clenched hands.
He stared across at the closed door of the library. It was from there the cry had come. All was silent, however, as he stepped quickly in that direction. But, as he reached the door, in a strangled voice:
“Bahree!” he heard; then, in a coarse, laughing tone:
“Don’t be so silly!”
Zalithea was in the library—with Monty Edwards!
Barry flung the door open and walked in.
Across by the big, carved mantelpiece, with its overpowering decoration from the wall of Medinet Habu, Edwards had the girl in his arms. He was a thickset, coarse-grained type, whose boisterous good humour served as a cloak for a rather nasty animalism. At the wrong age for a man of his character he had acquired control of a fortune little less than that of John Cumberland.
Zalithea’s lithe body was bent back like a bow as she strove to avoid his lips. Edwards, holding her fast, stooped lower and lower to the alluring, forbidden red mouth.
By what cunning strategy he had contrived to be left alone with her Barry neither knew nor cared. It was the colossal outrage of the thing that struck him dumb. The affront to him, to his father, was gross enough. But the affront to this delicate, guarded treasure of some long-forgotten court was beyond computation.
To his imaginative mind it appeared that Monty Edwards had disgraced irrevocably the name of American hospitality.
So swiftly did he act, in his white-hot anger, that Edwards, hastily releasing the girl, allowed her to sink down upon the carpet. He turned in a flash—and Barry stood before him dumb with hate.
Edwards’s high colour fled. He spoke huskily.
“Hullo, Barry! Don’t get mad. It was only fun.”
Barry was murderously pale. For ten—fifteen—twenty beats of the library clock, he stood, quivering; then:
“Get out!” he said. “Get out while I can remember you’re in my house.”
Monty Edwards bandied no words with the speaker. He knew when a man was seeing red. Head lowered and lips unsteady, he passed Barry and walked out of the library.
Zalithea stood up, breathing quickly. But Barry never moved, never stirred a muscle of his tensed-up body, until the closing of the front door told him that Monty Edwards had left the house. Then he turned to Zalithea.
She was dressed as he had seen her earlier in the evening. She was pale but more utterly desirable than any woman in all the wide world. Her long, dark eyes were fixed upon him in a sort of wonder—questioningly—doubtingly. He unclenched his fists. No word was spoken. But Zalithea stepped forward as if bidden.
His arms went around her like steel bands. He uttered a queer, pent-up cry. He kissed her lips breathlessly, her hair, her eyes, her smooth, creamy neck. He was in the throes of a veritable madness. His long-repressed passion swept him away.…
When, at last, he released her, she fell back, raised her hands to her eyes for a moment; then, giving him one long look of indescribable intensity, as though she would imprint his image indelibly upon her mind, she ran out of the room.
Standing as she had left him, his back to the lobby, he heard the light patter of her footsteps as she raced upstairs.
Somewhere, above, a door closed softly.
And to that sound Barry found himself listening with a strained intensity. It seemed in some way to be an answer to a question—to a subconscious question that his mind was incapable of framing. Exhausted by the fiercest emotions he had ever known, he dropped into a big padded rest chair in which, evidently, Monty Edwards had been sitting. A still-smouldering cigar lay in the little Oriental tray attached to the chair arm.
Mentally, he was depressed. But his heart was singing. His former experiences might have led him to doubt Zalithea’s sentiments. But he could not forget that she had returned his kisses.
For an hour he waited, hoping yet not expecting that she would come back. He lived again through the strange days and nights he had known since that evening when Fate had steered the Rolls into a private road—and he had seen a vision of Zalithea.
Imagination led him on. Once more he talked with Danbazzar and the others in the tent in the wâdi and walked beside Hassan es-Sugra through those silent halls of the Great Temple. So walking in spirit, with gods and Pharaohs beckoning secretly from moon-touched walls, he fell asleep.
The cigar, in the tray at his elbow, smouldered on. In the still air of the library, a bluish pencilling of smoke stole straightly upward. It burned until only a powdery shell remained attached to a leafy stub. But Barry never stirred. The night sounds of New York did not reach him in his dreams. And the detective on duty outside the house wondered why the library lights were still burning when dawn’s gray mystery crept over the city.
Through the shades, morning light was competing with the electric lamps when soft footsteps sounded on the thickly carpeted stairs. Barry slept on. The footsteps crept lower and lower… and Zalithea stood peeping in at the doorway.
She turned swiftly at sight of the sleeper, her fingers raised to her lips. Old Safîyeh’s wrinkled face appeared in the lamplight. Then Zalithea looked again at Barry, his ruffled curly head resting on one shoulder. She watched him longingly, as a woman watches a sleeping child. Once she stole forward, but hesitated and went back.… Very softly she drew the door partly to.
The man on duty at the corner saw the two women come out and walk away. He was not surprised. They frequently went for a walk in the early hours of the morning, although he could not recall that they had ever set out quite so early before.
As the front door closed, Barry moved. The movement rasped his neck against his collar—and he awoke. Cramped, stale, heavy-headed, he stared about him. Swiftly memory reasserted itself.
He stood up, stretching his cramped limbs. Then he crossed and switched off the lights. The library clock registered half-past five. He went upstairs, pausing outside Zalithea’s door and listening intently. He could detect no sound. He passed on, mounted to the floor above, and went to bed.
His next awakening was a tragic one.
John Cumberland burst into his room, with:
“Barry! Barry! Zalithea has disappeared!”
“What!”
Barry sprang out of bed, his eyes wide in sudden fear. John Cumberland’s face was pale.
“She and Safîyeh went out at half-past five this morning. They have not returned. It’s after ten o’clock.”
Half-past five… what memory did this awaken? Of course! …
“But I was in the library at that time!” Barry cried. “They must have seen me!”
“Explain,” said John Cumberland. “What were you doing in the library so early?”
Barry, very briefly, told the story, mincing no words, concealing nothing. As he spoke, he was dressing in feverish haste.
“The door was closed, I suppose?” his father asked dully.
Barry paused in his task. He looked up.
“By heaven,” he said, “she must have closed it! Edwards left it open, and I fell asleep watching the lobby. But it was half to when I woke up!”
“Do you realize, Barry,” his father asked, “that it was probably the shutting of the front door that awakened you?”
“I can’t bear to think of it.”
The house was in an uproar. Remembering that Zalithea knew next to nothing of the language, and Safîyeh little more, it was impossible to imagine their plight. In one fact, that Zalithea was not alone, Barry found comfort.
John Cumberland’s private secretary was already in touch with the police; and, as Barry came hurrying downstairs, Professor Blackwell arrived.
“Cumberland!” he cried. “What’s this they tell me?”
“She’s gone, Blackwell,” was the reply. “No news.”
The Professor dropped into a lobby chair.
“Somehow, I can’t grasp it,” he said pathetically. “If she had been alone I should have feared an accident, but as Safîyeh is with her——”
“That’s what I think!” Barry interrupted eagerly. “An accident is out of the question.”
“This being so,” the Professor went on, “what are we to conclude? Is Danbazzar here?”
“Expected every minute,” John Cumberland replied shortly. “I naturally ’phoned there first, as she is used to visiting him.”
“She had not been there?”
John Cumberland shook his head.
“Tell him what happened last night, Barry,” he said, and hurried away.
Barry, hoping against hope that something in the occurrences of the night might suggest to the scientific brain of Professor Blackwell a clue to Zalithea’s motive, gave him an account of the matter. At last:
“It may be some primitive reaction,” the Professor murmured. “The psychology of Zalithea is of course an unknown quantity.”
“You think she is frightened and so has run away?”
“Frankly, I don’t know what to think.”
“I can’t believe she would voluntarily leave the house,” Barry declared. “Just think. Where could she possibly go to?”
Professor Blackwell shook his head.
“That is a question I cannot pretend to answer.”
At this moment Danbazzar arrived. As the door was opened he came into the lobby, a big, dominating figure. But his stock was not quite so perfectly knotted as usual, and his strange eyes held a very wild light.
“Still no news?” he asked.
The blank faces about him were sufficient answer.
“Have her apartments been searched to make sure there’s nothing there?”
Aunt Micky, very stern-faced, came downstairs.
“I have searched thoroughly,” she answered. “But it might be as well if you looked, also.”
Danbazzar bowed and walked upstairs. Barry followed.
In the suite of apartments which had been furnished for the use of Zalithea, a very faint perfume lingered. It caught Barry by the throat. It spoke to him intimately. It was as though he had buried his face in her fragrant hair; as though she were in his arms again.
The rooms were strangely appointed. They were scantily furnished in the Eastern manner, with little inlaid tables and cabinets, and many richly cushioned divans. Perforated silver lamps concealed the electric lights, and the windows were screened with mushrabiyeh work. The bedroom struck a more Western note, being equipped with a wonderful dressing table possessing wing mirrors and laden with every imaginable luxury of Paris.
There was no evidence of disorder or of hasty departure. The bleak chamber adjoining in which the old Arab woman spent a great part of her days afforded no better evidence.
Danbazzar crossed to a window and threw back the near-by mushrabiyeh screen. For a long time he stood there, looking out.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE HIEROGLYPHIC LETTER
A period of anxiety now commenced to which it seemed impossible to imagine any end other than the return of Zalithea. The idea that he should never see her again was one that Barry simply could not contemplate. The mystery of her disappearance baffled all conjecture.
Short of the theory of drowning both in the case of Zalithea and of Safîyeh, no feasible explanation presented itself. At John Cumberland’s urgently expressed wish publicity was for long avoided. But neither police headquarters nor the private experts employed on the case could offer any hypothesis covering the facts.
Since Zalithea spoke no English and her companion very little, it was difficult to imagine how they could have gone far without attracting attention. Further, it appeared that neither had any money, beyond, possibly, some small change.
To Barry, every waking hour seemed like a week. He had fits of anger during which he bitterly reproached the girl for the pain which she was inflicting. Then, his mood changing, he would mourn her as dead. Every time the ’phone bell rang his heart leaped wildly. Hope and fear alternately gripped him, threatening to drive him mad.
Secrecy at last became impossible, if not unwise.
“There’s only one theory that covers all the facts,” said the detective in charge of the inquiry. “They must be in hiding; either because they want to hide for some reason, or because they are being detained.”
“Detained!” cried John Cumberland. “By whom? For what purpose?”
“Well,” was the reply, “such things have happened before, you know. It may develop into a demand for ransom. But my point is this: apart from the fact that the lady’s disappearance is beginning to be talked about, we are neglecting a very valuable weapon, in a case of this kind, by avoiding publicity.”
“I agree with you,” Barry said.
“If these two are hiding somewhere,” the detective went on, “offer of a big reward will tempt someone to give them away. If they’ve been kidnapped, offer of a reward is what the kidnappers are waiting for. I know it’s going to make things mighty unpleasant for you, and you’re in no sort of humour to be badgered by newspaper reporters. But it’s all that’s left. The cat’s out of the bag, anyway. Hundreds of people know. You might as well tell the world.”
Reluctantly, sick at heart, John Cumberland consented. The notoriety which he knew must follow was appalling to his sensitive nature. But anything that might lead to the recovery of Zalithea he was prepared to face.
And so, on the following morning, New York revelled in full details of perhaps the most romantic mystery that had ever spread itself over the city’s front pages. Photographs of Zalithea there were none available. Those taken on the day of her arrival, showing her muffled in veils, were at a premium.
Danbazzar supplied a brief and strictly untruthful biography of “The Lady Zalithea el-Aziza ed-Dhahir (daughter of the Sheik Mohammed Abd el-Ghuri, of the direct line of the last of the Khalifs and a descendant of the Prophet) entitled by Moslem law and usage to the designation, Princess Zalithea.”
As this corresponded with the particulars entered in her passport, no doubts of its accuracy were entertained. A description of Safîyeh was also given. She was cited as a native of Cairo.
“This is going to reach Egypt,” said Danbazzar gloomily. “And if I know anything about Tawwab, it’s going to reach the Sheik Mohammed. If it’s made worth his while, he’s sure to say he never had a daughter. What happens next we have to wait and see.”
The sensational report issued, John Cumberland and Barry entrenched themselves behind secretaries, refusing to receive any newspaper representatives. Danbazzar discreetly disappeared. So intense was the public curiosity aroused that Professor Blackwell was forced to cancel a course of lectures and to retire to the home of relatives in the Middle West.
Wild rumours were circulated freely. Anybody who had ever met Zalithea was interviewed and cross-examined. Thousands who had never even seen her claimed acquaintance for the sake of a brief moment in the limelight. Reports flowed in from places as widely removed as Marseilles and Hollywood.
At a cost appalling to estimate, John Cumberland had every one of them taken up and tested. All proved to be mare’s nests.
Aunt Micky’s life became a perfect burden to her. If it had not been for her recognition of the fact that Barry was breaking his heart over the affair she would have fled long since. Instinctively she had known from the first that there was some secret in connection with Zalithea which she did not share. Her resentment had been sharpened by what she termed “this damnable publicity.”
Save for very old friends, Jim Sakers, Jack Lorrimer, and a few others, society she had none in these days, but was compelled to hide like a fugitive from the tireless persecution of paragraph writers.…
Then, it happened—the inexplicable thing; the event that, while it aroused a momentary hope, did so only to dash hope to the ground again.
Barry and a secretary were going through the voluminous mail one morning. Barry’s high spirit had quite deserted him. He looked physically ill, and was morose and silent. He hoped for nothing, in all these letters, but inquiries prompted by idle curiosity or lies designed to torture him. Then:
“Here is a letter addressed to you, Mr. Cumberland,” said the secretary, “and unstamped. It must have been delivered by hand. It is marked ‘Private and Personal.’ ”
Barry stretched apathetically across the table and took the envelope, upon which his name was neatly typed. It seemed to contain a quantity of correspondence and also some small, hard object.
He tore it open listlessly.
A large double sheet of some very thick, tough kind of writing paper was inside. And, as he pulled it from the envelope, a ring fell out upon the table. Barry’s heart seemed to miss a beat. What change had come over his face he could only guess by the secretary’s horrified expression.
“Mr. Cumberland!” she cried—and stood up.
But Barry motioned to her to sit down again. He was staring—staring—at the ring which he held in his hand. It was an oddly mounted and very perfect piece of lapis lazuli.
He had bought it in the Rue de la Paix for Zalithea!
Uttering a stifled moan, he dropped the ring, and, with wildly unsteady fingers, unfolded the thick sheets of paper.
They were covered with Egyptian hieroglyphics!
One glance he gave at the writing, and:
“Quick! Quick!” he shouted. “Get my father!”
He sprang from his chair and began to pace the room like a madman. His brain was working feverishly. The letter was from her! … The letter was from her! Even if John Cumberland could decipher it, he could do so only very laboriously, perhaps inaccurately.
“Mr. Cumberland is coming,” the secretary announced.
“Call Danbazzar,” Barry directed.
“He is out of town. Mr. John Cumberland received a note from him this morning saying he would be away for two or three weeks.”
“Of course,” cried Barry. “I don’t know what I’m talking about!”
He clutched his head, trying to think clearly. Horace Pain was abroad and not expected back for a long time. But Dr. Rittenburg had been home when they arrived. He had dined with them only two weeks ago at Danbazzar’s apartment and had had a private view of the contents of the tomb when these had reached New York through some mysterious channel controlled by their host.
“Look up Dr. Rittenburg’s number,” he said. “Get him at all costs.”
And the secretary was engaged with the directory when John Cumberland burst in.
Barry could not speak. He merely pointed to the ring and letter—and went on walking up and down.
“Good God!”
John Cumberland’s voice shook emotionally. He was staring at the writing, pale-faced, incredulous.
“It’s… from her!” Barry whispered. “She’s alive! She’s alive!”
“Come down to the library, my boy,” said his father, regaining his own self-control in presence of the distracted Barry. “Wallis Budge can help us here. I fear my knowledge is not sufficient.”
As they left the room:
“Dr. Rittenburg has gone out,” the secretary reported, “but they have given me a number where they think I can find him.”
“Tell him to come along at once,” John Cumberland directed, “or, if he’s engaged, put him through to me in the library.”
A few minutes later they were engrossed in study of the extraordinary letter; and from the well-laden shelves Barry, at his father’s instance, had taken Budge’s standard work on the language of Ancient Egypt, Erman’s Egyptian Grammar, and other handbooks on the subject.
“It’s going to be a hard job for me, Barry,” John Cumberland confessed. “But it would be easy for Rittenburg or Danbazzar. It’s hieratic writing, of which I know very little.”
“Is it—” Barry began, trying to steady his voice, “is it the sort of writing she might be expected to use?”
“Undoubtedly,” his father answered. “It was the form of writing employed by the priests and scribes. The papyrus and the formula are written in this style. But the characters in both are much more carefully drawn.”
“For heaven’s sake, let’s begin. Does it read from left to right or right to left?”
“That’s the trouble,” John Cumberland replied. “Sometimes it reads one way and sometimes the other!”
“Can you find any clue—or any word you recognize?”
“That’s what I’m looking for,” his father murmured, bending over the page of hieroglyphs.…
And for the greater part of an hour he looked, seeking aid in his researches from the pages of Budge, Petrie, and others. But he had made no progress whatever when Dr. Rittenburg arrived.
As the library door opened and the round, red face of the distinguished Egyptologist was thrust into the room, Barry rose from the table with a cry of welcome. Dr. Rittenburg bent forward, his large, round spectacles shining as he peered in the direction of the students. As is the way of the human brain, an idea suddenly presented itself to Barry now, in this hour of intense anxiety—that Dr. Rittenburg was a reincarnation of Mr. Pickwick.
Greetings were very brief, and:
“I must ask you, Rittenburg,” said John Cumberland, “to treat the matter about which we want to consult you as strictly confidential.”
“Certainly, certainly,” Dr. Rittenburg agreed. “Count on me. What’s the problem?”
Barry held out the letter.
“This!” he replied.
Dr. Rittenburg glanced at him curiously, noted his condition of tremendous nervous excitement, then changed his large, round spectacles for a larger pair, equally round. He seated himself and bent over the writing.
John Cumberland and Barry stood before the high, carved mantelpiece watching him. Courtesies were forgotten. They had not even offered the doctor a cigar.
For perhaps five minutes he peered down intently; then:
“H’m!” he murmured. “Very curious, if I may say so. Very, very curious.”
He looked up.
“Can you read it?” Barry demanded.
“Certainly I can read it!” the savant returned brusquely. “But as I assume you have not asked me to do so merely as a test of my ability, may I inquire who wrote it?”
An eager answer was on the tip of Barry’s tongue when his father checked him with a gesture.
“This is our real problem, Rittenburg,” John Cumberland explained. “We have certain reasons for believing, or hoping, that we know the writer. But we look to you for internal evidence, in the letter itself, to confirm our hopes.”
“I see,” said Dr. Rittenburg, glancing queerly from father to son. “The internal evidence is here. And knowing what I already know of certain occurrences, I may say that this letter astounds me—literally astounds me!”
Barry could scarcely contain his impatience; but:
“While it is not perfectly formed in many places,” the doctor went on, “it nevertheless contains phrases that are beyond the compass of the ordinary student. In fact”—he removed his spectacles and polished them with a pocket handkerchief—“I doubt if there are six people in the United States of America who could have written it!”
“Is it—signed?” Barry asked.
“Yes!” Dr. Rittenburg replaced his glasses and bent once more over the letter. “It bears a name which I should be tempted to translate in a certain way if I were not afraid that my knowledge of other matters is unconsciously prejudicing my judgment!”
“For God’s sake, read it!”
John Cumberland was the speaker.
“Very well.” Dr. Rittenburg cleared his throat and read: “ ‘Because I can be with you no more I send the ring’ ”—he glanced up, and: “I am almost sure that ‘ring’ is meant,” he said, and read on: “ ‘By this you will know. Do not lament me or look in many places. Forget. There is nothing else. My heart I leave behind!’ ”
Again Dr. Rittenburg looked up, and:
“To the best of my knowledge,” he added, “the next, and final word, is Zalithea!”
CHAPTER XXX.
MARGUERITE DEVINA
“The Moving Finger,” which waits for no man, moved on. But Zalithea did not return. The police had relaxed their efforts. They had nothing to work upon. It was obviously impossible to place the hieratic letter in their hands. Nor did its arrival assist the investigations of the private agency employed by John Cumberland.
He allowed them to examine it, saying that the writing was believed to be in Princess Zalithea’s hand. They tried to trace the maker of the paper and of the envelope which had enclosed it, but failed. Their final effort was directed to the discovery of the messenger who had put the letter in the box. A reward of five thousand dollars was offered. No one claimed it.
During these anxious days, Barry had not neglected the house of Mr. Brown. In a despairing effort, he had had the history of this country home examined—in vain. The property had changed hands during his absence in Egypt, and little could be learned of the former owner or of his associates. Agents had handled the transactions in both cases. The housekeeper—once interviewed by Jim Sakers—could not be traced.
The nine days’ wonder lived its allotted span; and the world in general began to forget Princess Zalithea, who had flashed, a dazzling meteor, across the social sky of New York, and, like a meteor, had vanished.
But Barry did not forget. He was not of those who love and ride away. For him a dream had come true—a dream held like a crucifix through years of waiting. He had lived in a heaven of moments. He had been snatched back to earth. And he was lonely.
One faith he had. To this he remained true; it saved him from despair. Zalithea was alive; so was Safîyeh. Somewhere, they were together. And one day he would find them. Despite official evidence proving that no such persons had departed from the port of New York, a conviction was growing in his mind that Zalithea had returned to Egypt.
John Cumberland’s anxiety, divided from the first, began now to centre upon Barry. Professor Blackwell, feeling that he might hope to walk the streets again without being accosted by newspaper representatives, had returned to his usual quarters. And one evening the two old friends dined together at the University Club, to discuss the question of Barry’s welfare.
“Bob Sakers couldn’t join us for dinner,” said Cumberland, when the Professor arrived, “but he’s dropping in later.”
“Danbazzar is still away?”
“Yes,” John Cumberland nodded. “The publicity attaching to this unhappy affair came very near home, I think. His apartment is shut up. I shouldn’t wonder if he stays away for a long time.”
“Quite—quite,” murmured the Professor. “Of course, for my part, I confess I am floored. I don’t dare to think about it. The whole thing, from that unimaginable moment in the tomb up to the time that you received this incredible letter, often seems to me to be unreal—a nightmare.”
“Yes,” John Cumberland agreed, “it doesn’t seem real. But—” he sighed—“it has ruined Barry.”
“Poor boy—poor boy. She was very lovely, Cumberland.”
A long silence fell between them, until:
“Do you ever ask yourself,” said John Cumberland, “if she was—natural?”
“My dear fellow,” the Professor returned, “I have asked myself that question a hundred times! And I think it has been answered for us.”
“How? In what way?”
“By her disappearance.”
John Cumberland stared, and:
“I don’t think I follow,” he declared.
“If,” explained Professor Blackwell slowly, “Zalithea was supernatural, certainly Safîyeh was not. But Safîyeh disappeared with her!”
His friend considered the words for some time, and at last:
“I see the point,” he said. “It’s a new one, I admit.”
When, later, Jim Sakers’s father joined them, he put the case before him bluntly.
“This thing has knocked Barry sideways,” he told Robert Sakers. “In confidence, it’s touch and go. Blackwell will bear me out.”
“I have watched Barry,” the latter admitted; “and I am certain that he’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He is crazy to go back to Egypt, via London and Paris. We don’t hope that he will find the girl, Sakers; we don’t expect so much. But I am quite positive that the journey will save him. Now—he can’t go alone. It’s out of the question. Jim is his oldest friend, and you can very well spare him for a month or six weeks——”
“I’m not asking you to stand the damage, Sakers,” John Cumberland interrupted. “It wouldn’t be fair on top of the inconvenience of losing your right-hand man.”
“Leave that part out,” said Robert Sakers. “Let’s get down to dates.”
And as a result of the conference which followed, some ten days later Jim Sakers found himself, with Barry, bound for Europe. His profound and ceaseless amazement, expressed at great length, was an antidote to poor Barry’s melancholy—as it was designed to be.
New environment and the magic of sea breezes aided the cure; and after an idle week in London, during which Barry’s restlessness seemed to have abated in a measure, they crossed to Paris.
The faithful Jim cabled an enthusiastic report home; and perhaps Barry, by this time, had begun to realize that the journey was intended to be a “cure” and to reconcile his overwrought mind to the idea of resignation. But what he did not realize, what neither of them realized, was that they were helpless in the “moving row” of which old Omar spoke, and that they were being danced impotent toward that inevitable end designed by “the Master of the Show.”
Paris proved rather a setback. It provoked memories which brought about in Barry a relapse into melancholy. Jim worked like a Trojan to arouse him from his mournful apathy.
“Regard, oh, regard the glitter of the boulevard,” he invited, as they sat outside a popular café in the sunshine. “Unknown to the old folks at home, in their sleepy village adjacent to the delta of the Hudson——”
“The Hudson has no delta,” Barry murmured.
“Let that pass. But still unknown to them, whether they have a delta or not, here we sit sipping perfectly good wine at a price for which we could not obtain a cup of coffee in our little home town. Therefore, let us rejoice! And, lo! here come soldiers—complete with band! Let us cheer!”
A small party of infantry marched past, accompanied by a large band. Jim stood up, watching them enthusiastically and talking away all the time. Receiving no criticisms from Barry, he turned.
His flow of nonsense was checked.
Barry, pale as death, clutching the edge of the marble-topped table, was staring—staring—across the street, his ghastly features those of one who sees a ghost!
“Barry!” Jim gasped. “Barry!”
Barry did not stir. When he spoke his voice was a whisper.
“Jim,” he said, “I have seen her!”
“What!”
“She has just gone into the perfumers’ shop opposite.”
“Barry!” Jim grasped his shoulder. “Wake up, man! You are daydreaming.”
“Watch until she comes out,” the monotonous whisper went on. “Don’t let her see you, for God’s sake. But follow her, Jim—don’t lose sight of her—until you find out where she is living.”
“But, Barry,” Jim began, a note of profound anxiety in his voice, when:
“Quick! There she goes!” he was interrupted.
He looked across the street. He gasped audibly; then:
“Wait for me here!” he said tersely.
Zalithea, carrying a small parcel, had just come out of the shop and was walking away!
Jim Sakers experienced a sense of sudden acute exhilaration. The wildly unforeseen had happened! And at last he was going to be of real use to his friend! What it all meant was outside the province of his mental powers. Who this mysterious girl really was who had so hopelessly bewitched Barry he had never been able to understand. Nor could he comprehend how she could possibly have reached Paris without the knowledge of the American authorities.
But unmistakably it was Princess Zalithea and none other who walked along before him. Her lithe figure, her graceful carriage, the very turn of her head when she paused to look in a shop window were familiar to the man who had met her many times in New York.
From the crowded boulevard into which she had turned on coming out of the perfumers’ she entered a side street. Jim didn’t know the name either of the street or the boulevard. His bump of locality was low. But he knew that he wasn’t going to lose sight of her if he had to follow her around Paris all day!
He was turning a problem over in his mind as he tracked the trim, leisurely figure. What should he do if she saw him?
Zalithea came out onto another boulevard and waited at the corner of the street for a moment. Evidently she was going to cross. She did so, and Jim was delayed by the eccentric Paris traffic. When he finally ran over, for a moment he lost her. Then, just disappearing around the corner of the next street along, he saw the smart figure again.
He hurried to the spot, swung round the corner—and saw Zalithea entering a discreet-looking hotel on the same side. He was in the lobby a minute later—and she was talking to a clerk at the desk!
Jim turned his back and stared out into the street through the glass doors. The lobby was small. He could hear every word spoken at the desk. And what he heard gave him the crowning surprise of the morning.
“No, madam—” the clerk spoke perfect English—“no American mail has come in yet.”
“Thank you. If any comes later will you please send it right up?”
The speaker was Zalithea!
Astounded—thrown off his guard—Jim turned and met Zalithea face to face!
“Princess!” he said. “You remember me!”
The girl’s white teeth closed sharply on her lower lip. She nearly dropped the parcel she was carrying, but just managed to recover it. She flushed and as quickly paled. But she looked at him unflinchingly—and he knew her long, dark eyes.
“You have made a strange mistake,” she said, evenly. “I am not a princess and I don’t know you.”
Jim wondered if he were going mad. The clerk was watching him dubiously, so was a hall porter.
“But—” he floundered—“but——” The dark eyes remained fixed upon him inscrutably. “I’m sorry. Forgive me. But it’s miraculous.”
She turned and walked out of the lobby. Jim did not afterward remember having seen her leave. It was the scrutiny of the officials that brought him to his senses and sharpened his ready wits. He turned to the clerk, taking a card from his wallet. It was the card of a member of the agency recently employed by John Cumberland!
He tossed it on the desk, and:
“You no doubt wonder what I’m up to?” he said breezily. “There’s the answer!”
“Oh!” muttered the clerk, glancing at the name. “I see. But you were wrong, weren’t you?”
“I’m afraid so,” Jim confessed—“quite wrong!” He stared at a menu that chanced to lie near and learned that he was in the Hôtel Chatham. “Nothing for the Chatham to worry about!” he added reassuringly. “But I should like to make my apologies. We have a reputation, too!” He drew a pencil from his pocket. “What is the name of the lady I so unfortunately insulted?”
“She is a Miss Marguerite Devina of New Jersey, U.S.A.”
“Thanks,” said Jim, making a note of it. “Here alone?”
“Yes. I believe she is expecting relatives to-day.”
“Much obliged.”
Jim nodded in a brusque fashion based upon that of the lawful owner of the card and stepped out into the street.
The street gained, his assured manner deserted him. He was the most hopelessly bewildered American in Paris. What in the name of sanity should he tell Barry? That this was Princess Zalithea he would have been prepared to declare upon oath. Besides, good actress though he granted her to be, she had failed to hide her surprise at sight of him. He had seen her bite her lip—to check what? A sudden utterance of his name? Probably. Her changed colour, her trembling hands, proved that she had recognized him.
It was she. But what did it mean?
How could he face Barry with such a story?
Turning these problems over in his mind, he plodded back to the café. From afar he saw Barry—watching. At sight of Jim he jumped up and ran to meet him.
“Tell me!” he cried, his eyes feverishly bright. “Where does she live?”
“At the Hôtel Chatham.”
“Thank God! And she didn’t see you?”
“But she did!”
“What!”
“Come back and sit down, Barry,” Jim urged. “Get a grip on yourself. We’re together in this thing. Let me order you a glass of good cognac.”
“You’re hiding something!”
“I’ll give you the story word for word when you have sat down and had a drink and lighted your pipe. Not a damn’ syllable before!”
He had his way, for he could be very truculent at times; and poor Barry Cumberland was a parody of his old masterful self. So, while Barry smoked furiously the story was told—a stranger story than any Jim had ever expected to have to tell. In conclusion:
“If you are mad,” he said, “I’m mad, too! Because Miss Marguerite Devina is Princess Zalithea. But Princess Zalithea only spoke gazoobi or swahili—and Miss Devina speaks perfect English. Now search me! Garçon, deux cognacs!”
The chairs about them were becoming filled with loungers, as the day wore on to noon. A cosmopolitan crowd thronged the street and the neighbouring boulevard. Somewhere near by an orchestra had begun to play a melody very popular in New York. Newsboys shouted. Drivers of carts shouted. Everybody shouted.
But Barry was silent. At last:
“Well?” Jim inquired. “What do we do now?”
“I have just decided,” Barry replied quietly. “It will be best for you to stay where you are at the Meurice. We don’t want to frighten her. But I shall transfer to the Chatham, at once.”
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE MEETING
If Barry Cumberland had his weaknesses—and who has not?—he had one marked virtue. He knew what he wanted, and always headed straight for his objective. In fact, his impulsiveness was excessive and sometimes overrode his practical common sense.
He was wise enough to know this, for he was well stocked with imagination; and, safely lodged at the Hôtel Chatham that afternoon, he made a direct move, which was characteristic, but one that allowed of safe withdrawal in the event of failure. This was sound strategy. His tentative advance was suggested by the name of the mysterious guest—“Devina.”
John Cumberland sometimes spoke of a Madame Devina, a once famous operatic soprano of the Metropolitan Opera; an idol of New York who had disappeared from the musical world at the height of her success. She had been entertained at the Cumberland home more than once during a brilliant season notable for her singing of Thaïs—the rôle which had made her reputation. Those days Barry could just remember and no more. They belonged to the dreams of childhood in which his dainty mother figured as the centre of a wonderful world.
Now, those memories served a good purpose, and, seated in his room, he wrote the following note:
Dear Madam:
Please forgive an impulsive countryman for intruding. But I chanced to see your name in the register to-day, and it reminded me of the fact that my father, John Cumberland, and my mother, were formerly friends of Madame Devina. As the name is an unusual one, I venture to ask if you are related to that lady. If you are, I should be more than happy to make your acquaintance, and my father, I know, would be delighted to hear of you.
Respectfully,
Barry Cumberland.
This he directed to “Miss Marguerite Devina” and gave to a page to be delivered to her in person.
His letter dispatched, Barry restlessly crossed to the window, which he threw open. It overlooked a garden courtyard, which for some reason cast his memory back to Shepheard’s in Cairo. Many balconies looked down upon this sheltered oasis, and he allowed his imagination to tell him that one of them belonged to the room of Zalithea.…
Zalithea! Was there any such person as Zalithea? Had there ever been a Zalithea?
Once, this thing which had happened would have frightened him and set him questioning his own sanity. But now, as Jim had said that morning, “If you are mad, I’m mad, too!”
Would she answer? Would she consent to see him? If she refused, what next?
His anxiety and impatience made it impossible for Barry to keep still. He walked away from the window; paced the room; listened at his door for the footsteps of the returning messenger; then went across to the window again.
For long minutes he stood there, moving restlessly. He lost track of time. A knocking on his door recalled him to reality. He turned, his heart leaping.
“Come in!” he cried.
The page entered. At a glance Barry saw that he brought no note.
“Miss Devina will be downstairs at four o’clock, m’sieur.”
No doubt the world went on as usual during the next hour, and Paris lived and loved and laughed as Paris has done from time immemorial; but to Barry the interval afterward appeared to have been a blank—a hiatus in existence. Four o’clock came at last.…
She was seated in a cane chair before a little round table set for tea. She stood up as he crossed to her.
“It was nice of you, Mr. Cumberland,” he heard her saying in Zalithea’s unforgettable voice!
He found himself seated beside her. A waiter was serving English tea and handing little dishes of cakes, biscuits, and sweetmeats. This Barry saw and heard through a sort of fog. Everything was muffled. His sensations were almost identical with those he had known toward the close of his farewell college supper. Presently, in a voice not unlike his own:
“You have not told me,” someone said, “if my guess was right. Are you related to Madame Devina?”
“Devina was my mother.”
The fog was cleared away by that definite, simple statement. The merciful numbness which alone had enabled Barry to behave himself rationally thus far left him. He looked into long, dark eyes.
“You know that we have met before?” he said.
Marguerite Devina watched him unflinchingly.
“You had an accident some months ago right outside my door,” she replied. “But I didn’t know that you saw me. You were unconscious when we found you.”
Barry clenched his teeth. An insane desire to laugh came to him. He knew he must fight it.
“You are referring to my crash in New Jersey?” he said evenly, tonelessly.
“Yes. You must have wondered why we behaved so oddly afterward. The fact is that my guardian and I were booked to sail for Europe, and we realized that if we appeared in the matter it would almost certainly mean delay. We couldn’t afford that, you see.”
“Your guardian? Mr. Brown?”
“Oh, no!” she laughed—Zalithea’s beloved laughter!—“Mr. Brown was the man who drove you to the hospital and took care of your car. We were tenants of his.” She hesitated, bit her lip, and: “When did you see me?” she asked—“before or after the accident?”
“Before,” said Barry. “On the balcony.”
“Yes,” murmured the girl, bending to pour out tea—“It’s a queer thing to admit, but I’m fascinated by lightning. Do you think—it was seeing me there that—caused you to crash?”
“No,” Barry replied promptly. He was watching the slim hands, the turn of her wrists, the line, seen below a smart little hat, of her creamy neck. “You were dressed very oddly.”
She stooped forward over the sugar bowl.
“Yes; I was—trying on a fancy costume.” She glanced up quickly. “Two lumps?”
“One, please.” He watched her dazedly. “It’s amazing to think that my father knew your mother. I have heard him speak of her singing Thaïs.”
“The critics said she did not merely sing Thaïs, she was Thaïs.”
“Is she——?”
“She died when I was a baby,” the girl replied simply. “Here, in Paris.”
“You were born in Paris?”
“Yes.”
“How did you come to live in America?”
“My foster-father is an American. He was once engaged to marry my mother, you see. But she changed her mind—unfortunately.”
As she spoke the final word, an expression of such implacable hatred crept over her beautiful face that Barry flinched. It was so that he remembered her on that night in the wâdi!
“It’s dreadful to say and dreadful to hear,” she went on; “but my father ruined my mother, in every sense of the word. She would have died in a pauper’s hospital but for Paul Ahmes.”
“Who is Paul Ahmes?” Barry asked, a sort of new awe in his voice.