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The Singing Wells

Over the low arched doorway a crescent moon was painted, and on either side was the impression of an open hand in Indian red. The house itself was blue. The colour of a chalk hill blue when the sun touches its wings as it dances over the close bit grass of the downs. All the houses were blue in that dark narrow byway, all save the butcher’s shop with its baskets of offal and greenish tripes and the strips and gobbets of flesh nailed to uneven walls or hanging like dirty garments on a line. The butcher’s shop was white as was fitting for a man whose trade was clean. The shop floor was white too—a bruised white—being strewn with orange blossoms whose sweet perfume of weddings fought a relentless battle with the rancourous stench of meat. The byway was only accessible on one side and ended in a blank wall on the other. It was like an appendix that jutted from the gut of the Arab quarter. So narrow was the barred entrance that a stout man could barely squeeze through—narrow and black and shameful.

Leaning against the wall of one of the houses, looking wistfully at the narrow strip of sky between the roofs overhead was a girl. She was spinning. A tiny distaff with a bunch of combed wool was tucked between breast and arm. She gave a twist between her palms to a wooden bobbin and let it hang twirling gently, while with finger and thumb she shaped the stretching thread. She seemed quite unconscious, and worked mechanically. Her skin was the colour of ripe corn, her lips were crimson, and her cheeks stained as though with fruits. She wore a silk dress with pink flowers brocaded upon it. It was flounced and full skirted. On her head was a mindel in tartan silk—a scarlet and yellow splash against the black of her hair. About her throat were coin necklaces in cheap gilt. Her ankles and her wrists were heavy with lead and silver ornaments. A gold chain belt went round her waist like a serpent. A straight shaft of sunlight lit her from painted face to hennaed toe—a deluge of light that blazed on gaudy jewellery and fired the vulgar silk of her gown with yellow flames—a light that seemed to cry out, “Here is trash to look at and to loathe!” But neither sunlight nor shadow could have won a trick against the girl’s own beauty. It rose above the gimcrack rubbish that smothered her. Sweet, aloof and exquisite was the little oval face, the tranquil brow with its tattooed caste mark and the great wide open eyes peering upward. Virginal and lovely was the straight narrow body with its half formed breasts, shapely feet and tiny restless hands. A Greek Aphrodite, clad in pantomime tinsels, but a goddess under all. This was Meriem of the Kasbah, aged sixteen, recently acquired from the Ouled Nail country and—at your service.

Just outside the entrance to the quarter, sitting on his hunkers, was a blind Arab. He sat thus, for even the main street of the Kasbah was not so wide that a man might stretch his legs without having them trodden upon. All day long Arabs and blacks, veiled women and yelling children ascended or descended the thousand steps, troughed by myriads of feet, and asses too, with packs of foul rubbish or dates or coloured merchandise, clicked over the worn cobbles. The blind Arab beat always upon a drum and in a high cracked voice sang of the exploits of Mohamet and of how righteous a man was he.

“Allah-Ibrahim.” Tump-a-tump tump. Tump-a-tump tump.

He was the finger-post to the street of seraglios; and without his ceaseless beat and wail even the cognoscenti might have passed by unnoticing. Strange that through the voice of religion the wayfarer was guided to a cheap light of love. Yet so it was, and many a doubting client coming or going eased conscience by dropping a franc to the blind Arab’s withered palm.

After sundown—after the Moudene was chanted from the roof of the principal Mosque and was taken up from others distant and more distant—after its final adjuration to prayer had faded away into the gathering dusk like the cry of lost children, the old blind Arab ceased his drumming. There was no longer need of it for from the Café Maure, the wall of which through years of rubbing his back had greased and blackened, came louder and more insistent music. The boom and pulsing of tambours, of tomtoms, of two-ended drums fastened with skins stretched across vessels of earthenware. Then too, there were pipes, long black pipes inlaid with silver and painted reeds and whistles cut from hollow canes—pipes that shrilled high with wild unsettling and unsettled notes. Wailing, weeping, wanton music, beginning nowhere—ending nowhere. Madhouse music, ungoverned and insane. Music that starts at the height of itself nor ever reaches a lower level. Runaway music, like an engine that has thrown its flywheel and is racing to destruction. Luring and passionate music spinning in the ears coverlets of vice and of indulgence. There is no need for an old man to beat a solitary tattoo with so fierce a magnet at hand tugging alike at the willing and unwilling. The wild call of pipe and drum pulses through the night and the crowds gather. An old man may well rest his wrists awhile and seek the comfort of reflection. It is no great hardship to mutter verses from the Koran as the folk slip in and out. Such small effort is a wise one and is rewarding; for the gay of body are generous givers, and those who seek pleasure for themselves are willing enough to throw a groat to the less fortunate.

Every night at eleven o’clock the studded door at the entrance to the street of women is slammed and bolted, and the music ceases as abruptly as though its wind pipe had been cut. The street of love is shut. The wanderers and watchers thin out and vanish.

The shooting of the bolt was the end of the old blind Arab’s day. It was the cue to struggle to his feet, to order the folds of his tattered striped burnous and to shuffle homeward with a tapping stick.

After that, calm; disturbed only by the grunt of sleepers, a rustle from the sea gnawing at the cliff foot, the pinging of mosquitoes, and the muttering of the old hag whose duty it was to bolt and guard the door. Very old was she and wise with wicked wisdom. She crouched on the cobbles, a smelly lantern at her feet. The up-thrown rays lit the hard edges of her bony jaw making shadows where lights should have been. She looked like a crumpled parchment upon which an obscene message had been scrawled. The last chapter of lust wherein performance has retrogressed into service. She looked like sin turned inside out and with all its mysteries revealed. She looked bad and decayed—and she was both. Two pin points of black light shone out of the hollows beneath her brows, pin points that never seemed to be shut out by blinking eyelids, but shone through. It was said of her that she did not sleep, but spent night and day alike wakeful, watchful and predatory. Every sound in that small appendix of blue painted houses she knew and understood. No foot-fall was too light but that she heard it and was standing at her post, back to door, breath indrawn, ready to shape a cry should danger threaten or to bob and mow and wheeze out a lewd farewell to Lotharios who departed with the dawn. It was her boast that no girl had ever succeeded in passing her by. No girl had ever caught her nodding, had slipped the bolts and dived out into the freedom of the world beyond. She knew and valued her job too highly to allow love’s captives to escape. The few who had made the attempt repented it dearly, for hateful caresses from the coarsest lover were easier to suffer than D’ouja’s tooth and nail embrace. She had learnt the art of offence in the cruellest of all schools and employed it with a ruthless ferocity that knew no limit. It was said that those in whose breast or shoulder her teeth had met were inoculated with a season’s madness, that their mouths frothed, and they would bay the moon at full. Many such tales were current, tales backed with the proofs of scar and the eye glint of dementia.

She was not alone in her guardianship of the door. In a recess a few feet above the cobbles opposite where she crouched lay a huge negro asleep. A brown camel’s hair burnous was wrapped about him and his face was black and shiny as jet. One wide short fingered hand hung limply against the wall, the other was hidden in the folds of his garment. He always slept thus, with the one hand hidden. No one had seen what manner of weapon it grasped (rumour suggested lead pipe or a short square-cut length of rhinoceros hide), but the execution he wrought with it was well advertised. Difficult customers at the height of threat and abuse had been seen to crumple up, to sag, to settle awkwardly on the foot-way with no more speech or life in them than a sack of cement.

Kabu, the negro, rarely moved from his shelf in the wall. From where he lay his right arm plus the mysterious weapon covered an arc of operation that rendered movement unnecessary. He did not even stir himself when awkward reminders of his skilful practice had to be taken away. There were plenty of other folks within hail who could be relied upon to attend to that small detail, and plenty of odd corners in the Kasbah where untidy bundles could be deposited without attracting notice of the patrol.

Kabu and D’ouja had their work neatly apportioned, but with the Eastern woman’s ingrained sense of man’s superiority she forebore waking him for any but a grave reason. When trouble arose of too stout a kind for the old woman to tackle single handed she lured or fought the victim to within reach of Kabu’s sweeping right arm. This done the matter was over and he was free to continue his broken slumbers, and she to squat again upon the cobbles. Life was very simple—and death.

D’ouja laid no claims to respectability, but every now and then she descended the steps to the polite quarter of the town and took measurements of a wider world, and on Fridays, which is the Moslem Sunday, she climbed the steps in company with the veiled and honourable women and proceeded to the cemetery on the crest of the hill. And here she would sit while they poured water at the head and foot of the graves of the departed, and watch them unveil and take stock of their charms and wonder how this one or that would serve at the Trade. This weekly pilgrimage was a pleasant relaxation to D’ouja who dearly loved a graveyard. Sometimes too, it had a profitable side and resulted in enlisting new recruits, fatherless girls, for the most part, of fourteen or fifteen, lured from the carpet looms with promise of reward. These successes however were all too rare since the rank and file of the girls were brought from the Ouled Nail country where they had been graduated to the oldest profession in the world from early infancy.

D’ouja never left the cemetery without a brief visit to the section where her own particular sisterhood at last found peace. A slab of uneven granite and a sack full of rubble marked their resting places. There were characters carved upon the stone to indicate who lay beneath. But by some strange process of memory D’ouja knew who had been the inmate of each grave, and often could be seen engaging their poor spirits in talk, sharing with them a joke or whispering such bits of scandal as might prove pleasant hearing. Whatever charge might be levelled against her treatment of the quick she was kindness itself to the dead and rarely left without a few amber tears coursing down the furrows of her cheeks. Five minutes later she would be spitting and cursing as she shuffled down the steps toward the Rue Abouben-Baka which was the polite name allowed by the French Government to the sink and cesspool in which she dwelt. Witness her therefore, as a sickle moon drifted across the narrow gap between the roofs, squatting upon the cobbles, fantastically lighted, picking at the soles of her bare feet, and croaking to herself cheerful reminders of hard words given and received throughout the day. Dawn was near, the feel of it was in the air, in the breeze that stirred between the houses, in the paling of the moon and the greying of shadows.

A thin sigh set her scrambling to her feet—nostrils dilated, hands drawn back and knees bent for a spring. But there was no need—no danger—nothing to warrant the energy wasted. Just a girl in a long white shift, leaning against a wall, looking upward and spinning a thread.

“Little fool,” grumbled D’ouja, resettling herself, “get back to bed. Body of a dog! when you have the chance.”

Seconds passed before an answer came, driftingly.

“I am not very happy—alone.”

D’ouja cackled. The reply pleased her. It was unexpected. The girl was a shirk, lovely to look at, but dull—a disappointment. Many had said so. Only half alive—remote. She would look wistfully at the likeliest client, as a dog looks for a lost master, then cloud and shake her head. Men do not like that. There had been complaints—a beating or two and hard words. It had been said by her sisters that she had no pride.

“H’m, you are waking up at last.”

Meriem shook her head slowly—a single shake.

“No, I am dreaming now.”

“Then dream on your pillow, fool. D’ye want black lines to yer eyes. Age comes fast enough.”

“Different dreams,” said the girl, “but always the same one—I can dream it when I like.”

“Ye’ll get no more clothes and no more money, so put that out of yer head.”

“I do not dream of what I shall get, but what I shall give,” Meriem answered, choosing words as though they were fruit out of a basket.

D’ouja nodded appreciatively.

“Showing sense,” said she.

“Of what I shall give to one.”

“One?”

“To one,” she repeated.

The old woman shook her thin arms in the air.

“Allah hear her!” she croaked, “is it the daughter of a Sheik who speaks. What father carries the key of thine apartment, fool? Pig and idiot, have ye not learnt that her who has given to many has nothing she may give to one.”

Meriem’s velvet brown eyes turned slowly upon the speaker.

“I have never given,” she said. “To no one have I given.”

D’ouja merely grunted and the girl went on in a curiously even voice:

“I do not think he will be an Arab. I do not think he will. In my dream he is tall, broad and white—and his hair is fair—gold almost like these—” she touched the necklace at her throat—“very strong he is, and wilful. I know him well.”

“Know him? The pig and unbeliever!”

But though she spoke so slightingly, D’ouja could be civil enough to the white dregs of humanity that sometimes silted into that reeking backwater. Drunken sailor folk for the most part—scum of the docks—and more occasionally lavish and very well-dressed Europeans who came, under the aegis of a guide, to peep through the bars of the under-world, to smile at one another, to toss notes to the girls and smoke innumerable cigarettes.

“Who do you know?”

“I shall know him—when he comes. And he will be all mine for me and I for him and together we shall go away.”

“What’s this?”

The voice rapped high. It was rank rebellion. There is no going away from the Kasbah. It is a life sentence ending at the cemetery on the hill top.

“He will take me away. I have seen this in my dream—so clearly.”

“Yer dream!” D’ouja moved shoulders beneath her rags. “Aye, and does yer dream tell yer how long this marvel will last? Less than a dream’s length, fool. And then finish—Maffisch! Thrown aside—spat out!”

“Lasting does not matter,” said the girl. “Lasting does not count. It is to have known that matters—to have felt. And when that one man comes—”

D’ouja rose, shambled over to the girl and seized her by the shoulders.

“Hark to me,” she wheezed, “for it’s wisdom. I shall tell ye knowledge dear bought and sound. For us and such as us there is no man in the world, but all men. For all men are one man—and any man is every man. There, dream on that, little fool. Back to yer bed and dream on that.”

“He will come,” said Meriem, “and we shall love each other in the place of the Singing Wells.”

As she stooped to enter the low arched doorway, a welcoming smile was at the corners of her mouth.

“Dreams!” mocked D’ouja. “Body of a dog! these girls, these girls.”

A shaft of sunlight set fire to a high cloud and splashed the chimneys with gold. From the roof of the mosque, new and falsetto as the dawn, rang out the call to prayer, and very devout men rose from their beds and bowed to North, South, West and East and prostrated themselves and laid foreheads in the dust and repeated the sacred names of Allah and hoped their dreams might come true.

But Meriem of the Kasbah had no need to pray. She lay, wide-eyed and waiting, an arm beneath her head, upon the square stone couch with its gaudy coverings from Timbuctoo.

She had no need of prayer. She knew it would be all right.

Too much captaincy of school elevens, too ready an aptitude for soldiering, too many medals, too much popularity in the drawing room and various sporting clubs—too much success and too many attributes that go to the making of a first class sportsman and an all round good fellow—had collectively and individually pretty well succeeded in transforming John Lennox Casallis into a bit of a washout.

These be arbitrary criticisms, for a man can hardly be blamed for his triumphs, especially when they are not achieved at the cost of others. However, a certain amount of failure is an excellent tonic, and a first-rate means of stimulating regard and affection. It is easier to be nice to a man who falls downstairs and hurts himself than to one who shoots up three at a stride and never even bothers to hold the rail. The mystery of perpetual success should be as difficult to solve as the mystery of perpetual motion. John Lennox Casallis passed from one success to another and it was getting a bit boring, or if not boring, tiresome. His dearest friends earnestly longed to see him fail, not because they wished for his downfall, but merely because they wanted to see how he would face disaster. A more generous or less patronizing winner than he could hardly be conceived. In that way he was ripping. When he “put it across” the United States Squash Champion in the Queen’s Club Courts, nothing could have exceeded his own astonishment.

“Can’t understand,” he exclaimed a dozen times. “I’ve seen him play—and he could put a bag over my head.”

Very much the same happened at Wimbledon during tennis fortnight, when he won finals against—but it is not tactful to mention names.

Not alone in directions athletic was Lennox a success. He had a pleasant and winning way in the community of men and women. There was something direct and straightforward in his way of talking—he was a restful companion or a lively in ratio to the circumstances in which he found himself. Upon occasion he could sing a good song of love or drinking and accompany himself on a variety of instruments. Also he could say a piece of poetry in a manner that did the words no harm. It should be emphasized that he never sought an opportunity to exhibit these talents, although always willing to do his best when called upon and avoiding the tiresome habit of protesting that he had left his music at home or was out of voice. Touching this matter there was a tale about him in 1915 vintage—an echo from the Salient. It was rather a sticky day and his own particular platoon was wobbling in a much molested trench. The men were losing their nerve and beginning to grumble. Wherefore 2nd Lieut. J. L. Casallis climbed out of the trench and to the accompaniment of a dance known to the Variety Artists’ Federation as a cellar-flap, and in a full view of the enemy snipers, he gave an exceedingly vulgar interpretation of the then popular song “Put me on a train for Blighty.” What with fears for his safety and amusement at his antics, the nerves of the platoon were restored to normal and his Company Commander—an officer of no particular humour—was so torn between rage and laughter that he seized the legs of the performer, jerked him back into the trench, punched his ribs, boxed his ears—and in so doing tumbled over a duck board—split his knee-cap, was removed from active service for six months and married the girl he loved.

But all this is ancient history and Lennox had sobered down a great deal since those days of violence. He had lost much of the flamboyance of youth and barring one rather foolish exploit, when he wagered to drive a Ford car in reverse gear, with a mirror fixed to the wind screen, from Westminster Bridge to the Royal York Hotel at Brighton—an exploit which broke down against an L.C.C. Tram at Streatham and was commented upon unfavourably and fined liberally by the Norwood magistrates—the spectacular side of his character was laid to rest.

He took such exercise as was necessary to keep his body fit, went about a fair amount, did a bit of work but not much, gave his friends a good time, took up French and dropped it again, studied the Poor Law and Tenants’ Rights and was bored by both, was nearly converted to the Catholic faith, developed an extraordinary appetite for reading and made the remarkable discovery that there was inside himself another man of whose existence he had been previously unaware.

This other man perplexed and disturbed him. He was totally dissimilar to himself as he knew himself. The original John Lennox was a sufficient sort of fellow who carried all the resources of which he stood in need. He was not the type to let his owner down. In peace or emergency his equipment was complete. John Lennox was a well victualed garrison with inexhaustible springs. John Lennox had no need to call on outside influences save for such small affairs as opposition in sport, companionship or the making a fourth at Bridge. John Lennox was his own adviser and his own universal provider. Who then was this intruder that inoculated his old convictions with doubts—that undermined his completeness with a sense of the incomplete?

Age?

That was nonsense—he was only twenty-eight.

Who then?

He was not so deep a thinker as to be led to the right answer. He was too essentially youthful in body to recognize the conflict that arises sooner or later within all men—the conflict between mind and matter. He was too healthy, too clean, to bother himself with such considerations. It is, after all, a tremendous concession for a man who has carried himself shoulder high by the strength of his own biceps, and the valiance of his heart and nerves, to admit, even to himself, that these spirited achievements pale beside an intellectual triumph. Man is made up of mind and matter, but in the long run it is only the mind that matters.

A glimmering of the truth came to him, as it comes to most of us, automatically. It was responsible for a joiner putting up bookcases in his rooms in Duke Street. It was responsible for his giving up wearing club colours on all occasions, it was definitely responsible for his terminating a contract with the limelight company.

As some one remarked to him—

“In modern life the only weapon worth sharpening is one’s wits.”

Lennox agreed, but he saw further than the speaker had seen and more charmingly. He realized that to sharpen one’s wits for the purpose of flashing them in public is a vulgar performance. It was a curious arrival of opinion for a man who had spent most of his life in hard training for this open event or for that. Some such line of reasoning must be responsible for the silence of the wise.

And yet healthy mind or healthy matter must express itself somehow—must uncoil and strike in one direction or another—wherefore his case was pathetic. He had short-circuited his lines at either end—had earthed his wires from positive and negative pole alike. The result was to throw him back on his own resources and behold, they were giving out.

John Lennox had had very little to do with women. He was charming, polite and tender to them, but was actually indifferent. No single woman had stirred him to compare with a hard fought contest at a game of skill. Often he expressed regret that this should be so.

“I don’t understand them,” he said, “not a little bit—they get at things so differently from us. I’ve always been frightened of knowing a woman too well. Stupid of me—because the idea is fine. I think, somehow, I should tumble down—say the wrong things. And yet—it’s all wrong, you know. One ought—but still it’s no good looking for trouble. A man is badly handicapped who’s had no sisters. And mother dying before I remember her—oh well! I suppose one day I’ll settle down and get married.”

He had only one near relative—a brother—Hamar. Sir Hamar Casallis, to give him his title—which was a baronetcy. Hamar lived at Poone Corners, the family estate. Three thousand acres, a dower house, a slate quarry, two coal mines, four villages and a list of tenants that would have covered a roll of wall-paper.

Hamar, who was unmarried, was a very small man, with thin legs and asthma. He had the reputation of administering his estate better than any other estate in England was administered. He had an enormous opinion of his brother Lennox, who represented in his eyes all those fine personal qualities which he admired and envied most.

Lennox, too, held his brother in higher esteem than any other man.

“When I think how utterly unfit he is—and put against that what he gets through in work, it makes me glow. And he won’t hear of my taking any of it off his shoulders. Not he. ‘Have a good time and make the most of it,’ he says. ‘I am all right.’ Where’ll you find another man like that?”

So Lennox had a good time and news of his doings filtering into the distances where Poone Corners lay reached the ears of Hamar. And he, too, glowed as he sucked wheezily at a sulphur cigarette.

It was love that proved the undoing of John Lennox Casallis. Probably had love let him alone for another couple of years and given the new man in him more time to develop this story would never have been written. But love took Lennox at an awkward moment and blew him up in the air like a champagne cork with the string out. To pursue the metaphor one stage further, the cork struck the light point that had inspired his effervescence and extinguished it and in the darkness that followed he behaved none too well.

You will remember he had no experience of love’s ways, nor knew the taste of failure. Both came at once.

He could not remember a time when he had not known Eve Whishart. They had romped together as kids, tobogganed on tea trays down staircases, quarrelled in shrubberies. He had known her since the beginning of time—and then came the sudden realization that he had never known her at all—never until this instant, had never even guessed at the glory, the miracle, the amazingness of her. It took away his breath, robbed him of ballast. It was marvellous. A week before he had said “she was a nice-looking girl—and a good sort”—a little week that transformed this simple expression of good opinion into an unforgettable insult. He had been blind, but that was an insufficient excuse. No excuse at all. A cad. God! how he loved her! And it had all sprung from a few commonplaces exchanged at a Surrey house party. He couldn’t remember what they had said. Something tremendously trivial, after a day’s hunting, and then a sense of the world opening up—turned inside out—and knowledge that the sky was full of stars and that his throat hurt. He rather believed that she had reproached him about something. It might have been the tone of her voice. Or did she sigh? Or was there something in her eyes? No good asking questions. It had happened, things do happen that way, he had heard it said. Here was proof. The greatest events have the smallest beginnings. A shower of rain—a flock of geese—a Duke of Sarajevo—a sixpence with a hole in it—a sickle moon. Frightfully hard to define or declare when anything begins. Why bother? Beginnings get lost in subsequent events. He had said nothing memorable—nothing at all—but of course he knew what it meant—where it would lead. That was simple. Not a wink of sleep that night. The dark was pealing with bells. They would honeymoon at Cannes with those wonderful Esterelle Mountains for their love-making and perhaps in the afternoons a little tennis on the Carlton Courts. She should have a 30-96 Vauxhall car for a wedding present. Once he got out of bed and tiptoed downstairs to the smoking room to look for a copy of Country Life. Those wonderful photographs of Knight, Frank & Rutley’s, advertising country estates, called for instant inspection. “Tudor Mansion, comprising twenty-two bed and seven reception rooms. Pleasure and kitchen gardens. Finely timbered estate of two thousand acres, well stocked with game. Half a mile of trout stream. Good hunting district, etc.”

These were matters that might not be delayed. He must go to her not only with a proposal of marriage but also the whole future planned and mapped. He must fling into her lap not only his undying adoration, but all those other accessories of comfort and position which very rightly she would have reason to expect.

Never for an instant did the thought disquiet him that Eve might not share the intensity of his emotions. That was unthinkable. Besides, poets (and what fine fellows they were, all of a sudden—he must have a shot at verse making)—poets had dealt with the problem of reciprocity to its advantage.

Browning was responsible for those lines—Browning, who had given his life to analysing such matters and could be relied upon to know.

So that was all right.

But next morning it was startling and not a little disappointing to find that Eve had left the house before breakfast. Lennox, however, did not allow himself to be unduly disturbed. He gave an excuse for slipping away, arrived in town a little after eleven, bought about a ton of flowers and enough chocolates for a school-treat, had them dispatched to her address and called in person at four o’clock.

But he did not find Eve with comfits at her side, nor was there a single flower of his choosing in the room.

He began—

“Hullo.” Then with a quick glance round—“I say, though! Where’s—I told—”

“I know you did,” said Eve, “and I sent them back by the messenger who brought them.”

He looked bewildered.

“This is quite a small house, Lennox, and I never hope to see so many flowers in it until they bury me.”

“I say,” he protested.

Burials have a morbid ring—besides, she was not smiling.

“I packed off the chocolates to a Girl Guides’ tea some friends were getting up. You don’t mind? I saw they were meant for a lot of people.”

“They were meant for you,” he replied, steadily.

“Oh,” said Eve. “Were they? Why?”

He came a step nearer, but she waved him to a chair opposite.

“Yes, do sit down. Sit there. This is only a one-person sofa. Why do you imagine I want a glass-house full of flowers and a crate of chocolates?”

It was difficult to answer off hand, and she went on:

“Please tell me. You’ve never shown any concern for my vases before—and I seem to remember years ago you were greedy with a bag of acid drops.”

“You are trying to pull my leg,” he half laughed.

She nodded and looked graver.

“Yes, I was afraid you would think that.”

“Eve,” he began, “what’s wrong? Can’t a fellow—?”

“No,” she cut in. “A fellow can’t. At least, he can’t just because he thinks he wants to.”

“But you don’t mean to say you haven’t seen how it is with me.”

“Lennox,” she said, “I’m not altogether a fool—nor am I blind. Because you fail to find me embowered in your roses and smiling welcomes at you with my mouth full of chocolates is not to say I have no eyes. It hasn’t occurred to you, I suppose, that I may not choose to be the object of your magnanimity—that I may not choose to fall in the first attack of this battle of flowers.”

He looked worried—dazed. Then his woebegone expression changed and brightened perceptibly.

“Oh, I see—this first attack,” he repeated. “Oh, yes. What an ass I am.”

“Indeed you are,” she said, and her cheeks flamed. “If you weren’t, I could almost hate you for that.”

“Hate? For just repeating your own words.”

“My words with your interpretation.”

“But I didn’t mean—”

“I know—I know—I know—you’ve just—well, you don’t know and that’s why I’m only half as angry as I might be.”

Presumably she knew what she was talking about, but for his part he was entirely lost—out of depth and out of sight of land. She was looking at him now as once a Master of Maths, at school had looked at him. Lennox had always been hopeless at maths. They tired his brain, gave him a curious feeling of exhaustion. It was very strange, but he felt just like that now—only more so. A sense of overwhelming mental fatigue. The experience was unpleasant and his distaste for it was clearly registered on every feature.

Perhaps that was why Eve laughed.

Lennox had never been laughed at for being tired before and he did not like it. It brought a dull red to his temples. And, noting this, Eve, who was a good colourist, nodded and said:

“That’s precisely what I was afraid of.”

“Look here,” he began, “honestly, I fancy I can take a gruelling with any man—but—”

“I doubt it,” said she.

He ignored the interruption.

“But why choose today—now. I came here to—”

“Follow up an advantage?”

“Not that.”

“You used the word ‘honestly,’ not I. What’s wrong with following up an advantage.”

“All right then—nothing that I can see. I wouldn’t have put it that way—but if you—”

“I don’t mind anything that’ll help.”

He shook his head.

“Help?” he repeated, “how’s help come in?”

“Well, you came here to help yourself, didn’t you,” she asked.

“I don’t follow—help myself—to what?”

“To me, of course.”

“Lord,” he protested. “What sort of an idea have I given you? You must know I like you tremendously.”

“Hm-m, there’s nothing wrong with that. I like you, fairly. Go on.”

His smile was rather sheepish.

“No one would have suspected it.”

“It’s better to know than suspect,” she said. “I do like you—in ways—but go on—and then I’ll start.”

He opened his mouth and shut it again.

“You first,” he said. “There’s a rule that puts a woman first.”

“And another rule,” she retorted, “that dictates wooing by flowers and comfits, Lennox; to be swiftly followed by a personal call, and should the lady prove acquiescent, a fond and fast embrace. You will find all further information in our next brochure, entitled ‘Courtship while you wait.’ A shilling in paper—eighteenpence in cloth.”

“I hate you to talk like that,” he said.

He was beginning to be angry.

“Oh, no, Lennox. You hate me to be like this, when so obviously I was expected to be otherwise.”

He did not contradict her.

“Lennox, did you sleep last night?”

The question was so utterly unexpected, that the negative was startled out of him.

“Neither did I. Not a wink.”

Come now, this was encouraging. His back straightened—the load felt lighter.

“What did you think about?”

“You, of course.”

“In what relation?”

It was a startling question. Should he take a risk and answer truly. He did—without reservation—without even omitting the names of Knight, Frank & Rutley.

Eve rose and paced the little room. The expression she wore was bewildering. It seemed as though deliberately she averted her eyes and spoke to herself.

“No, no, no,” she said, and the words came out with tremendous emphasis. “I knew, I knew how it would be and it mustn’t, it shan’t. Any other way than that.” She swung round and faced him. “You’ve never been in love before.”

“Never, on my honour. I—”

“Bother your honour—more’s the pity you haven’t—I knew—wasted time asking. And once you never played tennis—and then you played it—magnificently—and once you’d never touched a golf club—and you were down to four in ten months. And once you knew nothing of war—and here you are, smothered all over with medals. And now you’ve a fancy for love-making—and some one has to prove to you that it isn’t so easy—isn’t—isn’t—can’t be—won’t be—mustn’t be—mustn’t be—mustn’t be.”

She was shaking all over as this extraordinary outburst came to an end. Not only, it seemed, was she trying to convince her hearer, but also herself. But John Lennox Casallis was too ignorant of the ways of women to observe and profit by this subtlety. To him her words were merely cruel and reasonless.

He had risen to his feet, the better to meet the attack. It was not in his nature to take anything sitting down.

“You have finished?” he asked, in a quiet voice.

“Barely begun,” she answered, wearily. “There’s heaps more, Lennox, but I think that must do for today. It’s taken more out of me than I imagined. Good-bye.”

“You want me to go?”

“I do, rather.”

“Very well.”

He bowed his head and turned to the door. Her voice recalled him.

“Have you understood the least little bit what I’m driving at?”

“I imagine that you have no interest in me.”

“Oh, Lennox, don’t you know a woman only loses her temper with a man she has an interest in. Don’t you know that the greatest wish in her heart is to make that man into what she feels he ought to be.”

“And I fall short?”

“Yes—only you don’t think so.”

“You’re wrong. I know I’m utterly unworthy.”

“Oh, cut that, Lennox—cut just words—”

Once again the dull red came over his temples and his mouth shut like a trap.

“I suppose,” he said, “you are trying to make me lose my temper.”

“I’m trying to see if you can keep it.”

And she watched him as he made the experiment. It was instructive—to both—and it took time.

At last he had his voice nicely under control and spoke.

“I fancy, Eve, you haven’t quite got the right idea of me. I’m an ass, perhaps, but by God, I’m a stubborn ass.”

“Is it such a holy quality?” she asked.

He went on.

“I’m sorry—I hadn’t meant to swear.”

“I didn’t mind the swearing.”

“Still, I’m sorry. Eve, when I set my mind on anything, I go after it with every scrap of energy I possess.”

She smiled.

“I know that side, Lennox. I was looking for another.”

He controlled himself mightily.

“I’ve never loved a woman until now, Eve, and I shan’t rest—I shan’t rest until—”

“Until you have carried every bunker in the course.”

“Until you say ‘yes,’ ” said he.

He might have left it at that. But he didn’t.

“I know very little about women, Eve. Nothing, if you like, but I know they enjoy turning a man inside out—putting in the knife and giving it a twist. It’s their nature, perhaps, and I’m not kicking. You can do as you like with me, but I warn you it will make no difference. Wound me or not as you please, but I stay—I stay. And sooner or later, my dear, we two are going to be married.”

It was a fine manly speech and he looked every inch a man as he ended dramatically. Only the terribly calculating justice of a woman that so nearly approaches injustice could have destroyed the effect he had sought to produce. A woman must defend herself as best she may—she must snatch at the nearest weapon. Eve had a mission—but also she was a woman, with a woman’s natural liking for force.

“Why?” she said. “Why are we going to be married? Because you love me—or because I love you?”

“I shall make you love me.”

“And failing?”

“I shan’t fail,” he said.

And though she knew he was right—

“But even if you do fail, you win just the same and I lose. Would that matter?”

But he kept out of range of this artillery and walked to the door.

“I will give you a month to think things over,” he said. “The twenty-eighth, that’ll be. In the meantime”—and he smiled rather rippingly—“practice saying ‘yes,’ won’t you?”

His was the last word, but not the last look. There was disappointment written all over her face as the door closed—very much the expression a sportsman might have worn who had tried to fell a rhinoceros with an air rifle.

“Yes, indeed,” she snorted, throwing up her head, “yes, indeed.”

But oddly enough, she went on saying ‘yes’ for quite a long while and with quite a variety of inflexion.

John Lennox Casallis looked jubilant as he strode down the street.

A man cannot be as violently in love as was Lennox and keep the fact entirely to himself. This doesn’t matter a great deal, but in certain circumstances it is wise to preserve a mystery as to the object of one’s affection.

Somehow, through no expressed word from Lennox, it got round that he and Eve Whishart were engaged. This should never have happened. He had never intended it should happen. He had said a month and he meant a month. Possibly he should have crushed the rumour at source. But that was difficult to achieve and rather futile. Besides, he felt so gloriously happy and it was difficult to avoid conveying an excuse for such happiness even though actually one said nothing. Things leak out—always have. Clubs are responsible—and having a lot of friends. A change in one’s ordinary routine is sure to set folks talking. Such comments as “J. L. is training down for the altar,” came into currency. There was no point in denying it. There were side bets on a quick wedding and a sweepstake with the names of the months in a hat. No harm in it. Natural enough. Unfortunately the new man that had shown signs of coming into being within the casing of the original John Lennox had, for the time being, disappeared. His wiser counsels at this time would have been invaluable. Love, however, chased him away. It was a pity, for he was the very man Eve Whishart so earnestly desired to meet. There was no evidence of him in the letters Lennox wrote, nor in his bearing on the few occasions when they met. On the contrary, he was very dead indeed and the original John Lennox, splendid, victorious and self-reliant, strutted like a peacock over his poor remains.

She had been away for a while, but she came up to London on the twenty-eighth. There had been an invitation from Lennox’s brother. Hamar had opened the town house and asked her to a small reception and dance. It puzzled her, rather.

When she arrived she found the house packed with people—every one she knew was there. They whispered and smiled as she came in. Lennox was sunning himself like a God, with little Hamar fussing round him.

Eve had not heard the rumours. She did not share with the rest of the company the knowledge that very likely there would be an announcement in course of the evening. But she had a cold fear—a fear that grew into certainty—when Hamar came forward and with the sweetest reverence, stooped and kissed her hand. Some one else whispered in her ear “My dear, I am so glad.”

Then it was Eve asked Lennox if they could have a word together.

They went out of the room side by side, every one watching—but neither returned.

What she said does not matter. It was terribly conclusive. Never, never, never, was the substance.

Then Eve went away in a taxi, and without hat or coat Lennox got into his two-seater Hispano that was waiting at the kerb. He sent up a message to his brother to say he was going to the devil.

The practice of going to the devil has a distinct connection, in the mind of the average male, with brandy and soda. John Lennox Casallis was true to type. As a young man, normally of moderate tastes, adversity at once plunged him into alcohol. He was morosely consuming his third drink when Paul Manet entered the Club. Paul knew Lennox as well, if not better, than any of his other acquaintances, the reason being that, unlike the rest, Paul made a study of men and women; their mental condition interesting him far more than their physical. There was nothing hale or hearty about Paul. He did not slap people upon the back—he did not shout enthusiastic welcomes—he was not in the least given to external evidences of good fellowship. Instead he mused—analysed—and smiled a good deal to himself. Paul went everywhere, shifting round the continent in step with the seasons. January, February and March found him playing Chemin de Fer, or shooting pigeons in the south of France, whence he had drifted from the pleasant winter sports. At Easter he was in Paris and he could always be found at Wimbledon for the tennis, at Lords for the Eton and Harrow match, and at Ranelagh or Hurlington for the polo. When the Mayfly hatched you would be sure to knock up against him on one or another of the Wiltshire chalk streams, and as regularly as clockwork he was either in Yorkshire or Scotland for the grouse. Thereafter he would put in a fortnight at Dieppe, slipping back to England to keep in touch with the partridges and the first nights of the new London plays. It was a busy life—a ceaseless succession of fashionable or sporting events, faithfully attended.

His principal interest lay in Boxing—a match of sufficient magnitude drawing him to the ends of the earth. To witness the fight between Burns and Johnson he went all the way to Australia and returned perfectly satisfied on the following day. Newspaper reports had no interest whatsoever to Paul Manet. He preferred his own judgments and accepted no other.

By birth he was half French and half Irish. His mother had been a beauty in her day—his father industrious and rich. Paul inherited the riches but not the beauty. He was small enough to be almost insignificant and the considerable attention he attracted to himself was due to the possession of an unusual personality and a first class London tailor. His clothes were perfect, although he never entirely overcame the Frenchman’s difficulty in choosing the proper tie to wear. But Paul Manet could not be ignored—his manners were too charming—his talk too original—his morals too heterodox. Wherever he went he left behind him an impression—and not infrequently a scandal. Many women had thrown themselves at his head, but no single one had reached his heart. He had embellished three divorce cases, in one of which he recovered his own freedom—or rather had it thrust upon him. His marriage was remote and he seldom referred to it. His wife had been one of those mysterious Russian Princesses whose ranks have been so greatly reduced by revolutionary atrocities. She was a creature of moods and unquenchable emotion—excellent company for a short distance but very wearing over a longer course. Paul was delighted to see the last of her and sent her a string of pearls as a parting gift. Thereafter, although remaining on excellent terms with a number of lesser Kings, he deftly avoided the society of Princesses. There were no children.

He entered the Club, as we have said, at the precise moment Lennox was consuming his third brandy and soda and had rung for a fourth. He heard the irritable “Why don’t you answer the bell when I ring,” addressed by Lennox to the club servant—he observed the empty glasses on the mantelpiece and drew his own conclusions.

Lennox Casallis was not the type to drink alone—was not the type who ignores the arrival of a friend—was not the type to present an unbrushed head of hair at ten o’clock in the evening, and most certainly was not the type to raise his voice to club servants.

Paul Manet dropped into an easy chair, held up the third finger of his left hand (which meant a very large whiskey and soda) and set himself to work out the problem. The answer was easier to find than he expected. A lightning flash of memory supplied it. This was the evening for which he had received an invitation from Hamar Casallis. He had declined because he always declined that class of entertainment. But what had the reception been for? Then it came back to him—the half hinted engagement of Lennox to some girl—Eve Some one. Obviously Lennox should have been at his brother’s house. Why wasn’t he? Or had he come from there? Of course. Turned down at the height of his hopes. And now—the juice of the vine. It is always your successful man who breaks into the smallest pieces. Lennox Casallis was drinking failure and it was going to his head. Very presently the walls would totter—and even more presently, Lennox would be sorry.

Paul waited until the servant brought the drinks and departed. He waited until Lennox had swallowed half of his fourth and was stretching out his hand toward the bell. Then he spoke.

“Yes,” he queried, “but what reason did she give?”

Now if he had put it any other way—if, for example, he had said “Anything wrong, old chap?” Lennox would certainly have told him to mind his own business. But the disarming nature of the question, coupled with its suggestion of foreknowledge, had a totally different result.

Lennox did not even start.

“Does it matter?” he answered. “The result is the same.”

Paul nodded.

“Bad luck. You were fond of her.”

“Fond! Tisn’t as if there was sense in the point of view. Damn it, Paul, is a man to be penalized just because things have come his way?”

“Sometimes happens so.”

“Yes—but I couldn’t help folks getting the idea we were engaged. Tisn’t as if I’d talked.”

“Women are strange,” Paul philosophized. “Sometimes they like to say ‘yes’ before a crowd gathers to cheer the conqueror.”

The aim was accurate. It proved the skill of his marksmanship.

Lennox coloured.

“Does it matter?” he repeated. “I’d have thought if people loved each other nothing of that sort mattered.”

“It is a painful truth,” said Paul, smiling inside himself, “that women do not see with our clarity and breadth of vision.”

Lennox threw up his head.

“Let it go,” he jerked out, unevenly. “The thing’s ended. Let it go.” It seemed for a moment that he might break down and cry.

“Have a drink,” suggested Paul and averted that catastrophe. He ordered two whiskies and sodas because he knew that whiskey on top of brandy has a deadening effect and is more likely to make a man sick than savage. There was a lot of the woman in Paul Manet. He was sorry for this young man—but also he was sorry for that Eve Some one-or-another, and sympathized with her unwillingness to be carried by storm—to feature as the last and most conspicuous success in the triumphal progress of Lennox Casallis. If only his nature had been a little more elastic a reverse of this kind might have been the making of Lennox. But Lennox would take no trouble to make amends—he lacked the strength to win by modesty—he lacked the modesty to occupy a lesser position than that of victor. It was a pity.

He was thinking thus while Lennox talked—or rather vented angry explosions of wrath—violent demands for sympathy at the injustice of the thing.

“I might have been a pickpocket—a blackguard. Where’s the fairness? Can’t laugh at a man for being in love with you. I’d have given my life for that girl—any day—now—still would. Damn it! does she want a man to cringe. Lord! in the old days women liked men who—who— But it’s no good talking. This damned modern system—equality and all that rot. How can you respect an equal? One respects a superior—and to me she was—WAS—I told her that, but d’you think—oh, what’s it matter. I can go to the devil for all she cares. And fools say women are kind.”

He stopped abruptly and swallowed at a gulp what was left in his glass.

“Sometimes they are kind,” said Paul, very quietly, “but it takes us a long time to understand the manner in which their kindness is directed. And how does the matter end?”

“I shall clear out of England, of course.”

“You told her so?”

“I told her I’d marry the first girl I met. Then perhaps she’d be satisfied.”

“M’yes,” said Paul, “but I don’t think we must do that, and I don’t think I should go away, either. I think I would just go on—just go quietly on as though nothing had happened. Other people have been in much the same kind of storm, Lennox, and have weathered it. I could name a dozen—some of them, poor devils, who married the very same whirlwind that stripped their sails.”

“No—no—no. It’s finished, I say.”

“My dear fellow.”

“It’s over. I’m done for. D’you think I could stand the racket of having every damned fool in town laughing up his sleeve at me?”

“You exaggerate.”

But Paul was wrong, for just then two fellow members, who had been present at Hamar’s reception came into the Club together and stood talking outside the smoking room door. What they said was inaudible, but one of them suddenly caught sight of the two occupants and made a swift silencing gesture to the other. The gesture told its own tale.

“That’s the sort of thing,” cried Lennox.

He missed the mantelpiece with his glass and it fell crashing into the grate. “I tell you, I’m through! Shut of it all tonight!”

With clenched hands he strode out.

Paul Manet sat for a second, thinking, then he sprang to his feet and followed.

He was just in time to clamber into the car as it whirled away.

At eleven o’clock the following morning Hamar Casallis presented himself at a small house in Clarges Street and was shown into the little drawing room on the first floor. Eve, so the parlour maid informed him, was out. He had asked leave to wait.

He had had no word from Lennox and there was no answer to his repeated telephone calls. A little while after breakfast a letter had been delivered by hand. It came from Paul Manet.

Hamar read the letter again as he stood by the window awaiting Eve’s arrival.

Presently she appeared, coming from the Piccadilly end of the street. She was mounted on a tall roan, which she rode side saddle. She wore a long, fawn riding habit and a soft felt hat. A little quirt dangled from one of her gauntletted wrists. The shy winter sunlight dusted her ruddy brown hair with gold.

Hamar, looking down, thought he had never seen a more charming or distinguished figure.

Eve dismounted and gave the reins to a man from the stables who was waiting at the kerb. Then she entered the house and returned almost immediately with an apple in the open palm of her hand. The tall roan whickered appreciatively as he ate the apple and rubbed his soft muzzle against her cheek. Then Eve climbed the steps again and a moment later came into the room.

There was nothing guarded in her greeting of Hamar. She came forward frankly with an outstretched hand.

“I am glad to see you, Hamar,” she said; then—“Is it an embassy?”

Hamar shook his head and took her hand.

“Why no,” he replied, “but it came over me that I would like to apologize to you.”

“Please don’t,” she returned, quickly. “Just for today I believe I would rather be misunderstood. That should be easy for you.”

He nodded.

“It would be easy enough, but every now and then I choose the more difficult way. Perhaps I have been too ready always to take my brother’s side—too partisan. Will you not do me the gentleness of showing where he fell down?”

“He didn’t,” she answered. “It would be truer to say that I tripped him up—and I did it on purpose.”

Hamar frowned.

“You will not ask me to believe you were just playing with his feelings?”

“Oh, no,” she replied. “Why, I never even found them. I don’t think Lennox has any feelings—yet—only sensations.”

“I understand. Well.”

She hesitated.

“Hamar. I love Lennox.”

“We are agreed in that,” he said.

“Yes. I love him more than I believed I should ever love anybody. Sometimes, you know, it is given to people who love to see very distinctly.”

“And very indistinctly,” he added.

“Yes, that too,” she allowed.

“And what did you see with a lover’s eyes, Eve?”

“Oh, all sorts of things,” she returned. “Life has been nothing but roses and laurels for Lennox—a long triumphal march—and what’s it made of him? Hamar, there are thousands like that—splendid young men who sweep everything before them and every one.”

“Not every one,” he interposed.

“Oh, yes. I was swept all right. Make no mistake. The world has got into the habit of making things easy for the victor, and it is so rottenly unfair.”

“Unfair.”

“Well, isn’t it? I mean, where does it lead? Where does Lennox stand outside his own successes? He is a generous winner, you may say—but as a loser, where does he stand. Take away his existing confidence and how will he contrive a fresh one. Bob him of his—his proved invincibility and what’s left? Just an angry child. Do you think I don’t thrill all through me when I see him take his neck or nothing jumps? I do. But I want something more. Life isn’t all emergency.”

“That’s true,” said Hamar, thoughtfully. “Perhaps the supreme emergency is everyday routine.”

“It is. You’re much more of a man than ever Lennox has been.”

“I?” Hamar gave a laugh that ended in a cough. “Rather a poor specimen of manhood, by your leave.”

“No, no, a splendid one. Put Lennox in your place for a year or two—put him up against the problems you have to solve—let him come daily into contact with the intricate worries and petty adjustments of a big estate. What do you suppose would happen? He doesn’t understand little men and women—poor people’s troubles—the frightful importance of trivial things done right. He doesn’t understand any view but his own—a contrary opinion is a wrong opinion. Not only that, it leaves him disjointed and awry. And yet, one day—”

She stopped, but Hamar went on:

“I know what you would say. One day all these problems will have to be faced, one day this very faulty piece of mechanism, which is me, will cough itself out in the night and then the trouble will begin. My dear, don’t bother to deny it. You can’t be as sick a man as I am without acknowledging such facts.”

Eve put her hand into his and her eyes were wet.

“Have you never feared that day?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Not for myself,” he replied, simply. “For myself I could almost welcome it. But from that other view—” He stopped and bit his forefinger reflectively. “Yes, I should be sorry if anything went wrong. And yet very largely the fault would be mine.”

“How yours?”

“Very largely mine, because I have never had the courage to do what you have done. I was too selfish. It may sound absurd, but Lennox was the spectacular side of my own nature. I have glorified in that boy’s achievements, as something outside my reach. I’ve helped him on from one success to another—successes I would have given anything to achieve myself. I’ve been at the back of him in every possible way, even down to the failure of last night. Had things gone differently, without a thought I would have sacrificed you for his advancement. The whole of my strength, such as it is, and of my will power has been concentrated on saving my brother from failure and of blinding the world to the possibility that he could fail, and yet knowing all the time that only through failure could he hope to succeed.”

“I’m afraid,” said Eve, “you cannot feel very friendly toward me.”

“I do—for this reason. A woman’s love is greater and so much more fruitful than a man’s. Yours is the sacrifice that tells.” He rose and flicked the dust off his sleeve with a thin, transparent hand. “Well, we’ve both lost him now and London loses a picturesque figure. I’ll leave you this letter to read. It won’t tell you much and there’s no address.”

“You don’t know where he’s gone?”

“No. Somewhere into the mud, I suppose.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” she answered, drearily.

He was going, but he stopped and looked at her searchingly.

“When he comes out, I wonder if you would help scrape some of it off.”

“Of course I would.” There was colour in her cheeks, as though she had taken offence at the question.

“Well, that’s a comfort, anyway,” said Hamar Casallis. At the door he turned again and said, enigmatically, “It would be interesting to know who God is most sorry for. He may not approve of people like ourselves, for not only have we tried to re-shape a creature of His making to our own taste, but have turned loose into the world an element that may be a danger to others. That is a question beyond our answering. Good-bye.”

Eve watched him with the curtain half drawn as he walked slowly down the street. He looked such a wan, rickety little man. Then she went back to the sofa and lay down with her face against a cushion. There was an aching in her throat and her eyes pricked and were hot. Clutched in her hand was Paul Manet’s letter. But it was no good reading it, for there was no address.

Lennox Casallis was drunk. It was not an unusual state with him. For five weeks he had not been to bed sober. At Algeciras, the first place to which Paul Manet had taken him, he drank by day as well as by night. Fortunately for himself, and every one connected with him, he abandoned daylight excesses at the end of a week. Instead, he would sit with hands in pockets, legs thrust out, and chin sunk, snorting sullenly to himself and rarely replying when addressed save to take exception to unintended affronts. He was not a lively companion and Paul’s patience had been remarkable. Twice he had been involved in fights. On one occasion it was with a member of the audience at a Granada Bull Fight who objected to the want of interest he exhibited in the entertainment. Lennox did not argue—he just struck out and the Señor went down for a full count. But the Señor had friends in the city and expressed his resentment in the form of a concerted attack outside the doors of the Ravenna Hotel. The odds were five to two. Lennox had been drinking hard for seven days and it had played havoc with his wind. He had wavered somewhat and his punches wanted accuracy. It was Paul who turned the fight in their favour, putting in some close work of which Jimmy Wilde might have been proud. Lennox went to bed with a mouse over his left eye that made him thoughtful, and next morning he had the grace to say a word of thanks to Paul, adding a fear that he had brought it upon them. Paul was pleased.

The second affair was in Marseilles. A huge Swede bumped into him beside one of the quays and failed to apologize. This time Lennox acquitted himself more favourably and retired from the contest victorious and a shade self-inflated.

It did not suit Paul Manet’s book to allow him to recover too high an opinion of himself, wherefore he manœuvred a meeting between Lennox and Charbonnel of international ring fame. Charbonnel, who had to give away three stone, put Lennox through it more thoroughly than he could have believed possible and at the end of three rounds Lennox retired to the dressing room with an arm round Charbonnel’s neck—nor did he put it there out of motives of affection.

After that he sulked solidly for a week, refused all advances of friendship and frequented the lowest Brasseries in the town. His pride was out of joint. The world, once his plaything, had turned against him. He was irritable, morose and sullen and given to paroxysms of uncontrolled rage. One morning he cut himself while shaving and threw his razors out of the window. After that he grew a beard and possibly would have continued to wear one indefinitely, but for an absurd incident connected with two undergraduates.

Quite recently a new game had come into fashion from Oxford. It is called “Beaver.” The rules are simple and the scoring is the same as at tennis. The object of the players, who are two in number, is to find bearded men and announce the discovery by crying out “Beaver.” The first to speak scores fifteen points and so on. A beard in any public conveyance counts double, a red beard wins the game, while the beard of a King not only wins for its herald the game and set, but also appoints him ipso facto a Royal Beaver. As may be imagined the sport of Beavering is not without charm and excitement. It cultivates the habit of observation and lends enchantment to the dull highway.

The undergraduates to which reference has been made had arrived at an important stage in the game. The taller, a graceful young man with pale coloured hair, held the advantage and was naturally keen to score the final point. Upon success or failure was the obligation to receive or pay for lunch. Filled with fervour of sport they came round a street corner abreast and all but collided with John Lennox Casallis. Being well conducted youths their first thought was apology, but words of regret died upon their lips in face of more pressing emergency. The meeting is better recorded in dialogue.

“I’m most awfully—BEAVER.”

The word burst from their lips like a hand grenade, and nearly blasted the hat Lennox wore from his head.

“What the—” he began.

“Red Beaver,” roared the shorter man. “That’s game and set—to me.”

“You low sweep, I spotted—”

“Not you. I yelled my ‘ver’ before you’d started ‘beaving.’ ”

“Unutterable liar,” cried the taller, indignant, but good natured. “You took your start from me—seconds after.”

“Here, I like that when—”

At this point Lennox entered the arena.

“When you have quite finished squabbling with each other,” he remarked, “I propose to knock your empty heads together.”

“Most frightfully sorry, sir,” said the first, “but there’s lunch and a bottle on this—besides it’s a matter of personal honour. Longstaff here, is lying disgustingly. I ‘beavered’ you before he had the skin off his eyes.”

“ ‘Beavered’ me!” roared Lennox. “I’d like to know—”

“You see, sir,” the one called Longstaff interposed. “This swine can’t take a licking like a sportsman. You, being a red Beaver, gave me the very opportunity I was looking for. Rotten bad form singing out like I did, but I simply couldn’t afford to act otherwise. Denton had all the luck in the earlier games and some of his scoring was pretty low down too. He ‘beavered’ an assistant at the English Chemist’s knowing he’d find him there.”

A vague comprehension that he was involved in a contest of some magnitude checked in Lennox the impulse of anger.

“If you idiots will explain what you’re driving at,” he said, “I’ll try and keep myself in hand, but if not—”

“Jeremy!” exclaimed Denton. “You don’t mean to say you haven’t got it?”

“I have not,” replied Lennox coldly. “I haven’t the smallest idea what lunatic game you’re playing at.”

Whereupon the enthusiastic twain took up the tale and described the game with much vehemence and contradiction.

“So you see,” Longstaff concluded. “Your being a red Beaver was an excuse.”

“I see,” said Lennox, and nodded. Then he began to laugh, and since it was the first time he had laughed for a full month, his laughter had some of the nature of hysterics. He held his sides and roared. He leant against a wall and the tears ran down his face.

Laughter purges the mind of many sinister vapours and in that moment of extravagant mirth, Lennox saw himself for the first time since his reverse in a comic rather than a tragic light. He had imagined the world, witnessing his woe, would regard him as other great tragic figures had been regarded, but behold, instead, he had become but a jest with his fellows—a ball in the game of life—a red Beaver to be roared at and scored off by any jovial fool who happened to pass him by. When the laughter died out of him he became very serious indeed.

“All right,” he said. “I accept your explanation and we’ll let the matter drop. As a fact, I’m grateful to you both. But as I’ve no fancy to be ‘beavered’ again, I’ll take a look round for the nearest barber and have this damned thing off. Incidentally neither of you scored just now for you both spoke at once. If you’ll accept my refereeing it was a draw. Good morning.”

He strode away leaving the two undergraduates somewhat shaken by his decision and eagerly scanning the horizon for fresh victims.

Paul Manet was on the veranda of the hotel when Lennox returned. He arched an eyebrow at the improved appearance of his friend.

“But how marvellous!” he observed. “And what, may I ask, is the name of Mademoiselle?”

Lennox frowned.

“Paul, you’re an ass,” he said, but the quality of his voice was more agreeable than it had been for weeks.

Paul humped a shoulder.

“I regret it,” he said, “for there is no finer tonic than female society. And you, mon cher, are in need of a tonic.”

Lennox lowered himself into a long deck chair and sat forward hugging his knees. He showed no resentment at the advice—which was unusual. Presently,

“I suppose I’ve acted like a swine, Paul?”

“I’ve known worse,” came the answer. “Your performance has been very average.”

“Yes. Paul, let’s talk.”

“Let us talk by all means.”

But Lennox found it very hard to begin.

“And I suppose,” he said at last, “I was a fool ever to think she would care for me.”

“She does care,” said Paul. “Obviously she cares.”

Lennox dismissed the suggestion with a shrug.

“I think sometimes I was born in the wrong century, Paul. I don’t belong to this modern intellectual world. The war! Yes, I could understand that—and a hard game—but this brain fight of modern life—this tussle of wits—it’s outside me. I hate all that. Then too, women—”

Paul settled himself back in his chair with a feeling that Lennox was approaching the subject he really wished to talk about.

“Women—well?” he queried.

“They’re so different from what I imagined.”

Paul nodded.

“This experience of mine—and loving her as I did—do—it’s taught me that. And there must be something in it too, or why is nearly every marriage today such a washout? It is, isn’t it?”

Again Paul nodded.

“You see, they don’t encourage a man along the old lines. What he can do and what he is, as a man, I mean, doesn’t seem to count any longer. They expect— Oh, I don’t know—what do you call it—nuances, that’s the word. Nuances. Such rot that is—must be. Damn it, our forefathers would have gone pretty hungry if they’d tried to stock the larder with no better weapon than a nuance.”

“And yet,” murmured Paul, “the hair noose accounted for as much game as ever fell to the javelin.”

“Oh! a certain amount of common sense, I’ll allow, but all this intricate business! Surely happiness is the thing to get after—surely it’s better than a lot of damned psychological stuff. All this understanding—this intellectual comradeship—this infernal analysis. What’s it give you? Not happiness, you may bet on that. Misery more likely, and plenty of it. I suppose it’s the modern social condition of things, but apply the test of what’s to be got out of it. There’s something primitive about me that wants to get up and shout these thinkers down—that wants to get back to the woods, old fellow—the open downs. Kipling ’ud know what I mean. Ever read The Knife and the Naked Chalk?”

Paul shook his head.

“Those fierce simple old folk—the men fighting wolves and guarding sheep—the women cooking and guarding the kids. The camp fires, Paul, and the downs with the stars out. So simple and hard and kind all that seems to me. Picture it, the woman and the kid of your own to feed and fight for—and her loving you—and love being the thing. It wouldn’t matter whether you wiped your feet or not—whether you’d read Freud and Nietzsche—what you thought of Eugenics. She wouldn’t care how you turned a phrase if your eyes lit up when she looked at you and your muscles tightened when danger came along. You’d be her man and she your woman, and love would be master of you both—there on the open down with the stars out and wolves barking in the valley below.”

He finished talking and seemed to be looking back over a great gulf of years—looking back with the eyes of a lover. There was something pathetic in his expression, pathetic and yearning. Paul Manet leaned forward and rested a hand on his knee.

“I am glad I threw in my lot with you, Lennox Casallis,” he said. “Very glad, you foolish, angry poet.”

Lennox flushed, but not with displeasure.

“I spoke as I felt,” he answered awkwardly.

“I know. Poets do.”

“Somehow that picture sticks in my mind—crops up unexpectedly—haunts me almost—certainly mocks me.” He stopped. Then—“But isn’t it strange, Paul, that a man like me, thinking as I do, feeling as I do, should have done what I did?”

Paul wrinkled his brows.

“Explain.”

“Oh, you know. Eve—I mean. With all that mass of civilization at the back of her. Just think how hopeless it would have been—with me. Like different elements we are. Done any chemistry? Those elements that never mix, y’know. Funny they should attract each other—for I believe in a way I— But there’s no sense in saying that—after what’s happened. I suppose, if I’d thought, I might have known nothing I am, or could say or do would—would count with her. I did know somewhere inside me. And yet I went for the jump. I wonder, Paul, whether it wasn’t a great mercy the jump was refused—I might have crashed a lot worse on the other side—and taken her with me. It was bad luck though. Curious, women never came into my life before.”

“They often pass out rather quickly when that is the case,” murmured Paul, with a small smile.

“Not with me,” said Lennox unexpectedly. “The idea has come and has rooted now. Rooted. It almost chokes me sometimes.”

This was a new phase, and Paul Manet leant forward to listen to its development.

“Yes, just the woman idea. God knows, it was little enough she gave me, but she gave me that. It’s awful, Paul, the emptiness—the utter emptiness—and knowing, somehow, what the fulness might mean. Can you understand?”

Paul nodded.

“Very well; but all Nature understands,” he added. “The craving for a mate, Lennox, it’s a simple thing.”

“A mate, yes, that’s a word, old man. What a word! But I swear it’s a clean craving.”

“Why not?”

“Yes, and it’s wrapped up in my mind with that picture of the camp fire and the open down.”

Paul smiled and shook his head.

“The old Adam in all of us starts with a camp fire and an open down, but sooner or later contents itself with an anthracite stove and a flat in West Kensington.”

“What do you mean?”

“Simply what I say—a truth of the present century. You, my dear fellow, have barked your sentiments against an unresponsive subject—have found reason where you sought passion—have tried to capture a neat intellect with a high pulse rate.”

“There is no intellect in love,” Lennox protested.

“No; but it takes a devil of a lot of intellect to preserve love. You have not confronted the problem—you’ve run away from it. Oh, dear me! how differently we two are made. Conquest is the dullest thing in the world and reverses are the most entertaining. My dear Lennox, you will not believe me, but I would have given anything to have been in your place at that dramatic parting. To find one has entirely misconstrued a situation, that one has issued cheques on an empty banking account—what more delightful experience could be conceived?”

“Delightful?”

“Assuredly. The cheques have been referred to drawer, and something must be done to validate them or the goods will not be delivered. They will not validate themselves, these faulty cheques of yours, they will not be improved by dipping them into alcohol, by carrying them round a continent and declaring they were good. As a cash proposition alone it is entrancing, and how much more so when dealing with human emotions. Why, Lennox, surely it is the joy of the chase, the hazard of the jumps, the swish of branches, the rush of the wind in one’s ears, that makes hunting a sport. One does not take these risks for the sake of seeing a pack of hounds break up a fox. It is the chance, the chase, the danger, that makes the game. The result is a bagatelle. Bon Dieu! Are you, as a sportsman, going to let me teach you the meaning of sport?”

“Go on,” said Lennox. “I’ve earned a fair amount of gruel from you. I don’t complain.”

“Forfend that this should be taken for a retributive attack,” Paul laughed. “I do not ask you to follow my counsels, it is vastly more entertaining to watch you follow your own. But this I cannot deny myself the pleasure of saying. Your open down and your primitive woman who compends camp fire cooking and caresses is not a reality but a reaction. You would never find in her what you seek, for it is not there. It is not an ideal you have, but rather a silly idea. I know you now, pretty well, a great deal better than you know yourself, and I give you this assurance—you will find ease in sentiment far harder to tolerate than difficulty.”

“You word-monger,” Lennox grunted, with a hump of the shoulders. “You talking man!”

“I’m right, though. Would you have given up cricket in the old days and taken to tip-cat, for no better reason than because a match was lost?”

“Would I have been likely to?”

“No,” said Paul, and added with sudden vehemence, “then give up talking and acting like a fool.”

For a moment Lennox looked as though he would retort savagely, but instead he rose to his feet and put his hands in his pockets.

“Paul,” he said. “Let’s get away from here. Let’s go out of this place—somewhere bigger—wilder.” He stretched out a hand and dropped it heavily on his companion’s arm. “You’re being a brick, old man, and I daresay you’re right about things—but—but there’s hell going on inside me, and God knows which way it’ll burn itself out.”

“That’s all right,” said Paul, as gently as a woman. “I understand. Let’s have a drink.”

Lennox hesitated and shook his head.

“No. I’ve chucked drinking,” he said.

“A very good excuse,” Paul smiled, “for having one now.”

Later, in the privacy of his own room, Paul wondered what could have brought about so great a change in his friend. He would not have believed that an absurd young man at Oxford with a peculiar gift for inventing games was the actual cause. There was too much of the Frenchman in Paul Manet to appreciate the enormous consequences that may arise from calling a man a Red Beaver.

There is about the town of Algiers a certain raffish prosperity. Everything is a little too much in focus, like a scene in a musical comedy. The European quarter with its vivid white houses and its absurdly green vegetation resembles an up-to-date exquisite in a suit of starchy ducks with a new hat cocked over his eye. The effect is to make you blink and buy smoked glasses. An American visitor with a taste for metaphor happily described the place in the following terms.

“Why, sure, it’s one big salad bowl plump full of lettuce, and the houses look like bits of chopped egg.”

They do.

The sun is very fond of Algiers and seldom leaves it alone. After all there is no good reason why it should, for the half French half Moorish buildings with their gay tiles and walls smothered with wistaria vine, clambering roses and great festoons of purple bougainvillaea is worth shedding light upon. So too, is the motley throng of a hundred nationalities that fill the squares and boulevards, that sit beneath the café awnings, that mount the dusty twisting hills and interminable steps, and lie huddled in day-long slumber round the narrow entrances to the native quarter. And very well may the sun shine upon shipping in the bay—upon the fleet of feluccas with their pointed, painted sails slanting out of the harbour mouth at the breath of the hot South wind, at the long grey battle cruiser weighing anchor just clear of the roads, the cargo boats and liners unloading at the quay, and the anxious snuffling small craft that hurry over the water like mice along a wainscot. There are a thousand pictures here alone for the sun to shine upon, serene, splendid, and absurd. Delicate pictures, painted in opal, of boats and rigging mirrored in water. Motion pictures of yelling, jostling crowds—a chaos of crimson fezzes, black and brown and yellow limbs, sackcloth raiment, dungarees, uniforms, coarse gonduras, patches of blaring white and tumbled heaps of merchandise and fish and fruit and vegetables in bursts of blue and green.

Leaning over the parapet of the street that runs down to the docks was Lennox Casallis. He was alone, having finally convinced half a dozen screaming Arab boys that he did not want his boots cleaned. The eldest of these youthful persecutors, one gifted in foreign tongues, having removed to a distance of safety had shouted:

“Git to Hell anyway—damned Americaine.”

But Lennox did not hear the invitation and took no action about it. He was fascinated and held by the sight that lay below him. The shifting crowds of coloured humanity with their queer suggestion of thousands of years ago, stirred a hidden something within him. The air was heavy with Eastern scents and the smell of sea and flowers. It vibrated with unfamiliar sounds. As he looked and listened and inhaled he could feel his heart throbbing against the stone parapet he leant upon. Exquisite thrills ran through his body, thrills that in a way hurt and made breathing difficult. He could not understand the sensation—it was new and unrecognizable—he was only aware of an intolerable burden of loneliness, of divorce from anything complete, and of yearning. Imagination pranked him into putting out a hand as though it might have closed upon a lover’s—upon Eve’s. It was proved a foolish fancy, when the fingers fastened upon emptiness.

Since the day he and Paul had talked together he had fallen again into the habit of silence, but with the sullenness left out. The short voyage across the Mediterranean had passed without a word on either side. It had been a perfect night with a full moon pencilling silver lines across the sea. Lennox spent it dreaming on deck, for after the affair in Marseilles most of his anger and self-pity had spent itself in dreams. With elbows on the bulwarks he watched the grey waves go sweeping along the hull, and looked down to where the fourth class passengers lay upon hatchways, in huddled muttering heaps. There arose in him a bond of sympathy with these untidy woebegone men who, with the free masonry of their class, offered parts of their bodies as resting places for strangers’ heads, who slept with arms about each other’s necks, beneath a covering of newspapers, or ragged coats or cloaks. He felt that they too, were exiles, which in a sense was true since they were mostly soldiers of one nation or another, French, Italian, Greek, Algerian, Moroccan, men of the Foreign Legion and riff-raff of a dozen armies. Before grumbling and uneasy sleep gathered them into a common silence they had sung for company’s sake snatches of old songs from the Great War. There was a piece of French naughtiness, once popular on the march, a native war song with a savage knife-thrusting chorus, and it brought a lump to Lennox’s throat to hear it—“Eet’s a long way-e to Teep-i-rarie,” sung in a thin reedy voice that made it seem a very, very long way indeed.

The tune awoke memories of Dunkirk in the early days; of Arras and Peronne they came sweeping back, sharp and clearly defined. Happy memories of great emprise, of ridiculous nights spent gorgeously in impossible places of fears, alarms, misgivings and achievements. They were all with him again like a reunion of old friends. Happy, happy memories—for all the dreadful circumstance that framed them. If one could recover the spirit of those departed days—the gaiety that lived within an inch of death and lived so intensely!

“God!” he had exclaimed. “Why isn’t there a war now?”

The best of us would plunge nations into disaster to efface a private sorrow or satisfy a selfish wish.

Lennox had never before been further afield than a tour through Northern Italy. His engagements in the arenas of sport had prevented travel. The landing at Algiers was his first experience of an African port. The rush of bare-footed Arabs, clamorous to possess themselves of his luggage, the buzz of foreign tongues, the sense of being flung across a palette of Oriental colours, acted on his brain like strong wine. His intelligence which, so to speak, had been muscle-bound through conditional training had sharpened wonderfully as a result of his recent excesses. Bodily, he was less fit than ever before, but his mind and senses had become wonderfully receptive and alert. He was more conscious of influence and less of matter. The unusual sights and sounds and smells affected him profoundly. There was in them something wild and primitive that found in him an instant favour. He passed into the Customs House like a man in a dream, and cursed when awakened by a demand for his keys. As a result an affronted official tumbled out every scrap of his belongings.

“All right,” said Lennox, good humouredly. “You can stick ’em back as you turned ’em out.”

And he allowed his gaze to wander and settle on a tall white-burnoused Arab, who, splendid as a prince, carrying a lily like a sceptre in his hand and followed by a brown and white lamb, was passing through the crowd.

“You are pleased with all this,” Paul had said.

And Lennox nodded.

They engaged apartments at the Hotel Oasis, which faces the harbour and is in the centre of the town. Lennox had refused to follow the fashionable crowd to the Mustapha Supérieur on the hill. He did not wish to court the chance of finding old acquaintances, and making new.

“Let’s stop in the middle of things with this swarm round us. I like the crowds, Paul, the jostle of it all, the sweet-sour smells. I don’t know why, but let’s stop in the middle of things.”

Paul was a marvellous cicerone. Their rooms were the best procurable, they overlooked the bay, and before their windows the phantasmagoria of life streamed by like a moving fresco.

On the afternoon of their arrival, Lennox stood by the window completely absorbed until darkness fell. The words of an old nursery jingle were running through his head.

After nightfall, he heard the pulsing of a distant drum and very faintly the skirl of pipes. The sound intrigued and excited him.

About eight o’clock Paul came in and carried him off to dinner, and afterward they sat in a kind of lounge where dancing was going on. There were musicians and quite a lot of pretty ladies who had come all the way from France to be amusing. One of them came over and sat at their table and talked just as nicely as if she had been introduced. Paul Manet did not try to amuse her as he conceived it would do his companion good to accept this responsibility. Lennox, however, did not show the least disposition to talk. He appeared to be sunk in a kind of lethargy from which the damsel’s prattle in no way aroused him. She told them all sorts of interesting things too, about her aspirations, jolly times she had had, and nice people she knew. She did not laugh too loud or make a noise or behave stupidly, but, on the contrary, had very nice manners, a nice smile and a friendly disposition. It was, therefore, unforgivable that Lennox should have risen suddenly and exclaimed:

“Come on—let’s get out of this—shall we?”

For the first time Paul was really annoyed with him and showed it. He rose to follow after having deposited an apology and a hundred franc note to pay for the cognac.

“Quel bête!” the girl had said, and with reason.

Outside Paul spoke his mind with calculating effect.

“I wouldn’t have believed any one could have been so ungainly,” he concluded.

“I’m sorry,” Lennox mumbled. “I’ll go back and say so if you like. Matter of fact I was thinking—didn’t notice.”

“Yes, go back,” said Paul, unconditionally.

So Lennox went back, and approached the table where the girl still sat, effacing the signs of her indignation with a small gold lip stick and a handkerchief puff.

“I must ask you to forgive me, Mademoiselle,” said he. But her only reply was a toss of the head.

He went on:

“I was thinking of other things—rather bitter things— They made me forget my courtesy.”

For answer she stared at him hard, then,

“Eet ee’s your friend who tells you to return.”

He nodded.

“I thought so.”

He looked ashamed.

She touched a chair with the toe of her shoe.

“Seet down.” And when he had obeyed, “Why are you so—so triste, hey?”

“I could hardly tell you.”

“But so eet ees?”

Again he nodded.

“I tell you then,” she said. “You are ver’ lonely.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted.

“I know. Well, my friend, there is only one way to mend this loneliness—”

He began to speak, but she checked him.

“Eet was not myself I am going to say—so don’t be fraytened, but some one eet ees—and from her you will learn perhaps that ver’ often, in the end, loneliness ees best. Bon soir.”

Lennox found Paul waiting outside the offices of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, and Paul shook his head disparagingly.

“I had hoped you would stay and talk with her,” he said.

“So I did—for a moment.”

“A moment, yes. What good is a moment? Lennox, that child of fortune could have taught you many valuable lessons had you cared to listen.”

“Perhaps,” Lennox admitted, “but you can hardly wonder that I did not care to listen.”

“She would have taught you gentleness,” said Paul. “And many fine shades of understanding. She would have turned you to perplexity. Eh bien!” and he shrugged his shoulders, “but you do not care for the things you do not understand. Yours is the type that throws a good fly and a long straight line that drops neatly upon the water—and yet you are an indifferent fisherman all the same.”

“Oh!”

“Your good fisherman is the one who can sit quietly on the bank, when his line has snagged, and unravel the loops and knots with steady fingers even though the best fish in the river is rising. You would never do that. You would cast over the fish, tangle and all, and put him down, and then you would curse him for refusing to be deceived.”

“Oh, go to the devil!” replied Lennox, but without animus.

After that they walked half a mile without speaking, toward the Spanish quarter of the town. It was Lennox who broke the silence with a peculiar question.

“Paul, what is the highest aim a man can have?”

“Impossible to answer that when no two men are alike.”

“Yours then?”

“Mine? I imagine to comprehend better than most people—to use my mind neatly on every occasion.”

“How utterly bloodless,” said Lennox. “Shall I tell you mine?”

“You certainly will,” came the smiling rejoinder.

“I think, Paul, to be wonderful is what I want most. Yes, to be wonderful. It’s a terrible thing, Paul, not to be wonderful to—to some one. To be, oh, you know, just negative.”

“This word ‘wonderful,’ ” said Paul slowly. “You mean, I suppose, to be loved.”

“Yes, perhaps; because if one is loved, one is wonderful, automatically. Isn’t that so?”

“Love being blind?” said Paul, with a smile.

“I’m not so sure. The night it first came to me, being in love, I mean, a line of poetry ran through my head:

D’you believe that, Paul?”

“Do you—now?”

“I don’t know. Always seemed to be something in it.”

Paul mused before answering.

“It’s a tall order and rather a disturbing one. But, maybe, the poet was right. It might account for busy days in the Court of Divorce.”

“How?”

“If all the love we feel for another—or another feels for us—is to be repaid in kind. Something of the sort undoubtedly occurs.” He laughed. “Ha!”

“Yes?” Lennox queried.

“I was thinking how heavy must be the responsibilities of a matinée idol.”

“You turn the thing into a joke,” Lennox complained.

“Why not? It always amuses me to unravel a line—even a line of poetry.”

He was astonished when Lennox’s hand fastened like a vice on his arm.

“I’ve a feeling, Paul, a tremendous feeling, that I am on the edge of something. Like a sixth sense it is—ever since we landed here I’ve felt it—warning me—advising me—I don’t know which. A premonition. Paul, there’s a narrow doorway and it leads—I can’t see that—but I’m drawn to that doorway terribly. Something beyond is calling to me, something frightfully simple and yet I’m almost afraid. Paul.” There was a note of fear in his voice. “Is it all right—I mean to have this queer consciousness? Is it—all right?”

“My dear fellow,” came the answer soothingly. “You have been drinking hard for over a month. You may count yourself fortunate that this door of yours has taken no more unpleasant shape.”

There was a reproach in Lennox’s eyes.

“Tss! I was afraid you’d think that. Doesn’t matter. Let’s get back to the hotel.”

As he leant against the stone parapet overlooking the harbour, the picture of that narrow doorway rose again in his mind and filled it. Above the babel of tongues he seemed to hear a voice calling. It beat like a drum in his ears and was tuned to the throbbing of his heart.

“I am compensation,” were the words. “In me is compassion.”

Tump-a-tump—tump-a-tump—tump-a-tump.

A few minutes later Paul came upon him. His face was ash white and he was trembling.

“Is that you, Paul? I’m glad—glad.”

“I’ve been working out a trip to the desert,” said Paul. “Does the notion appeal to you?”

“What—the desert—no—no—not yet. Let’s stay here among the people and houses, shall we? Yes, say yes—say yes.”

“Now what in the world is the matter with you?” Paul demanded.

“Matter? Nothing—except—”

“Well?”

“I’m frightened, don’t know why, but I’m frightened. You give me an arm, old man, something to hang on to.”

He did not sleep that night—because some one was calling—and the picture of a narrow dark doorway kept shaping itself in the corners of the room.

Next day he began to drink brandy again.

There is an open market at the summit of the Kasbah where bottles are sold and rags and other indescribable filth. It is a curious and crowded place and were it not that most of the population in this district is clothed in rags and carries a bottle, always empty, it would be hard to believe that business could be brisk.

To the polite members of the town it is known as the Flea Market, nor is the title unearned, for it is a very verminous place indeed. Awnings upon ramshackle frames protect the more important stall holders from the sun’s rays, the rest squat in the dust beside their miserable wares, or lie supine on reed mats. There is no race in the world with a finer aptitude for idleness than your town-bred Arab. If he desires to sleep, and this is his common state, nothing save the chance of a bargain will keep him awake. He appears to be gifted with powers to suspend animation indefinitely. He arouses himself to make sure that his women or his servants are being industrious—which in turn, is their common state—and then rolls over and continues the broken slumber.

Overshadowing the market is a large French gaol with a gravelled courtyard upon which every now and then the grim outline of the guillotine rears itself up and lops off the heads of those who have done ill in the eyes of the law.

The French method of colonization is very different from our own. It is more affable—more democratic. The two races, as it were, go into partnership with each other—are intermingled in life and occupation. White and brown soldiers are billeted in the same barrack room; white and brown run businesses together, eat at the same table, and sell across the same counter, are engaged in the same government departments. Everywhere, to outward appearances, are terms of equality and the hand of friendship. But the hand of friendship shuts itself into a fist with great promptitude when occasion demands, and that fist is mailed and strikes very hard and painful blows.

To the right of the gaol is a carpet factory with a long atélier of looms and the strangest roll of employés that well could be imagined. They are all girl children whose ages vary from three to ten years. Tiny, meagre, and industrious, their baby eyes strained to the emergency of labour and their little hands playing colourful tunes with the gaudy jute.

A sharp right turn by the southern wall of the carpet factory and one passes through the gullet of the Kasbah to be swallowed into the belly of a world of three thousand years ago.

And what is this other world that keeps so utterly to the custom of itself, whose steps are too steep for modern invention to ascend, whose ways are too narrow for the intrusion of a single modern idea? A sharp, almost perpendicular slant of hillside clotted all over with tumble-down, roofless houses that might have been emptied out of a sack and left to root themselves where they chanced to fall. A network of narrow thoroughfares, and courts, and cul-de-sacs criss-crossing this way and that, burrowing through arches on journeys that lead nowhere, creeping into cavernous holes and evil smelling vaults, ascending and descending innumerable steps so worn as to have reverted almost to the bare cliff face upon which the quarter has been built. Tangled, disreputable, unscavengered, no pen could draw a picture of the Kasbah nor any survey map out its devious ways. It is at once insane, vile, and lovely. It is made up of pearls and swine, rose leaves and offal. It is a clear statement of the amazing form and pattern that exists in chaos. Everything in it has its place and that place may be anywhere. The coloured atoms of one pattern break up and reform themselves into another. If there is a ruling spirit in all the gorgeous muddle of the Kasbah with her hundred races of men and women, her ramshackle dwellings, her thousand moods of light and shadow, her stinks and stenches and sweet perfumes, it is this spirit of incurable and unconquerable artistry.

Close shut and bolted are the doors of the houses, and caged with irons bars the windows from behind which peepers watch the crowds go by—crowds of stately men with pointed beards, and negroes walking hand in hand, hurrying children dressed in striped gonduras, veiled and muffled women with voluminous Moorish trousers and high heeled French shoes, free-lance courtesans, half Arab, half Spanish; ragged beggars with but a sack to cover them, carpet vendors, their lurid wares thrown bravely across a shoulder, and fat, waddling merchants, from the arcades of the Rue Bab-Azoun, holding up their bellies with their hands.

And over all broods a silence, a muteness almost unbelievable in so vast and mixed a concourse of humanity. It is the silence of Orientalism, that inspires the feeling that one is looking at a tinted film at a cinema. In the main artery, the Rue Ben-Ali, with its triple arches and crazy dado of tiny shops (the very Oxford Street of the quarter), quiet reigns and voices are seldom raised. There is a humming here like the drone of bees about a hive, a passivity controlling limb and tongue alike. Only the reedy plaint of the beggar, squatting alone in the dust, rises above the common calm. In the bright dazzle of sunlight the square open shop fronts are like arabesques. Here are bales of gaudy silks and muslins, tumbled pyramids of fruits, and here are swinging lines of yellow leather shoes, embroidered harness, beaten brass and copper. Again are foodstuffs, rice, millet and dates, and cooked dishes of amber coloured Marga, kous-kous and flat loaves of native bread. This is the very heart of the Kasbah where from dawn to sunset the pulse of a hundred trades is beating, where men bruise corn, grind coffee, shave heads, carve wood, cut leather, write letters, stitch gonduras, weave carpets, mats and coarse burnouses, hammer at brass, turn ivory and bone, where they bake and make and mend.

Into this inextricable tangle of persons and things, Paul Manet brought Lennox Casallis. It was not altogether a wise proceeding for night was far advanced and after dark Europeans are ill advised to wander through the tortuous ways of the Kasbah. Evil characters harbour in the dark recesses who are not squeamish in their doings, and will take big risks for a roll of bills. It is said that the sight of money stirs the native temperament like love of women and will drive him to any folly. Paul knew the risk well enough, but in face of a graver he accepted it willingly. Lennox had been drinking savagely all the evening and any means of stopping him was worth the hazard.

The south wind which brought the note of the pipes through their open window had been responsible.

“Hear that,” Lennox had said, throwing up his hand, “that music.”

And when Paul nodded—

“Let’s find it. Come on.”

Seemingly by accident Paul’s elbow upset Lennox’s glass as he stretched out a hand to help him to his feet.

“Sorry,” he said, “but don’t refill it.”

He kept Lennox waiting at the head of the stairs while he dived into his bedroom and pocketed a small automatic. When he returned he handed Lennox a heavy bamboo cane.

“What’s that for?” was demanded. “Think I can’t walk?”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” Paul retorted, “but it was not the idea. Give it to me a moment.”

He took it in both hands and pulling them sharply apart revealed the fact that inside the hollow cane was a neat and efficient life preserver in the form of a length of coil spring with a loaded end. It was a compact little weapon which “whumfed” threateningly as Paul swished it through the air.

Lennox laughed and nodded appreciatively.

“Neat,” he said.

His hands shook a little as he restored the business end of the preserver to its scabbard.

Then they linked arms and walked downstairs.

A light wind was stirring the palms of the Central Square with a dry whispering rustle. It was almost deserted save for a few silent men who sat beneath the café awnings. In the harbour below the riding lights of ships at anchor looked like stars that had fallen into the sea.

They crossed the tramway centre and passed along the arcades of the Rue Bab-Azoun to the Plaza del Caballo where they stopped to listen.

The pipes sounded clearer now—and less remote.

“Somewhere to the left I think,” said Paul, “beside the big Mosque.” And a moment later—“Yes, I thought so.”

An almost perpendicular flight of steps confronted them narrowing funnel-wise and losing form in the darkness. It was the lower gut of the Kasbah. There was no sign of life save for the rank breath of the place, that, hot and fetid, gusted forth to meet them.

Lennox shivered a trifle and put out a hand to steady himself against the greasy polished wall.

“Rather not go up?” Paul queried. “It smells bad enough in all conscience.”

“Come on,” was the answer. But Lennox made no move.

“If you’d rather we didn’t—”

“It’s because I feel I must I’m hanging back.”

“Must— We can please ourselves.”

“But can we—can we? Paul,” his fingers closed on Paul’s arm, “Paul, don’t you feel it too?”

“Feel what? Except that you’re pinching me infernally hard, I feel nothing.”

“Don’t you feel the pull—something tugging at you—dragging you on. I do—I do.”

“No,” said Paul, “I do not.”

“You don’t, then. So it’s only for me.” His voice sounded strangely hysterical. “Doesn’t matter.”

Tump-a-tump, came from the distant drum.

Lennox Casallis threw up his head.

“All right, I’m coming,” he called, as if in answer. Then “Good-bye.”

“Who the devil are you saying good-bye to,” Paul demanded. “Are we not together in this?”

Lennox looked at him as if only then conscious of his presence.

“Oh, you,” he muttered. “It was not to you, but I seemed to be leaving something—some one behind—myself perhaps, or—doesn’t matter. Come on.”

They plunged up the steps into the evil smelling gloom.

Without knowledge and without a guide it was an impossible task they had set themselves. Within five minutes they were completely lost in a honeycomb of crazy steps and slopes, peopled with flitting, ghostlike shadows that melted into the darkness as they approached. Often the drum sounded quite close by and again more distant. Some of the ways they traversed were so narrow that their shoulders brushed the walls on either side and the sky overhead looked like a silver tape drawn between the houses. A dozen times they were confronted with barred doorways and the blank walls of cul-de-sacs. The atmosphere was thick and almost unbreathable, but undaunted they forged ahead. Once or twice they stumbled over sleeping figures that sprang up and backed away with imprecations.

It was an eerie experience, but its most remarkable feature was the effect it produced on Lennox Casallis. From a silent morose man wholly concerned with his own misfortunes he became positively gay. It was as though he had left all melancholy at the foot of the hill where the steps began and the polite new world of 1922 so abruptly ended. He entered this older world as a man transformed and rejuvenated. And yet there was something unnatural in his mood; it was a forced rather than a real gaiety, as though he had donned it to disguise other emotions. His talk was loud and incessant, and his laughter rang high through the silent solitudes of sleeping houses. He was like a man savagely bent on adventure against his own better judgment.

“Come on,” was his watch cry, and his feet rang noisily on the hollow stones. “Come on, Paul. This way. Keep working up and to the right. I’ll find that damned drum if it kills me. Why isn’t there a drink in this muck heap? Curse these cobbles, nearly twisted my ankle. Come on! Hullo, another dead end. Back again. Lord! what a warren! The smell of it makes me drunk. A narrow doorway and a voice calling— Ha! The place stinks of narrow doorways. People live here, Paul—and mystery. Look at the lazy brutes asleep. Who wants to sleep? Not I. Paul, we’ll make a night of it—a night of it. Hear that? It’s nearer. We’re getting warm. Balek, Balek.” This to a dark shape that came cringing out of an archway with scrawny skeleton hands extended.

“Poor brute, though. Here you are.”

“Don’t show your money,” Paul warned him.

Lennox laughed as he dragged a litter of notes from his pocket.

“Help yourself.”

The shape sucked breath horridly at the sight of so much wealth, and retreated mouthing, with the notes clutched to its bosom.

Up a side street a crowd was gathered at a door to which a white shift had been nailed. They sang together in a high pitched monotone that the newly wed pair, who were within, might have honour done them.

“Come on.”

They forced a passage through the crowd and continued their march, till the voices of the singers had melted into the silence of the night. And once again they heard the sound of the drum and it was very near.

“We’re getting there,” cried Lennox. “Let’s try this one.”

Along a pitch black byway that seemed to lead nowhere they stumbled and suddenly found themselves in the Rue Kataroudjil. A Kybyle girl was smirking beneath a lamp opposite and from behind walls laughter shrilled. The houses in the street were blue and shone like phosphorous in the dark.

Lennox caught his breath, and held up a hand, for from within the space of a few yards of where they stood came the skirl of the pipes and throbbing of the drum. Then without warning it ceased abruptly. Two or three white forms slipped past and there was a clang as of a heavy door closing.

“Up here. Come on.”

They turned sharply to the left proceeding at a double. Lennox was in front, but he had hardly mounted a dozen steps before he stopped short and pointed with a quivering forefinger.

“My Lord! I was right then—look.”

Before them was a tunnel-like recess, barely three feet wide at its opening, but broadening out to a studded door which was closed. The moonlight shining in the far side percolated through cracks in the woodwork, and a tiny grille about the height of a short man’s eyes.

“I was right, Paul,” his voice shook. “What’s it going to mean?”

He hesitated, then strode up to the door, and struck it a heavy blow with his cane. The blow reverberated dismally like the sound of a stone dropped into a well. There was no answer.

“Shut,” said Paul Manet. “We’re too late.”

“Too late, be damned,” came the answer, and once again he beat upon the panel, crying:

“Open! Ouvrez la porte.”

The white square of light that shone through the grille was eclipsed by a shadow, and two beady eyes peered up at Lennox.

“Ferme pour la nuit, M’sieur. Tu es trop tard. Demain—demain.”

“Ouvrez la porte—or I’ll kick it down,” returned Lennox, and began to suit action to the words.

There was a curse, the creaking of a drawn bolt, and the big door swung back on its hinges. Cringing before them was the gnarled figure of the hag D’ouja, a black and hateful silhouette against the frosted silver of the courtyard beyond.

The hateful appearance of the old woman acted on Lennox like a douche of cold water. He could not have defined what he expected to discover behind the studded door with which imagination had made him so familiar, but certainly it was a fairer picture than the ragged and wrinkled Maugrabine who mowed and mopped before them.

It was with relief he jerked his head back and laughed. His was a nature unaccustomed to instinctive premonitions, a nature that shrank from the incomprehensible as from corruption. The beastliness of D’ouja was at least tangible and divorced from all suggestion of the supernatural.

Two villainous looking blacks had glided out of the open door of the Moorish café and ranged themselves one on either side of D’ouja, and their guttural protests joined with hers in urging the strangers to depart. Smatterings of French and even a few English words were contained in what they said. It was like a chorus of angry cats.

“What’s wrong with ’em?” Lennox demanded. “Tell ’em to shut up and clear the way. Tell ’em we’re coming through.”

“Trop tard—demain—demain,” wheezed D’ouja.

“I’ll manage,” said Paul. “It’s only a device to get more money.”

He flicked a loose hundred franc note from his pocket and held it aloft. The effect was instantaneous. The entire complexion of the situation was transformed. What was it the messieurs desired? It was after hours, certainly, but doubtless this difficulty could be adjusted. The Police were particular, but susceptible to argument. They would understand, of course, that there must be no noise, no infringement of the law. An establishment such as this must guard its cherished reputation. Only habitués, known to be well conducted, were admitted after hours, but possibly, in this instance, an exception might be made. If the messieurs would like to sip a cup of coffee, or maybe enjoy a drowsy pipe, there would be no harm done. Naturally such a courtesy would be generously rewarded.

This from one of the negroes who spoke French fluently from some part of his throat about four inches behind the uvula. To Lennox the words were incomprehensible until Paul enlightened him.

“Coffee and a pipe!” he snorted. “Do they think we’ve worked through this maze for that? Say, we want dancing and music—a jamboree—is it a mission hall or what? Dancing, you black dog. Musique et la danse.”

Once again the chorus of protest shrilled high. Were the messieurs mad? Musicians and performers had alike retired. Were they to be summoned from their beds? It was unheard of. Why a hundred francs would not lure them from repose! A hundred! Tcha! they would not move for two hundred—for three.

Here it was Paul revealed his understanding of the native mind.

“Alors c’est fini. Maffisch!” he said. “Come on, Lennox. Bon soir.”

And taking Lennox’s arm he turned toward the door.

Instantly the tone of the bargainers changed. Let the messieurs be not so hasty. Rather than disappoint new clients concessions would be made. Rhahatma herself, in whose able hands was the administration of the establishment, should decide upon the price.

So the door behind was barred and bolted and they were brought into the presence of Rhahatma.

It was a strange vault-like apartment to which they came. There was a low chambered roof supported by spiral columns with foliated capitols and square plinths. The walls were of bare stone with a dado of glazed tiles and here and there a hanging silk rug rendered in barbaric colours. A few narrow benches were against the walls with rough trestle tables before them. At one end was an alcove for musicians, the floor of which was raised a foot above the general level. To the right and built flush with the wall, was a charcoal stove surrounded with blackened tiles; while beneath it was a shelf upon which were a score of tiny brass coffee pots and little drinking glasses in metal frames. A loose limbed negro, dressed like a Cingalee in a Sari cloth, turned over the charcoal with a long spoon, or leant forward to blow the dull red embers into life.

Hanging from the middle of the roof was an embossed lamp of Moorish pattern, shedding an even light in all directions, and making the long shadows of the pillars look like spokes in a wheel.

An old Arab squatted on the floor near the stove, sucking slowly at a pipe of Kief or Hashish. His movements were regular as those of a mechanical toy, with each suck at the pipe he withdrew the flexible mouthpiece and nodded as the thin smoke was swallowed down, held, and allowed to escape from his lips. The pupils of his eyes had receded behind the lids and only the whites were visible.

A little to the left of the alcove was a divan smothered with gaudy silks and carpets and upon this, like a queen upon a throne, sat Rhahatma. She sat tailor-wise, her feet crossed beneath ample thighs. Her huge fat arms lay in her lap with the hands palm upwards. An immense woman was Rhahatma, a veritable barrel of fat, shapeless and blubbersome as a whale. Her head was almost swallowed up in the hugeness of her shoulders. She wore baggy Moorish trousers, which she nearly contrived to fill, a white silk blouse open at the throat, the better to display tier upon tier of jingling necklaces, and a white Zouave embroidered with gold thread and buttons. About her waist—a waist almost equatorial in circumference—was a sash of many colours, and upon her head was a mindel in tartan silk. Only her eyes were active, the rest of her was as passive as a limpet on a rock. She looked like a female Buddha, were such a thing possible, a female Hotie, or one of those vile grotesques from the porcelain kilns of Ming dynasty.

And yet was here a remarkable personality and an active brain. By birth half Arab and half French, Rhahatma (she had chosen the name herself as being vivid and not easy to forget) had graduated at her business in universities of vice all over the world. India, Africa and America knew her well. In San Francisco she had spent many years picking up, among other things, the habit of speaking broken English with an American twang. Later she drifted to the South Seas, Honolulu, Hawaii and the rest, where she stayed until chased away by the activity of various mission societies. With the Frenchwoman’s instinct for organization and driving a hard bargain nearly everything she touched turned to gold. Hers had been a prosperous career—if an infamous.

There was nothing slipshod about Rhahatma. She was thorough to a fault, giving praise where it was due and blame where it was earned and standing by her own traditions with unswerving hardihood. She was at once kind, brutal, greedy and generous. She never paid more for an article than half its worth, nor asked less than twice its value. Her business principles were astute but wholly corrupt and yet if it had so happened that she had been cast in a slightly different mould, with certain traits omitted and others added there is no saying to what lengths or heights she might have travelled. A series of reverses at various Mediterranean ports had resulted in the loss of most of her life’s savings, but with courage that could not be denied, she had returned to the city of her birth and in its humblest quarter was boldly challenging fortune with a final throw.

As Lennox and Paul came down the steps into the Café her eyes whisked over them like a searchlight. The negro who accompanied them began to speak but she waved him away imperatively.

“Englische,” she said, in a rough, husky voice, and held out her fat hand. “Sa va? Bon!”

The fat moist hand rested for a moment in theirs, then travelled up to her lips. It was the graceful Mozabite greeting which is ever popular with the sisterhood.

“Shan’t be long. I have ze what you call?—Affaires—beeziness. Asseyez-vous—seet down zere. Bon! a meenit. Café.”

She clapped her hands and the negro by the fire was stirred to sudden activity among the little brass pots.

Lennox and Paul seated themselves on one of the benches and let their eyes wander. In so doing they became aware of the presence of another European, who was near the divan.

He was a tall Frenchman, and he leant listlessly against one of the pillars. His clothes were the last word of fashion, being exquisitely precise in cut and fit. In age he looked thirty or a little more. A small silky moustache, like a schoolboy’s, smudged the short upper lip of a cruel but rather classic mouth. He had drooping eyelids overshadowed by very black and well marked brows. His hair was long and brushed straight back, but a few wisps stranded untidily across his forehead and these he had a habit of jerking out of his eyes with a nervous toss of the head. The expression of his face was one of intolerance coupled with rather an attractive humour. He possessed an almost childlike complexion, which, in a man, carries with it an impression of decadence and dissipation. He carried a black ebony cane with an ivory knob upon which the long tapered fingers of one hand played interminable tunes. The thumb of his other hand was gracefully bestowed in a waistcoat pocket. For the rest, the outstanding features were his listlessness of pose, his very small feet, and the fact that he had little or no neck to his head.

Rhahatma had turned to engage him in conversation, and it was noticeable that he kept his eyes permanently averted.

“Sacre bleu!” said she, “how can I converse with a man who all the time hides his eyes? Why do you not look at me, M. le Baron?”

Thus addressed, the Baron drew from his pocket a little vinaigrette and sniffed it.

“My good Madame,” he responded, “if we are to do business you must allow me the privilege of resting my eyes where I please. In all honesty, I simply cannot bring myself to look at you. You offend my every sensibility.”

Rhahatma was immensely amused. Her vast frame shook like a jelly at the jest.

“Ah, but you are a droll,” she vibrated.

“What a swine,” said Lennox. “I’ve a mind—”

And his muscles tightened.

But Paul discouraged him.

“A vastly entertaining person,” he whispered. “Please do not destroy the one speck of amusement the evening has provided. Moreover, I think I recognize him. Wait a bit.”

The young Baron’s eyes drifted in their direction, paused a moment and passed on.

“I do,” said Paul. “His name is Marieux. M. le Baron de Marieux. His reputation is hectic—even a trifle too hectic for Parisian circles. He was involved in the Vernier scandal and several others. Also there was a spectacular duel in the Bois following some business with a horsewhip. He is not without courage although an out and out decadent.”

“Pff! a swine,” was Lennox’s surly observation.

“Possibly! but rather an attractive one. I wonder what he is up to now.”

They were soon to learn. The negro at the fire brought two cups of thick black coffee scented with rose water, which he set upon the table. Lennox was in the act of raising his cup when the young Baron, who happened again to look in their direction, made a swift gesture to stop him.

“I would not drink that filth,” he said in excellent English. “It is entirely abominable. Ah tcha! Taisez-vous, Madame, je vous emprie.” This latter phrase being addressed to Rhahatma, who was launching in a vigorous defence of the refreshments supplied. “Abrahim! de thé pour les messieurs, sans essence et pas sucré.” The negro looked at his mistress for assent and she nodded. “They have a wholly disgusting habit,” the Baron proceeded, “of putting orange blossom or mint in their tea. It is nauseous stuff. Sorry to interfere, but you will benefit. I apologize too, for delaying your entertainment, but I was arranging with Madame here, a small matter concerning a jeune fille who attracts me somewhat.”

Whereupon, since the talk was in English, La belle Rhahatma broke in in that tongue, her voice sounding like some one playing on the ’cello with a file.

“Nice ideas ’e ’as. Want to take away my prettiest girl to ’is ’ouse in the Mountains. Never ’ear such a ting. What do ze police say, I ask? Nice ting my girls runnin’ about all over ze place. And ’ow do I know I ever see ’er again, hey?”

“Ach! Ach!” explained the Baron, covering his ears. “I implore you to control your voice. It cuts me to hear it. Fffff.” He drew in his breath through closed teeth.

“Mais, parbleu!—”

“We shall arrange tomorrow—enough for tonight. Attend to these gentlemen’s wishes.” Then to Paul: “They are all alike, these women, clamorous and mercenary. Everything ‘impossible! impossible! impossible!’ It is a simple affair which I shall adjust without difficulty. A most attractive child, classic, and quite out of her element in a place like this.”

Dragging a couple of cushions from the divan he flung them in a corner of the room and without another word settled at ease with eyes closed and head rested against the wall.

“The blighter,” said Lennox, under his breath.

A wave of resentment was surging over him—resentment which, in the circumstances, was strangely ill-assorted to his mood of half an hour earlier. He had come bent on adventure, it mattered not of what kind, and behold, now he was in its presence every fibre in him rebelled. There was something fundamentally healthy in Lennox Casallis for all his primitive instincts, an open air healthiness that sickened in an atmosphere heavy with commercial viciousness. He loathed himself for being there at all. He felt contaminated, polluted. A violent desire seized him to wreck the place, to overset chairs and tables, to sweep Rhahatma off her throne, to bang the head of the young French aristocrat against the wall.

Some natures are incapable of concealing their emotions and this was so with Lennox. What he felt he showed—blatantly. The dull red at his temples, the twitching of his muscles, the distention of nostrils, and the tightening of his jaw, these and a dozen other evidences clearly stated the tumult within him.

There was going to be a row and Paul knew it.

“For God’s sake, control yourself,” he whispered. “We don’t want trouble here.”

“Then let’s get out of it,” came the retort, “before I smash something.”

“No, no, sit quiet. You brought me here and we’ve got to see it through. You may fancy a sand bag on the head—I don’t.”

“If you’re afraid—”

“I’m only afraid of one thing,” came the sharp retort, “that you will remain a fool till the end of your days.”

Lennox looked at him in amazement.

“A fool,” he repeated.

“Yes, who cannot endure the smallest opposition to his wishes.”

Lennox simmered for a moment in silence.

“Very well,” he said at last. “Have it your own way, but I warn you if I stay there may be worse trouble than if I go. Carry on—do what you like.”

“That’s the talk,” said Paul, and crossed to where Rhahatma sat.

“Something troubles your friend, hey?” she demanded.

“Nothing, chere Madame, save that he objects to delay. We were hoping to witness a native dance, but up to the present our entertainment has been sombre. I trust you will enliven us.”

Rhahatma nodded. “A dance. Yes, a dance could be arranged. Five—six girls, and of course, the musicians. It would be expensive—the hour being so late—but that they would not mind. Five hundred francs and naturally some champagne.”

“Two hundred and fifty francs,” said the Baron, who was apparently asleep. “And it is robbery at that price.”

Rhahatma scowled.

“Pay five hundred,” came from Lennox.

The Baron looked at him and shook his head.

“I pay what I like,” said Lennox, returning the look with interest.

Rhahatma smiled.

It would be well worth the money, she told them. M. le Baron was a farceur and must not be taken seriously. Did the messieurs wish for a “danse en poile?”

“No, we do not.” (This emphatically.)

“Wise man,” said the Baron, and earned from Lennox a frown, which he acknowledged smilingly.

Then Rhahatma clapped her hands and spoke a few unintelligible words to a negro who came in, and a moment later six Arab girls, elaborately dressed in cheap brocades, came down the steps, like a flock of sheep. In age they varied considerably, the youngest being perhaps fourteen while the eldest would never see forty again. Their chins and foreheads bore tattoo marks, their eyelids were painted heavily with blue and their eyebrows lengthened to within half an inch of their ears. In every instance their mouths were twisted into a common indolent smirk that had no origin in pleasantry or humour. One and all they came forward, extended a damp hand to the visitors and said “M’sieur?” After which they retreated to a bench beside one of the walls and sat in a row.

Up to this point, Lennox had kept his chin sunk, but with their removal to a distance he raised his head and looked. There was something infinitely pathetic in that line of hired girls. Their sameness and want of individuality stirred his sympathy. Never, he thought, had he looked upon stupider or more insensible faces. Six flaccid dials that gave no record of sorrow, of joy, or of insurgence, no suggestion of virtue or of vice. Utterly negative, they opposed him, sitting drowsily with bent backs and hands down hanging. Save that occasionally they turned and twittered to one another like foolish birds, they were as lifeless as a row of wax works at a village fair.

A cork popped and sickly sweet champagne tinkled into little tumblers, was distributed and consumed.

Lennox had not noticed the arrival of the musicians, they had slipped in while his attention was centred upon the girls. The sudden crash of music almost brought him to his feet. Wild and insurgent it blared forth with ear splitting intensity. He turned sharply to see what size of orchestra could be responsible for so vast a disturbance, and was astonished to find but two old men with straggly beards, squatting on the floor. One was blowing a pipe and the other thumped a drum with the naked palms of his hands. It was incredible that these aged duetists could achieve such a cataract of sound, could command with wind and muscle such fierce discordant ecstasy. There was neither melody nor tune in the notes they played, yet somehow they contrived to whip the senses and to call up the blood. One did not hear the sound with ears—one felt it with other senses—it pierced the skin and entered into the marrow, it echoed and reverberated in human pulses, stifling breath and checking the workings of the brain.

As abruptly as the music began it ceased; the piper blew the spittle from his reed and the drummer let his hands fall.

Lennox breathed again and mopped his brow which was beaded with sweat.

“Ver’ good musicians,” Rhahatma announced. Then—“Ze danse de Biskra.”

Once again the music broke loose and one of the girls rose to dance.

It would be a hopeless attempt to describe a dance of the Ouled Nails. There is nothing in it to describe. It is a mere shuffle up and down with the palms of the hands held shoulder high and the body moving gyroscopically. The face remains impassive throughout. Meanwhile the other girls chant loud and high as though wild deeds were a-doing—but in truth there is nothing wild—nothing elemental in step or movement. There is no beauty, no grace, nor the smallest sympathy for the music that inspires it. It is the stupidest dance in the world, having neither beginning nor end. The dancer stops whenever she thinks she will and returns to her place with the air of one who has done nothing and felt nothing, which indeed, is a precise statement of what has taken place. The music screams up to a piercing finale and the performance ends.

In the silence that followed, Paul said.

“Bravo!” and bowed a graceful acknowledgment to the performer. He was incurably polite.

The Baron de Marieux had risen, and shaking his head, strolled across the room to where the girls sat. They did not raise their eyes at his approach but continued to stare blankly before them.

“A deplorable sextette,” he commented. “Too deplorable! Was ever such complete insensibility?” He slipped a hand under the chin of the youngest and raised it sharply, like so much merchandise, then he closed his eyes and shivered. “No youth, no semblance of beauty—nothing. And yet one assumes they are alive.”

A big shapeless woman at the end of the row, turned her head and favoured him with a mechanical smile. The Baron de Marieux threw up a hand as though he had been struck.

“In the name of pity, Rhahatma, instruct this creature to present only her profile. Full face she is intolerable. Besides, I cannot bear to see all of anything.”

He was about to expand further on the virtue of concealment when Lennox sprang to his feet and faced him.

“M’sieur,” he said, and his voice was shaking. “Get out of here—d’you mind?”

“Get out,” repeated de Marieux, sweetly.

“Yes, get out—now.”

“Messieurs, messieurs, messieurs,” shrilled Rhahatma.

The Baron wrinkled his forehead.

“I do not entirely comprehend,” he said. “Do I understand you are asking me to remove myself?”

“I am telling you to get out,” repeated Lennox, his hands opening and shutting convulsively.

“Lennox!” Paul protested.

“Let me alone. Either this utter swine gets out or I—”

“Start ze music,” rasped Rhahatma, who did not want a row.

But the Baron waved her into silence.

“Non, non, non,” he ordered. “I am anxious to hear what attentions this hot headed young man proposes to confer upon me unless—”

“Right, you shall,” said Lennox, and his shut fist came back like a piston.

Le Baron de Marieux did not shift his ground. His right hand was concealed in the pocket of his coat and without haste he raised it to the level of his adversary’s chest.

But the blow was never struck, nor was the shot fired, for at that moment the slim figure of a girl—half child and half woman—came slowly down the steps into the Café. The only sound she made was the jingling of anklets above her small brown feet. She was dressed all in white and a sprig of orange blossoms hung in her hair. Her arms were bare and between scarlet lips she sucked one of her thumbs as a baby might. Her eyes were black and wistful and they shone like stars in a tranquil sky.

Once only in the lives of most of us comes ecstasy and amazement—once only is the absolute need of one man for one woman revealed—and once only, maybe, is the knowledge made clear of completeness or of incompleteness. It is a knowledge and a need—an ecstasy and an amazement that strikes its victim like lightnings from the sky—that swallows and envelopes like a fire. Who shall define what forces are born in that moment of recognition—that realization of a complement? What is this instant thing that we call love, that springs into being out of ignorance, out of nowhere—that transforms shadow into light, sweeps aside all codes and governments, and knocks and enters and possesses. Something it is more sturdy than hills, vaster than space, deeper and more insurgent than the sea. We know not whence it comes nor why, by what door it has entered or shall depart. Only this knowledge is ours—knowledge of an utter helplessness and a new strength, knowledge that world-old instincts are breaking the walls of our civilization—the voice of the jungle and the roar of cataracts dins in our ears, and mighty thunder echoes from the rocks.

Lennox Casallis let his fist fall and an exclamation broke from his lips.

And Meriem of the Kasbah stopped as though she had been turned to stone; one small brown foot with the toes down-pointed, treading air between the last step and the floor. Very slowly she drew the thumb from her mouth and her eyes opened wide.

For fully three seconds they stood thus—silently absorbing one another—and then an expression came over the girl’s face such as a child might have worn who, after repeated contradictions, has proved its case. “You see I was right,” it read. There was staggering intake of breath and her serious mouth rippled into a smile of pure and complete happiness.

“Ma rêve,” she crooned—then with a world of submission: “C’est vous.”

And from Lennox Casallis came:

“I knew.”

That was all. It was like lovers who met after centuries apart.

The Baron de Marieux was puzzled and stared at his late adversary with one eyebrow raised and the other lowered.

“May I enquire,” he remarked silkily, “the cause of the sudden death of your indignation. Here was I prepared to—”

But Lennox was not listening. His eyes were fixed upon Meriem and somewhere at the back of his brain the busy painters of dead ages were dashing colours on a canvas. It was amazing how they worked—with what skill and surety, but even before brush touched surface Lennox knew the line and form it would depict. Yes, that great shadow streaking across the hollows was where the tree belt began. Close scrub and tangled undergrowth and mighty oaks beyond. Almost he could hear the wild things pattering over the thick carpet of a thousand dead seasons. A true sweep of the brush and the downs rose up, sapphire as the night—sweet in outline and gentle as a woman’s breast. He could not see the palisade of wooden stakes—the camp fires burned too brightly behind them. Those grey moving specks were sheep herded in for the night, and the brown smudges beyond, like pimples on the turf, were the skin huts of the men. Wait! a little to the left and standing alone! Yes, sure enough it was there—with a woman by the tiny entrance—a child almost. It was too dark to see whether or not she sucked her thumb—but he knew it would be so—she was waiting, head slightly raised, the better to catch the sound of coming footsteps. Her foot was poised. Oh most marvelous woman. Little, lovely and wild! She was waiting and love waited with her. Love so strong and kind and wild. Wild flowers were in her hair and in her eyes was welcome. He must hurry—there was not far to go, though wolves would be prowling across the bare hillside that kept them separated. But no beast should stay his progress, no close-shut teeth in thigh or shoulder should stop him now. He must hurry—for she was waiting and love waited with her.

Lennox Casallis took three mighty paces across the stone floor and Meriem slanted from the steps into his arms.

There was no explanation—could be none. Two human particles were drawn together by an irresistible magnetism—an atomic cohesion. That was all. The whole action was more protective than possessive. That they kissed each other upon the mouth before ever they spoke was least part of the miracle.

The cheap beastliness of their surroundings, wherein such happenings were of daily occurrence, was no incentive. It would have been the same in a Mayfair drawing room or on the floors of heaven. In that first embrace the world had no existence outside their entities. They were utterly alone high above all earthly factions—removed from all earthly controls.

It was perhaps a quarter of a minute from the time Lennox had drawn back his fist to strike to the moment he shut Meriem in his arms. No longer. During that period the spectators had done no more than stare at them in amazement. Then the silence ended and pandemonium broke loose.

One of the Ouled Nail girls was responsible. She screamed and pointed at the Baron de Marieux who, with a face white with fury had whipped a small pistol from his pocket and was taking aim at the back of Lennox’s head. Rhahatma had come to her feet somehow and was roaring hoarsely and beating on a gong. The remainder of the girls, squeaking like mice, were huddled together with hands shut over ears. Only the smoker of hashish remained unmoved and the thin smoke drifted from his lips. The two musicians had ranged themselves on the side of Rhahatma, the piper with his flute upraised. Paul, too, had risen, and as de Marieux took the first pull on the trigger, he flung the tea cup he was holding. It was a trivial missile but it saved a life. The tiny piece of china struck the Frenchman over the left eye and diverted his aim. The bullet splashed on the wall a couple of inches above Lennox’s head.

After that every one was in it. Lennox released Meriem and turned on de Marieux with a savage growl. In obedience to commands screamed by Rhahatma the six girls seized Meriem and dragged her up the steps. As she went a cry came from her lips as though her heart was breaking. The hurrying mass of girls collided with and delayed four negroes with sticks and staves who were rushing to the spot.

“Body of a dog, zeze blasted Englisch,” shrieked Rhahatma, and then some words in Arabic.

A second shot reverberated colossally and the negro by the fire screeched in agony.

Paul Manet struck out with his cane. There was a clatter as the pistol fell to the floor, followed by a sharp impact—a snick like the shutting of a cigarette case and a soft thud as the Baron de Marieux crumpled up and fell sideways across the divan. Blood was streaking the knotted knuckles of Lennox’s close-shut fist and madness burned in his eyes.

And then, headed by D’ouja, who leapt from side to side, screeching and spitting like a cat, the black impi descended upon them.

The odds were impossible and even though Lennox contrived to possess himself of his loaded stick and with it dealt right and left blows of demoniac savagery, the fight could have had but one end. By sheer force of numbers they were breasted and buffeted up the narrow steps into the passage beyond. Paul’s head was ringing from a blow he had received and the emergency of defending himself from immediate destruction was so acute that he dared not go for his pistol. Lennox was performing marvels with his left. Three crumpled heaps, not counting the Baron, testified to that. It was Kabu who put his left out of action—Kabu who, for the first time on record, failed dismally. He had waited his moment very carefully too, lying silent as a snake on the shelf beside the studded door. He saw the two white men fighting inch by inch down the passage toward him, he had selected the exact spot on Lennox’s head where the blow should be delivered and then, at the critical instant, the big Englishman ducked; warned, as if by magic, of the hidden danger that threatened him. Lennox himself did not know why he acted so. Something instinctive commanded him—it was only another mystery in a chain of mysteries that link by link had forged itself that night. True, Kabu’s blow was not entirely wasted. It took Lennox on the elbow and paralysed his left arm beyond service. But there was a trick left in his right and the fingers, strong as steel, shut like a vice, the jaws of which almost met, in Kabu’s throat. Certainly he would have died very quickly had not something happened to save him. But something did happen—something vile, foul and loathly. A cat-like form leapt from the ranks of the attackers, and, emitting a horrible, squawking noise, set its yellow, frothing fangs deep into Lennox’s shoulder.

D’ouja had bitten and with the meeting of the teeth a madness and a mutiny coursed through Lennox’s veins. He fell back, cursing, coughing and thrusting the hateful object away. He felt Paul go limp against his side—and next there was a sense of being borne high on the crest of a wave—up—up—up—down. The wave broke against a rock with a hollow clang, and a sound like a shooting of bolts.

Minutes passed before either of them moved. Lennox was first to open his eyes. Paul’s head was in his lap and they were lying untidily upon stone steps before a closed door. From behind the door—far behind—came the sound of some one moaning bitterly, bitterly. The voice was like a child’s.

It was all very strange. He wondered what it meant and why he was lying there with Paul’s head in his lap. His shoulder burnt strangely as though a red hot coal was pressed against it.

Then his mind ran on wolves and open spaces and some one who waited.

Overhead the moon shone serenely. Its outline was slightly blurred. Tomorrow it would be at full.

And then—

Oblivion.

Four o’clock was striking when with slow and painful footsteps they had eventually reached the hotel. According to Paul’s estimate they must have been lying on the steps in the Rue Kataroudjil fully half an hour before consciousness returned. Paul remembered very little of that return journey, for his head was still singing from the blow he had received. They seemed to be going down—down—down interminably. With vague and distorted humour it struck him as being all wrong that they should descend out of hell. Also, he could remember something queer in Lennox’s behaviour. He kept stopping at regular intervals and staring at houses and archways with intense preoccupation, as though trying to commit something to memory. Once, when Paul addressed him, he replied “Don’t, I’m counting. Seventy-seven, seventy-eight,” and so on, counting aloud as they went down the steps.

Dawn greeted them when at last they came into the Central Square. Looking sidelong, Paul was astonished to see the expression on his companion’s face. Lennox was preternaturally calm and remote. He wore a smooth, tranquil look that nothing which had gone before could explain. All hint of turbulence had departed, instead he looked young and almost girlish. His eyes were sparkling and his mouth was parted in a smile.

By common consent they stopped at the wall above the harbour and watched a pallid sun rise dripping from the sea. It was the gentlest dawn—a modesty in grey and lemon—virginal and exquisite. From the cool clean lungs of the world came a breath of scented breeze.

So quietly as to be barely audible Lennox murmured—

“How good—how good it all is.”

They waited a little longer—time enough to watch the sun flush with pride at the splendour of his task—then turned slowly to the hotel.

Paul found Lennox sitting on the bed when at eleven o’clock next day he came into the room. Lennox did not move at his entrance. He was staring out before him and seemed to be repeating a formula. A morsel of paper lay in his lap and a pencil was in his hand. His face still wore the dawn-time expression of simplicity and the smile was still at the corners of his mouth.

“How goes, mon vieux?” Paul demanded. “That was a cheerful entertainment you provided last night.”

“Ha!” said Lennox. “Yes, ha.” But he did not appear to be listening.

“I received a letter a few moments ago—by hand. You might be interested to hear what it contains.” But as no interest was shown, “Perhaps you would like me to read it.”

“I shall want a car,” said Lennox. “Could one buy a car, do you suppose?” Then—“I’m sorry, old fellow, I—you were saying—”

Paul shook his head and took a letter from his pocket.

“This,” he prefixed, “is from our friend of last night, M. le Baron de Marieux.”

Lennox’s head came round slowly and the look in his eyes was unpleasant.

“Well!”

Paul began to read, after saying “The style of his composition is rather attractive. The letter is in French, but I will translate.”

“Etcetera. Then there is a postscript in which he says he has a villa between Aumale and Sidi Aissa in the Sakamody Pass where, if our travels should take us in that direction, he would be charmed to offer us some small hospitality—‘When,’ I quote his own words, ‘M. Casallis might again have an opportunity of meeting La belle Meriem in more agreeable circumstances.’ ”

Paul folded the letter and restored it to his pocket.

“Voila,” he observed. “The amende honorable! Could any rapprochement be more sincere?”

For some while Lennox said nothing, save that under his breath he murmured the name Meriem. Then he laughed a little and crossing to the window looked out across the bay.

Presently—“I must have that car, Paul. I shall want it. You’d do that for me, old man—fix it up somehow. Any car. Hire it—buy it—doesn’t matter.”

“I imagine I could, but why—”

“You see, I shall be busy—shan’t have any time, so if you would— Have it left at that old Mosque—you know, near the brass shop—at half past ten tonight—no, eleven. Paste a bit of paper to one of the panels so I’ll recognize it. Will you do that?”

Paul frowned and stared at him curiously.

“What’s the idea,” he asked.

“Can’t say, Paul—nothing fixed—just a notion—awfully important, though. I say, you’ve been a strong pal to me—marvellous. Don’t think me an ungrateful hound if I say that for a bit—a while—not long, I expect—I’d like to be alone.”

Paul crossed the room and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Look at me, Lennox,” he ordered. “Something’s wrong with you and I want to know what it is.”

“Nothing. I’m fine—fine.”

“This talk about a car, then?”

“Yes, I must have the car.”

“And being alone.”

“Only for a bit, Paul. You see, it wouldn’t be possible any other way.”

“What wouldn’t be possible?”

Lennox shook his head from side to side like a child who is asked to disclose his secret hiding place.

“How can I say—I don’t even know myself. Ha! It’s all so uncertain—I— Don’t ask me questions, old fellow, please. Something’s happening, that’s all—happening inside me. Ha! I’ve just got to go through with it—must—honestly—must.”

He appeared to be concentrating terrifically to achieve this explanation. His whole face was creased in puzzled lines. And, throughout, Paul never once shifted his searching gaze. For the first time since they had been together, Lennox defeated his understanding. He could not fathom the expression in his eyes—the constantly recurring nervous laugh—the intensity of feeling which shook his voice with every word he uttered. But least of all could he fathom the smile that played at Lennox’s mouth and the powerful impression he conveyed of a new and intolerable joy.

The silent scrutiny was more than Lennox could endure. To cover his embarrassment he started to talk again.

“I’ll let you know how I get on, so don’t worry, Paul. You’ve given up heaps too much time to me as it is. But there won’t be any more need now. I’ll write—you shall hear.”

“If I fetch a doctor,” said Paul slowly, “will you let him overhaul you?”

Lennox shook his head.

“No—no. It’s a car I want—a doctor is no good—just a car. And I count on you, Paul, rely on you. That old Mosque, have it by—at—eleven tonight. Don’t fail, will you? I must be off now—not too much time. Good-bye, old chap—and thanks for everything.”

“You queer bird,” said Paul. “What mischief are you up to now?”

But Lennox only laughed as he opened the door.

“That was a peach of a fight, wasn’t it?” he said. “Oh! a peach of a fight! I must get some boracic for my shoulder though—the foul hag bit me—Ugh! Ha! Good-bye.”

And then he was gone, leaving Paul very perplexed indeed.

There was much of the fatalist in Paul Manet. Puller of strings though he was by inclination, yet he was always prepared to acknowledge Fate’s superiority. If a bough inclined a certain way, then that way it inclined and neither force nor cajolery would direct it otherwise.

Clearly something had happened to Lennox outside his, Paul’s, understanding and since there was no immediate prospect of enlightenment it would do no harm to shrug one’s shoulders and let things take their course.

In the meantime his friend had asked for a car, and obviously he was expected to procure one.

But the task, when he attempted it, was not so easy as he anticipated. Several dealers expressed themselves as delighted to book an order, but immediate delivery was out of the question. The second hand market, to which his thoughts then turned, proved to be non-existent. Nor was any firm willing to hire a car for the hirer to drive himself. On this point they were adamant. Algerian roads are tricky and call for experienced drivers, indeed, the risks in that country are considered so great that very few companies are disposed to issue motor car insurances. Paul began to despair, and had almost given up hope, when his attention was attracted by a notice board in one of the smaller streets that read:

Not knowing in the least what manner of creature a “Fanny” might be, he walked inside and found himself in a comfortable office, which boasted a Turkey carpet, an American roll top desk, an easy chair, a pyramid of tyres in paper wrappers, two advertisements of motor cars proceeding at speeds dangerous to pedestrians, and a couple of large ordinance maps.

The office was empty when he entered, but his weight upon the door mat set in motion a cheerful but remote bell, and almost immediately a second door opened and a young woman walked in wiping her hands upon a lump of cotton waste.

She was dressed entirely in khaki. A cowboy shirt open at the throat, a very short skirt and a pair of top boots. On her head a soft felt hat had been crammed carelessly, beneath which rioted the tousled curls of a bobbed head of hair. Her face was deeply tanned, rather plain, and covered all over with freckles. Her eyes, which were intensely blue, were set wide apart. They were frank eyes, very steady, very enquiring, and rather insolent. The general effect she gave was of strength and self-confidence, coupled with plenty of cheek and courage.

She was not at all good looking.

The first thing of which Paul was conscious was her hands which were black as a negro’s from contact with gear grease. He noticed, moreover, that the fingers were short and that she bit her nails.

To a man of sensibility and æsthetic tastes such a state of things was deplorable. It was one of Paul’s confessions that he regarded women’s hands as the greatest of God’s gifts to mankind, but herein, of course, was a proviso that they should be chaste in form and delicately attended. The bitten paws of this she mechanic violated his feelings to such an extent that he barely remembered to raise his hat.

“Um um?” she demanded. “Yes? Want anything?”

Paul pulled himself together and briefly stated his need.

“Can’t be done,” said the girl. “Nothing to sell and nothing to hire, unless you take a driver. Where do you want to go?”

Paul confessed that he had no idea at all—didn’t know how long the car would be wanted for or anything else.

“Then you’d better go home and find out,” said she.

Now the unusual had always attracted Paul Manet, and here was a type of woman he had never met before. No member of that great army of English girls who drove cars during the war had come his way and he knew nothing of their methods, strength and unbounded capacity.

“Do you own this firm,” he enquired.

“I’ve got a share with three other girls. Why? Want to buy it?”

“No,” said Paul. “I was merely wondering what a Fanny might be.”

Jane Toop, for thus awkwardly was she named, looked at him with supreme contempt.

“A Fanny,” she retorted, “was the pick of the women drivers. Headquarters, Etaples. We drove ambulances, tenders, light cars and any other damn thing we were put on. And,” she added forensically, “we drove ’em anywhere.”

“But the war is now over,” said Paul.

“Thanks for telling me,” said Jane, “but I did know. The war is over, as you say, but what isn’t over is that fed up feeling you got after it was over. That’s why I—and the rest of us—started this show out here. There’s not much kick in it, but every once in a while something happens.”

“I see,” said Paul. “Then when you suggested hiring me a car it was your intention—”

“To drive it myself, of course.”

“Parbleu!” he exclaimed. “Quel idée! You, a girl! Amazing!”

Jane Toop lit a cigarette and looked at him pityingly.

“But in this case it would be to drive a young man—not myself—and God knows where he might want to go.”

“My good sir,” said Jane Toop with choice satire. “Do you imagine I only drove invalid ladies when I was in France, and do you imagine I was always in for tea?”

And suddenly Paul began to laugh. Fate, indeed, had played into his hand. If Lennox Casallis chose to escape from his guardianship what better companion could be conceived than this hard-tongued, cheeky-eyed young woman who looked you squarely in the face and said exactly what she thought with calculating insolence.

It was a gift from the gods.

“I accept your offer,” he said, “and, though I have not the smallest idea what may be required of you, here is a deposit of a thousand francs to go on with. Be at the Mosque in the square at eleven tonight, with a piece of white paper stuck to one of the panels of the car.”

She gave him a receipt and pressed the stamp down with her greasy thumb.

“I’ll put some grub in the car,” she said, “plenty of spares and a couple of rugs.”

“I foresee,” said Paul, “that you will go far,” and he held out a hand.

Jane Toop looked at it and shook her head.

“You’d want an old glove first—mine’s filthy.”

“I would like to carry away an impression,” said he. And oddly enough he did.

As Paul Manet walked down the hill his mind was occupied with two considerations. A man with a nervous laugh, and a pair of insolent blue eyes that had looked into his out of a face the colour of a field of ripe corn.

For a man who had claimed urgent business, Lennox Casallis spent the remainder of the morning in a curiously quiescent fashion. He sat at a café table in the Rue d’Isly, for the best part of an hour, an untouched demi of hock before him. He smiled at the sun and the passing crowds, at the busy hooting traffic and the clanking trams, with their little tootling horns. It struck him that every one was blowing a horn of some kind or other—vendors of newspapers or fish, conductors, postmen, motorists and the rest. The air was full of little toots like the moment when crackers have been pulled at a children’s party. The world seemed very young, very gay, very absurd—a jolly sparkling world it was good to be alive in. Opposite where he sat was a butcher’s shop. To protect its wares from the sun the blinds had been lowered, and they were gallant blinds, made splendid with passionate pictures of the butcher’s trade. In England such a shop would have been content to state its owner’s name and perhaps a word as to the primeness of the beef he would fain purvey, but the Gallic temperament calls for greater drama and pictorial excess. Here, upon this lowered blind, were scenes of rude savagery and violence. A boar torn down by dogs and beset by dauntless hunters, who plunged lances and fired guns. The woodland carpet was dyed with gouts of blood, more crimson than the sun. Beneath this fierce and glorious composition was yet another, not a whit less stirring. It represented the fall of the stag—“The Monarch of the Glen” unflinching in the face of death—and ignoring the terrible colours that surrounded him. Nor did imagination end here, for upon the second blind in almost Herculean proportions, was depicted the final chapter in the life of a bull. It staggered belief that a butcher could look so noble at the abattoir, nor could, nor did face so fierce a hazard. It was magnificent—terrific! Merely to glance at such scenes of derring-do was to put a butcher on a plain above all common men. Little he recked of gall or toss as he wielded the mighty ax on high. The fight between David and Goliath was a mere brawl compared with this encounter.

“Say, would you believe it?” said the American who happened to be sitting at an adjoining table. “Sure, they’re the boys-butchers. And yet, if they pulled the blind, I guess you’d find the biggest bunch of bums that ever broke the shell was chopping meat behind.”

Lennox laughed as he rose and pitched a couple of francs on the table. He was glad the man had spoken to him—it had lifted him out of his reverie—but he had no mind for conversation. After his long period of idleness, he went off down the street at high speed as though not a moment might be lost.

And very curious were his subsequent doings. First he bought a map and studied it with his back against a palm tree. Then he folded it, tucked it in a pocket and entered a large universal store.

Half an hour later he came out in company with two young Arabs, who carried between them a well filled canvas sack and some sectional poles. He instructed them to put these in a taxi and entering it himself told the driver to proceed past the Mustapha Supérieur to the woods near Bouzarea. Arrived at his destination he called a halt and hid the sack and poles in some bushes, marking the spot with a white handkerchief tied to the branch of a eucalyptus tree.

They then returned to the town where he paid off the taxi at an English chemist’s. It did not take long to obtain what he required—a bottle of some dark brown fluid, a smaller one in blue glass, some gum, and a piece of black material, that looked like a section cut from a Chinaman’s pigtail. These he bestowed in various pockets.

The afternoon was getting late when he turned into the arcades of the Rue Bab-Azoun. Some of the merchants were already putting up their shutters, wherefore he lost no time in stating his wants. But your Arab shopkeeper does not do business in a hurry, and the particular one to which Lennox addressed himself was a very ceremonial gentleman. He sat on a box and looked for all the world like any of the twelve apostles. Before the bargaining began, he insisted that Lennox should take green tea with him. Furthermore he poured one drop of precious amber essence on Lennox’s head to prove that he was well intentioned.

Normally, Lennox would have chafed at the delay, but this evening, it seemed, nothing could ruffle his calm. Indeed, he engaged the old man in the friendliest conversation and taught him a few English words in return for a lesson in the terms with which Arab greets Arab.

When at last they came to business, Abdul-ben-Kassim proved most efficient and persuasive. Not only did he sell Lennox an entire Arab outfit, from the Genour, a corded turban, to the scarlet leather under-boots and sabots, but also he afforded some valuable instruction as to how these garments should be worn.

They parted with compliments on both sides, and the son of Abdul was dispatched to Lennox’s hotel with a colossal parcel in brown paper beneath his arm.

Night was falling quickly when Lennox came again upon the square, and seating himself at a café table, reviewed his several actions. From the expression on his face it appeared that he was well satisfied. Then he took from his pocket the slip of paper with which Paul had found him in the morning, and spent several minutes nodding over it with lips moving. While so engaged he allowed three Arab boys to clean his boots and rewarded them with fantastic generosity. After all, he thought, they were little and poor and had their ways to make like every one else. If a few extra francs spelt happiness it would be a sorry economy to deny them. That they clearly thought he was mad did not affect him at all. Perhaps he was mad—or perhaps sane for the first time. It did not matter so long as he was happy, and no one could rob him of the sense of growing happiness that for some mysterious reason was coursing through his veins. He wondered now that he had ever known misery, and tried, for a moment, to revive a sense of sadness that he might know how it felt. The effort was useless. Everything was good—and would be better. Oh, Lord! how much better life was going to be.

Suddenly he saw the moon winking at him between the walls of two houses, and with the sight came an ecstatic desire to shout. No, not to shout, but to launch some cry far more primitive. He knew precisely how to shape the sound—“Yah-yah-hi-e” it would go—and then again. But although the knowledge and the desire were his he restrained himself. It was not a sound that should be heard between houses, it belonged instead to wild open spaces, great rolling moors—somewhere—somewhere.

“Yah Ya—” He checked himself abruptly and covered his eyes. His forehead felt very hot—strangely hot. A man at the next table had sprung to his feet and was moving away with an apprehensive, over-shoulder glance.

Lennox shivered. He ought not to have cried out like that—never intended doing so. He called for some iced beer, pretending his cry had been to attract the waiter, and turned his back on the moon.

A seller of carpets, a great bale of them thrown over his shoulder, presented himself and solicited custom.

Only one thing had been worrying Lennox Casallis and preying on his mind, and the arrival of this man solved the problem and swept aside the last difficulty.

To the man’s amazement, Lennox bought every carpet in the bale and paid the first price asked.

He told the waiter he would have them collected later on and obtained permission to leave them at the café.

After that he walked back to the “Oasis,” his hat brim pulled down over his eyes because the moonlight worried him. As he mounted the stone stairs he caught a glimpse of Paul through the open doors of the American bar. But Paul’s back was toward him and he hurried on unnoticed.

For nearly an hour Lennox was shut in his room and when, at length, he emerged every trace of his own personality was gone. Instead there was a tall Arab in a dark camel’s hair burnous with the hood almost covering his eyes. All that was visible of the face was a black pointed beard that lost itself in the folds of white muslin that flowed from his turban. From his waist hung a small native knife in a sheath of red leather. The scarlet boots he wore were embroidered with silver tissue. His skin was brown as Jacobean oak.

As luck would have it, he passed the American bar at the exact moment Paul was leaving and stood aside to let him pass.

Paul flickered an approving glance over the magnificent figure and murmured

“Merci, M’sieur.”

But he showed no signs of recognition.

Lennox laughed as he slipped out into the night.

At the café he collected the bale of carpets and threw them artistically across his shoulder in the same manner their original owner had carried them. As he was in the act of leaving an American lady, who was sitting with her husband, beckoned him to approach.

“Say, dear, I’ve jest gotta have one of those squares,” she declared. Then in French—“Combien pour eet tapis la?”

But Lennox did not wait. Affecting deafness he darted away into the crowd, leaving his would-be purchaser open-mouthed with astonishment.

He had no difficulty in finding the first of the steps, where last night he and Paul had hesitated before ascending. The night was still young and numbers of people were about, but beyond the passing glance that bright colours inevitably inspire, he attracted small attention. At any other time he would have felt flattered by the success of his disguise, but tonight his thoughts were removed from triviality. He climbed a short distance, then paused to examine a peculiar piece of masonry over a window. Beneath it, smoking a pipe of narghile, sat an Arab, who spoke a word of greeting. Greatly daring, it was his first attempt at Arabic, Lennox gave the response.

“Prauch,” it sounded like.

The Arab nodded and Lennox went on his way rejoicing and counting the steps as he climbed. Only twice was he obliged to refer to the slip of paper he carried. Landmarks in the Kasbah duplicate themselves and only by attention to the minutest detail could he be certain he was on the right track. But it was remarkable how accurately his overnight memory served him, and he was astonished to find how soon he arrived at the foot of the Rue Kataroudjil. True there were many quicker routes he might have followed, but it was safer to pursue a known path rather than to experiment in short cuts. He found the little blue street thronged with people, and this was matter for congratulation. Many pairs of black eyes flashed appreciative glances in his direction—brown hands plucked at his flowing burnous—voices called to him and fingers beckoned, but these advances he callously ignored as bearded, erect of carriage and splendid—the gorgeous dolman of carpets slung across his shoulder—he strode up the never-ending steps.

It was more difficult to locate the doorway with the street crowded than empty and he passed it by unnoticed. But a slightly different character in the houses beyond informed him of his error. He returned, looking carefully about him and presently saw it on his immediate left.

He had arrived, and with that realization an almost unbearable excitement enveloped him. He could feel the pulses in throat and temples throbbing—throbbing as though they would burst his arteries. He could scarcely control his hands, they trembled so, and his tongue was sticky in his mouth.

“Hang on! This won’t do,” he said to himself. “For God’s sake hang on.”

He stepped into an archway and in so doing met the rays of the moon full in the face.

It was a merciful Providence that he had the presence of mind to shut his eyes. Another second the cry would have broken from his lips.

“Yah yah hie.” The world-old jungle cry of the wild.

To stifle the impulse he clapped a hand over his mouth and held it there, while he fought a desperate battle to control his reason. His face was terribly hot and something inside his head was opening and shutting like a blind raised and lowered—admitting and excluding light. The light was very strong and almost incandescent, but the intensity of the darkness was blinding. It was a kind of super darkness, alive with specks and sparks and catharine wheels of primary colours.

An earthenware jar was standing by his feet and yielding to a sudden impulse he stooped and raised it to his lips. The lukewarm water revived him like a plunge into a mountain stream. He passed the back of his hand across his forehead and breathed again, gratefully.

“God. I nearly fainted,” he muttered—then—“Better now.”

Taking a grip on himself he turned and strode through into the narrow passage.

Luck served him kindly at this point for as he entered he was joined by four other men. Three of them were Arabs of the low type that infest the docks, the fourth was M. le Baron de Marieux. The Baron was wrapped in a black circular cloak with a crimson lining, which made him look very buccaneering indeed. He wore, also, a black felt hat cocked at a jaunty angle and concealing half his features.

But Lennox would have recognized him with eyes shut. The mere proximity of the man was enough. As the Baron went in Lennox stood aside to let him pass, every nerve in his body snapping with antagonism and every muscle taut. The draught of water and the sight of his late adversary had cleared the fog from his brain. A deadly calm replaced it—calm and a sense of power to meet any emergency that might arise.

The arrival of de Marieux could have but one explanation. The same explanation that accounted for his own presence in this place. Their object was identical. Good. It would be a competition between them with heavy odds in favour of de Marieux. Good. The challenge had gone forth. The result was on the knees of the gods. The prize would go to the best man. Vae victis. “Seconds out of the ring, please.”

Lennox Casallis was in his element—an element he loved and understood. Tingling all over with excitement he pulled the cowl of his burnous still further over his eyes and passed through the studded door.

On the other side D’ouja croaked a welcome and he had a glimpse of Kabu recumbent on his shelf in the wall.

The little courtyard beyond was thronged with men and girls—a circumstance Lennox noted with satisfaction. The more the merrier. It is simpler to deceive a number of people than a few. He joined a little group and waited developments.

The Baron de Marieux had spoken a word to the blackguardly trio who accompanied him and, in response, they had seated themselves on the cobbles just inside the door. After that he went into the Café on the right and emerged a moment later in company with Rhahatma. They conversed for a while in low tones and to overhear what passed between them Lennox edged a little nearer. Their talk was in French.

“Oh, nonsense, you dreadful woman,” said the Baron. “I have a friend in authority. There will be no trouble with the police. That is all arranged. I have seen to it myself. You will show her in your returns as being in hospital. It is quite simple.”

A roll of notes discreetly changed hands and the talk became inaudible. Then, straining his ears, Lennox heard Rhahatma say:

“The third door on the left. But you must wait till we have closed for the night.”

The Baron looked at his watch and nodded. After that they went into the Café again.

“And now,” said Lennox, “we begin.”

The third door on the left was open and sitting on a rush mat was a girl—one of the six who had danced on the preceding night. This was disappointing until Lennox saw another door to the room.

The girl had risen to greet him, but he shook his head and pointed at the second door. The girl made a face, shrugged her shoulders and nodded. Lennox raised the wooden latch and entered the inner room.

A tallow candle was burning upon a ledge in the wall, but the light it shed was small. For a moment he could see nothing but presently, as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he saw that the room was not empty. Huddled on the stone couch with her forehead pressed to her knees and her face caged behind a mesh of intertwined fingers, lay Meriem. She did not move as he came in but he knew she was aware of his presence by the glimpse of a frightened eye peering at him between a thumb and forefinger. As he came nearer she edged away until she was pressing close to the wall. A little protesting “Ooo” escaped from her lips.

“It is I,” he said, gently. “Meriem, c’est moi.”

But she did not know his voice and only cowered at the sound of it.

Lennox Casallis thought for a moment and let the bale of carpets fall to the floor. To act sanely with this frightened, adorable child within reach of his arms demanded all his control. He longed to pick her up, to soothe her fears, to put his cheek against hers, to whisper how beautiful she was—and that her troubles were ended—to say he was her slave, her master. But there was no time. In a quarter of an hour the doors would be shut and it would be too late.

He drew from his pocket the small blue bottle he had bought at the English chemist’s and poured some of its contents on a square of flannel. Meanwhile she watched him through her fingers as a bird watches a snake.

It was going to be terribly difficult and he could not bring himself to do what must be done by violence. It was sheer inspiration to hold the moistened flannel beneath his own nose and to smile and nod contentedly. He took particular care to avoid breathing while he acted thus. And Meriem watched him puzzled. She did not understand why he kept at the far side of the little room and made no advance toward her. He seemed a nice man. She wondered what the scent was that pleased him so. The faint fumes that stole her way smelt rather sickly. Lennox made as if he would return the flannel to his pocket, but instead, apparently as an after-thought, he tossed it across the intervening space so that it fell on the couch near her head. For a while she left it there untouched, then curiosity stirred her. A little brown hand, like the paw of a kitten, flashed out and carried it up to her nose. Perhaps she feared if he saw her features he might like her too well, for no sooner had she picked up the flannel than she covered her face again. But the flannel was close to her mouth now and the fumes of chloroform and ether were stealing away consciousness with every breath she drew. Presently the meshed fingers slipped apart and the head turned sideways inertly.

Lennox was on his feet in a moment and picked her up in his arms. For a brief space he held the flannel over her nose and mouth then threw it aside. Stooping, he seized the largest carpet from the bale, draped it round the lifeless form and threw it across his shoulder. The rest he bundled on the bed in a rough human shape. Then he blew out the candle, lifted the latch and passed into the outer room. Its occupant, who was still sitting on the box, laughed derisively as he stalked out into the courtyard.

Amazing how easily everything had worked! No one hindered him—no one questioned what the rolled carpet might contain. He passed within a foot of the Baron de Marieux who was smoking a cigarette by the Café Maure. Kabu did not strike as he went by. D’ouja croaked a farewell and a word of blessing for the five franc note he dropped into her palm. And in the Rue Kataroudjil the old blind beggar sang the exploits of Mohamet and of how righteous a man was he.

Of all offences curiosity is perhaps the most pardonable. Not that Paul Manet was given to seek excuses. He was aware that many things he did in common judgment were entirely inexcusable. But this consideration did not weigh with him at all. He was too elastic and followed inclination rather than code. As a critic of sports and contests he was terribly severe on the player who infringed the rules, but experience persuaded him that the ordinary conduct of life could not be controlled by similar standards as those dominating a game of skill. When charged with such an accusation as, “Yes, but it’s hardly cricket,” he would reply:

“Precisely my point. Life is not cricket and cricket is not life.”

This preamble may seem to be beside the point. Not so.

At precisely a quarter to eleven he glided up the steps of the Mosque and modestly concealed himself behind a column.

At precisely ten minutes to eleven an eight cylinder Cadillac, upon one of the panels of which was pasted a square of paper, drew up at the foot of the steps. The driver, a girl dressed in a khaki shirt and a British warm overcoat got out, lit a cigarette and walked solemnly round the car, kicking each tire in turn.

At precisely five minutes to eleven, a very tall Arab carrying a bundle of carpets across his shoulder arrived at a run, and deposited his wares with astonishing gentleness on the back seat. To Paul Manet there was something unusual about the way the bundle of carpets sat up, or rather lolled against the cushions. Furthermore there was something familiar in the bearing of the Arab.

He heard Jane Toop say,

“Who the blazes are you?”

And he heard Lennox reply,

“It’s all right, you won’t be wanted.”

Then there was an altercation in which Lennox came off second best.

As a clock struck the hour, the car, with Jane at the wheel, shot away from the kerb and swung into the Rue d’Isly. Lennox was sitting on the back seat with an arm encircling the bundle of carpets.

Paul Manet could not be entirely sure, but he had a distinct impression of a small brown hand emerging from the folds of the bundle.

As he stepped out on the terrace of the mosque, Paul whistled wonderingly to himself.

“So that’s that,” he said, and shrugged his shoulders. He was turning away when attracted by the sound of running feet.

Four men were approaching at speed—three of them coloured and one white. The white man wore a circular cloak that floated out behind him like a washing on a line. His face was drawn and his eyes burned with a dangerous light. Seeing Paul, he stopped abruptly, struggling for breath.

“A pleasant night, M. le Baron,” said Paul agreeably.

“An Arab,” gasped the Frenchman. “A carpet seller. Have you seen a carpet seller?”

“Dozens,” said Paul Manet.

The disappearance of Lennox Casallis from the polite and sporting circles he was accustomed to frequent created for a week or so a pleasant stir. After that the majority of his friends ceased talking about him and returned to the more agreeable entertainment of talking about themselves. Lennox Casallis had gone—he was drowned, he had shot himself, he had been garrotted in Spain, he was living in Vienna with a notorious ballerina, he had drunk himself to death in a Paris hotel and was buried at Père la Chaise. While memory lasted he was reported as doing this sort of thing all day long, wherefore there was reason to be thankful when he ceased to make an appearance in the talk of his fellows and was forgotten. The ripple on the pond subsided, bubbles rose to the surface and burst, and once more all was still.

The only interest surviving in the affair was centred upon Eve. She, very much to her distaste and distress, came in for a deal of sympathy and not a little censure. Many well intentioned persons expressed the opinion that she had acted in a reasonable manner and offered a generous support for which she returned no thanks. Others affected the heart to heart method—rebuke tempered with charity and understanding—but Eve did not desire to be understood.

For several days after the sudden departure of Lennox, her morning post bag was sprinkled with letters from intrusive persons who seemed to imagine that their opinions, on a matter that in no sense concerned them, called for expression. But they did not write twice, since the replies with which they were favoured were couched in such frigid terms that their goodwill turned sour and they decided that Lennox Casallis had had a fortunate escape.

As a climax, she received a visit from Miss Emily Casallis, aunt to Hamar and Lennox Casallis and mouthpiece of the family. For sheer refinement of impertinence this interview left little room for improvement.

Miss Casallis conceived herself to be possessed of a call. The call was a responsibility loyally accepted to discredit and denounce any person who in any way thwarted or opposed any individual member of “The family.” It did not in the least matter what that member of the family might have done—however abandoned his action—however lost his cause—Miss Casallis championed it.

Thus, when a remote cousin who bore the name, ran over and killed a child through careless driving of his car, Miss Casallis not only wrote rebuking the Magistrate who tried the case, but also attacked the child’s mother with a charge of negligence, which she declared was criminal. It was the same when James Robert Casallis—a notorious evil liver—was divorced by his long suffering wife. Miss Casallis played a fantasia on the words “for better or worse” and finished up by saying that the unhappy woman ought to be heartily ashamed of herself.

It was astonishing how Miss Casallis obtained her information, for relations and acquaintances alike strove hardily to conceal and withhold from her all that took place in the family circle. Their efforts, however, were without avail for she always knew. No whisper was too soft to reach her ears—no happening so remote, but that she was aware of it.

The ways of Miss Casallis were as the ways of an eagle. She hovered and she struck remorselessly. She had no pity for her prey. She would leave it torn and bleeding with no other feeling in her heart but one of gladness. Miss Casallis was a slave to justice, nor was there ever a doubt in her mind as to the justice of her justice. She knew it was just justice because she had made it herself.

Miss Casallis was enjoying a “turn of bronchitis” at Bournemouth when news came of the fall of Lennox. It came a little late, possibly because a thickening of the bronchial tubes had dulled her receptive faculties. She verified her facts on the telephone—a trunk call—and in so doing caused herself to be connected three times with the local supervisor to arrange for the dismissal of a tardy operator. (By this it will be seen that she was a public spirited woman. She had already that morning reported a tram conductor for failing to stop when required and, moreover, had given notice to the nurse who attended her. By no means had the day been misspent.)

On the way to the station in the afternoon she paid the taxi driver his “lawful fare” and offered to give him in charge should he continue with his impertinence. The porter who carried her suit case, and who airily waved aside the proffered twopence, found himself reported to the proper authorities. She always travelled third class in spite of an income exceeding two thousand a year, and the man who entered her compartment with a pipe in his mouth found no difficulty in understanding how little she esteemed him in any direction.

She arrived at Eve’s house in Mayfair at precisely a quarter to three. A quarter to three is an awkward hour for a call—no one is prepared at such a time to receive visitors. Miss Casallis was aware of this and profitted by it. She did not wish her visit to be mistaken for a social amenity. It was a punitive expedition, neither more nor less. She sailed under her true colours with decks cleared for action.

The maid who opened the door to her, was confronted with instant hostility. A story that Eve was resting was cut off at the main by—

“Inform your mistress that I am here.”

The maid wavered, retreated a step and lost the door mat. Miss Casallis advanced and consolidated the captured ground.

“What name should I say?” was faltered.

“Miss Emily Casallis.”

It sounded like a gas attack. Had she said “The devil himself” the effect could not have been more pronounced. The maid fought a rear-guard action up the staircase and Miss Casallis occupied the drawing room.

Here an effort was made to reform on conventional lines.

“If you will please sit down,” was said.

“I will do no such thing,” Miss Casallis retorted. “Fetch your mistress immediately.”

The maid retired in disorder.

Eve was not resting. She was writing letters in her little sitting room.

“Oh, very well,” said she, on hearing that the drawing room had yielded to a surprise attack. “Say I’ll be down in a minute.”

Instinctively she was aware that the interview would be unpleasant, but since, for the last five weeks, all life had been unpleasant it didn’t matter. Miss Casallis was a stranger to Eve, although vaguely she remembered the name in relation to something ogreish. She was not in the least afraid, but she did not hurry to the encounter. She finished the letter she was writing and addressed three envelopes before proceeding to the drawing room.

Miss Casallis was standing bolt upright by the fireplace with the rigidity of a war memorial. Not a line of her face changed when Eve came in.

“This is very nice of you,” said Eve. “Won’t you sit down?”

“I prefer to stand,” retorted Miss Casallis. “When I am performing an unpleasant duty I always stand.”

“Oh, really. Of course you would like some tea.”

“I do not take tea until five o’clock,” Miss Casallis announced. “And in any case tea is not the object of my visit.”

“I see,” said Eve, then, “I wonder what is.”

“You,” said Miss Casallis, “are Eve Whishart.”

“I am.”

“Then perhaps you will tell me what you mean by it?”

“I don’t mean anything,” came the reply. “The name was given me by my Godfathers and Godmothers at my baptism.”

“Blasphemy,” said Miss Casallis, and added a new item to her inventory of faults. She had already annotated in her mind that Eve’s natural colouring was artificial, that she had stupid hands and dressed in a fast manner.

“I am here to know what you mean by your disgraceful treatment of my nephew Lennox.”

Eve flushed.

“Isn’t that rather an awkward way of putting it?” she asked. “Is it disgraceful to decline an offer of marriage?” Then with the veriest touch of satire, “You, Miss Casallis, must have declined many.”

“That,” said Miss Casallis, “is impertinent. I am not here to discuss my affairs, but yours.”

“And suppose,” was the reply, “I have no wish to discuss them.”

“It will make no difference. You, for a reason I shall never attempt to understand, since I have already formed my own opinion as to your suitability to become a member of our family, you have been paid the compliment of being asked by my nephew to become his wife.”

“Go on,” said Eve.

“Most certainly I shall go on. I am here to know how you dared refuse such an offer.”

“Miss Casallis,” Eve replied. “Why not assume that I did not dare accept it? Why not assume that my nature is so retiring that I realized my unfitness for so great an honour?”

Miss Casallis paused that her reply might do justice to the situation.

“A woman,” she said at last, “who leads a man on by the exercise of every feminine wile known to—to unmentionable people—such a woman would be incapable of the lofty motives you attribute to yourself.”

“Oh,” said Eve. “I see.”

“It is hardly necessary for me to add that, in my opinion, poor Lennox has had a merciful escape. That, however, is not the point.”

“No,” Eve agreed. “It is not really, is it?”

“The point is a fine one. My nephew, driven by your shameless conduct has disappeared, and one of the principal members of our family is thus withdrawn from society. I have carefully examined every means by which he is to be reinstated and can only find one that is practical.”

“Oh, yes.” There was a certain eagerness in the reply.

“You, under my dictation, will send an advertisement to the personal column of the Times stating that you repent of your attitude and will marry him at once if he returns.”

For the first time in the interview Eve gasped.

“This course will have double benefits,” continued Miss Casallis. “Not only will it bring about the poor boy’s return, but it will also expose to the world that the blame and obloquy for the entire affair falls upon you. Get a pen and write.”

Then Eve began to laugh.

Miss Casallis opened her mouth in amazement.

“Are you going to write?” she demanded.

Eve dabbed her eyes with a tiny square of cambric and shook her head.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could,” she cried in all sincerity. “Oh! Miss Casallis, do you really believe life is as easy as all that? That a few silly lines in a newspaper will make two people live happily ever afterwards. I’d give anything for so simple a faith.”

“Silence,” ordered Miss Casallis. “Do not dare to insult me.”

“I wasn’t—wasn’t. For, in spite of the dreadful things you’ve said—the blind impossible things—I admire you awfully. I think it’s marvellous of you to have done this—to have come here today and told me just what you thought of me—knowing none of the circumstances of the case—of what existed between Lennox and myself—having nothing to go on, but assurance in your own infallibility. I do mean that—honestly mean it. It’s wonderful of you, and I envy you more than I shall ever be able to say.”

“When you have finished this hysterical nonsense,” said Miss Casallis grimly, “perhaps you will say whether you intend to obey my command.”

“I’m sorry,” said Eve. “Awfully sorry. I want Lennox to come back more than you would ever believe, but I’m afraid I can’t do what you ask.”

“Then,” said Miss Casallis, “I have only this to add to my previous remarks—I perceive you are utterly and incurably abandoned.”

“You’re wrong,” was the very gentle reply, “for that sort is much kinder than I am—that sort never makes the mistake of letting head rule heart.”

Miss Casallis walked to the door, where she paused to discharge the final round.

“You will doubtless rejoice to learn that what you have done is killing Hamar Casallis, slowly but surely.”

“Oh, no,” Eve gasped. “No.”

“Slowly but surely,” repeated Miss Casallis. “From information received I gather that he is not expected to last long. Comfort yourself with that.”

The door snapped crisply, and a moment later the front door banged. Miss Casallis had gone.

“She was lying,” Eve muttered to herself. “Of course, she was lying. Oh, how horribly unfair women are.”

Her own words set in motion the train of thought. If one woman was unfair, why not the rest, and she herself? Had she not asked too much—sought for too full a measure? It was damnable that because of her a man should sink. Is it not better to ask little and be content with very little? Greater things may grow. One plants a seed and not a tree in flowers. Flowers belong to the future. Had she been fair? Free of Cult and Convention had she been fair? She had refused love because she did not like the clothes it wore and doubted that its wings were absent. Fine shades, fine shades, how deep are the shadows you cast across the brows of love? Woe is the lot of the groundling who walks this earth with a star in his pocket.

The room from which Hamar Casallis conducted the business of his estate was small and square. A Carlton table stood in the centre and the walls were lined with filing cabinets concealed behind the original panelling. Nothing could have exceeded the orderliness and austerity of the room. No single detail was ever out of place. The arrangements epitomized the perfection of a system to which Hamar had dedicated the working years of his life. But unlike many exact persons Hamar merely employed system as means to an end and not as an end in itself. He was not in the least proud of his filing but he was tremendously proud of what his files contained. They represented an index of experience—a library of facts and fancies—a harvest of great and little happenings, garnered grain by grain from the men and women, the moors, mines and pastures that composed his estate. No occurrence was too small to be ignored by Hamar Casallis. He knew the name of every man, woman and child in his roll of tenants—he knew their occupations, their weaknesses and their strength—he knew wherein they failed and wherein they succeeded. And out of this knowledge was bred understanding and tolerance. He was incurably tolerant; but tempering tolerance was a quality of clearsighted common-sense and sane reasoning which almost invariably circumvented the individual who tried to impose upon him. Hamar was at heart an altruist but his altruism was never indiscriminate. For the fool his forbearance was without end—but for the knave there was none. The scales of justice were neatly balanced between brain and sentiment and according to the coinage given so were the weights adjusted. His watchword was “True pay” and the person who tendered counterfeit met with justice as compact as it was summary.

There was a second door to Hamar Casallis’s room and beyond it were offices in which a number of home-grown clerks—(he never employed labour from outside the estate) were variously engaged.

From 9:30 till 12:30 and again from 4 till 7, Hamar sat at his table. The amount of work he accomplished each day was astonishing. He interviewed people, he dictated correspondence, he drew up schemes. Between certain hours any of his tenants could come and lay their troubles before him and in this he never gave priority of interview to the rich over the poor. It was no uncommon occurrence for a titled person to wait his turn while a farm labourer painfully enumerated his grievances. The irritation sometimes begotten on this account affected Hamar not at all. He would discuss a thatch complacently while a mighty coal owner stamped his feet in the adjoining room. At the close of each interview he made his dispositions and docketed his notes and record. Thus nothing was allowed to overlap. One of the clerks received his orders, another took down at his dictation and the matter, assuming it was a small one, was finished and the next ready for attention.

There was only one failure in the system and knowledge of this failure was growing on Hamar day by day. He had made the mistake of reposing too much responsibility upon himself. No single member of his staff received his full confidence—and no single member was capable of carrying on the work without his continued generalship. The files were all right in so far as they refreshed memory and recorded incidents—but every item in those files suggested the individual viewpoint of a single personality. Withdraw that personality or supersede it and the files would be well-nigh worthless. Hamar realized that very few would be likely to wade through those interminable records in the hope of finding the specks of illumination they undoubtedly contained and that very few would adopt at second hand the principle of synthetic reasoning peculiar to himself. Who, for instance, would associate a flagrant case of poaching carried out by one Simon Harvester with an incident, antecedent by twenty years, when a small boy of that name had been caught stealing a chicken from one of the farms and had given as an excuse, subsequently proved, that his mother had told him to steal it.

Hamar had made provision to hand down to posterity a remarkable record of happenings both great and small and of the subsequent actions resulting therefrom, but he lacked the power of adding to that inheritance a habit of mind similar to his own.

Knowledge of this had haunted him more particularly since the disappearance of Lennox. Lennox was the one man to whom he would gladly have given his confidence—and of all others Lennox was the least suited to receive it. It was a tragic reflection and weighed distressingly on his mind. Like most thoroughly capable men, Hamar, despite the breadth and elasticity of his views, was something of a bigot and could hardly conceive that the estate could be run in any other way than his own. He foresaw catastrophe when his control should be removed and on this account doubled his activities and fought an unrelenting battle against the growing failure in health with which he was afflicted. All day a long-spouted bronchitis kettle whistled on the fire and blurred the windows with steam—all day he sucked his herbal cigarettes—and half the night gasped and fought for breath in his room above.

The injunctions of doctors, who ordered him to abandon work forthwith and go to the South, were ignored. He thanked them for their advice and stayed where he was.

“Haul me through these cold months,” he said. “That’s all I want. I shall be right as the mail when Spring comes.”

Whereat Harley Street and Wimpole Street and Devonshire Place told him he was an ass and should be put under arrest for attempted suicide.

It was some rumour of this interview that had reached the ears of Miss Emily Casallis and inspired her final remark to Eve. Miss Casallis had written to Hamar suggesting, in view of his indisposition, that she should visit him at once, and to this he had replied “On no account.” Wherefore Miss Casallis had envenomed her speech to Eve a little more than otherwise had been the case.

Fate has a capricious habit of heaping work upon a man at those times when he is least capable of undertaking it, and it so happened a difficulty had arisen which demanded from Hamar tact, ingenuity and much labour.

For some time past one of the smaller coal mines had shown signs of giving out. The seam had narrowed practically to nothing—coal and slate intermingling—the output becoming almost entirely partings of poor quality and small value. It was estimated that the supply from these workings would hardly last another two years. This in itself was of no very great importance. The serious aspect of the affair lay in the inevitable unemployment of an entire colony of miners.

Hamar Casallis could not tolerate the thought of his own people being out of work. The closing of the mine would lead to the loss of many families who had worked on the estate for generations and to Hamar such a state of affairs was unthinkable. He had laid his plans accordingly. An outcrop of surface coal in an adjoining valley, coupled with various other evidences, indicated that shafts might profitably be sunk in that spot and the village and its inhabitants transferred, lock, stock and barrel. Thus, by the time the old workings were dry, the new workings would be in full swing. The scheme had been drawn up and the plans for power houses, shaft sinking and the laying of a single track railway had been approved. Only one obstacle stood in the way of proceeding with the work and this obstacle reposed in the person of Ezra Huckleback, who farmed the lands at the foot of the hills. To reach the new workings the line would have to traverse Huckleback’s fields and with unshakable stubbornness the old man refused to grant his consent.

Huckleback held the remainder of a ninety-nine years’ lease in which no clause existed giving his superior landlord the right to lay a railroad. In vain Hamar sought a compromise. Huckleback would not give way an inch.

“I’m not a goin’ to have my farm cut in two, not for any man,” was the invariable reply.

“Your refusal will mean the unemployment of five hundred men,” Hamar argued.

“Nor for five hundred men neither,” returned Mr. Huckleback.

“But look here,” said Hamar, “the brook cuts your land as it is.”

This was true, for a brawling mountain stream romped through the middle of Huckleback’s farm and from it little canals had been cut which irrigated the lower pastures and the wheat areas.

“T’brook be nature’s work, not man’s. ’Tis to t’brook I owes my livelihood. I won’t have no railways.”

Then Hamar offered him an equivalent amount of land on either side of the projected line—land in every sense as fertile as the fields he tilled.

“No,” was the uncompromising retort. “I got my lease and I hold ye to ’t.”

“The line would be on an embankment through the lower pastures,” said Hamar. “If I promise to tunnel the embankment in every field we bisect so that your grazing cattle can pass to and fro, would that content you?”

“T’would not. Railroads is bad for milkin’ cows—and sparks from engines fire ripenin’ wheat.”

“Is it a matter of money?” Hamar asked.

Mr. Huckleback flared up. He had never taken money from any man save when he had earned it. It was an insult to offer a proud man money. He stood for his rights, no more—no less.

“Forty-three years I got t’run—arter that ye can do as ye please.”

That was the last word.

Hamar was left with his files drawn from the Section marked “H.” “O” would have been more appropriate for the Huckleback entries over a period of twenty-five years spelt obstinacy, obstinacy, obstinacy. As he turned over the closely written pages Hamar scratched his head in perplexity.

“I don’t know what the devil to do,” he muttered.

He looked very ill and old as he spoke.

And precisely at that moment, unheralded by any servant, Eve walked into the room.

She had not taken long to make up her mind. She sat thinking for an hour after Miss Emily Casallis left the house on the preceding day. She spent the evening writing letters to put off engagements and caught the 9:15 train from Paddington the following morning. She had neither wired nor written to Hamar—she just turned up—just walked into his room as though she were expected.

“No, don’t get up,” she ordered, “I want to look at you.” And after she had looked—“Then she wasn’t lying.”

“My dear Eve,” he began.

“I know you didn’t expect me,” she cut in, “but here I am. Will you please ring the bell and tell them to take my boxes off the cab and have them unpacked.”

“You are contemplating a visit here,” he queried, as he obeyed her instructions.

Eve nodded.

“Yes, now I’ve seen you,” she answered. “If you’d looked all right I’d have gone straight back.”

“Why then,” said Hamar with a smile, “here is fresh proof of the silver lining theory. But my looks deceive you,” he added, “for I am very well indeed.”

“So well,” retorted Eve bluntly, “that I am going to put you to bed straight away.”

Hamar shook his head and was about to protest when a footman came in.

“Tell him,” said Eve.

And Hamar did. But after the man had gone—

“I most certainly am not going to bed,” he assured her.

“I think you are,” said Eve. “In fact I know you are—even if I have to carry you there myself.”

The strength of her personality was deliciously comforting. It gave him a rapturous sense of going limp. Throughout his life Hamar had never relied on any one save himself. The experience was new and delightful. But it was obviously impossible to obey her commands. He took a grip on himself and again shook his head.

“You are trying to undermine my resolution,” he said. “Supposing I were tempted to accept your rule the consequences would be disastrous. I am a bit tired, I confess, but unhappily responsibilities conspire to prevent me from yielding to an impulse to be tired in comfort. In other words I’ve a deuce of a lot to do.”

“I know all about that,” Eve retorted, “and anything that needs doing shall be done—only I’ll be the one to do it.”

He smiled at her.

“I’m afraid it isn’t quite so easy, Eve.”

“Oh, nonsense. You’re one of those foolish people who believe themselves indispensable—who believe no one in the world can do anything except themselves.”

She had found his weak spot with astonishing accuracy and he acknowledged the thrust with a defensive gesture.

“I have never deputized any of my responsibilities,” he admitted.

“No, and now you’re going to begin,” said she. “I’ll take your orders about the estate if you insist and see that they are carried out—but in all other matters you’ll take my orders and the first is, go to bed at once.”

Again the feeling of delicious lassitude stole over him.

“I have lost one battle this morning already,” he said. “You will strip me of the last of my self-esteem if you cause me to lose another.”

“Hamar,” said Eve, “can’t you trust a woman to know when a man must be treated like a child?”

“Has that moment come?” he queried, plaintively.

“It came ages ago by the look of you.”

“I do feel rather done up,” he admitted.

“You poor old thing,” said Eve, slipping an arm through his and pressing his hand.

The last of Hamar’s resolutions flickered and went out.

“I give in,” he said, simply.

She rang the bell.

To the servant who answered it she said—

“Your master is going to rest for a few days. Please have his sheets turned down and a bottle put in the bed.”

“Heavens,” exclaimed the unhappy invalid, “there isn’t such a thing in the place.”

“Take the one from the top of my dressing bag,” said Eve.

“Very good, Miss,” said the footman, and retired with obvious satisfaction.

To his companions in the Servants’ Hall he made the following announcement.

“That there young lady is the right sort. She’s beat all them doctors at their own game and given the master a week in bed without the option.”

And because Hamar’s servants loved him there was rejoicing behind the green baize door and the name of Eve was exalted and her praises sung.

At the foot of the staircase Hamar paused with a distressing thought.

“It’s all very well,” he said, “but I don’t see how you’re to stop here without a chaperone. You know what the County is.”

“The County,” retorted Eve with distinctness, “can go and hang itself.”

“If you insist,” Hamar answered. “You don’t think I ought to wire for my Aunt Emily to come and preserve the convenances.”

Eve made a very wry face indeed.

“No, thank you. Your Aunt Emily hasn’t a very high opinion of me and as you’re to have a complete rest I think we’ll keep her out of it.”

“But the convenances,” he repeated, lamely.

“The convenances,” said Eve, with more distinctness than ever, “can go and hang themselves too.”

“Right,” said Hamar. And even though the effort made him gasp a bit, he went upstairs feeling like a schoolboy.

The manner in which Eve grasped the intricacies of Poone Corners Estate was miraculous. She had not been a week in the place before her fingers were on the pulse of the entire system. Her father had been a large land owner, wherefore understanding of country folk and their needs and troubles was natural to her. She was, moreover, a shrewd judge of character and readily formed her estimate of those with whom she came into contact. But her chief virtue, from Hamar’s point of view, was the astonishing way in which she preserved his own methods of administration. He did not know that night after night she sat for hours devouring his notes, swotting up the circumstances of this dispute or that scheme, absorbing the painfully meticulous files and reasoning out for herself the attitude of mind that had inspired them. A great deal of the ground she covered appeared at first sight unfertile, but in a very short while she came to realize the perfection of the system Hamar had created and to see what a smooth running and exquisitely precise machine he had achieved. Having made this discovery she was enraptured and her esteem for his work, his foresight and his altruism, grew day by day. Everything was so ordered and fair—so just and common-sensical. A clean uplift, a travel forward, a betterment was everywhere manifested. It was splendid to be associated with anything so progressive and healthy. She glowed.

And it was wonderful for Hamar, with a fat pile of pillows at the back of his shoulders, to find in Eve not only a confidant, but some one to whom he could actually talk about the thing that was so much a part of him. He had never thought any one could have grasped the inwardness of his undertakings as she grasped them. Nor did he find here merely an acquiescent audience. In several matters their views were divergent, but he was bound to admit that her alternatives were often remarkably sound and on several occasions he threw over his own decisions and accepted hers.

It was over Huckleback they were chiefly at variance. Eve pronounced the old man to be a wretched obstructionist, whereas Hamar, who understood and tolerated the conservative mind better than any woman was likely to tolerate it, contended that, so far as he went, Huckleback had a case.

“And so have those five hundred miners,” said Eve hotly.

The matter was ever present in their talks, since of all other subjects it caused Hamar the greatest anxiety. There was no other route possible for the railway, save by cutting a tunnel through the hills at a cost of hundreds of thousands, which, by no stretch of imagination, would justify its expense.

Towards the end of the week Eve rode over to the farm and interviewed Huckleback. The old man gave her some tea, a saffron bun and a blunt refusal to talk about railways. He was polite but “stone-walled.” After tea he mounted a fat cob and rode with her over the farm to show her where he wouldn’t allow the line to be laid. Also he showed his system of irrigating the land, of which he was inordinately proud. But for the brook, he said, the farm wouldn’t be worth working. Thanks to the brook it was the finest growing land in that part of the country. Eve was a good listener when she liked and she listened attentively to everything the old fellow said.

Just before they parted she reverted to the subject of her call.

“Who’s going to guard your ricks, Mr. Huckleback,” she asked, “when, thanks to you, there are five hundred unemployed miners in the neighbourhood?”

This was a new thought to Huckleback and plainly disquieted him. He was rescued from his fear by a sly sense.

“You don’t know Sir Hamar to talk that ways,” he answered. “Sir Hamar keeps things to ’isself, he does. He wouldn’t put no blame on me. ’Twouldn’t be him to lay off.”

And Eve knew it was true and she hated the old man for profitting by it. A fine colour ran over her cheeks.

“I see you’re not a sportsman,” she said.

“I fights with weapons as comes t’hand,” was the reply.

“Then you must expect others to do the same.”

Huckleback grinned leerily.

“Not Sir Hamar. He’s a gent’man.”

“Yes, he is,” said Eve, and added emphatically, “and I’m a woman.”

She rode away, leaving a puzzled man on a fat cob. But she did not return immediately to Poone Corners. Instead, she followed a mossy drive through one of the coverts. It was an ideal place for a gallop—smooth going and broad. During one of his visits Lennox had caused a series of brushwood jumps to be placed there and one after another Eve skimmed over them. She had recognized Lennox’s handiwork in these jumps and experienced a kind of sad joy with the realization. How good it would have been to have ridden there side by side with the man she loved and had sent away—to have heard his cheery word of encouragement and seen his long straight body bend and supple to the emergency of the ride. How good, but how remote the likelihood.

Rabbits scuttled across in front of her—a pheasant towered high, cawking as he rose, pigeons crashed loudly through the upper branches, squirrels scuttled up the trunks of the bigger trees, and a beady-eyed weasel slunk snakewise behind a tuft of brake, as the hoofs drummed by. The drive slowly ascended the foothills, oak and ash thinned out to emerald green slopes of spongy grass tufted with reeds and dotted here and there with black peaty pools. A heron rose on the wing and flapped lazily away.

Up and onward she rode, only drawing rein and letting the mare walk when heather and shale took possession of the higher ground and made perilous going for beast and man. Lichened boulders hatched the bare hilltop, and little runnels of rust-red water trickled down to join the brook. At the highest point she halted and the free wind loosened a wisp of her hair and stranded it across her cheek. Beyond her and below lay the valley where in imagination the new mine shafts were to be sunk. That cleft to the right had been marked for the railway cutting, and purling through it ran the brook—a silver serpent slipping over stones and sliding between narrow walls of rock. At one point the walls were so close together that the water was squeezed almost flat and gushed through to the pool beyond in a tiny cataract. After that its course was fast and easy. Eve traced its descent into the fields below where it widened and smoothed and was thatched and hidden with willows. Further on it reappeared, flashing bravely in the afternoon sun. Before the farm a little dam had been built from whence, like strands of wire, ran the artificial waterways of which Huckleback was so inordinately proud.

Thoughts of the old man, inevitably inspired by the scene of his works, brought the angry glow back to Eve’s cheeks.

“I’ll beat you yet,” she said.

Once again she turned her eyes on the narrow passage in the rock and on the cataract that spouted through. As she looked an idea came to her and took form.

At five o’clock every afternoon Eve gave Hamar his tea, and then they would talk together for an hour, discussing daily events, persons, things and such philosophies as came to them. Hamar had come to look forward to this hour more than any other in the day. The rest of Eve’s visits were as practical as a professional nurse’s. She ministered to his needs, saw that his pillows were packed, his fire burning and the right kind of literature was provided. In the matter of books she was very severe. Any hopes Hamar entertained of improving his mind were speedily dissipated, for the books she prescribed were either of the most frivolous kind or dealt with adventures of Russian Princesses and extraordinarily upright and courageous persons employed by the secret service, whose only vice reposed in a trifle too much scholarship in the matter of selecting wine and victuals. To tell the truth Hamar, who had never before been given to this class of reading, enjoyed the little red thrillers. He consumed about three a day and they produced in him much the same effect as champagne and oysters. It was great fun talking to Eve about all these Counts and people and sometimes, if she considered he was well enough to justify so exuberant an entertainment, she would come up to his room after dinner and they would pretend to be persons in a novel and converse accordingly.

“Madam,” he would say, “though I realize you have placed juice of cursed hebenon in my beer and thereby have imprisoned me to my bed, yet I warn you a day will dawn when I shall arise and flout you.”

And she would reply in a slightly foreign accent and gracefully split all her infinitives as they occurred.

Oh, yes, it was great fun and he would not have missed that hour for anything in the world.

Wherefore, on this day, when five came and half past and then a quarter to six and still she made no appearance, his heart was heavy within him. Six was striking when the sound of hoofs on the gravel outside gave token of her return. A moment later she strode into the room, flushed, rather untidy and looking splendidly efficient.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, “but I’ve been to see Huckleback and after that I rode a bit and thought a bit.”

“Well, here you are and that’s the main thing,” he answered. “I finished ‘No. 19 Wilhelmstrasse’ at four o’clock and having nothing else to read; rang for the ‘Swiss Family Robinson.’ I thought you wouldn’t mind that.”

“I’m not sure,” said Eve. “I think it’s rather too full of piety to do you much good.”

“Maybe you’re right. Robinson himself is a trifle sententious but an excellent father notwithstanding. I thought, perhaps, after dinner we might engage in the spirit of this work. I will play the philosophic Ernest and double the part with the amiable ass Grizzle. I feel I could bray very effectively. You as the devout and efficient mother would be well cast, and I thought that portrait of my great grandfather in the Florentine frame would be excellent as the Swiss Robinson, since by employing him we should be immune from the danger of his making a speech on the subject of caoutchouc or telling me to extinguish my rushlight before the appointed hour.”

“I say,” said Eve, who, for once, was not listening, “will you give me a free hand to deal with old Huckleback.”

Hamar looked troubled.

“I’ve been trying to forget about him,” he said.

“But will you?”

He stared at her thoughtfully and shook his head.

“I’ve got an idea,” she insisted.

“I’ve had several myself,” he countered.

“Mine’s different.”

Then she told him what she had said about firing the ricks.

Hamar frowned.

“I wouldn’t have said that,” said he.

“I know you wouldn’t—you’d take the blame, wouldn’t you?”

“Probably.”

“Yes, and the hatred too.”

“I certainly should never give out the real cause. Miners are rough folk—the old man’s life would be endangered. Eve, I must have your promise to spread no rumour.”

“Oh, I promise,” she said, “but give me a free hand—for four days.”

“What’s your notion?” he queried.

“Give me a free hand, Hamar,” she pleaded, “do.”

But he was very reluctant.

“Hamar,” she went on, “I’ve read all the records of that family and I’ve formed my own idea. I understand that man. If he was out-generaled he wouldn’t mind. It’s stubbornness and love of a fight with him. That and believing you’re soft-hearted enough to let him win.”

“Yes. Quite true. We’ve clashed before and he hasn’t kicked when he lost. But this time, my dear, he holds the cards.”

“Not all of them,” she returned. “Hamar, I’ve found an odd trump—give me leave to play it.”

He thought—then—

“Is it a fair card?” he asked.

“Yes.”

She was thinking of five hundred workless people—stricken wives and babies without milk—and she met the interrogation in his eyes squarely.

“Then go ahead and try,” said he.

And because she had won the engagement she stooped and kissed the top of his head.

Stupid so simple an act should have put a lump in Hamar’s throat.

A little after dawn the following morning a party of men plodded up the hill in the wake of a farm cart heavily laden with timber and tools. Riding on the tail-board was a young engineer from one of the neighbouring mines. His heart was glad within him, for behold, a very lovely lady had summoned him to appear the night before and had spoken to him with much charm and wisdom. After that she had given him a smile, a drink and a cigarette from her own case. Her parting words had been:

“Mr. Earnshaw, I rely on you absolutely.”

Upon very few doth beauty rely—and not in vain was the heavenborn trust.

The spirits of Mr. Earnshaw were blithe and he felt the dawn was overlong in coming. When he addressed his forces before the start it was as a general who opens a big campaign. He called the men “boys” and bade them “work like hell.”

They certainly did.

Shortly after lunch Mr. Ezra Huckleback, with a highly inflamed complexion, galloped into the stable yard at Poone Corners. His excitement was so great that he omitted to tie the reins to the ring, whereupon the fat cob made a leisurely and riderless return to Place Farm, pausing en route to refresh himself at a haystack and unhappily oversetting a crate of eggs left at the door of his stall.

Mr. Huckleback shouted when instructed to sit down and wait. He damned the operation of sitting down and blasted the principle of waiting. And because he was noisy Eve kept him waiting a quarter of an hour. When at length he was admitted his speech was so explosive as to be incoherent. A great deal was said about a “danged brook and a danged dam” but as “dam” featured so largely in the speech it was impossible to distinguish when it was used as an adjective and when as a noun.

“I want to see Sir Hamar,” was roared.

“You can’t do that,” said Eve. “I’m the only person you can see. Is anything the matter?”

Oh no! Nothing was the matter. Nothing except that a party of carefully described workmen, under the aegis of an incarnadined individual, had something that well damned the brook at the valley cleft with the result—

“With the result,” Eve cut in, “that there will be a lake in the valley instead of the mine you so greatly objected to.”

“That there brook belongs to me,” roared Huckleback.

“Yes,” said Eve sweetly, “but there isn’t a clause in your lease to say Sir Hamar has to fill it with water. The lake will be very pretty and you can take Mrs. Huckleback for a row upon it on Saturday afternoons.”

The obstructionist clenched his fists and fought down his rising temper.

“ ’Twill mean the ruin o’ my lands,” he said.

Eve nodded sympathetically.

“Is that dang thing goin’ to be took away?” he demanded.

“Yes,” replied Eve, “when you give your consent to the railway being laid.”

Followed a tremendous pause, pride and obstinacy fighting against surrender. At last—

“I’ll lay my life Sir Hamar had nought to do wi’ this.”

“He had just this much to do with it,” Eve answered. “He told me I could do what I liked to get the concession.”

“And you tries to ruin an honest man.”

“I try to save five hundred honest men from starvation and I’m going to do it.”

There was a splendid battle of eyes.

“Strike me!” said the old man. “You can fight. Here, gimme paper and ink.”

And then it was Eve showed her understanding.

“Never mind about that,” she said, “let’s shake hands on it instead.”

“So I will,” said Huckleback, and he did.

By six o’clock that evening the water was again brawling over the uncovered stones at the bed of the brook and many astonished trout, who had spent the driest day of their lives in various holes and puddles where the water had collected, heaved sighs of gratitude.

“I say,” said Eve to Hamar. “Do you see this hand of mine?”

“Distinctly,” said Hamar, “but what about it?”

“I’ve just been shaking hands with Huckleback, that’s all.”

Hamar sat up in bed suddenly.

“You don’t mean?”

“I do.”

And she told him all about it, while a variety of conflicting expressions passed over his face.

“Oh, clever,” he said, “and far-seeing—and not terribly just.”

“I was thinking of the future,” she replied.

“Yes, of the future—I know.” He looked at her quizzically, and smiled. Then he said “How I love an optimist.”

“Am I that?”

“Aren’t you?” Then—“Poor old Lennox.”

“Why do you speak of him now?”

“I don’t know—perhaps because I thought in all you have done and are doing for me there is some sense of Lennox in your mind—a sense and a service to him.”

She lifted her shoulders.

“Yes, perhaps,” she admitted. “Perhaps—I think there is, really.”

He leaned forward a little and took her hand.

“That makes me glad,” he said, “for I too am an optimist.”

At a steady thirty miles an hour the big yellow Cadillac scorched up the serpentine road to the eucalyptus forest that divides the upper outskirts of Algiers from the village of Bouzarea. The only instructions Jane Toop had received from the tall Arab, who spoke such remarkable English, had been—

“To Blidah and the Chiffa Gorge.”

There had been no second opportunity of examining his features since he and his mysterious bundle occupied the back seat and the road demanded too great attention to the wheel to admit of an over-shoulder glance. The moon had disappeared behind racing clouds and the little reflecting glass that projected from the wind screen showed her nothing. But a delightful sense of excitement tingled through Jane’s nerves and veins. Something quite definitely out of the ordinary had come her way and the thought of its probable development into a real first class adventure rejoiced her courageous soul. She could not pretend to be glad that her passenger was coloured; on the other hand he was no ordinary Arab, as was clear from his size and a momentary glimpse by the light of an arc lamp of a pair of steely blue eyes, shiny and bright, beneath the cowl of a burnous. It had not occurred to her that he might be disguised. Wherefore her astonishment was complete when a hand touched her shoulder and a dry voice said:

“Pull up a minute. Got any clean oil? I want to get this muck off my face.”

She put on the brakes and turning round saw a strange transformation. The tall Arab was plucking out his beard in handfuls and throwing it over the side of the car. Moreover cowl and turban had disappeared, revealing beneath a well brushed and essentially English head of hair. She had barely recovered from her initial surprise when yet another presented itself. Lolling against the back cushions with eyes closed and black hair stranding across olive cheeks was a girl—asleep.

“I say,” exclaimed Jane Toop; “what the dickens!”

“That’s all right,” replied the dry voice. “Don’t ask any questions, d’you mind. Not feeling terribly well. Got that oil?”

Jane produced a tin of Vacuum A and handed it to him without a word. He poured some on his hands and rubbed his face vigorously and then tore a piece from the hem of his burnous with which to wipe it off. The result of these labours was vastly improving to his looks and Jane, who in the ordinary way was not given to superlatives, confessed later when discussing the matter with a friend:

“He certainly was ferociously handsome—that very mannish sort of handsomeness, y’know.”

When Lennox had finished cleaning himself, he addressed her again.

“I left some gear in these bushes—a tent and some whites I bought. Mind giving me a hand to get them aboard.”

He tottered as he got out of the car and she reached forward to steady him. In so doing their hands met.

“I say,” she exclaimed, “you’re feverish.”

But he only scowled and shook his head.

They went together to the spot beneath the trees where the bundle had been hidden and with a pair of straps Jane made it fast to the luggage grid at the back. Lennox had climbed into the car again and was shivering. When she had finished she came round and stared at him.

“Look here,” she said, “it’s none of my business but you’re not fit to rush about like this. Hadn’t I better tote you back to a hotel somewhere?”

Again he scowled and shook his head.

“The Chiffa Gorge,” he repeated. “Get through the mountains.”

Jane Toop shrugged her shoulders.

“It’s your own pigeon,” said she.

But before returning to the driving seat she shook out the rugs and wrapped up her two passengers as though they were children. It was astonishing how gentle was the touch of her grubby hands with the short-bitten finger nails. Lennox submitted unconsciously. His eyes were open and he was staring vacantly at the little brown face so near his own like a child who is looking at a rainbow for the first time.

Jane Toop returned to the wheel and the car hummed forward into the night.

The road wound through a succession of small valleys, over a rolling sweep of fields under the plough and down into the vineyards that mile upon mile stretch beneath the Atlas Mountains. Very straight runs the road by the little stunted vines that symmetrically dot the brown earth like chessmen on a board. Here and there it passes under an aisle of silver birches or takes a curve through an orange orchard, its trees weighed down with fruit. And ever as the road goes forward the crenelated battlements of the range grow nearer and more threatening. Turquoise mountains with sapphire shadows and saw-edged snow-capped summits, their vast tree clad slopes rise out of the plain abruptly as the falls of a fortress. Troubled and harsh, frowning and intolerant, no sweet call sounds from them to intrigue the climber to mount their spires and taste the free airs of heaven that blow in high places. Instead, there is a threat—a warning. The soul of the Atlas Mountains is sour and her shoulders are cold. Here is no gentleness, no charm, nought but rude savagery uncultured in the ways of kindliness—embittered by angry elements. The faces of the mountains are scored by a million wrinkles and awkwardly the snow draggles across their barren heads. Their cheeks are warted with boulders and scarred with mile-wide fissures. Unkempt beards of tangled forests cling to their bony jaws. Sunken, gnarled and twisted are their barren breasts. Like giants unrefreshed, huge deformities of nature that know not peace nor quietude—they fret the sky in a thousand agonized contortions.

Jane Toop drove fast—for she knew every inch of the road across the vineyards. Flat and straight it ran like a racing track. There were many kilos to cover before they would reach the Gorge and it was well to take them fast for in the mountains speed must be matched to the gradient and the danger of the road. She expected to reach the mouth of the Gorge about level with the dawn when she would have early daylight to illumine her task.

For nearly an hour no sound came from the back of the car. Both passengers seemed to be asleep. Not unnaturally Jane was burning with curiosity and was even tempted to take the man by the shoulders and demand enlightenment. Who was the girl and why was she there? A sudden dread possessed her that perhaps the girl was dead, but a backward glance which showed the gentle rise and fall of breathing banished the fear. Absurdly enough Jane Toop resented the presence of another woman in the car. For one thing the girl was very pretty—too pretty—and Jane was not over fond of pretty girls because, more often than not, they were foolish and supine. She could not imagine why so virile a man encumbered himself with a foolish and useless person. The obvious solution was that he had abducted her, but Jane would not accept the obvious solution because she didn’t like it. In fact she hated it. Then suddenly out of the darkness behind came a dry voice, speaking with unnatural clarity.

The result of Lennox’s reading was returning to him subconsciously. The verse finished on a laugh and a sort of mumbling sigh. To Jane the experience was rather trying although her nerves were made of iron.

“Do shut up!” she said, over her shoulder.

The mumbling continued and died away—absorbed, as it were, in the hum of the back axle.

“Whoof!” said Jane. “This is silly.”

They came to the little walled town of Blidah as the dawn, grey and moist, peeped over the ridges of the Kybyle mountains. The town was rousing itself from slumber and as they passed down the main street folks were stirring and the notes of a bugle sounded from the Square of the Caserne. A sleepy guide rolled off the doorstep of an hotel and shouted to the occupants of the car—a boy in charge of goats drove his herd up a side turning with cries and the brandishing of a stick—dusty children raced along the narrow sidewalk, shrilly beseeching for sous.

It was the bugle that aroused Lennox Casallis. He sat up, stretched himself and shivered a little.

“Where are we?” he demanded.

And when Jane Toop told him—

“It’s very cold,” he said.

“Come in front for a bit,” she suggested, slowing down. “It’s warmer in front.”

Lennox turned his eyes on Meriem. She was sleeping peacefully.

The car stopped on the outskirts of the town and he got out.

“Have a spot of tea,” said Jane. “I’ve got a thermos.”

“That’s an idea,” he muttered. “Never thought of that.”

He gratefully accepted a little tin pannikin of tea and gulped it down. It burnt his throat and cleared his brain. “Sorry,” he apologized, “you should have had first go.”

“That’s all right. Biscuit?”

“Thanks.”

He munched the biscuit in silence and again looked at Meriem.

“Think one ought—” he began.

But Jane shook her head.

“I’d let her sleep on. She seems to need it.”

“My God, yes. Poor little devil. Wants a rest.”

Jane was dying to ask questions but with an effort restrained herself and nodded assent.

“It’s the chloroform,” said Lennox.

Jane’s hand shook with curiosity as she poured out another measure of tea and handed it to him.

“Chloroform?” she repeated.

“Yes. Heaven send I didn’t overdo it.”

Jane started.

“You? Why—?”

“Couldn’t think of any other way,” he explained.

“I see,” said she; which, of course, was untrue.

If she hadn’t been so terribly interested Jane would have been terribly angry. To hide a conflict of emotion and curiosity she gave Lennox a hard boiled egg. He cracked the shell absently against the side of the car.

“Look out for my panels, please,” she insisted.

“Sorry.” A pause—then—“This breakfast was a good notion. Fine. I say, was I a bit strange last night?”

“Touch of fever, I think.”

“H’m. Not unlikely.”

He put a hand gently to his shoulder.

“Anything wrong?” she asked.

“Bit of a wound, that’s all.”

Subsequently he couldn’t remember how he came to take off his coat and roll up his shirt sleeve to the shoulder. Perhaps Jane did it for him. He had been wearing his ordinary clothes under the Arab burnous.

“This wants dressing,” said Jane, looking in disgust at the ugly tear in his flesh. The surrounding skin was bruised and inflamed.

“Be all right in a day or two. Hadn’t time to get anything done yesterday.”

There was some methylated spirit in a small camp cooking outfit and tearing a piece from the discarded burnous Jane cleaned the wound and bound it up. Her methods were rough but efficient. Her fingers had the firm touch of a surgeon who at once hurts and heals. Lennox did not wince.

“It’s good of you, all this,” he said.

But she only shrugged her shoulders and asked if he was ready to get on.

“In a minute. Must see the child is comfortable first.”

But Jane would not let him do this. She herself picked up the little body of the sleeping girl—laid it along the seat and packed it in with the carpet and the rugs. The decisive way she acted reminded him of the wife of a friend who, without waking her children, would square them up in bed and turn the pillows and tuck in the sheets. It had always amazed him how this could be done without disturbing the little sleepers. But then, women were amazing.

When she had finished Jane Toop returned to her place at the wheel and Lennox sat beside her.

“Now where?” she demanded.

“Over the mountains—the desert,” he answered.

And the big car moved forward.

In Northern Africa there is little division between darkness and light. The deep blue bowl of sky was fretted with tassels of pink and gold when they entered the Gorge, its sharp precipitous slopes, jungled with trees, rising out of the stony bed of the river. From the level plains the road plunged into the very heart of mountains. A marvellous road, vanquishing impossible difficulties with infinite patience. A wonderful road, scratched on the bare side of down and precipice—twisting, winding like a snake, stealing through tunnels and over bridges and clinging to the edge of crags. An amazing road, roared at by mountain winds, sung to by rivers, fretted and embroidered by myriads of lace-like waterfalls and garnished with huge tufts of prickly-pear and spiked cactus. It swept by forests of stunted oaks and forests of cork trees, their trunks stripped naked of bark. It ribboned over stretches of rank grass and tumbled screes. It opened upon vistas of mighty peaks and chimneys, and narrow gorges. Ever onward and upward it went dizzily—persistently—round an infinite succession of hairpin bends with a sheer drop of a thousand feet on the one and a sheer rise on the other. Up, up, up to a thinning air and an icy wind that set the pulses beating, that shortened breath and made the heart hammer against the ribs.

Never, it seemed, would the climb end or the summit be reached. Each fresh corner revealed fresh ranges beyond. Endless horizon filling mountains, limitless as space, tender with trees, harsh with rock, shaggy and old with unmelting snows—sunlit and shadowed mountains of every shape and description—of every tone and colour. A surfeit of mountains.

At last, when Lennox had despaired of ever reaching the top, a little white stone by the wayside proclaimed an elevation of over four thousand feet and the road dipped gently and began to descend. The high peaks melted into hills and plateaux, more colourful and less tremendous. The grey of the rocks mellowed to pinks and cinnamons. The black, gnarled forests dwindled to single trees dotting and shading pleasant easy slopes. The whole character of the scenery changed, its fierce fertility giving place to something calm but strangely arid. A growing absence of life and of the suggestion of living things was revealed—and a growing sense of barrenness and tranquillity, very hard to define. Away to the south rose a brown haze that mixed and melted with the sky.

For five hours the car had crept through the mountains—hours that called for unremitting vigilance on the part of the driver. Jane Toop knew her job inside and out but she did not divert her attention by talking throughout this part of the journey. Her replies to the few questions put to her were brief and monosyllabic. She kept her eyes on the twisting road and took no risks. Her silence did not trouble Lennox for he had little enough inclination to talk. When his thoughts shifted for an occasional moment from his own concern, they were centred on admiration of this plain young woman’s masterly handling of the car. For the first few miles through the Gorge he was sure they would be smashed up. He was unused to the class of road upon which they were travelling and disaster seemed inevitable. Himself an efficient if rather spectacular driver, he had the nervousness common to many motorists when another is at the wheel. It was hard to believe a woman could be every bit as capable of handling the car as himself. But oddly enough the possibility of disaster disturbed him very little. Indeed, his imagination dwelt pleasantly on the thought. It would be a sudden and dramatic end. After a while he shook himself free from these morbid considerations and puckered his forehead as to the cause of them. Had he not cast sorrow to the winds, buried the past and embarked on a future free from care and misgiving? The day before it had all seemed so simple—so easy—so enchanting. Stupid, false civilization had been jettisoned. He had gone back to the wild—with a wild mate of his own.

“Back to the wild.” He repeated the words under his breath.

Back to the wild—along a road that was the last word in engineering. Back to the wild, in an eight cylinder Cadillac car with a very practical young woman in khaki at the wheel and a thermos flask half full of tea beside him.

He had to shake himself to drive away this view of the case. He had to look over his shoulder at the little face peering out of the bundle of rugs to convince himself that the step actually had been taken.

How small and lovely she was—like a princess in the Arabian Nights. Whence came the loveliness that was her?

They passed a wretched Arab and his wife toiling in the wake of a laden ass. The pair were ragged and dirty beyond description, but the colour of their skin was the colour of Meriem’s. At the realization a cold shiver ran down his spine. It was a detestable thought that such as these— No. He drove it away. Nothing mattered, save what man and woman were to each other. And there had been the premonition—the call. He mustn’t forget that. This—all this was destiny—a page written when the world was a babe to be fulfilled today. He turned his head and the mountains absorbed him. Presently he knew that something was wrong with the mountains. They lacked the calm simplicity, the sweet grandeur he had looked to find. They were threatening—savage—troubled. They awoke in him no sympathetic chord. He did not like them—they made him uneasy, restless. Almost they frightened him. He wanted to change places with Jane Toop and drive furiously until they were left behind. The mountains in his dream were smooth and gentle, a soft carpet for bare feet—they smelt deliciously of something, the name of which he could not recall. Tiny flowers grew upon them for tiny hands to pluck and fashion into wreaths. Also there were dark grass rings for dancing and a sense everywhere of faerie. Something was wrong with these spiked and cruel cacti; they did not belong to the picture. The precipices, too, should have been white—not black. Then his mind ran on black and white—white and black and mixed them and there was grey—nothing but grey.

It was a tremendous relief when Jane Toop suggested a halt and some food.

“Don’t know about you,” she said, “but I could do with some solid grub.”

The uncompromisingly plain words rang pleasantly in his ears. They provided, as it were, an anchorage with common sense.

“Phew,” said Jane, as she got out of the car and stretched herself. “Phew! Pretty strenuous—all that.”

She had been driving unceasingly for over eight hours and the strain showed in the hollows of her eyes and the dryness of her lips.

The car had been drawn in to the roadside at the spot where the mountains declined toward the brown plains.

She tilted her head toward the South and said:

“Beginning of the desert. Cold up there, wasn’t it?”

Lennox nodded and helped with the picnic basket. It contained yawn-wide sandwiches, some tomatoes, cake and oranges and beer.

“Look here,” Lennox protested, “I don’t see how we can eat your food.”

Jane resented the “we,” but—

“Rats,” she replied, “you go ahead. Dare say you’ll find it down on the bill.”

“Never occurred to me to bring anything.”

“Bright thought,” said Jane, snapping a crescent out of one of the sandwiches and chewing it vigorously. Then, with her mouth still full—

“Strikes me, a good deal didn’t occur to you—strikes me you went off at half-cock.”

She un-stoppered a bottle of beer and swallowed a long draught.

“Have some?”

“Thanks,” said Lennox—and to hide a growing sense of embarrassment he drank deeply.

“Still,” remarked Jane, “as you are about to say, it’s no affair of mine.”

Directly—if obliquely—it was an invitation to confide.

To change the subject Lennox asked:

“Aren’t you very tired?”

“Too tired to talk much, but not too tired to listen,” came the answer.

He hesitated.

“You’ve a right to know something about it,” he said, “because, in a way, you’ve helped rescue the child.”

“Have I? From what?”

Again he hesitated.

“I’m not easily shocked,” said Jane.

As briefly as possible he explained.

“I see,” said she. “Done much of this kind of rescue work?”

Lennox flushed.

“I have not,” he replied.

“Ha. Hm. Where are you rescuing her to?”

“We shall go into the desert.”

“I meant who are you rescuing her for?”

He did not reply.

“Yourself?” she asked.

“Yes, myself,” he replied, scarlet but honest.

Jane Toop took another bite at the sandwich, as though she meant to kill it. At last:

“Well, that’s all very nice, isn’t it,” said she. “And so long as you’re pleased, that’s the main thing.”

Lennox flushed darkly.

“When two people love one another,” he began.

“They ought to be by themselves,” said Jane.

He nodded.

“I’m sorry—I apologize,” he said, “but you will do me the justice to admit that I did not know of your coming.”

“Oh! don’t bother about me,” Jane sniffed. “I’m part of the machinery, that’s all.”

“No,” said Lennox. “Unwittingly I’ve put you in a false position—I regret that very much.”

“I should save your regrets. You may need ’em,” she replied.

After that there was a long and awkward silence, throughout which Jane ate enormously and drank some more beer and stared out in front of her with a very fine colour on her cheeks.

Presently Lennox said—

“I suppose it would be unreasonable to expect you to understand, especially as you are angry.”

She tossed her head.

“Oh, I’m not angry—don’t flatter yourself. Only I’m not terribly fond of black and white artists.”

The venom she put into the words stung Lennox like a blow across the mouth.

“If a man had said that,” he jerked out, “if a man had said that I’d—”

“Have knocked him down?” she queried.

“I apologize,” said he.

“You needn’t—for temper,” said Jane. “I like temper—got one myself. Of course if you laid a hand on me I should shoot you, but I wouldn’t blame you very much.”

“I admire your spirit.”

“Thanks, I’ve no use for admiration,” she snapped. But strangely enough that wasn’t true. Her very next remark proved it wasn’t true.

“I say,” she pleaded, “you’re a good sort, aren’t you? Isn’t all this rather a pity—rather a dam shame? I don’t even know your name, but I’m pretty sure you come out of the right sort of box. What do you want to hitch on to this sort of life for? Ain’t there a girl of your own class to make you happy?”

“Apparently not,” he returned. “I hoped so myself once—but—apparently not.”

With this brief reply he checked the impulse, common to injured creatures, to find a confidant. It was a step up.

“Pique,” exclaimed Jane Toop, clapping her hands together. “Pique.”

And at that moment came the sound of another voice:

“Sa’ara!” it said. “Sa’ara.”

Looking up, Lennox saw Meriem sitting upright in the back of the car. Her arms were outstretched and pointed to the South—her sloe-coloured eyes were fixed on the tawny haze hanging over the horizon.

“Sa’ara,” she repeated in ecstasy.

When a native greets the desert her voice sounds like a soft wind stirring the Sahara sands. She did not seem aware of her immediate surroundings, her awakened senses were wholly absorbed in the furthest distances. Miraculously and out of a dream—a dream that had begun with a queer, pungent, sickly sweet scent that deliciously stole away consciousness—she had returned to her own country—the country of the Ouled Nails. Her eyes were filled with familiar outlines—her nostrils with a balm. The utterly blue sky overhead, the dwindling foothills that ran out in sands, the keen, kind, intoxicating air—these were the tokens of a childhood almost forgotten and instantly remembered. She turned to find some one to whom she might convey the joy she felt—and behold, another amazement stood before her. Tall, splendid and fair was the chevalier of her dreams. And looking at him—realizing his presence and his nearness—putting out a hand to touch his coat and withdrawing it with a tiny gasp of ecstasy—the love of places died out of her eyes and the love of man entered.

Lennox had opened the door of the car. He knew infallibly that she would tilt into his arms. Again it was written in every line of her—in the sudden haste of her breathing—the thrilling of her fingers—the quick opening of her lips—the sighs that filtered through them. The huddled mass of rugs and carpets had slipped away from her and she was revealed in the thin white shift she had worn the night before. She was kneeling now on the back seat of the car, her naked brown feet with their hennaed toes tucked under her. The thin silk of her shift was drawn tight over the lithe, half boyish, half girlish form. The curve of her small breasts filled the folds of the fabric that ran in straight parallel lines beneath them. A twist of raven black hair coiled over her shoulder and was dusted gold by the bright rays of the sun. She could not have been lovelier—more desirable—and seeing her, something caught at Lennox’s throat and his whole being kindled.

The commonplace words half formed to greet her died still born. He put out his hands.

And Jane Toop released the stopper of another bottle of beer. It will not be known whether she did it on purpose, but it is quite probable. The gaseous contents of the bottle hissed cynically and an exquisite moment was mutilated and destroyed.

Lennox Casallis reformed the commonplace words and offered an arm to help Meriem alight. She did not understand the words, but she understood the sudden check in his emotion, the sudden dying out of fire in his eyes. As her bare feet touched the ground she turned to look at Jane and her whole expression went black and resentful. Her lips compressed themselves into a prodigious pout—the arch went from her brows and they became straight.

“Hullo,” said Jane pleasantly. “Awake at last, eh?” She got up and held out a hand. Meriem touched it with the tips of her fingers—that was all. “I ’spect you’re pretty hungry, too.” And she offered a sandwich.

The sharp woman sense in the girl was alert for possible affronts. She took the sandwich diffidently, opened it and found it contained ham. With blazing eyes she flung it down and ground it into the dust with her heel.

“Eater of swine flesh. Pig!” she cried. But as they did not comprehend the language she spoke the words were wasted. The situation was tense.

Jane Toop had coloured angrily. She was not familiar with Eastern prejudices. She thought the girl meant to be rude, and she looked as though she herself might be difficult. Thus Lennox found himself in the sorry plight of having to placate two women at the same time. To Jane he said

“You ought to have half an hour’s sleep.”

To Meriem he offered an orange.

She accepted the orange. Lennox disposed himself awkwardly on the running board of the car and Meriem sat on the ground at his feet. She made a hole in the orange with her forefinger and having done so she sucked first the finger, then the orange. Meanwhile never for an instant did her eyes leave Jane nor did the animosity in them abate.

Jane took out her cigarette case and a much chewed holder and smoked. Somehow she contrived to smoke insolently. She appeared to enjoy the cigarette unreasonably well—also she extracted more smoke from it than so small a cylinder could be expected to provide. Possibly there were fires inside herself that escaped that way, concealing their identity behind the name of W. D. & H. O. Wills.

There was a prolonged silence, broken only by the sound of puffing and sucking and an occasional flick from a flying orange pip, in the disposal of which Meriem revealed more skill than grace.

It was a difficult silence to intrude upon and Lennox racked his brains for some means of relieving it. The entire situation was alien to what he had anticipated. He had embarked on the enterprise as a man wounded, raw and febrile. And behold the thin mountain air was ridding his veins of fever, and the live presence of this child he had rescued was making her seem unreal. The whole atmosphere was changed and false. And yet all around him were proofs and evidences that he had reached his goal. He had planned this thing—had seen in it fierce happiness—repose—surcease from pain and anger and perhaps ecstasy. Almost it had seemed to possess an old time nobility—a grand contact with an age of simple needs and stalwart deeds. He had seen in it nought but love and loving—forgetfulness and the growth of a new joy rising, like a phoenix, out of the ashes of disappointment.

Yes, he had planned this thing—every detail—but now that his plans were realized came the sudden knowledge that the thing he had was a different thing. The simplicity he sought to capture was not there. It was shadowed by mountains that depressed him—it was cluttered up with modern machinery. It was marred by an absence of modern manners. He had gone back to the wild and had brought with him a sense of polite etiquette. Heaven above! Was this pulsating romance going to escape him—was it to be revealed transformed in the light of a vulgar and complicated intrigue. He could not evade the thought. It predominated. And why? The answer was a matter of feeling rather than of knowledge. He had claimed for himself ancientry—had denied his own century in favour of a vague consciousness of a dead past. He had believed he could relive in the spirit of that past. He did not know that evolution will not have it so—that countless aeons coax and mould and persuade the children of earth into a common likeness. The years march forward and footprints alter with the times. Nothing that has been learnt can ever be forgotten—nothing that has been absorbed can ever be banished. Doors may be closed and dust may settle on what lies behind—but it lies there still.

Out of the chaos of these tangled thoughts came the voice of Meriem. She spoke in French, nodding her head over each elusive word, like a bird drinking. Her forefinger was pointed at Jane Toop.

“C’est—votre—autre—femme?” she asked, and there was agony in her tone.

“No—no,” said Lennox hurriedly. “Non—non.”

“Non?” The word was spoken incredulously.

Jane Toop had turned with a devastating stare. To Lennox a row seemed inevitable. He leant forward and spoke quickly in French.

“I have no other wife.”

He had to repeat the sentence three times before a pure joy of understanding came into Meriem’s eyes.

Then he turned to speak a word of regret and apology to Jane. He was amazed to observe that her mouth was all screwed up and two fat tears were streaking her none too clean cheeks.

“Poor brat,” she said. “Poor brat.” Then with sudden fierceness, to hide emotion. “My lord! You’ve taken on something.”

Lennox stared at her and nodded slowly.

“Yes,” he muttered under his breath. “Yes I have.” There was a pause—then—“What am I going to do?”

“To do? Why, go through with it, of course. It’s the only decent thing you can do.”

She pronounced the verdict through shut teeth, buttoned her jacket with trembling fingers and jumped into the car.

“Heap that stuff inside,” she said, “and let’s get on.”

Lennox and Meriem occupied the back seat of the car and since French was the only tongue in which they shared a mild acquaintance their talk was of the slenderest. His right hand was closed over her right hand. His left arm circled her shoulders. She had put it there. Her cheek rested against his breast and she was utterly content. Sometimes she played with a button of his coat, sometimes she looked up at him and smiled. Sometimes she moved the hand he held and caressingly turned her fingers about his. And because she was content she hummed a little tuneless air to herself like a kitten purring before the fire. Jane Toop preserved an eyes front attitude, disciplined as a Brigade of Guards. For this mercy Lennox was grateful. In spite of himself—in spite of the sense of warmth and sweetness the touch of the child’s body brought him, he was ill at ease. A quickened modesty found distaste for this public evidence of affection. His emotions were not sufficiently stirred to make him insensible to such a triviality. Though he strove to rejoice in the knowledge, he could not keep his mind focussed on the simplicity of this child who acted thus in all good faith and trust and submission. Imagination kept throwing up offensive parallels of people who sat thus intertwined in public conveyances. Vinous men, with purple faces, who embraced girls in the backs of motor cars on the Brighton road and spoke of them afterwards as “birds.” He hated this association of idea and despised himself for his pernickety susceptibilities, but the antidote wherewith he sought to allay them was signally unsuccessful. He told himself that this confiding child meant more to him than anything in the world—and he did not convince himself. He filled his lungs and said “young blood—young blood,” but the words sounded empty and vain and even silly.

Meanwhile Meriem nestled closer and hummed her little song and was happy. In her dream was neither doubt nor perplexity. A man had been given her—the one all powerful man. Very soon the world would open up like a flower. Such a world! Such a world! She did not know anything about poetry but she knew she had begun to live in the first lines of a poem that would have no end. For the rest, nothing bothered her. To be in a motor car was a new experience but this she scarcely noticed, since to have done so would have demanded thought, and she was not thinking except with her senses. True she never had thought any other way, but only now were her senses fully awakened. They were telling her all sorts of delicious things, too. They told her how good it was to have one’s head so resting on a man’s breast that one could hear the thud-a-thud-thud of his heart beats and how wonderful it was to breathe in time with him. These were links that bound people together—that made two into one. Once she lifted her lips to the level of his and he shyly brushed them with a kiss—very shyly. Exquisite it was! like a sip of intoxicating essence, the taste of which sent a myriad little thrills running through her. Then, too, there was the strength of his grasp—possessive, protective. A hundred others had held her hands thus but it had meant nothing—and, like all previous experience, had left no impression either of resentment or of regard. Her senses were virgin senses but where once inert they were now abnormally sensitive to the least indication. With the coming of Lennox was her beginning—before Lennox she had no existence. Save for a half forgotten patch of early childhood that seemed to have had a streak of laughter across it, her life had been an irksome succession of days and nights, in which wakefulness and sleep were so merged as to be almost indistinguishable. It even lacked the intensity of horror. She had lived in the centre of violent emotions which had left her untouched—which had flowed over her like water flowing unheeded beneath a bridge. Even the tiny cloud of jealousy—that new toy delivered as an accessory to love—had vanished out of the sky. She was utterly happy and she sang.

At about noon they came to the half French, half native town of Berrouaghia and stopped in the square to obtain petrol. Instantly the car was surrounded by a crowd of Arabs—blacks and pasty-faced half breeds. Enormous interest was excited by the spectacle of the big white man with the little brown girl at his side. There was much shouting and some indecent jests which, to the advantage of their inventors, Lennox did not understand. However he guessed their purport, scowled threateningly to right and left and looked to see whether or no Meriem was offended. To his surprise her face was wreathed in smiles and after a moment she was engaging in badinage with the jesters in the highest good humour. What she said must have been particularly funny since it was greeted with roars of approval and much beating of ribs. Lennox endured this gaiety for as long as he was able, then he touched her on the shoulder and, when she turned an enquiring face, he frowned. The effect was instantaneous. Meriem looked as though her laughter would turn to tears. She tucked in her chin and was silent and presently she took the handkerchief from his pocket and with it covered the lower half of her face as every good wife should do. Lennox observed the restraining influence he had exercised on Meriem, had the entire approval of the older members of the crowd. They nodded their heads as though to give him support. Such frivolous conduct on the part of a woman demanded measures of repression and it was good to see a white man—usually so lax in these matters—act so properly.

Meanwhile Jane Toop, who was filling the tank, came in for considerable attention. She, however, had a ready way with her when pressed too closely. She put out a leg and pushed the intruders away. Also she addressed them in highly colloquial terms that admitted of no misunderstanding.

“Lot of rubber necks! Make room there, if you don’t want your toes trodden on.”

There was very little nonsense about Jane Toop and on this particular day she was determined there should be less than ever. She walked like a man—she talked like a man and sometimes she swore like a man. She was angry, very angry—not with the foolish gaping natives who got in her way—but for a variety of other reasons, chief among them that she had betrayed outward evidences of emotion and had been apprehended in the act of tears by a man whom she—well, despised. It would be a jolly long time before he should see her anything but practical again. Wherefore she turned on a negro youth who was dipping his toes into a bucket of water she had brought for the radiator and told him to take his “dirty foot out of that blasted can.” That was the stuff she proposed handing about in the future—that was the sort of obligato the desert lovers might expect from her. She climbed into the car again, put her elbow on the button of the Klaxon horn and her foot on the accelerator. That was the kind of woman she was.

Of course she was terribly tired. Her eyelids were crinkly for want of sleep, and her lips parched and sore. There was no particular reason why she should not have confessed her fatigue, except that a dozen times Lennox had offered to take her place at the wheel that she might rest. To these overtures she had returned the stoniest refusal.

“I drive this car and no one else,” she retorted.

Pride, false or otherwise, kept her going. She meant to prove to this temperamental fool, who seemed to regard life as a series of concessions to impulse, that certain people existed who could rise superior to the primitive physical demands of nature; yes and stamp them underfoot. So she clung to the wheel and the road was swallowed up by the car as a spring measure swallows the steel tape. But this tape had no end. It ribboned on and on and on like a chalk line drawn across a board. Curse the chalk line! it made her dizzy and yet her eyes dared not leave it even for an instant. She felt like a chicken held, beak down. Hypnotized. Curse the chalk line, it was conquering her. She began to steer wavily, to see whether or no she could make the line wriggle. She couldn’t—it was defeating her—absorbing her—she was going—going—g—

A back tire burst with a loud report—the car skidded, swerved. She snatched at the brake—it stopped and her head tilted forward on the wheel. She was asleep.

Jane Toop did not move. She was numbed by and enveloped in a deep, brown, unconscious sleep. She might have been struck down by a club so completely were her faculties exhausted. Meriem had screamed shrilly when the tire burst and the car swerved and jolted. It was natural enough she should have acted so, but to Lennox Casallis, accustomed as he was to a generation whose fetish was to exhibit no evidence of alarm in the presence of a physical danger, the scream was an offence. He realized the injustice of being angry with her for so small a cause—but he was angry nevertheless. She did not understand the quick words he spoke to reassure her and here again was matter for irritation. After the long strain it was irksome to struggle for a French equivalent. That he laboured valiantly to do so was in itself a sign of grace. The echo of the silly scream rang in his ears distractingly. Jane would not have acted so—Eve would have died rather than reveal alarm. And others of his acquaintance—other women who might have changed colour maybe—who might have fumbled at the offered cigarette—who might have laughed nervously—but to scream! And then came a fresh annoyance. Meriem pointed to Jane, nodded her head, humped her shoulders, made a face and grinned. In effect this succession of actions read:

“She’s out of it and I’m jolly glad.”

Lennox scowled. How dared this little brown thing mock a woman of his own kind. He was absurdly incensed. To hide his indignation he swung a leg over the side of the car and dropped to the ground. The near side back tire was cut through—gone beyond repair. The wheel would have to be changed. But the jack and the necessary tools were beneath the front seat upon which Jane Toop was sleeping. Lennox hesitated a moment before daring, then mounting the running board he put his arms round her, lifted her bodily from the car and laid her on the bank at the roadside. After this he took off his coat and rolled it up as a pillow for her head. She did not stir. The round freckled face had lost its severity in repose. He stood a moment looking down on her. That he turned at the critical moment was a matter of instinct—also it was providential. He caught Meriem round the waist as she was about to leap. Probably Jane’s tousled hair was the objective, although the assault would not necessarily be confined to grabbings. There were plenty of big stones lying about and Meriem was no stranger to the use of finger nails. If Lennox had been a moment later things would have gone hard with Jane Toop. Lennox was furious. He picked up Meriem and shook her and he sat her down on the ground with a bump that made her teeth snap. All of which was very sudden and unmistakably primitive. Meriem howled loudly and beat Lennox with open hands and adored him.

“You little cat, sit there,” he said. And though he spoke in English she was in no doubt as to his meaning.

She tucked in her chin and pouted prodigiously and when he bent over the car to get out the roll of tools she picked up a handful of small stones and threw them at him. Accordingly Lennox came back to her with the slow and awful tread of a head master in whom the rights of punishment are vested. Meriem made no effort to flee but she slapped her elbows and bobbed up and down on the ground, emitting little gasps of exquisite apprehension. He stood over her sternly—rigidly—until such a time as her leapings had gentled into quietude, and the defensive arms had fallen to her sides and lay inert. There was reproach in her eyes and some disappointment. She had invited chastizement, had even courted it and she was cheated. She protruded her lower lip and sulked. And without warning he began to laugh.

It was strange laughter—the sort that nursery walls are accustomed to hear—kind, gentle and friendly—laughter that is spun in nature’s looms and is not poured from urns of mirth. He did not know why he laughed—a father might have laughed thus at the antics of his little son splashing in a bath. It was personal laughter of the kind never shared with another. It was laughter that was older than the subject that inspired it. Unjustly a woman would have called it patronizing laughter. Thus it seemed to Meriem and her resentment was plain. She gritted her teeth at him and flung herself face downward with hands clapped to her ears and tears imminent. But there was more of invitation than protection in the act. Innately she knew that the average man always tries to draw away a woman’s hands when she is using them to cover her face. She had failed in an effort to draw him by violence, artifice therefore was a natural consequence. In effect every line of her said “Don’t dare to touch me— Do.”

But Lennox made no attempt to draw away her hands. Instead he sat by her side and looked at her very thoughtfully indeed. She was only a child and a child could hardly be expected to win so difficult an engagement. Besides, after all she had not entirely lost it. If no other gain had been made it was clearly evident she had withdrawn his attention from that other woman and this in itself was matter for rejoicing. The glance she shot at him through her plaited fingers proved that his thoughts were centred wholly upon her. It was his diffidence that was so hard to bear—his diffidence and the pallor of his passion. The mood that had inspired the fierce madness of their first embrace two nights before seemed to have passed away. His fires were drawn and cold—and this was terrible—for just as other temperaments shrink from passion, so did she shrink from its absence.

Lennox’s hand lay upon the dusty ground. Meriem moved nearer as gently as a snake and put her cheek in his open palm. But he made no movement to prove pleasure. The hand lay still and presently two big tears trickled between his fingers. He felt the tears—the warm tears that chilled so swiftly—the easy running tears that hurt no more than a smile hurts.

“You child,” he said, “you queer small child.”

A sort of sigh escaped through his closed teeth. Meriem raised her lips—lips pouted for kissing.

There was something almost fatherly in the way he shook his head.

And then he began to speak in English and she laid her head in his lap to listen if not to understand. It was well for her she could not understand for the words were scarcely suited to a lover’s ears. Yet the tone of his voice, if sad, was kind and warm and comforting. It was well for her that she did not know it was of another woman he spoke—of broken hopes—and distances too great to cover. Never before had the real sense and worth of Eve been so present in his thoughts. Never before had he seen so clearly the justice of her injustice toward him. He saw her now as a great white citadel, splendid, impregnable, remote—a citadel he had sought to carry by a trivial storm. He saw how poor his showing must have been. A light shone in his eyes—a light of burning boats—and as he finished talking it flickered and went out and he was utterly alone.

He had read that somewhere in a birthday book—read and remembered but never understood till this moment. He saw now the terrible truth it contained—and the scathing indictment against easy-come victory. Almost roughly he lifted Meriem’s head from his lap and jumping to his feet, walked feverishly up and down. Presently he stopped and stood before her.

“Are you going to help,” he demanded. “Are you—are you? For God’s sake let’s keep a mystery somewhere. For God’s sake let’s make something of ourselves. It’s in our hands, you child—it’s in our power to—to—make a future.”

And she smiled at him, mouth ready for kisses.

“No time like the present,” said her eyes.

Lennox Casallis flung away from her with an angry cry. For the next hour he worked savagely at the car, cursing a rusty rim and a faulty jack and banging the tools about like a man possessed.

There is a small hotel built upon a ridge of rust-red rock, whose windows look down upon the village of Boghari. It is typically Moorish in architecture—a single storey with a pillared quadrangle upon which the rooms open.

There had been more tire trouble during the latter half of the day and night was falling when the car drew up at the doors. A Frenchman and his wife came out to welcome the travellers—the lady amiable and garrulous—the man silent but cordial. Their enthusiasm, however, showed a tendency to decline when Meriem alighted from the car. A quick glance at her stained brows and lashes and the jangling anklets she wore was sufficient to inform them of the sisterhood to which she belonged. Madame’s eyebrows went up, Monsieur’s came down, and Lennox found himself beckoned away to the far end of the courtyard that enquiries might be made.

Madame expressed herself as being latitudinarian in matters of conscience—a supporter of romance and an excellent friend to all lovers. On the other hand, the jeune fille was so obviously a mere dancing girl and the prestige of the establishment must be considered. There were among the patrons—besides Europeans—many influential Arab gentlemen who, although doubtless sinners in private, would resent the presence of an unveiled woman at their tables. Moreover, Madame could not entirely understand how Meriem was of the party. If, as she surmized, the little one had belonged to a Maison de Commerce, how did she come to be travelling toward the desert with an English protector. The police, inspired doubtless by wisdom, would frown upon such a proceeding. It was all very mysterious and the reputation of the establishment demanded that discretion should be observed. If Monsieur would be advised she would suggest that a room should be obtained at the house of an Arab near-by, where doubtless, if Monsieur were to leave his window open and a light burning—

At this point Lennox exploded. Fortunately his French was too indifferent to express his full indignation, but he contrived, however, to dissipate the idea that he was a participant in a vulgar intrigue.

“I would have you know,” he said, “you are speaking of the woman I intend to marry.”

Amazement at this extraordinary announcement robbed Madame of speech. From having regarded Lennox as an amiable libertine, she now realized he was a man entirely divorced from reason.

She did not express this conviction in so many words, but her eyes were eloquent. Clearly the kindest thing to do was to laugh. Accordingly she laughed very heartily indeed.

Then Jane Toop came to the rescue.

“Here,” she said, by the simple process of turning English words into French equivalents—a proceeding which she fondly believed was talking French—“Here, what’s all the row about? Hotel full up?”

“But no,” Madame replied, “but there are difficulties.”

“Difficulties! Rats!” snapped Jane. “We want food and two bedrooms.”

“Precisely,” said Madame, “it is there that—”

“Don’t interrupt! Two rooms we want, one for him and the other for me and her.”

She did not see the grateful look on Lennox’s face, but she heard his whispered thanks that ended with the words “such a sport as you are.”

Madame was beaming now. Apologies flowed from her.

“Oh, shut up and lead us to the rooms,” said Jane.

And so forceful was the order that Madame set forth with a bunch of jingling keys, while Jane Toop seized the reluctant Meriem and dragged her off in pursuit.

Save for a couple of French officers from the little garrison the dining room was empty. Lennox had had a hot bath and he came to the table feeling a new man. Jane and Meriem had arrived before him and were sitting opposite one another. Jane was looking severe and formal and Meriem rather subdued. Lennox of course had no idea what had passed between the two women in his absence, but he had a curious conviction that by some process of her own Jane had obtained a mastery over the child. Certainly she looked as if she had been well smacked.

“Had a bath? So’ve I,” Jane greeted him. Then—“Made her have one too.”

Lennox liked the greeting. It had a healthy smack to it that rang pleasantly in his ears. Also it made him laugh. Perhaps the compulsory tubbing was responsible for Meriem’s subdued air. Whatever the cause, he was grateful.

“How’s that wound?”

“Better,” he said. “D’you know, I believe I was a bit mad yesterday and the day before.”

“Feeling pretty sane again?”

“Heaps better.”

Some soup was brought and consumed in silence, although it is true Meriem left no one in doubt as to her occupation.

“D’you think a bottle ’ud do us good,” Lennox ventured.

Jane shook her head.

“Stick to beer,” she answered heartily.

He ordered beer and when it came Meriem looked at him reproachfully. She made a face at the little green bottles with their porcelain stoppers. Her up-bringing had tutored her to expect sweeter and more convivial beverages, gold braid and wired corks! Lennox marked the face she made and it rankled with him. With lightning intuition Jane hit the bull’s eye of his thought.

“You can’t blame her,” she said. Then less happily—“Thinks you’re mean, I expect.” Then to Meriem, less happily still—

“C’est mieux pour vous.”

But Meriem thought otherwise and sulked.

Her hours of sleep during the afternoon had greatly refreshed Jane Toop, added to which she possessed remarkable recuperative faculties. There was about her something chameleon-like, for her manners and bearing at the table were totally dissimilar from those exhibited in the car. She had changed the khaki uniform and was dressed in a simple one piece frock which became her very well. The uncompromising sternness had been laid aside with her uniform and she now talked like any well bred young Englishwoman in a country house. True, for the most part her conversation revolved round commonplaces, but it had about it a pleasant air of the counties which was very welcome to Lennox Casallis. Among other things she happened to give the name of the school at Eastbourne where she had been educated.

“Broadcliffe, up at Meads, you know.”

The name startled Lennox, for Eve had been to Broadcliffe. Rather nervously he mentioned the fact.

Jane Toop fired up enthusiastically.

“What, you knew Noggs?”

“Noggs,” he repeated.

“We called her Noggs—everybody had a nickname. They called me Plain—you know, short for plain Jane. Noggs was the best ever—what a queen she’d have made. Plucky too—captained the hockey team. And you should see her ride.”

“I have,” Lennox admitted, breaking his bread into small pieces.

“Met her lately?”

“We hunted a bit together last season.”

There was something dry in his tone—and Jane looked up sharply. She was about to say more, but checked herself. Then her eyes shifted to Meriem, who was devouring an omelette untidily. She thought for a moment.

“D’you mind telling me your name? Don’t, if you’d rather not.”

“I’ve no reason to conceal it,” he replied, and he told her.

“Thanks. I must look up Noggs when I get back to town. I’ll tell her we met, shall I?”

He did not reply.

“P’raps you’d rather I didn’t.”

“Why do you assume that?” he asked.

“Don’t know.”

“I can’t imagine she would be interested.”

“Then I won’t bother,” said Jane.

After that a silence.

“By the way,” said Jane, “how far are we supposed to be going this journey?”

“I’ve no fixed plans.”

“Laghouat is a nice enough place. Ghardaia is further on, but it’s no great catch. The road ends at Ghardaia.”

“Does it,” he replied. “I like the sound of that—where the road ends.”

“I drove the first car into Ghardaia and stopped there a couple of days. It’s rather niffy, though. Don’t fancy you’d care much for it.”

“Be a change,” said Lennox.

“Nothing in the world to do, you know. Besides, I rather doubt—” again her eyes strayed toward Meriem—“I say, may I ask a question?”

“Go ahead.”

“What’s the end of it all to be. What are you aiming at?”

The two French officers passed the table on the way out, with a polite “Pardon,” and, at the door, “ ’sieur et Mesdames.” Meriem, who dearly loved a uniform, favoured each with a ravishing smile that brought a flush to Lennox’s forehead.

“God knows,” he said and pushed away his plate. He was silent for a moment, then he spoke rapidly.

“Look here, all my life I’ve been a spectacular kind of fellow—doing no particular harm and no great good. My worst enemy has been the opinion I’ve had of myself. For a certain reason—I won’t go into it—that opinion has suffered a bit of a jolt—I’m putting it lightly—a hell of a jolt.”

“Well,” said Jane.

“My friends ’ud tell you I’ve been spoiled by success—and they’re right. ’T any rate, I’ve come to see what a failure I am as a failure.”

“Um!”

“I expect you know the breed to which I belong—and if you don’t you’re getting to know it now. My talking to you this way is proof enough—for though we’re nothing to each other but chance acquaintances, I’m trying to do myself a bit of good in your eyes. I’m honest enough to admit that I’m telling you I’ve made a mess of things not entirely because I’m ashamed of having made a mess of things but because I want sympathy—or understanding, or any other gift you’re generous enough to hand me. Some of us are made this way, I suppose—terribly jealous of ourselves. It’s bred in us and we can’t change our natures. Shall I tell you one of the worst things I ever did?”

“If you like.”

“I saw a man give a Bradbury to a beggar in Pall Mall and the beggar’s face was written all over with the word Gratitude.”

“Well?”

“I walked straight across the road and gave him a fiver and I wasn’t giving five quid to a beggar, I was buying that much gratitude for myself and trying to beat the other fellow into the bargain. Well, Umpire, what do you think of that?”

“Pretty decent of you to tell me.”

“And I expect that’s why I told you,” said Lennox ashamedly.

“Oh, look here,” Jane cut in, “don’t be so damned humble. After all, most of our motives are pretty low down when we come to sort ’em out. If it wasn’t so the prayer books would call us jolly good fellows instead of miserable sinners.”

Lennox laughed.

“I’m only just getting out of the idea that I am a jolly good fellow,” he said. “The miserable sinner is a bit of a misfit at present.”

“What’s it all leading up to anyway,” she asked.

Meriem had moved to a sofa, curled herself up and gone to sleep. She was accustomed to sleeping at all hours.

“Disaster, I should think,” he replied. He looked at Meriem. Then—“Lovely, isn’t she?”

“I suppose a man would think so.”

“She is lovely. Do you know what I want to do? It may sound infernally arrogant, but I mean it—I want to teach her how lovely she is.”

“Doesn’t she know?”

“I want to teach her to forget all she knows.”

“You’re a queer chap.”

“I say,” he said, very like a schoolboy. “Can it be done—can I do it.”

“Do what?”

“I believe our meeting was predestined—not just a vulgar accident. You see, I felt—I knew it was going to happen. If I’m right it must be for something and for something better—I don’t mean happier—something much more difficult, perhaps.”

“This is pretty complex stuff.”

“It is, terribly. You see she’s just a child with no other thought in the world beyond kisses. Three months ago I wasn’t much better myself. Looked at life as a kind of animal grab and learnt that the animal sometimes misses what it’s grabbing at. Well, now I want to profit by that knowledge and I want her to share the profit.”

For the best part of a moment Jane Toop said nothing. The short stubby fingers were busy rolling little pellets of bread and flicking them away. Then she pushed back her chair noisily and threw up her head.

“Oh, you men, you men,” she snorted, “if the world lasts another million years you’ll be just as big fools at the end of it. Are we women such mysteries that you must always be idiots about us. Can’t you learn that we’re every one of us different—and every one of us alike. Do you think we care twopence for the plans you make to teach and to capture and keep us. They’re not worth a hill of beans. A man’s our man or he isn’t. It’s not what he does or thinks or makes or says, but what he is, counts. You took to your heels and bolted because a girl who’s probably head over ears in love with you turned you down for trying to rush her. Lord alive, why didn’t you stay and fight it out instead of this tomfoolery. Nobody wants advice, but here’s a bit to go on with. Don’t try practising what you’ve learnt from one woman on another, cos’ it doesn’t pay.”

“I never told you of another woman.”

“Of course you did, in every word you’ve said.”

“Nor the reason why—”

“Pff. Use your wits. What else could have put such rubbish in your head.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Then I’ll explain and not bother how I choose my words. This little red hot coal you’re carrying off to the desert won’t be overpleased with the cold storage diet you’re bent on giving her. I tell you plainly the Dante and Beatrice stuff won’t fit this frame. Not only that, but it’s damn silly and damn cruel.”

“But surely to goodness,” he began.

Jane Toop cut him short with a gesture.

“Goodness doesn’t enter into it—you know that as well as I do.” She stopped abruptly and swallowed the dregs in her glass. “And I defy you to say I’m not talking sense. Jiminy! Sense is the only talk expected from me. I’m a sensible woman and people bring me their troubles because I’m sensible, not because I’m a woman.”

“You do yourself less than justice,” said Lennox.

Jane Toop turned a dark red under her freckles.

“I swear I’ll hit you in the face if you try any compliments on me,” she said. “I’m the kind of woman men talk to about other women and as a result I know a few things about both our sexes. I’ve looked through the window at more love affairs than you’d ever guess the number of.”

“Looked through the window,” he repeated.

“Yes, and I know a bit about ’em by now and I’ve prayed God to save me from making as big a fool of myself as some folks I know.”

“Was the prayer answered?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Heard, if not answered,” she replied. “I expect they laughed in Heaven when it reached there.”

Perhaps she was ashamed of so great a confidence, for she rose and shook out the folds of her dress.

“Don’t go,” he pleaded, “stay and talk to me.”

“I’m through for tonight,” she returned, not unkindly. “ ’Tisn’t my habit, this sort of thing, but—I don’t know—it’s been a queer show and I hate untidy endings. In a way I’m sorry I came on this jaunt.”

“Are you?” said Lennox. “I’m glad you came.”

“In heaven’s name why?” she demanded. “Is it because you haven’t the pluck to go to the devil alone?”

“You forget I’ve changed my mind about going to the devil.”

Jane switched her gaze to the sleeping Meriem and gave a short, hard laugh.

“She’ll soon alter all that.”

Lennox made no reply but his mouth hardened.

“Any fool could,” she taunted.

He stifled a hot retort.

“I’m sorry,” said Jane Toop, “it was caddish of me, but I’m like that. Anything more you want to say to—to her.”

“Not tonight.”

“Right—then I’ll carry her off to bed.”

“You’re a good sort,” said Lennox.

“I’m afraid so,” came the answer.

Meriem squeaked and drummed her heels and wailed and made enormous frowns when Jane’s sinewy arms slipped through hers and she was dragged protesting to the door.

“I shall sleep on the key,” said Jane, “so don’t be surprised if you find me throttled in the morning.”

Lennox Casallis went out and sat upon a rock. Overhead blazed unwinking stars and the endless plum coloured landscape spread out before him like a map. A jackal ki-hied in the dark.

Back to the wild.

It was a warm night but he shivered.

Presently the moon rose red and smoking out of the desert. He looked at it unmoved. The madness and the poison was spent.

He rose to his feet and threw out his arms.

“God, why isn’t it all wonderful?” he cried.

Paul Manet had had a trying day. He had been bored. His friend—chief item of interest—had departed to regions unknown—the town of Algiers was ineffably dull—there was nothing to do—no one to see—nor any sport to engage upon. The weather was hot and his lunch—which he had eaten at a café in the Square—had been evilly cooked and disagreed with him. His frame of mind being dyspeptic, he called for paper and ink and penned a short note to Hamar Casallis to say that his guardianship had ceased to be operant and briefly stating the circumstances, so far as he was conversant with them, of Lennox’s elopement. “I imagine,” the letter concluded, “you would prefer to know the facts, nor do I regard telling you as a breach of confidence.” Thereafter he visited a cinema and suffered an hour of acute tedium watching a film that did not even boast the virtue of impropriety. An abominable day. Coming out of the cinema he encountered a dust storm and lost the sight of both eyes in a single coup. The chemist, to whom he repaired to have the “motes and beams” extracted, was a clumsy fool, who fiddled ineffectually with a camel’s hair brush and finished up by poking his thumb in Paul’s eye so suddenly and so painfully that he was fain to leap backward and in so doing overset a case of perfumes, at a cost to himself of twelve hundred francs. A disastrous day! He turned home in an evil temper and with a fixed determination to go back to France by the first boat.

On arriving at the hotel the concierge informed him that a gentleman had called and was waiting for an interview. Indeed, the gentleman had waited for over two hours.

To this Paul replied that he would see no one and furthermore consigned the patient visitor to the devil.

The concierge, however, was a man of some tenacity and insisted on giving the visitor’s card to Paul. It bore the name of the Baron de Marieux. Paul Manet twisted the card thoughtfully.

“Where is the gentleman?” he asked.

“In M’sieur’s private salon.”

“Oh, very well,” said Paul and mounted the stairs.

As he entered the room de Marieux rose smartly to his feet and bowed.

“The very man I wanted to see,” exclaimed Paul affably, “but as I have dust in both my eyes I am denied the pleasure of doing so.”

“My dear Manet,” came the response, “you are unfortunate. I, for my own part, have no dust in mine.”

“Why, then,” said Paul, “you will the better be able to assist me to a clearer vision.” So saying he proffered the moistened corner of a white handkerchief to the Baron and with forefinger and thumb raised the lid of the eye more seriously affected.

The Baron de Marieux proved himself better qualified to deal with an ophthalmic emergency than the English chemist. The delicacy of his touch was remarkable and in less time than it takes to record, the offending particles were removed and exhibited and the customary remarks passed on the peculiar pain such insignificant trifles provoke.

“I have often observed,” remarked de Marieux, “that small affairs are the ones that distress us most.”

Paul Manet nodded and added a word to the effect that he had gained similar enlightenment during his brief experience of married life.

“I appreciate your confidence,” said de Marieux, “and rejoice you should have brought our conversation to the object of my visit.”

Paul Manet registered surprise.

“I fear,” he said, “if the object of your visit is to become acquainted with my wife you will be disappointed. She and I separated from each other long since.”

The Baron made a gesture of despair.

“Separation,” he said, “is the saddest of life’s misfortunes. It is a state which, for my own part, I cannot tolerate.”

“It is pleasant to meet a man with such un-modern ideas,” said Paul.

“Ah, there you have me,” said de Marieux. “I am, in many matters, entirely un-modern. That is to say, I am prepared, should emergency arise, to flout laws and conventions and constitute a law unto myself.”

“If no more results from our meeting this afternoon than a clear understanding of each other,” said Paul, “we shall have little reason for complaint. These mutual exchanges are always delightful. You will take a little Cointreau?”

De Marieux thanked him, accepted a petit verre and consumed it gracefully. But when he set down the empty glass his manner underwent a complete change. The grace and non chaloir departed and with it the elegance of phrase which to this point had distinguished the occasion. He became incisive, curt and a trifle dangerous.

“Now, M. Manet,” he demanded, “where is Lennox Casallis?”

“My dear fellow,” was the answer, “I am not his keeper, I have no doubt, had you been at the quay this morning, you would have seen him and his belongings going aboard the Timgad.”

“And his belongings?” repeated de Marieux.

“Certainly. A man does not usually return to Europe without his valise.”

“And yet that is precisely what must have taken place,” came the rejoinder. “Monsieur Manet, I have been waiting two hours in your suite and this salon is not the only apartment I have inspected.”

Paul Manet’s lips tightened and whitened.

“I suppose,” he said, “I must not be too severe on the servant who admitted you. After all, you have the outward appearance of a gentleman.”

The Baron sprang to his feet with knotted fists and for a moment it seemed he was about to strike. But instead he shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

“My quarrel is not with you,” he said.

“Possibly not, but equally possible mine may be with you.” There was something dangerous in Paul’s tone.

“Monsieur Manet, I am an awkward man to quarrel with.”

“Pooh!” said Paul, “a lath—a willow twig, a pryer into other people’s affairs. I am not alarmed.”

De Marieux ignored the taunts.

“I found on the dressing table of Monsieur Casallis,” he said, “a bottle of walnut juice, some spirit gum and a wisp of black crepe hair. Last night, when I asked if you had seen a carpet seller I was not aware who that carpet seller might be. I now know and suggest, without preamble, you inform me where your friend has taken the girl Meriem.”

“He has gone,” retorted Paul acidly, “where you may go—to the devil.”

“That is a foolish answer, Monsieur Manet. It proves you have not considered the consequences. Suppose I inform the police what occurred last night. The police do not encourage the removal of girls from the Kasbah. It is contrary to the law and the person responsible pays heavily. Our prisons, I would remind you, are not remarkable for their comfort.”

“You doubtless speak with authority, M. le Baron, but I am very sure you will not inform the police.”

“What is to prevent me?”

“The fact that you yourself are contemplating precisely the same infringement of the law.”

“There is such a thing as privilege,” was the retort. “When speaking of the police I was quoting the kindest solution to the problem. I doubt not M. Casallis would receive gentler treatment from them than he would from me.”

Paul Manet threw up his head and laughed.

“It is evident,” he said, “you are a fool, de Marieux, but you will not convince me you are fool enough to try conclusions with Lennox Casallis. He is certainly the best amateur boxer of my acquaintance—a fact you yourself have reason to remember.” And he pointed at a faint bruise that blued the outline of de Marieux’s jaw. The Baron’s skin turned from white to scarlet and back to white again. His fingers twitched nervously.

“There are ways,” he said, “brute force is never the supreme argument. If you value your friend’s well being, be wise and warn him; for once my temper gets out of bounds—”

Paul Manet touched the bell.

“You waste your time,” he said. “I know no more than the dead where Lennox Casallis has gone.”

A servant came in.

“Show this gentleman out,” said Paul.

At the door the Baron turned.

“If there should be an accident,” he said, “you will blame yourself.”

To which Paul replied with excellent good humor:

“Not at all, Monsieur. It will be a pleasure to visit you in the hospital.”

The door slammed crisply.

“Ah well,” said Paul. “Not such a bad day after all.”

But he regretted he had posted that letter to Hamar Casallis.

The Baron de Marieux did not spend the afternoon idly. Being acquainted with an official at the railway station he made enquiries as to the passengers who had departed that day by train. The reply was to convince him that Lennox and Meriem were not of the number. And since the offices of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique had obligingly supplied him with a passenger list, he was confidant they had not been passengers on the steamship Timgad which left the port at midday.

Sea and rail being thus automatically eliminated, the obvious deduction was in favour of a flight by road. But which road could they have taken? The choice lay in four directions. West by the coast toward Oran, East by the coast toward Bongie and Tunis, South-west or South-east by the roads leading into the Sahara through the Chiffa Gorge or the Sakamody Pass.

Being possessed of a strongly intuitive sense de Marieux assured himself that it would be to the desert Lennox Casallis would naturally incline. As he reflected—

“The fool is sufficiently conceited to imagine himself big enough to fill any solitude.”

But by what means had they travelled?

Without hesitation he dismissed the likelihood that Lennox would have booked seats in any of the larger passenger conveyances which like huge centipedes crawl over the roads of Northern Africa. If the fool imagined he was in possession of a romance it was evident he would not wish to share it in company with sightseers on a char-à-banc. Obviously he was not the type who would walk hand in hand with his beloved like a pilgrim of old. Hot blooded young men who elope with girls from the Kasbah have, as a first consideration, the ambition to put as many miles as possible between themselves and pursuit.

Besides, it is the age of the car.

But Lennox Casallis possessed no car—at least he possessed none at Algiers. On this point de Marieux, by a few simple enquiries, had satisfied himself. Therefore he must have hired a car. Having arrived thus far with his researches de Marieux—in his own Delage—visited all the automobile hire departments in the city, finishing up, as Paul had done, at the little syndicate of the three Fannys.

The girl who responded to his enquiries, knowing no reason for preserving secrecy, admitted that a car had been hired from the firm on the preceding day in peculiar circumstances.

So elated was de Marieux with this discovery that he omitted to ask the make, type and colour of the hired car. The need for this vital evidence did not occur to him till half an hour later. But when he returned for enlightenment he found the premises closed for the night.

This was exasperating, since patience was a quality he did not possess. Cars of every make and description pass over Algerian roads all day long and without definite information it would be waste of energy to wire to various points and make enquiries. His endeavours to find out where the Fannys lodged was unsuccessful and there remained nothing to do but return to his villa and await the morrow.

In the course of the evening one or two light hearted friends visited him but de Marieux’s mood was ungregarious and after the consumption of a few cocktails they went away protesting gloomily. After that, the time hanging heavily on his hands, he kicked his heels from one room to another, nursing a sense of injury and defeat and fanning the flames of indignation.

And since he was not the type of man to suffer in silence he vented his ill humour on the servants. His chauffeur was cursed and enjoined to get the car ready for a long journey—his butler was ordered to prepare a basket of wine and victuals and his body servant—an Arab youth with appealing eyes and a silky voice—was instructed to pack a valise at once and was assisted in the performance of this duty by a nicely timed kick.

It may justly be stated that throughout the evening he made little effort to advance his popularity.

The night being hot he caused his bed to be placed on the verandah, where he lay cursing venomously and watching the merry stars winking at him through tassels of wistaria silhouetted against the sky. The smell of orange blossom hung in the air and the heavy perfume brought Meriem vividly into his mind. How exquisite and desirable she was. He sat up in bed and beat his hands on the coverlet at the thought that another man had stolen this jewel from his diadem. Hell to the fellow! it was damnable, intolerable. Never before had beauty stirred de Marieux as Meriem’s stirred him. Doubly was this so since she was now the property of another. Had things gone smoothly it is probable she would have amused him lightly for a week or so and then have been treated as he had treated the rest of her kind—meanly, callously, thrown aside. But now she was gone—stolen—and the need for her was multiplied out of all recognition. From a trivial fancy she became a paramount necessity—an obsession that drove all other considerations from his mind.

So the Baron de Marieux spent a troubled night and the following day rose in an evil temper.

Fanny No. 2 proved to be reluctant to supply information when, at an early hour, his big Delage roared into the garage yard. She did not see what reason he had to ask questions about their business. She did not like the manner he adopted and she did not hesitate to say so.

De Marieux at once changed his tone, paid a flying compliment and threw an eighteenth century bow.

“Distress,” he said, “Comes to beauty for enlightenment.”

This fine show of gallantry proved to be misplaced and he was invited to get out with all dispatch.

He got out—but half an hour later returned unobtrusively and fell into conversation with a low class Arab who was washing cars. From this fellow he learnt what he desired to know and armed with the knowledge, hastened homeward to spend the next three hours at the telephone.

His initial failure to get on the track of the fugitives was chiefly his own fault. He made the mistake of enquiring for a car containing an Arab man and woman and as such no one was able to give the required information. It was not until, on reflection, he concluded that Lennox would have reverted to European clothing, that he got on the scent.

The hotel where Lennox had stopped the previous night happened to be on the telephone and the garrulous wife of the proprietor obligingly told him of her guests and the doubts they had provoked in her mind. The car and its occupants, she said had departed soon after dawn, in the direction of Djelfa. De Marieux hung up the receiver with a cry of satisfaction.

For the next ten minutes the car was a centre of activity—de Marieux cursing fluently while luggage and supplies were heaped upon the back seats. He, like nearly all Continental motorists, dressed himself in a kind of compromise between a polar bear and an aviator. He wore a shaggy fur coat, a racing cap, fur gauntlets and a huge pair of goggles. The combined effect was terrific—Herculean. From a slender and almost sylph-like youth he became an immense and prehistoric animal. The air hummed with orders—war between nations could hardly have produced greater disturbance.

The chauffeur who bungled over starting the engine found himself rudely cast aside. De Marieux seized the handle himself and, ignoring the fact that the ignition was dangerously advanced, flung his weight upon it. Followed a kind of protesting sneeze from beneath the bonnet—a back fire—and the youthful aristocrat, fur coat, gauntlets, helmet and all that was his, was jerked sideways and catapulted into a pool of arum lilies that blossomed by the drive. When he clambered out his right wrist was dangling at his side, sprained and useless. An hour later the doctor remarked:

“You are indeed fortunate, M. le Baron, that no bones are broken. In a week or two there is little doubt the hand will be almost recovered.”

“A week or two,” cried de Marieux, “a week or two. Ane, baudet, imbécile! A lifetime—a lifetime.”

While the bandages were being fixed he sent for his chauffeur and gave him the sack.

Jane Toop preserved a determined silence on the subject of what happened between herself and Meriem during the night on which they shared a room. Lennox himself asked no questions on the point, although he surmised the hours had not passed without incident. One thing, however, was clearly evident; Jane had greatly increased her mastery over Meriem’s insurgent spirit. It could not be said Meriem revealed evidence of a dog-like devotion; on the other hand there was something distinctly dog-like in her sidelong glances and ready obedience to a word gesture. To tell the truth there had been an engagement between them which had had its tragic as well as its comic side. Meriem lay awake listening for sounds that should tell her Jane was asleep. For one who was in no sense an actress Jane contrived the sounds very effectively. With a contented sigh Meriem slipped out of bed and tiptoed to the door. It was locked. She had expected this would be the case but was determined not to be outdone. Treading as softly as a cat she turned her attention to the window. The window opened inward but entrance from outside was prevented by stout wooden shutters with louvred ventilators. The shutters were secured by a dropping bar. Meriem opened the windows and gently raised the bar. Its fastenings were rusty and a sharp squeak resulted. Meriem started and threw an apprehensive glance over her shoulder. Jane had not moved. Once again Meriem attacked the bar and this time succeeded in lifting it clear of the fastening. Then inch by inch she allowed it to fall until it hung perpendicularly in its daytime position.

The coast was now clear. All that remained was to throw open the shutters and climb out into the night. With prodigious caution she put her weight against them, but strangely enough they resisted the attempt. Greatly disappointed, she ran her fingers down the thin pencil of light which marked the place where the frames met. This she did imagining there must be a bolt somewhere which she had overlooked. She found none but her fingers brushed against something else, which proved, on closer inspection, to be a fine steel chain, the ends of which had been passed through the louvres of the shutter and secured on the outside by a padlock.

Meriem remembered then where she had seen the padlock and chain before. They had come out of Jane’s pocket and had lain on the dressing table when she was changing for her bath. With this recollection and the accompanying knowledge that she was a prisoner, the small brown heart of Meriem went very black indeed. Her mind, untutored in synthetic reasoning, leapt instantly to a familiar solution. The white woman was jealous and desired to keep her and the man apart. Her conduct throughout the day had proved this to be the case. The white woman was love’s enemy for the reason that she was plain and hard and love had passed her by. Thrice had she quenched the fire in her lover’s eyes—nor should the insult of the ham be forgotten. Jane’s calendar of crime was long and her punishment should be severe.

Meriem did not make the mistake of an unprepared attack. She was mindful of the strength of her opponent—strength demonstrated by the heave Jane put into starting the car and the ease with which she had picked up Meriem and carried her off to the bathroom.

The idea of murder, although an agreeable one, Meriem dismissed on account of the unpleasant consequences to herself that were likely to result. In most affairs of life she did not allow laws to influence her actions—her principle had been to obey the stronger party and admit of no other government. But her limited experience was sufficient to advise her that murder was a foolish and extravagant policy. A rough and tumble, now, was quite another matter. There was, however, a distinct danger that in this class of warfare she might come off second best. No—a subtler attack must be conceived. While working out details of the offensive, as a kind of hostile preliminary, Meriem dropped Jane’s watch into the water jug and then, after a moment’s thought, picked up her boots and stockings and served them likewise. These simple operations took place behind the head of Jane’s bed and out of her line of sight.

This done, Meriem flitted over to the dressing table to see if there were any other personal trifles which might also be submerged. A narrow ray of moonlight was reflected from a bright object that lay beneath her hand. Meriem picked it up and found it was a pair of scissors. Here indeed was a weapon of virtue. With a pair of scissors a woman should be able to vanquish any opponent. The mere touch of them was enough to set an idea burning in her head.

Clearly there must be something in Jane to attract Lennox, else had he not shown her such obvious regard. What could it be? Certainly not her features for Allah knew they were plain enough—and not her skin with its restless pattern of freckles like the coat of a spotted dog. Nor those dreadful hands with the bitten fingers. When then? It came to Meriem in a flash—the crop of riotous bobbed hair which, even in the three-quarter darkness of the room, shone like gold on the pillow. Of course it was the hair and until every curl and clue of it had been removed, there would be no peace for Meriem of the Kasbah.

Greatly daring—for reflection might have discouraged the attempt—Meriem crept towards the bed. But light as were her footfalls, Jane heard and partially opened one eye. What she saw—the flash of something bright in a little brown fist—was enough. She acted instantly and as Meriem stooped forward with outstretched hand, the pillow seemed to leap from beneath Jane’s head and smite Meriem full in the chest. There was a gasp—the scissors fell to the floor with a tinkle, as Jane leapt from her bed and delivered, so to speak, the second barrel.

Not for nothing had Jane Toop earned from her schoolmates at Broadcliffe the title of Pillow Fighter Extraordinary. In the old days she could take on two of the finest opponents simultaneously and vanquish them. There was no subtlety of the game with which she was not acquainted. Her special virtue lay in the suddenness of attack and the exceptional accuracy of her blows.

The first, as we have said, took Meriem in the chest and doubled her up—the second was an upper cut—a raking swing which almost lifted the victim into the air. The third—which in the majority of instances was the fatal blow—came down from above like a quartz crusher, telescoping the unhappy recipient from the waist downward.

But Meriem was not fighting for the joy of sport, but for the love of man. This and the little hard native skull she possessed rendered her less susceptible to instant defeat. True she doubled up—straightened out again and sagged badly at the knees as a result of Jane’s “one, two, three” but she was not out of the fight.

“Take that,” said Jane, “and that and that.”

She expected cries for mercy and was astonished when the little brown figure leapt out of harm’s way, snatched her own pillow from the bed and darted back into the fray.

“Good for you,” cried Jane. “Didn’t think you had it in you. Come on then.”

And Meriem came on.

It would be idle to pretend Meriem’s technique was in any way comparable to Jane’s. On the other hand what she lacked in skill she made up in venom. Added to this the pillow she wielded was stuffed with flock, which through many years of nightly service, had become hardened and cakey. Jane’s pillow was of feathers and barely half the weight. Being in all matters a sport, Jane left herself exposed for the initial attack and took a swinging hook on the left side of the head which sent her spinning to the ropes. Meriem cried out exultantly and hastened to follow up the advantage. But Jane had “had some” and when the next horizontal sweep menaced her she ducked and the blow, meeting nought but aerial resistance, swung Meriem off her balance.

Plunk came the riposte and over went Meriem like a shot rabbit in a drive. For the next two minutes, in the language of the ring they “mixed it up” in a give and take battle that neither asked for nor expected quarter. At the end of that time a rapid drum fire from Jane, delivered on the solar plexus line, bumped the last bit of breath out of Meriem’s body. She made one despairing effort and missed and Jane concluded the entertainment as she had begun it, the last blow being one of the finest overarms ever delivered in a long and glorious career.

Meriem tottered back to her corner—and flinging herself on the bed, gasped and whimpered, while Jane, mirabile dicta, sat beside her and massaged the breath back into her body.

“Regardez ici,” she said, “il faut que vous comportez vous même mieux.”

And for the next ten minutes Jane talked unimaginably bad French, which by some curious accident Meriem appeared to understand. She told her that she must learn to behave nicely and mustn’t expect everything at once: she said she must learn to wait and promised good rewards for waiting.

“Why, you silly little idiot,” she said, “d’you think any man cares twopence for a girl who makes herself as cheap as you do.” (“Si bon march que vous” were the words used). “Comportez vous bien et Monsieur Casallis épouser vous peut-être.” Then under her breath in English—“And heaven help the poor angry fool when he’s done it.”

And meanwhile Meriem cried and nodded and cuddled her pillow and promised all kinds of good behaviour for the future. And at last Jane tucked her in and sat by the bedside and watched until she fell asleep.

Into the amazing kaleidoscope of the oasis of Laghouat crept the yellow car. It was market day and the open spaces beneath the mud brick walls surrounding the centre of the town were packed to suffocation. The medley of colours defied description. Huge circles of resting camels, bubbling and roaring like lions, puffing black saliva through their curled lips, blocked the way. Sheep, urged along on three legs by owners who grabbed the fourth, straggled everywhere, their bleating and consumptive coughs adding to the chorus of sounds. Men shouted, ran and sprawled. Children playing a kind of improvised hockey with sticks and a cork fell over the legs of the sleepers and chased each other among the great bales of dates and merchandise that lay everywhere. A string of laden asses picked their way daintily through the crowd. Groups of lonely tribesmen, immutable as a fresco, with brass-bound gas-pipe rifles slung across their shoulders leant against the whitewashed walls. The air quivered with the throbbing of drums, the plaint of pipes, the whine of beggars and the buzz of a million flies. Overhead the tall palms—sage green silhouettes against the turquoise sky—stirred at the touch of a breeze.

“Not bad, is it?” said Jane Toop, between blasts on the Klaxon horn.

G-a-r-r-r-r-r it went, G-a-rrrrrr! The voice of civilization screeching at and reverberating from the Christ-old walls.

“Need you do it?” Lennox asked plaintively. He was tremendously impressed by the sights and sounds around him.

“Better than killing some one,” she retorted. Garrr—Gar-r-r.

Somehow a path was cleared through which they crept—a narrow passage of packed humanity, grinning and affable. Children demanding sous leapt upon the running board of the car—arms were waved in welcome, greetings and jests shrilled after them.

“Fancy the place? ’Tisn’t bad.”

Bad! Lennox was amazed—intoxicated. After that nine hours run through the never changing arid solitude of the northern desert, to find himself plunged into the heart of this multitude beggared his powers of expression.

Never had he passed through a country he so cordially detested. Flat and lifeless, clinkered by the sun, blasted by wind-driven sand—it had dried up the very soul within him. He felt that he was being shut up, that he was entering a prison from which there was no escape. Every mile they covered was another bolt shot behind him—another clanging gate—another gyve upon his wrists and ankles. And then, at last, the perspective of nothingness changed its character. Tufts of green growing things appeared between the rocks and, shaped like pyramids of incense, a tiny range of dog-toothed saxe-blue foothills peeped over the edge of the horizon. After that came leaping into view grass and water and grazing herds and swaying palms and men and women—and the habitations of men—and everywhere life coming to life again. It was a revelation—a resurrection.

“Bad,” he repeated, “I should say not.” His long silence found vent in sudden speech. “I think I shall stay here,” he said. “I think a man could find happiness in this place. And when she begins to understand—to appreciate—oh, it all seems much easier now. I could find something to do—some job. Could we buy one of these old houses, do you suppose? I must talk to some of these native fellows—they’d be a help. Oh, yes. I can see a future now.”

Grrrrrrrr, went the Klaxon horn.

“Are you doing it on purpose?” he asked.

“Perhaps,” said Jane. “You see I’m a sceptical sort of brute—I don’t believe folks can change their skins as easily as you think they can.”

“But here,” he began again, “with civilization left behind.”

“How far?” said Jane. “We don’t leave civilization behind by taking a tram up the street.”

A huge ramshackle cart, drawn by a team of a dozen mules, came through the main gate and blocked the way. The car stopped and a party of English tourists—three men and two women—detached themselves from the crowd. The men wore flannels and broad brimmed double Terai hats—the women were dressed in white. The whole party looked tanned, healthy and jubilant. As they came level with the car one of the men looked up and recognized Lennox.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.

The rest of the party moved on.

The speaker’s name was Brodie. The last time he and Lennox met was on the Exmoor. They were hunting with the Devon and Somersets and a kind of tacit competition had existed between them as to who would ride the straightest course over that ferocious heather country. Since Lennox had shown the greater willingness to break his neck rather than refuse any hazard, the palm had fallen to him.

“I’m damned,” repeated Brodie, “if this ain’t extraordinary. Talkin’ of you only last night—name cropped up somehow. The Agar what’s-his-name—the big noise in these parts, y’know—has fixed up a falcon hunt for tomorrow. He’s a great old sport—’ud love you to come. It’s no end of a game. Hang on while I fetch my missus— Course, you didn’t know I was married—yes, rather—six months ago. That’s her with the green veil. She’ll be bucked as anything to meet you. Wait a jiffy.”

Lennox put out a restraining hand.

“Don’t bother her,” he said. “She—I—well, you’ve got your party. I’d hate to butt in.”

But Brodie was irrepressible.

“Oh, rats. ’Course you must—more the merrier. Harvard and Tresmayne are turning up the day after tomorrow—you remember those lads from—this is splendid. How long are you stopping? We’re doing a fortnight here. I suppose you’re staying at the Camping Hotel—only place—damn good.”

He paused to recover breath and for the first time noticed Meriem.

“Hullo, who are you giving a lift to?”

Honesty is very costly at times.

“This is the girl I’m going to marry,” said Lennox.

Brodie laughed enormously.

“Go on, you silly ass—you never can be sensible for two minutes on end. Hullo, where have the others got to? I must scoot. See you at dinner.”

He darted away into the crowd.

“Bad luck,” said Jane Toop, sympathetically.

“Harvard and Tresmayne the day after tomorrow,” muttered Lennox. “And that means every club in London.”

“My dear old boy,” said Jane—and never before had she used the term to any man—“it’ll be the same wherever you go. Piccadilly Circus or the top of Everest—there’ll always be some one you can’t escape from.”

“Some one?” he repeated.

“Yourself,” said she. “If you really cared it wouldn’t matter, but so long as you only think you care, it’ll matter and matter and matter.”

His reply was oblique.

“We’ll push on again tomorrow. It’s no good staying here.”

“It’s up to you,” said she.

The mule team had passed and the road before them was clear—but Jane did not start the car.

“Why are we waiting?” he asked.

“Orders,” said Jane. “What are we doing tonight?”

He thought before answering. At last—

“The hotel then. I suppose I must brazen it out.”

“Ah,” said Jane, “I hoped you’d say that. It’s plucky. But look here—you needn’t worry about things. I fancy it ’ud do you good to spend an evening among your own folk. After all it may be the last chance you’ll get.”

He could not restrain the gratitude in his eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’ll look after her—a bit more discipline won’t hurt any one. I know another place where we can go and you’ll get a night off to think things over.”

“I should be an unmitigated cad to agree to that arrangement. In Heaven’s name why should you carry my load?”

Jane laughed.

“Haven’t you learnt yet that that’s what women do—that that’s just what happens to a man from the day he’s born?” She laughed again. “Seems to me, though, that I’m more of a nurse than a chauffeuse to this expedition.”

“Whatever you are,” said Lennox with genuine admiration, “you are certainly wonderful.”

She stiffened instantly.

“Thanks,” she said, “but don’t make the mistake of imagining I’ve fallen in love with you, ’cos I haven’t—I’ve just fallen in love with a new job, that’s all.”

A few minutes later he found himself and his belongings delivered at the little Camping Hotel, while the car—with Meriem looking over the hood at the back with the sad eyes of a deserted spaniel—moved on to another destination.

Although he severely reproached himself for shifting his responsibilities, Lennox Casallis could not but enjoy the sense of freedom from care. The Camping Hotel was delightful, being composed of a double row of sleeping tents and two large marquees, one used as a dining room and the other as a lounge. It was surrounded by a high wall and rendered shady by tall palms and a grove of orange trees. A pleasant—nay, an exquisite—tranquillity reigned over the little settlement. The air was dry, delicious and fragrant with the scent of blossoms and essences and cooking foods. A few Europeans sprawled luxuriously in long deck chairs, smoking, reading, and consuming long drinks or short. The hour was approaching sunset and the sky, which a few moments before was of the deepest blue, changed suddenly to a copper green that melted into violet over the horizon of hills. The last rays of the sun splashed with rose the tall, white campanile of the principal mosque, from the gallery of which rang out a reedy call to prayer.

Lennox stood at the opening of his tent with gratitude in his heart. It was good to be alone in that hour—to relax—to be quit, even for so short a while, of the fears and doubts that oppressed him. It was good to hear the cry of the priest chanting as it were good-night to the little troubled peoples beneath. It was good to hear the eager voices of the city, and to see the violet shadows of night creep upward from the earth like a mist and veil the urgent colours of the day. It was good, too, to stand in a small green canvas bath and splash cold water on one’s body—and then to get leisurely into a clean shirt and collar and a suit of spotless ducks—and to call for a whiskey and soda and drink it at ease in the rustling dusk, while overhead the heavenly lamp-lighter lit up the planets and stars. Presently other tents delivered up their inmates and there were hails of welcome and introductions and a few rounds of drinks and everywhere a sense of comradeship. After that, dinner—a remarkable dinner with so many courses that Lennox wondered if it would ever end. And the talk, too—how excellent it was—a delightful fragmentary talk composed of little statements—bits of sporting news, a jest or two—enquiries about old so and so—and who do you think I met the other day?—and guessing wrong—and being told—and—oh, a splendid talk. And Brodie’s jolly way with his wife, “his little missus” as he called her. Such a nice girl, too, loving every minute of the holiday—eating up experience like a schoolboy in a tuck shop. A delicious laugh she had—it rippled. She was clever, too, with fine shades of understanding and a quick wit that she was wise and kind enough never to direct against that great good-tempered inarticulate idiot of a husband of hers, that she was so proud of.

A notable Arab potentate had been invited to dine with them who generously threw open to every one present the resources of his kingdom. A delightful old fellow he was—who spoke English charmingly and who never stopped laughing from the beginning of the meal to the end. His laughter was born of goodwill rather than appreciation of jest. It added greatly to the harmony of the evening.

At his instance a dance was contributed to the entertainment in which appeared the twelve most famous apostles of Terpsichore the neighbourhood boasted. Dressed in a blaze of silks and ornaments they occupied one end of the gorgeously carpeted lounge marquée. Very splendid they looked in the amber light of the Moorish lamps, and very vigorous and violent were the performances they gave, howbeit varying in no single detail from each other. Shrill and deafening was the music, and the drums beat loudly and long.

Throughout the evening Lennox had been a leader of gaiety. He had thrown off his mantle of gloom and donned the motley. He laughed, talked, told stories, did a few conjuring tricks to amuse the dancing girls and even responded to the call for a song. It was generally agreed that he was an excellent fellow and first-rate company. By a single step, he had leaped back to his old place in the limelight. Total strangers were accepting him as a leader—he was the lion of the night—the fellow every one looked towards to keep things going. Realization of his easy success came upon him suddenly, and with the realization the vital spark that had ignited him glimmered and went out.

In the midst of his paces, so to speak, he stopped short—dropped into a chair apart from the rest and sunk his chin. What was all this but a mere carnival—a farewell to the flesh. With the morrow he would have passed out of the fellowship of his own kind—and have become a name—the name of a man who had gone under. These healthy, jovial Englishmen might take a drink with him, perhaps, in some low-down dive, secure from observation, and after that would depart with the shaking of heads. These clean, white English girls would tip their little noses when he passed them by.

“That fellow Casallis who married a girl from the Kasbah,” he would become.

A voice inside him murmured:

“Face it—you made your own choice. There is no returning now.”

The music and dancing had started again. He tried to revive the picture of what his desert courtship should be—of the beauty he would instil into it, but the picture was ill composed—its values were false—its colours garish—its form distorted.

He started and turned abruptly at a touch upon the sleeve. The laughing Arab potentate had drawn up a chair and was sitting beside him.

“Why has my brother so suddenly become silent?” said he.

Lennox shrugged his shoulders.

“Don’t know. Thoughts,” he replied.

The old man nodded sympathetically.

“I have read in the works of your great Englische Poet Shaka-spear, ‘There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.’ ”

“But can one think a bad thing good?” asked Lennox.

“The very old and the very vicious may do this, my brother—also the very devout. We, the ordinary ones, are ruled by our thinkings and do not rule our thoughts. What is it troubles you?”

Lennox pondered for a moment, then—

“May I talk to you?”

“Pleece. We shall walk under the palms. It is not good that men should talk with women to hear.”

They went out together and rather to his embarrassment the old man took Lennox by the hand.

“It is our custom,” he explained. “Thus is attained unity of touch as well as of mind.”

Before very long Lennox was glad to have the old man’s hand in his—it made confidence easier. He told his story very simply and very honestly. There was no interruption until he reached the end. The old man stroked his beard thoughtfully before offering an opinion. At last—

“There is much to say,” he said, “but little is to be gained by saying it. But here are some truths that you shall listen to politely and without offence. It were a grievous injustice to all pure women that a man should marry any but a woman who is pure. How else may our girl children be raised to treasure virtue, if its absence may find the same reward as its possession. This child you have wrongfully taken from her element is matter for a moment and not for a life’s partnership. Of different material are wives made. Not only do I say this to you but I speak also of her. She, you say, loves you, but I doubt you are wrong, my brother. It is not a husband she desires but an experience—a break in the monotony of life. This is something that happens in the lives of all women. Wherefore we who are wise in such knowledge—put our women apart—bestow them safely and carry the key of their apartment in our girdles. For a short while this child of yours shall love you out of proportion to the love a wife bestows upon her husband—but the while shall be very short. She will burn her year’s fuel in a single month and then there shall be only ashes in the grate and much of coldness to follow after. It is a pretty dream you have to teach her a better love than her nature has known, but it is no more than dream, my brother. Love and hatred do not yield to governments or teachings, nor will they change their form at the touch of the potter’s thumb.”

He paused to light a thin cigarette and took up the tale afresh.

“I speak now,” he said, “as a ruler in whose hands the destinies of many repose. I speak as one who is responsible. Every day I sit upon a box in the main street of this town and men of all conditions—rich merchants, beggars, lonely shepherds from the desert and sweepers of the streets—bring me their troubles, their sorrows and their reasons for gladness. These we digest together at leisure, and arrive, howbeit slowly, toward the goal of truth. Thus I have knowledge of many matters and acquaintance with my people’s thoughts and their good is ever foremost in my mind. And so I shall tell you frankly and without fear that the thing you contemplate is an unwise and a hurtful thing, not alone for yourself, but for others. In the conduct of their wives white men behave strangely. They do not rule as we have learnt to rule. There is no discipline, no supremacy. Then consider for a moment how harmful is the course you plan to take. You would set up in our midst a dangerous example—and women who, as Allah is aware, are made of tongues and ears, very soon would learn of it and yearn to be treated in similar wise. Thus would there be rebellion behind the shutters and many beatings, and homes that had lost their peace. Wherefore, my brother, I say unto you, take this woman as a slave and keep her for so long as her service may prove agreeable and when this shall cease to be, cast her forth and no damage shall result.”

“But don’t you understand,” cried Lennox, “that I want to be fair—I want to be honest—I want to be true to myself.”

The old man turned a grave face.

“My brother,” said he, “if so be you passed an Arab hut in the desert—a thing of mud walls and with a broken roof—would you not laugh were the owner to shout from the door that his was a palace?”

“But I don’t see—”

“I pray Allah you may learn to see before it is too late. One final word. If it is still your will to take this girl to wife, with the good of my peoples at heart, I must deny you dwelling in this city of Laghouat.”

Lennox shut his mouth like a trap.

“I see,” he said. “I’m to get out.”

The old man dropped a hand on his shoulder.

“Take tea with me on the morrow,” he said, “and let us consider this affair more deeply.”

“Tomorrow I shall have gone,” was the answer.

“My brother is angry?”

“Oh God,” said Lennox, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

In the small hours of the morning Lennox awoke with the conviction that some one was in his tent. The chouette—the desert night bird—was piping its recurrent, melancholy note; from outside the city walls came the dismal chorus of barking dogs—a mosquito pinged in the darkness.

“Who’s there,” said Lennox. “Who’s there?”

A pair of soft brown arms slipped round his neck.

“You?”

A soft cheek was pressed against his own.

“Oh, no, no,” he cried.

In an instant he leapt from his bed and picked up Meriem as though she were a baby. Like a baby she whimpered a little. Barefooted he carried her across the cool carpet of sand to the door in the wall. An armed guard leered as he slipped the bolts and said something velvety in Arabic. Lennox sent him flying with a blow that was half a push.

In the broad space outside camels and drivers were grunting in their sleep. Lennox spoke no word, but picking his way through the knots of huddled humanity, he strode fiercely onward—a white figure in the dark. At the door of the other hotel he stopped and raised a fist to strike upon the panel, but Meriem’s hand shot out and seized his wrist. There was panic in her eyes.

“Elle ne connait pas,” she gasped.

He understood. Jane had been out-generalled.

Next instant Meriem slipped from his arms and with the agility of a squirrel, darted up one of the iron supports of the balcony and scrambled noiselessly through an open window. He thought she had gone, but he was wrong, for she turned, looked down at him, and—made a face, insolent, contemptuous.

Lennox strode back to the hotel with a hundred battling emotions in his heart and brain.

There is a something in desert air that brings deep sleep, and it was ten o’clock when Lennox awoke. He rose, bathed himself and shaved quickly. The garden of the hotel was deserted save for some native servants, the guests having departed on the day’s adventure. He breakfasted alone under the shade of an orange tree, then called for his bill, collected his belongings and passed out through the garden door. Waiting outside was the car with Jane at the wheel. She touched the brim of her hat as he came toward her. Her mood was official.

A few feet away—playing in the dust with two Arab boys—was Meriem. She seemed to be in excellent spirits and was laughing and clapping her hands. Her back was towards him and she did not notice his approach. Lennox moved a few steps nearer to discover the cause of her gaiety. Struggling in the sand in a fruitless effort to escape was a stout green lizard. A cord was about its waist, one end of which was held in the little brown hand of an Arab boy. The lizard’s frenzied antics were fruitful of much joy to the company. The second Arab boy was possessed of a small bird, secured by a yard of thread to his wrist. Every now and again the bird rose in the air and fluttered pathetically over its captor’s head. It was a vicious and unpleasant entertainment, and fired in Lennox instant indignation.

“Little brutes,” he exclaimed, and collared the two children by the neck of their gonduras. A moment later the lizard had scuttled away behind a heap of broken masonry and the bird was free in the air again.

“I’ve a damn good mind to give the three of you a hiding.”

The Arab boys were well shaken and propelled up the street in an approved fashion. Then he turned to Meriem. But if he expected to find her chastened he was disappointed. She looked at him with cold insolence and snorted disdainfully.

“Bête,” she said. “Bête.”

He was thunderstruck. A dull red burnt on his forehead, he pointed angrily at the back seat of the car.

Meriem did not move.

“Bête,” she repeated, and spat in the dust at his feet.

Rank insubordination. The “dear little thing” had departed and instead he was confronted by a virago—a small piece of concentrated fury—out for a row, a fight.

Jane Toop put a hand over the lower half of her face. She did not want to be seen laughing, for the comedy, to tell the truth, entertained her vastly.

“Get into the car,” said Lennox.

But Meriem held her ground. She made an attempt to cope with her feelings in French, and failing for lack of scholarship, burst into a torrent of abuse in her native tongue. A desert driver, squatting in the dust a few yards away, threw up his head and laughed horridly.

At the sound fury took possession of Lennox and throwing his arms round Meriem, he hoisted her bodily into the car.

“Drive on,” he said.

“Poisson,” cried the Arab driver as the car shot away from the door. “Poisson,” he cried. “Poisson.” Meriem’s meanings were plain enough to him. Lennox did not release his hold. He held the little fighting fury in a vice-like embrace as they tore through the outskirts of the town. Three scarlet weals blazed on his cheeks where Meriem’s nails had got home. Her elbows were drilling holes into his side. It would seem that her ambition had been to demonstrate to all and sundry her contempt for him, for no sooner had they passed the houses and the last solitary straggler in the road than her kickings and scratchings subsided and she settled back on the cushions, peace abiding but sulky.

Lennox released his hold and sat as far away from her as the seat permitted. He was still terribly angry—his amour propre had been outraged, and once more he had been made a jest of in the eyes of men. How could such a state of affairs be tolerated? With Eve it had been different. True, she had turned him down and ruthlessly dismissed him, but Eve was a woman in a million—he had learnt to understand that there was justice in the attitude she had adopted toward him. But here was a very different situation. To be made a laughing stock for men of a different race by a child—a child who, with every clean and decent impulse he possessed, he sought to lift out of the mire in which he had found her, was something hard to bear. His scarlet, inflamed face was reflected in the mirror projecting from the wind screen—a clear statement of anger and mortification. Jane Toop, who saw it, could not resist the temptation to enquire:

“Enjoying yourselves, you two?”

His reply was an eloquent silence. He could not trust himself to speak, nor was his temper improved when Meriem burst forth into a loud and triumphant song. Clearly his strength was not strong enough to silence her.

The words of Meriem’s song were impromptu and the spirit was one of derision. She derided him in many ways, lampooning his appearance, his moods, his manhood. Nor were obloquies of his parents left unsung. Altogether Lennox Casallis was represented as a very poor creature indeed. It is strange when one comes to think of it, that her principal indictment was the precise antithesis of the charge Eve had brought against him. Eve had resented his air of assured conquest, Meriem his timidity—his lack of initiative. In the eyes of both of these women he was an unsatisfactory proposition and both, in their separate ways, strove to humble him and succeeded.

A couple of miles outside the city of Laghouat the road ended and the rough desert track or “piste” began. Tall grasses in little tufts about four feet apart dotted the sand in all directions. Hereabouts the country undulated somewhat and lacked the air of utter sterility prevalent in other districts. They had been running for about twenty minutes when a white dot appeared upon the crest of one of the undulations—a dot which on closer inspection revealed itself to be a riderless pony. She was galloping toward them at a breakneck speed—scarlet reins flying and scarlet stirrups beating against her flanks. She did not change her course at the sight of the car, but came straight on, passing a hundred yards to the left. Suddenly a white-robed figure sprang out of the grass and waved frantic arms. The mare shied, reared up and stretching out her neck, came tearing back again, this time level with the car only a few feet away. They were travelling slowly at the time and the galloping mare easily outstripped them and took the lead. Suddenly the piste dipped downward and in the hollow before them Lennox saw a line of horsemen and Arabs on foot. As this came into view three mighty birds swept up into the air from the shoulder of the foremost horseman and the whole line broke into canter.

Lennox had been praying for some mad escapade—some safety valve to reduce the pressure of his pent-up indignation. Here was the chance. If he broke his neck, so much the better.

“Tread on it,” he cried to Jane, “all out—catch up that brute and get alongside.”

Saying which, he leapt to the front seat and stood there, swaying perilously as the big yellow car gathered speed. Neither Meriem nor Jane guessed what he contemplated doing. In a few seconds they were level with the runaway.

“Nearer,” he shouted, and jumped.

It was an astonishing jump—crazy, idiotic—a feat belonging to the world of moving pictures, rather than ordinary men and women.

He came astride the saddle with a whack that nearly sent the poor creature sprawling in the sand. As it was her legs shot out sideways and Jane only just succeeded in swinging the car clear and avoiding a disastrous collision.

“My God,” she said, as her hand went out for the brake.

Meriem, of course, screamed.

The line of horsemen, with a few exceptions, had pulled up and were staring at the performance in speechless amazement. Somehow Lennox found the stirrups and leaning forward, possessed himself of the dragging reins. His hat was gone and the wind was rushing past his ears. He tucked in his knees and seemed to lift the little Arab steed over the dried up course of a long dead streamlet.

“Now, my beauty, stretch out,” he cried—and a flash of white streaked across the great level of tufted sand in the wake of the wheeling birds.

“It’s that fool Casallis,” a voice shouted. “Hi, Duggie Fairbanks, what the devil is the game?”

But for once in his life Lennox Casallis did not turn the triumphant face or wave the glad hand. He had done the spectacular thing it is true, but he did it with no will to win fresh fame. The chances were a hundred to one on disaster and it was in the hope of disaster he had acted. It was no fault of his own he failed to be lying a smashed up heap on the track side. But those beloved of the gods bear charmed lives—and instead of being dead, he was leading the field in one of the oldest sports in the world—a falcon hunt—with an old time rival from the Devon and Somersets thundering along three lengths behind. A wild exhilaration took possession of him. Overhead were the wheeling screaming birds—on beyond seen only in tiny flashes of brown and white was the racing quarry—a hare, while at the back of him half a dozen Europeans and a score of gorgeously burnoused Arabs urged their mounts forward with whip and spur and shrill native cries.

A little to the right of Lennox—his white cashmere burnous drifting out behind him like a sail—galloped the Falconer. Out of the tail of his eye Lennox caught a glimpse of the fellow and marvelled at his magnificence. A scarlet hooded falcon stood upon his head, rigid as the eagle on a Uhlan’s helmet—two others clutched at the wrist of his left hand. Man and horse seemed integral parts of each other, controlled by a single impulse. As the hare twisted and doubled, so they twisted and doubled—neither gaining ground nor losing it. It was all very different from the straight runs to which Lennox was accustomed, but with his ready grasp for sport of any kind he seemed to know instinctively the right thing to do. He pivoted his mare on her haunches with heel and rein, he coaxed her forward with word and caress—he rode like a man inspired.

The glorious chase lasted for perhaps five minutes and then a mistaken ambition on the part of the hare to reach some rougher country that lay to the west of the piste was responsible for the end. Hitherto she had out-manœuvred the three birds that pursued her, by keeping beneath the protection of the tufts of grass. But the piste, although no more than thirty feet in width, was her undoing. As she approached it she gathered speed and shot out of cover at forty miles an hour. Glancing up, Lennox saw that the nearest bird was a hundred feet in the air overhead and the others twice that distance away. It seemed impossible that it could strike before the hare reached the comparative security of the far side. But he was wrong. A brownish grey projectile whizzed through the air with the soft whir of a distant plane. What happened was too quick for the eye to follow, but the blow was struck before the hare had covered four feet of open ground. The first bird was up in the air again, banking, hovering—and a crimson streak showed for an instant in the hare’s neck. She did not slacken speed, but went on, groggily. Then right and left—within a fraction of a second of each other—the second and the third bird struck, and striking passed on. A bundle of brown fur, which a moment before had been instinct of life, lay untidily on the desert track, the head nearly severed from the body, while a few feet above floated three solemn-looking birds who presently settled a little distance away as gently as falling leaves.

The falconer, standing in his stirrups, held up a hand and the hunt drew rein.

“You silly ass,” said a voice at Lennox’s side, “what the blazes were you playing at?”

Lennox turned an exultant face to Brodie.

“Wasn’t it marvellous, old man,” he gasped. “God, I wouldn’t have missed that for—”

An important looking Arab approached on foot, and speaking in excellent French, thanked him for recovering his mare.

“She threw me,” he said, “she is a true woman, capricious, difficult. Monsieur can most certainly ride.”

Lennox dismounted and handed the reins with an apology. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I had to.”

Mrs. Brodie and one or two other English girls were looking at him with eyes of admiration. With sudden embarrassment he turned away to find that the car, with Jane and Meriem, was only a few yards distant. Meriem was executing a little dance on the back seat and was clapping her hands. As he caught her eye she cried out enthusiastically—doubled her antics and blew handfuls of kisses.

Brodie whistled softly to himself.

“Hullo!” he murmured. “Hullo!”

He shot a glance at his wife to see whether she had noticed. She had. Very little escaped Mrs. Brodie. She looked at Lennox and a tiny cloud appeared on her forehead. A word of praise she was speaking stopped on a syllable.

Two French officers nudged each other and smiled. A sudden activity sprang up among the cigarette cases of the company and an unnatural number of people were striking matches. The group surrounding Lennox thinned out and melted away. He found himself left alone with the Arab potentate with whom he had talked the night before.

“Even my brother’s own people will not accept,” observed the old man, kindly. “It is not ourselves, but the welfare of the community that matters.”

Lennox said nothing. He returned slowly to the car and climbed into the front seat adjoining Jane. As they drove away Meriem leant forward and slipped an arm round his neck, but even though it felt like a halter, he made no effort to remove it.

He was no longer part of the community.

“I presume,” wrote Miss Emily Casallis, “that not satisfied with bringing ruin and contempt upon poor nephew Lennox, you now purpose assailing the moral position of his brother Hamar.”

There was a lot more in the same vein.

“If you have not the natural decency to perceive what your action in staying alone in the house of a man who is not even a relation must suggest to—etc.”

There were eight pages to the letter, nor did the last page in any way reveal a falling off in the vigour of the offensive. The guns Miss Casallis employed were of heavy calibre and the projectiles filled with high explosive.

“I have written,” added Miss Casallis in a postscript, “to the Reverend Halliday Soane who, as you are probably unaware, is the vicar of the parish, and have instructed him to see that you leave Poone Corners immediately.”

Eve dropped the letter wearily in her lap. She was very tired. Throughout the night she had had practically no sleep—for Hamar, who for the last three weeks had shown a marked improvement in health, had suddenly developed a severe chill and a high temperature. It was a little hard after all the selfless attention she had shown him to be attacked in this way.

A servant came into the room and announced that the vicar had called.

“Oh, very well,” said Eve. “Show him in.”

The servant was retiring when she recalled him with a word.

“Sir Hamar is not so well this morning. He is to be kept very quiet and receive no correspondence.”

The man hesitated.

“I’m sorry, Miss, but I took up Sir Hamar’s mail a few moments ago. There was only one letter.”

“It’s a pity,” said Eve, “but never mind. Ask Mr. Soane to come up.”

A moment later the Reverend Halliday Soane was ushered in. He was a round, tubby little man with pink cheeks and very laughing eyes, in one of which was screwed a monocle. He came forward with a hand outstretched.

“This is good of you,” he chuckled. “Very good. Callers at breakfast are the deuce. We haven’t met before, have we? but I’ve seen you at church once or twice and that’s introduction enough in a country place like this. That coffee smells good. Think I might have a cup?”

It was not in any sense the greeting Eve expected and as she filled a cup she looked at him in surprise.

“Thanks. It’s first rate. Good coffee is a rare thing in England. Lord knows why! Easy enough to make. Still, that’s beside the point. Look here, Miss Whishart, I had a letter this morning from a croaking old raven and I’ve come along to talk about it.”

“You mean from Miss Emily Casallis.”

“That’s it. Spinster—busybody—croaking old raven. Take my advice and never be a spinster—disastrous thing to be—breeds a nasty mind.”

“I know what she wrote about, Mr. Soane,” said Eve.

“You do—I’m sorry, and I’m glad, too, because it saves one a lot of trouble and I hate trouble.”

“Then I suppose you’ve come to tell me I must go away.”

“I have not. Bless my soul, no. I’ve come to urge you to stay.”

“To stay?”

“There are few ministering angels in this world,” puffed the little man, “and that’s not to be marvelled at—since all the croaking ravens gather round and yak at ’em and pretend they’re something else—but when one does meet a ministering angel it’s a clear duty to see that her ministering isn’t hindered. I know well enough if it wasn’t for you we’d have rung a bell for Hamar Casallis and that’s a job of all others I pray I may never live to do. No, I’ve slipped round quick to see you before that old busybody’s poisons get to work in your veins. I’m here to beg you to see him through. And if it’ll comfort you to hear it I’ll gladly punch the head of any man in this parish who puts any motive but the right one on your presence here.”

“How lovely of you,” said Eve and her hand went out to meet his.

“Lovely be jiggered. Common sense. And, look here, don’t you bother to answer that letter—I’ll do that—and enjoy doing it.”

“What shall you say?”

“Say? I’ll tell the old croaker she ought to be tarred and feathered—that’s what I’ll say.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Eve, and laughed.

“Public duty,” snorted Mr. Soane. “Well, I must run. Just dropped in, that’s all. First rate coffee—enjoyed it. Good-bye and bless you. Want me any time just send along.”

And with a wave of the hand he clattered out of the room. A moment later, glancing through the window, Eve saw him furiously pedalling a push bicycle down the frosty drive.

“What a dear,” she said, as she mounted the stairs to Hamar’s room.

The door was ajar and entering silently she came upon him unaware. Hamar was kneeling by an open window, his head resting against the sill. He was wearing nothing but silk pyjamas which fluttered against his chest at the touch of an ice cold breeze. On the floor by his side lay an open letter written on thin foreign paper.

Eve gave a cry and started forward.

“Hamar,” she cried, “Oh Hamar, why, why?”

He turned and looked at her slowly, then rose to his feet.

“It’s all right—please don’t bother.”

“That window and without your dressing gown. What are you thinking of?”

“What?” he answered, vaguely. “Oh, I don’t know—it doesn’t matter.”

“You must get back to bed at once.”

“Yes, I suppose so—I was hot—wanted air.”

He allowed himself to be led back to bed and the blankets put over him.

“Why worry,” he said. “Why worry?”

“Something’s happened,” said Eve. “Something’s wrong.” Then intuitively—“That letter.”

“Ah, the letter,” he exclaimed. “Better burn it. No, don’t. Read it first. It matters to you as well.”

But before she read Eve rang the bell and ordered the servant to make up the fire and prepare hot blankets.

Hamar watched her steadily as she read the short note Paul Manet had written. She said nothing for a moment, then turned with the words.

“Well?”

“Is that all?” he asked.

“Isn’t it what we knew—expected?”

He moved his head from side to side on the pillow and for the first time in his life lifted his voice against fate.

“Expected—knew!” he cried. “Oh, why must only disappointments come true and hopes founder?”

She knelt by the bed and put a cool hand on his forehead.

“It’s my fault,” she whispered, with a break in her voice, “Oh, Hamar, it’s all my fault.”

But he did not seem to hear.

Two days later, by the first train from town, came three specialists and two trained nurses. The car that was used for shooting parties collected them from the station. The local doctor had been in attendance throughout the preceding night. Little Mr. Soane had been called in and had thrown off his coat to the emergency of the occasion. He and Eve side by side had shared an unremitting vigil. No one had slept.

Pneumonia was the diagnosis. Severe? Very. Any reason to hope? Not much. And then that terrible icy hush, when people in distant rooms speak in whispers and start violently at the opening of a door lest death should have stepped in and joined the company.

His relations should be sent for!

“Not that croaking raven,” snapped the vicar.

The brother then. In Algiers. A shrug! Worth trying.

No address.

Eve took that matter in hand. She cabled to Paul Manet—an enormous cable. “Lennox must come,” it said, “he must—must.”

And then waiting for the crisis.

The thing was a failure. There was no escape from the past and there was no future. There was neither romance nor beauty, love nor understanding, and God knows, Lennox Casallis had tried. His patience had been tireless—inexhaustible. Never once had he given his temper rein—never once had he given an outward breath and realizing the hopelessness of the task turned aside. At every turn nature obstructed and defeated him. Nor was there any help save from his own resources. Jane Toop had gone and with her the last link with his old life was severed. The manner of her going had been strange—tempestuous. There had been something approaching a scene between them. This was the way of it.

They had come to Berrian—Berrian, jewel of the desert—an emerald set in the raw gold sand. The place of singing wells, Lennox called it, for from dawn till dusk the air shrilled with music from the creaking pulleys.

When first the tiny town flashed into view from behind a profile of cinnamon coloured rock, Lennox could hardly believe his eyes or ears. The sound did not belong to this earth. It was as though a million birds sang in chorus. He looked about him but could see none. Fields of pale green barley girt the white walls and beyond was a belt of close packed palms—almost viridian in the strong sunlight. The town itself was like a drawing in a child’s story book. It was built upon a cone and rose up, tier upon tier, tapering at last in the tall tower of the Mosque. Tiny narrow streets—and thousands of steps zigzagged and threaded their way between the low built houses. A tilted market square hung on the hillside like a carpet on a wall. Such a place could not belong to reality. Its dazzling whiteness and the sash of green were colours of imagination, not of fact. Nor could that shrill and ceaseless music be of common origin. There was another sound too—the cool delicious sound of splashing water. Birds and water—wet green and whiteness and overhead the calm, tremendous azure of the sky.

Lennox looked up as though expecting to see a cloud of larks hovering above him in the air. There was nothing. He turned a perplexed face to Jane.

“What is it?” he asked.

And practical to the last she replied.

“Those well pulleys want oiling.”

Then he understood. All day long the men and beasts of Berrian drew water from the wells. The cabled goatskin bags are lowered and raised and the cool water splashes into reservoirs which fill and overflow along tiny channels. Like silver wires threading through a tapestry of green runs the water to the fields.

The life of Berrian is in her wells. Men and children and all the beasts that are subject to the will of man toil and strain that water shall be drawn and run. The song of Berrian is the song of her prosperity and for so long as the music sounds shall her people live.

“They were doing this before the time of Christ,” said Jane, nodding her head at a yoked ass in double harness with a shaggy white pony that, regular as a pendulum went up and down a ramp to a well mouth.

“Same old gourds, same leathern ropes—same squeaking pulleys—same half naked drivers. Nothing ever changes here.”

And so at Berrian, the place of the Singing Wells, Lennox Casallis made his camp and pitched the little tents he had bought in Algiers. He did not want to live in a house—he did not wish to court again the refusal of the Sheik. Accordingly he made his camp on the outskirts of the town with the fields of swishing barley beneath him, and the wells to right and left.

There was one tent for Meriem and another for himself and a kind of lean-to, made out of hoop sticks and sacking, which was used as a kitchen.

For Jane there was no need to provide accommodation since immediately they arrived she announced her intention of returning to Algiers.

“My job’s finished,” she said, “and yours begins. I wish you joy of it.”

Tentatively he begged her to stay a little while.

“You can’t go back at once. You must rest for a bit.”

And quite unaccountably she flared up.

“I go now,” she said, “now at once. I tell you frankly I’m sick of it.” For a moment it seemed she was going to cry and since that was the last thing she intended doing she lost her temper instead. “I’m somebody too,” she exploded, “not just a nurse—but somebody. D’you think I don’t know why you want me to stay—why you’d want anybody—not me in particular—to stay. It’s because you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. It’s because you haven’t the pluck to chew it alone. Well, I’m not going to be a safety valve for any man. Oh, I’m sorry for you and all that—sorrier than I’ve ever been for any man. Well, that alone is good enough reason for clearing off. When women are sorry for men they’re apt to make fools of themselves and I don’t fancy making a fool of myself. Anyway, you’re not my sort. I hate inflammable stuff and you appear to be made of nothing else. These last few days I’ve given up being myself and have become a kind of Pyrene fire extinguisher, and I tell you flat I’m sick of it.”

And having delivered this extraordinary peroration, she seized the starting handle of the car and gave it a vigorous twist.

Their eyes met for a moment as she clambered into the driving seat. Lennox held out a hand.

“I’ve only my thanks to offer you,” he said, “all my thanks.”

She held his hand for a fraction longer than was usual.

“Oh well,” she muttered—then, “Look here, if it fails—or if you fail, as probably both it and you will fail, don’t take it to heart too much. Don’t feel you’ve got to bury yourself alive for the rest of your life. After all, it doesn’t matter all that much. It’s a forgivin’ world, y’know—don’t forget that. Lord knows why you ever started the thing!”

To Meriem, who was standing a few paces apart, sulkily sucking a thumb, she said,

“Well, good-bye, you little devil.”

She jammed in her gears and was gone. The yellow car dipped over the last ridge of rock, and it seemed to Lennox that chivalry—and much that was fine and noble—disappeared in the thinning cloud of dust that settled on the desert track.

Lennox found himself work to do for which he neither asked for nor received remuneration. Payment was his in muscular fatigue and the sense of bodily fitness that it brought to him. He was given a well and for four hours a day, a wooden yoke across his shoulders, he toiled up and down the short ramp and drew water. At first, despite his extraordinary physique, the unusual character of the work reduced him to a pulp, but there was an obstinate strain in his nature and he would not give way to fatigue. A number of laughing Mozabites, stripped to the waist, gathered round to witness his collapse, but when he failed to collapse they checked their laughter and clapped their elbows on their sides and severally shook him by the hands, gracefully kissing their fingers when the courtesy had been performed. He was acclaimed a strong man and a noble and any small contempts they bore him for his companionship with a dancing girl were politely concealed in silence. Even the Sheik of Berrian introduced himself and subsequently sold Lennox a rush carpet and a white silk gondura. Also he counselled Lennox in the matter of obtaining supplies and offered him a place adjoining his own in the colonnaded market place, where, at the end of each day the wise men of the city gathered to watch the sun go down, to talk trade conditions, or solemnly to repeat the Prophet’s name a hundred times for every bead upon the Suphas that hung from their waists.

There was in these surroundings something infinitely tranquillizing. The low buzz of voices, the beautiful white simplicity of the scene, soothed Lennox’s nerves as little else could have done. And yet, though he realized that he had stepped back into an older century, it differed from the century of his dreams. The primitive thing was not there: He came as a stranger and brought with him a tourist’s mind. He saw and absorbed sights and scenes without entering into and becoming part of them. He accepted it all as an experience that lacked reality, a show to which he had been admitted behind the curtain as well as before.

Disillusionment was the keynote of the new life he had stepped into. Everywhere disillusionment and most of all in his relations with Meriem.

To Meriem he offered all those gentle chivalric services which with Eve he had left unperformed. He strove tirelessly to make his courtship of her a beautiful thing, and day by day to advance their understanding of one another. He tried to make her regard him as a protector, not as a vulgar lover who sought, without winning it, to gobble up her beauty. And his reward was to read boredom in her eyes—and contempt at the corners of her mouth. It would have been so easy, so simple to have turned contempt to content, but this he would not do. That obstinate strain in his nature was at work—a strain more powerful and compelling than any passions she could inflame in him. His determination stood firm—and as he toiled up and down the ramp to the well mouth, he repeated over and over again:

“Something better than desire I’ll win—I will, I will!”

As though by very will power her nature could be remade.

There was a priest at Berrian, a young man of some scholarship, by name Aissa, and him Lennox employed as interpreter.

Through the medium of Aissa he managed to convey to Meriem all the tenderest messages of his mind, the subtle thoughts that because of their ignorance of each other’s speech he had been unable to express. But Meriem only yawned. Even the knowledge that one day they would be married no longer excited interest in her. Sometimes she stormed and raved at him and cursed the day he had taken her from the Kasbah. Why had he done it? to make her a jest in the eyes of other women, to laugh at her, to shame her beauty by neglect.

“Tell her it was to honour her beauty,” said Lennox.

Aissa translated the words, and Meriem screamed and stamped and tore at the walls of the tent with her nails.

“But does not my sister desire to marry my lord,” asked the priest.

“Yes,” shrieked Meriem, “now.”

She had forgotten how to purr—the kitten side of her nature was dead—killed by courtesy.

She began making friends with the few dancing girls of Berrian. They would gather round and squat before the tent flaps in the morning while Lennox worked at the well. Their high mirthless laughter shrilled above the creaking of the well pulleys. Empty, vain and unlovely creatures, the substance of their coarse, shapeless jests was helioed across the intervening space by the flashing coin necklaces they wore.

His wife’s friends! The horrible thought that these and such as these would be his wife’s friends haunted Lennox. He drove them away but they always returned.

Then the logical side of his mind whispered base counsels.

“The thing is a failure,” it whispered, “admit it and clear out before it is too late. Run, Lennox Casallis, run.”

But he would not run. Courage and determination had grown in him apace. He was a different man now. Easy victory or retreat was no longer his slogan. He had learnt something of endurance. He was out to win now—to win at any price to himself, at any loss to himself. He would not run away a second time. The task had been set and should be accomplished.

Every once in a while he fancied they were travelling a little forward but something always arose to correct the impression. One night he sat with Meriem beneath the stars and held her hand and talked to her in the gentlest, lowest tones. Aissa, who lay on the ground a little apart, interpreted his words and somehow made them sound like poetry. And wonderful to relate Meriem remained quiet and did not toss her head or rave or betray any of the violent sides of her nature that Lennox was used to expect. She just nodded and presently rested her head against his shoulder and sighed contentedly. They stayed thus for nearly an hour after Aissa had gone his ways. At last Lennox rose and kissed her forehead for good-night and she went to her tent as sweetly and demurely as a maiden. Ten minutes later he discovered that the notes he carried in his pocket had been stolen. A horrible misgiving caused him to peep into Meriem’s tent and there, sure enough, she sat counting them over with greedy, glistening eyes.

Paul Manet did not pursue his original intention of returning immediately to France. Loyal friendship for Lennox, coupled with a curious conviction that at any time he might be wanted persuaded him to remain in the city of Algiers. Also there was another motive for remaining—a motive for which he could find no explanation. It concerned a girl with a shock of straw coloured hair, an absurdly freckled face and a cheeky way of talking. Why he desired to renew her acquaintance Paul had no idea, but nevertheless the desire was there and showed no disposition to abate. Wherefore he loafed about the town and greatly irked himself with a superabundance of his own society. Quite by accident he learnt of the misfortune that had befallen the Baron de Marieux and with a malicious humour determined to call and express his regrets.

He found de Marieux seated in his verandah with one arm in a sling.

“My dear fellow,” he said sympathetically, “this is indeed a misfortune. I thought by now you were chasing across the Sahara in pursuit of Lennox Casallis and instead I behold you thus. Please assure me that your injury is real and that you have not adopted the pose of invalid rather than risk an engagement with a better man than yourself?”

De Marieux showed his teeth in a smile.

“Droll to the last,” he remarked. “Please to sit down. The hours pass dully enough and the company of a fool will enliven them.”

Paul accepted a chair and an invitation to drink.

“Did you,” he asked, “succeed in obtaining news of the runaways?”

“I did,” was the reply, “and I hope in a few days’ time to be following their scent. This little mishap to my wrist should by then be remedied.”

“I presume,” said Paul, “you would not extend the hospitality of a seat in your car to one so insignificant as myself. On one occasion I travelled over three thousand miles to witness a contest between two men of far less interest than this one promises to be.”

“I am afraid I must refuse,” said de Marieux, “although any time you are passing my villa in the Sakamody Pass I shall be delighted to provide you with the details.”

“As to that,” said Paul, “a photograph would be more illuminating.”

He was about to continue in a similar vein when without warning he sprang to his feet and made a dash for the garden gate. There was no possible explanation for such extraordinary behaviour. Beyond the fact that a large yellow car smothered all over with dust had flashed across an open space at the garden end between a screen of syringa bushes, the Baron had seen nothing. The gate clanged and Paul Manet had gone.

The road leading down from the Mustapha Supérieur to the town mainly consists of “S” bends. For the pedestrian the way is shorter since the corners are cut off by sharp flights of steps. Paul Manet went down the steps six at a time and leapt into the road as the car bore down on him.

“Hi, hi!” he cried.

Jane Toop clapped on the brakes to avoid him and without invitation Paul jumped on to the running board, opened a door and sat down beside her, gasping.

“Oh! so it’s you,” she said. “Nimble little thing, aren’t you?”

Paul seized one of her grubby hands and wrung it fiercely, crying.

“But this is splendid. Ciel! but I’m pleased to see you.” Jane looked at him doubtfully.

“Didn’t know we were such friends,” said she.

“Of course we are. Let us find some place where we can talk about everything.”

“Thanks, I’ve been driving ten hours.”

Paul threw up his hands in despair.

“You will never refuse me so simple a request.”

Jane screwed up her freckled face.

“Don’t know that I want to talk.”

“But you must—I insist.”

“You do?”

“Certainly.”

“I don’t know who you think you are,” said Jane with calculating insolence.

“God bless us,” railed Paul, “do not waste time with such empty remarks. I know perfectly well who I am and do not in the least desire to make enquiries as to my identity. Come, let us be moving and get this car into a garage.”

“Look here, if I wasn’t so infernally tired I should chuck you out of it,” said Jane.

“Oh, nonsense—get on, get on. I am burning with curiosity.”

She let in the gears and was rather surprised with herself for doing so.

At the garage she announced her intention of returning home for a bath and wished him good evening.

“But you are dining with me,” Paul announced.

“Who is?” gasped Jane, her stock of repartee being below par.

“The Shah of Persia,” replied Paul, “but you’re coming too.”

“I distinctly like your cheek,” said she.

“And I like yours,” he said. “Freckles and dust and that grease mark at the corner of your mouth—it’s all fine. We’ll dine at Fragoni’s at seven-thirty. Hurry up with that bath.”

“Oh well,” said Jane, “I dare say I’d enjoy a talk myself.”

Paul hardly recognized her when two hours later she entered the little restaurant. Somehow she had contrived to get herself clean and the dress she wore was indisputably attractive.

“What’s all this,” she demanded, pointing at the table which was beautifully appointed with choice flowers and silver. “Are we engaged to one another or what? All this gubbins strikes me as silly.”

“I don’t believe you,” he retorted. “No true woman—as you undoubtedly are—can call flowers and a little care and attention silly.”

“H’m,” said Jane and took her place.

“Drink that cocktail. It’s an invention of my own—you’ll like it.”

“Look here,” she said severely, “I’m not used to this kind of thing. What’s the game? Are you trying to make a fool of me?”

“My dear Miss Toop,” he answered—“which incidentally is a damnable name that you should lose no time in changing—by birth I am half French and my temperament is almost entirely Gallic. I am given therefore to sudden enthusiasms which I express fervently. I happen to be pleased to see you and this is my way of showing it. Please drink your cocktail and don’t be silly.”

“Silly!” she gasped.

“Certainly. On our recent meeting you treated me with considerable frankness. You will not be astonished therefore if I reply in the same spirit.” He raised his glass. “To your very good health. I shall call you Fanny, I think, because I cannot tolerate saying Miss Toop.”

“You’re a queer little man,” she said, “but I suppose you mean well.” She took a sip of the cocktail. “It’s nice,” she admitted.

The dinner was a tremendous success, for when he made the effort there was no finer host in the world than Paul Manet. Until the last dish was served and dessert was set before them he never once referred to the affairs of Lennox Casallis.

“And now,” he said, “if you have any generosity in your heart, tell me everything that has happened.”

And she did.

“What a tragedy,” muttered Paul. “Poor fellow. Fanny, never commit the folly of imagining you can make up to yourself for the lost love of one man by throwing your heart at the next comer.” He stopped short, looked at Jane closely, and added “By the way, I hope you didn’t fall in love with Lennox Casallis.”

She did not reply at once—then,

“No,” she said, “no, but something happened to me though, through him—something new. I don’t quite understand, but I sort of felt I had a duty—a responsibility toward him.”

Paul threw up his head.

“I know. Oh, don’t I know,” he said, “and isn’t that true all through life. My dear, any man who has been turned down—disappointed—jilted—divorced—knows that symptom. There is something in the eyes of a sad man—a hurt man—that women cannot resist. It gets hold of ’em.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

“I was divorced,” he replied. “Oh, my marriage was dreadful—hopeless—my fault mainly—but that made no difference. Somewhere about me that sense of injury exposed itself—I became a magnet for other women’s sympathy. It was wonderful, pathetic and most undeserved. I warn you, Fanny, to stand clear of the injured man—he isn’t worth the trouble you spend on him.”

She seemed dubious and he went on.

“Why do you imagine that little brown coffee bean leapt into the arms of Lennox Casallis at the Kasbah that night? It was the look in his eyes. If that look had been in mine it would have been into my arms she would have leapt. Oh, it’s true—it’s more than true. Not a word passed between them—not a word. When that magnet pulls, it pulls all ways at once—it is irresistible. God knows why—and perhaps few women could tell us the reason. Sometimes I think it is old Dame Nature working out her laws of compensation. Never mind the cause, avoid the issue, is my advice, for that second woman never gets fair treatment. In the year that followed my divorce—and mind you my wounds were no more than skin deep—I could have married half a dozen women and some of them wonderful women who would have given up great possessions for my miserable sake. Perhaps the kindest act in all my life was to satirize the sentiment they offered me. They hated me for doing so, of course, and they will never realize that I hated myself for the same cause. At the most emotional period in my career, when I longed to be mothered and made a fuss of, I scouted emotion and laughed at it and chased it from my doors. My dear Fanny, it is always the woman who pays for her gifts to the fellow who carries the lost and lonely lines at the corners of his eyes. Your man who is worth being possessed of is the one who is only troubled by the troubles you make for him and brings no sorrowful past for your sweet good nature to erase from his memory.”

There could be no question about the success of the evening. At its close a queer little incident took place. Jane was shaking hands with Paul and bidding him good-night and in so doing she shot a glance at his eyes and noticed the humorous lines that gathered about them. Absurd as it must seem she could not choose but feel a shade of disappointment.

They met again next day and the next and for many days following, and though their talk was always of the frankest their friendship grew rapidly. This in itself was a matter for some surprise to Jane, for hitherto she had always detested men who were in any way finicky. Several times she told Paul she heartily disapproved of his manner of speech—his views on life—the care he gave to his appearance, and the attention bestowed upon his hands.

“I believe you get manicured,” she said, with a world of contempt.

“I do,” he replied sweetly, adding “and it is a matter for permanent regret to me that you don’t.”

“I should have thought you were more of a man,” she retorted.

“One can hit just as hard with a clean fist as with a dirty,” said Paul. “Why don’t you wear gloves when you are messing about with that filthy engine of yours.”

Jane sniggered sarcastically as she bit her nails.

“Yes, and while we are on the subject that habit of biting your nails is a disgusting one,” said Paul. Without warning he seized her by the wrist.

“Here!” she exclaimed furiously. But though she tugged she could not free herself; his grip was remarkable. Paul examined her fingers in silent disapproval.

“Heaven never intended women should disfigure themselves,” he remarked. “You, my dear Fanny, have much to learn.”

“I don’t fancy you could teach me,” she snapped.

“Nonsense, of course I could.”

“Let me go at once, or I’ll—”

“Yes?” he queried, and their eyes met. “I warn you fairly if you smack my face I shall kiss you.”

She gasped.

“Kiss me?”

“Certainly.” A smile came at the corners of his mouth. “Do you know I am almost hoping you will smack my face.”

His hope was fulfilled—as also, to Jane’s amazement, was his promise. Then he let her go. She stood away from him panting.

“What next?” he asked.

For a moment she said nothing, then unexpectedly she laughed.

“Fancy a little pip squeak like you having the pluck.”

“Pluck,” he replied, “is not a matter of feet and inches. I am not in the least frightened of you, Fanny. I like you too much to be frightened.”

Obviously she was nonplussed. The experience was novel.

“Congratulate yourself on being the first man that ever did that,” said she.

He bowed.

“I do, but I would congratulate myself even more if I knew I should be the last.”

Jane sat down heavily in a wickerwork chair.

“Is that an offer of marriage?” she asked.

“It is,” said he.

“My lord,” she returned, “you’d be surprised if I accepted you. I’ve a damn good mind to.”

“I am glad you recognize good when you see it,” he said.

“Of all infernal—”

He stopped her with a gesture and drew a chair near to hers.

“Fanny,” he said, “I’ve been married before and made a failure of it, and with realization of that I carry in my head the secret of success. Since my marriage was dissolved I’ve lived a ridiculous sort of life and doubtless hundreds of people will tell you I am a thoroughly bad lot. That, however, is not entirely true. In many ways I am quite a decent fellow.”

“Who’s denying it?” said Jane, unexpectedly. “I’d have wrung your neck ages ago if I hadn’t guessed that much.”

“That being so,” he answered, “there is little to be gained by continuing the subject. Perhaps also you will have guessed something of infinitely greater importance.”

“Well? What?”

“That I am violently in love with you.”

“Oh, are you,” said Jane. “Well, you needn’t be so surprised about it.”

“But I am surprised, since I find in you the very antithesis of every idea I possessed about women. You are not particularly pretty—you don’t care a straw how you look and you have an extremely disconcerting way of talking.”

“Well, since I’m not at all likely to change—” she began.

“But that is nonsense,” he cut in. “Marriage changes all things. Of that there is no doubt whatever. It changes misery to happiness, or alternately, happiness to misery. Frequently, by uniting it disunites. Through marriage peace becomes war or war peace. I have known an iceberg become a mother—I have known an angel become a virago—through the simple process of marriage. Believe me, Fanny, there is no limit to the topsy-turvydom marriage may bring about. It is that very element of chance that gives to marriage its strongest lure. Marriage, my dear, is the Monte Carlo of life, where the odds are heavy against the players.”

“Then I wonder you care to take the risk,” said Jane.

Paul looked at her in surprise.

“Surely I did not omit to say I am violently in love with you,” he repeated.

She grinned.

“No, you remembered that.”

“Well then?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Jane. “Seems awful rot to me. I can’t think why I like you at all.”

“That,” said Paul, “is an affair outside our control.”

“Suppose it is. You see you’re such a funny little man.”

He frowned.

“Look here, Fanny,” said he, “please understand you have said that for the last time.”

“Wouldn’t like to bet on it,” was the reply.

“But you will not say it again,” he assured her, “because at the moment, you do not really regard me in that light. Possibly, at some later date, marriage may dwarf me in your eyes and then we can discuss it again.”

“You seem very sure I shall say ‘yes,’ ” she retorted.

“Fairly sure or I wouldn’t have insulted you by proposing.”

Once more she sniggered.

“Oh, I don’t know. It does seem awful rot. I’ll think about it.”

“Of course you will,” said Paul. “That’s inevitable.”

Jane rubbed her freckled nose for a moment.

“But I tell you frankly,” she said at last, “you’re not a bit my idea of a lover.”

“Do you know,” said Paul, “I do not believe you would have cared much for your idea of a lover.”

And unexpectedly she answered, with a smile that was really very sweet, “D’you know, I don’t believe I would.”

To this remark there could have been only one consequence, but at that moment there was a knock at the door and a servant entered with a telegram on a salver.

“Lennox must come,” it read, “he must—he must.” It was signed Eve Whishart.

“Wait,” said Paul, as he handed the telegram to Jane.

She read it twice.

“Well, that’s torn it,” said she.

“What does one do?”

She thought for a moment, then.

“That poor kid! I wonder why I’m sorry for her all of a sudden. What a shame it seems!”

“How do you mean?”

“He must go back, of course. And once he’s gone back—” She seemed to be dreaming.

“Yes, I see,” said Paul slowly.

Jane aroused herself with a jerk.

“You drive a car, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Good. We can take shifts and do a non-stop run. There’s a native telegraph office at Berrian. Wire him that we’re coming.”

“At once.”

“I’ll get the car, then. Be ready in an hour.”

They had left when the second telegram arrived to say that Hamar Casallis was dead.

The morning began badly. Meriem was in one of her moods. She refused to take her lesson in English, she stamped on Lennox’s hat and when he pleaded with her she threw a handful of sand in his breakfast plate.

Lennox was in despair. He set off to his labours in that suicidal frame of mind peculiar to the unhappily married. He was weary of disputes, of all humour, flashes of rage and of the everlasting responsibility to placate. His tenderness, his restraint, his efforts to mould her understanding to a comelier form had proved so much waste of energy—a mere irritant to a nature he strove to soothe.

Seated by the mouth of the well was Aissa the priest. Aissa had brought with him a pair of scarlet leather sack boots and was embroidering them with silver tissue and feathers taken from a duck’s wing. Aissa would often bring his work to this spot in the mornings, for though, as a rule, they conversed but little, he enjoyed the company of Lennox Casallis and treasured the fragments of knowledge to be acquired from a man whose experience of the world was wider than his own. At the approach of Lennox he rose and shook hands, afterward kissing his own finger tips as was the fashion among Mozabites.

Lennox took off his jacket and began work. The reservoir was empty and he continued lowering and hauling up the goatskin bag until the splashing water filled it to the brim, and was overflowing along the little runnels that slanted to the fields. So far no word had passed between them, when unexpectedly Lennox cast off his yoke of wood and yoke of silence and seated himself beside the priest.

“Aissa,” he said, “you have wives. You must have spoken to them about me.”

Aissa was about to protest.

“Oh, shush man! Of course you have.”

“Women are eager questioners,” Aissa admitted.

“I know, and sooner or later, men answer them.”

“That is true, my Lord, else would there be no leisure for thought and reflection.”

“Tell me what your wives think of me.”

“I have told them you are a very noble man and this they have accepted.”

“Yes, that’s not what I want to get at. What have they said concerning my treatment of the little Meriem?”

Aissa hesitated.

“Come on, speak up.”

“Women,” said Aissa slowly, “are impatient creatures who set a higher price on passion than on philosophy.”

“Not always.”

“I speak of the women of my own kind. Of my Lord’s sisters I have no knowledge.”

“Well.”

“This much, then, have I heard from the mouths of my wives. My Lord, they say, must be a strange man indeed.”

“Why?”

“Forasmuch as he has taken a woman and has promised her marriage, yet weds her not, nor makes her one with him. My Lord, they say, must be a strange man and—a cruel.”

“Cruel?”

“It is their words I repeat. For my own part I know well how my Lord strives towards a purer goal than their wisdoms shall comprehend. And yet—”

“Go on.”

“Even in a woman’s point of view there may be reason. Look you how short a life has beauty and when beauty shall have departed the strength of a woman departs also. Violence a woman may understand, nor greatly resent. Cruelty, blows, hard words and even infidelity she has armour to withstand, but she cannot forgive and will not endure neglect. If the man of her choice neglects her or proves ability to delay making her his own, why then—”

“What then?”

“My Lord has no reason to ask. Here is a question to which he knows the answer too well.”

For a long while Lennox sat with his chin sunk. Presently he rose and paced up and down, biting a finger, opening and shutting his hands. At last he stopped before Aissa and faced him.

“They’re right, I suppose,” said he. “Cruel, eh? Very well. You’re a priest, Aissa. Could you do it—marry us?”

“According to our law.”

“Yes, yes. Afterwards it must be repeated at the British Consulate. Tomorrow then, tomorrow.”

“If my Lord wills.”

“Wills!” He threw back his head and laughed. “Yes—I will—I will.”

He seized the yoke, shouldered it, and fell furiously to work. The plunge had been taken.

Meriem waited for Lennox to be out of sight to rush off to the market place and make herself a thorough nuisance to everybody she met. With the money he had given her for food she bought herself cheap ornaments and a highly coloured sash, which looked very dreadful in the sunlight. Arrayed in these and with bold and brazen glances, she strolled through the narrow byways of Berrian with the tread of a tight-rope walker, filling virtuous wives with horror and greatly disturbing the peace of mind of virtuous husbands. It was from the Sheik she bought the sash and though he had sold it at excellent profit to himself, he did not hesitate to upbraid her wanton behaviour in wearing it.

“Is there no shame in thy bosom, oh daughter of wretchedness,” he demanded, “that you degrade yourself in the eyes of men by appearing in their midst so vilely bedizened? Were I thy protector, which Allah forfend, I would tear the sash from thy waist and beat thee with stick. Go back and be ashamed.”

So Meriem made a face at him and pursued her dancing way, swinging her hips very prettily as she went.

Was it not true that she had had a dream—a vision that one would love her by the Singing Wells of Berrian. It was to be presumed that the vision had been sent by Allah. But behold, here was she by the Singing Wells, but of lovers had she none. True a white man wardened her, as the vision had promised, a white man who at their meeting had seemed to possess the magnificence of all men crystallized in a single being. His eyes, so sad when first she saw them, had melted and kindled and fired for her—had lit bonfires in her own breast. And now he was as nothing—a rope upon the wheel of Joy—an obstacle to happiness—a cheat whose eyes had lied to her of fires that would not burn.

True he spoke of marriage—but when, when? And what was marriage that she should so covet its possession. Her soul cried out for love—love that was a flame—an enveloping flame. Had she not proved great willingness and great generosity to this man? Had not her heart beats been tuned to his? Was not her breath warm for his cheek, were not her arms soft for twining about his neck? Could there be giving more complete than hers—desire more desirable? Body of a dog! to be spurned—rejected—to be frowned upon for love.

Wherefore Meriem danced through the narrow streets that men might see her beauty and covet it. She came at last to the scarp of yellow rock that juts out like a single shoulder from the hill upon which Berrian is built. A great white Marabou stands upon the summit—the grave of a dead Sheik. Below her were the fields of barley, the Singing Wells, and the cemetery where at night hyenas came to dig up and devour the bodies of the dead. To right and left stretched the desert Piste—a dun coloured serpent twisting over the plain. From the eminence upon which she stood Meriem’s eyes could follow its northward course for five miles, until at last all definition was lost in the plum coloured haze that rose from the baking rocks.

Meriem stretched out her hands and sat down nativewise in the dust, with chin resting on her knees. She remained thus a long time, seeing nothing, dreaming of everything. A camel caravanserai passed along the track below. A shepherd leading his flock went slowly by and the thin, high music of the wells came faintly to her ears. But of none of these was she aware. The solitude of the desert was in partnership with the solitude of her soul. The empty remorseless desert that mocked her empty heart.

She turned her head at last to gaze upon a tiny speck of white moving up and down a walled-in slant to a well mouth over a mile away. It was Lennox Casallis. Meriem shook her fist at him.

“Robber,” she hissed spitefully, “robber, cheat!”

As she looked she saw a brown speck approach the white along one of the culverts that carry water to the fields. The brown speck was waving a hand above his head and seemed to be shouting. The white speck ceased his toil and brown and white united. They talked together for a moment, then the white speck seized his coat from the well wall and started for Berrian at a run. Meriem watched till he had disappeared through the entrance of a one-storey building on the outskirts of the town. She knew the house well. Often in the morning she would stop and listen to the strange sounds that issued from it. “Bzzz—buz—bzzz—buz—buz.” Those were the sounds and some fool had told her it was voices from distant parts of the world that spoke along a wire. The “po-stoffisse” Lennox called it, but why he must needs run so furiously to hear the buzzing Meriem could not understand—nor did she greatly care. With a shake of her shoulders she turned away and looked toward the north. And from the north approached an interest in the form of something that reflected bright flashes of sunlight in the forefront of a great column of dust. Meriem did not know what the thing might be, but whatever it was it moved terribly fast and a fast moving object is ever matter for interest to a child. Springing to her feet, she ran down the steep hillside toward the Piste, that she might see the dragon go by. Lightly as a deer she leapt from rock to rock as the column of dust rushed forward to meet her. She arrived at the Piste half a minute before the flashing radiator of a big Delage reared itself over the crest of a rise and came into view. Meriem clapped her hands ecstatically at the speed and magnificence of the car and opened her mouth in amazement at the goggled Polar bear who clung to the wheel.

A raucous horn roared out a warning as the thing tore by and next instant Meriem was enveloped in a cloud of choking dust and smoke. She heard a sound like the tearing of starched linen and when the dust cleared, she saw the car was approaching her in reverse. It backed to the place where she stood and stopped. The Polar bear removed goggles and a leather helmet and turned a smiling countenance. It was the Baron de Marieux.

“Holy Mother,” said he, “I hardly expected so welcome a surprise.” He slipped off his coat, leapt lightly to the ground and seizing Meriem’s hand, kissed it a dozen times. Then he looked up and examined her eyes. There was pleasure in them.

“Surprise follows surprise,” said he. “I do not understand.”

Neither for that matter did she—she only knew some one was glad to see her, which in itself was excuse for rejoicing. A moment later they were sitting side by side upon a rock and conversing gaily in her own tongue.

In affairs of the heart Raoul de Marieux was a knowledgeable young man and he did not waste time asking questions. In her eyes he had read hunger and disappointment. Wherefore sympathy and tenderness were more in place than interrogation.

“But my beautiful is sad,” he said. “Sorrow is weighing her eyelids and grief pulls at the corners of her mouth.”

“I am very sad,” said Meriem and felt the sadder for saying so.

His arms went round her and drew her head to his shoulder.

“Nay then, cry the brightness back into your eyes,” he pleaded. “So, with your head upon my breast.”

So Meriem cried a while very contentedly, for the touch of him was pleasant to her. And while she cried he whispered soft endearments in her ear.

But suddenly a fear came to her and she drew away.

“Do you also seek to mock me,” she demanded. “White men are great liars. They speak of love, yet they prove it not. Are you but another Lennox?”

“I know but little of this Lennox,” he replied. “I only know I am a man—a man who is aflame with love for you.”

“White man’s love?” There was scorn in her tone.

For answer he kissed her mouth so that she was stifled for breath.

She looked at him then in admiration.

“Ooh,” she whispered and pressed her fingers over her lips. “You are a very man. He brushes my forehead with a kiss like I were a sister. He has been very cruel to me.”

De Marieux scratched his chin thoughtfully. He could not pretend to understand what had happened. Not that it mattered a great deal, since clearly the fates were playing into his hands. Meriem in the flesh was far more desirable than his imagination had pictured her.

“Where is this Lennox now—has he deserted you?”

She nodded over her shoulder to where Berrian lay concealed by the profile of rock.

“He is there. In the po-stoffisse. I saw him last. He will not desert me—he says he will marry me if I am content to wait.” She stamped her feet. “But I am not content—I am not content. It is love I desire—not marriage.”

“Ah, Meriem, have you learnt that those who speak of marriage have little love to give? They conceal their poverty as lovers behind the prison walls of marriage. Love is the companion of the quick—marriage of the dead.”

“Aye,” said Meriem, “he is very dead.” A doubt assailed her. “And yet I know were he to find you thus with one arm around me you also would die very soon.”

“I do not fear men, Meriem.”

“What then?”

“Loneliness I fear—and separation from my heart’s desire.”

“Am I your heart’s desire?”

He nodded. “Assuredly.”

“That is good,” said she and her shoulders moved contentedly and she sighed. Presently—“Would it not be better still if you and I and the big motor car went quietly from this place while Lennox is in the po-stoffisse?”

“That would be best of all, oh most clever and most beautiful, but alas, there is but little spirit left in the car and I must enter Berrian to purchase more.”

“Then,” said Meriem stoically, “there will be killing for assuredly he will see you if you enter by day.”

De Marieux thought for a while.

“It would be a pity,” said he, “were there to be a killing on either side, for Governments do not smile upon such doings. If now I were to go from here and return after dark?”

Meriem nodded.

“That is a wise thought,” said she. “Very wise. There are many places between here and Tilghemt where you and the big car might wait in safety.”

“And how shall I find you?”

“There are two tents beside the road. One his and one mine.”

De Marieux made a gesture of despair.

“I will be waiting—listening.” She gave a sigh of exquisite pleasure. “It was revealed to me that I should be loved by the Singing Wells of Berrian.” She put up her lips for him to kiss with all the simplicity of a child. Then, “Go,” she said.

He went and she watched the dust cloud rise up and settle and disappear.

All the way back to Berrian Meriem danced. Up the steep hill and down the other side, dancing as she went. Along the twisting path to the tents her bare feet beat rhythmically upon the ground. Also she sang and clapped her hands and waved the new sash above her head. Dancing and singing she came into the presence of Lennox.

He was standing with Aissa and the pallor of his face was extraordinary.

“You say a car passed through here for Ghardaia early this morning. Oh God, why wasn’t the telegram given me before.”

He became suddenly aware of Meriem.

“Tell her,” he said, “my brother is ill—dying—that we return at once to Algiers. With luck I should be back with the car by dawn. Tell her to be ready to start at a moment’s notice—and tell her about the wedding too. God, why doesn’t that camel arrive.”

As he spoke a half clothed black, mounted on a trotting camel, came into view. Lennox raced down the slope to meet them. A moment later he and the black had changed places.

“Ouse! Ouse!” cried the Liberian, and with long swinging strides the camel bore Lennox Casallis over the desert in the direction of Ghardaia.

Aissa translated and Meriem shrugged her shoulders. What a fuss about nothing. And what a pity de Marieux had not waited a little longer.

She was not listening when he told her Lennox had fixed the morrow for their wedding.

From Berrian to Ghardaia, where all roads end, is about thirty English miles. Lennox faced his camel south and urged it forward with digging heels and cries of encouragement. But despite his efforts he could not communicate to the beast the urgency of the occasion. She chose her own speed, a long loping trot that swung him to and fro on the carpeted saddle and made him feel sick.

His mind was in a turmoil. Paul Manet’s telegram had lain undelivered at the Post Office for nearly three hours. It was impossible to blame the rather sleepy, rather stupid native operator for failing to connect the name Lennox Casallis with the mysterious Englishman whose camp was pitched on the outskirts of the little town. So far as he could remember Lennox had given his name to no one. But it was awful to think that Hamar was ill—dying perhaps—and that the news had been withheld from him even for a moment. Paul, rather subtly, had embodied Eve’s name with the substance of his message and the sight of it on that wisp of greenish paper had set Lennox’s heart beating to a different tune.

“Returning at once,” he had replied, and stood by while the operator buzzed out the words.

It was, however, one thing to say he would return and quite another to do so. At Berrian there was neither railroad nor car. True, every second or third day a lumbering motor diligence passed between Ghardaia and Laghouat, but it had gone by an hour before the wire was handed to him. From what he knew of the road and its difficulties the earliest time Paul could arrive with a car would be late the following evening and the impatience of his soul cried out against the delay of a single moment.

It was information that a touring car had passed through Berrian early in the morning that persuaded Lennox to go south. Whether or no they would consent to take him back along the road until such a time as he fell in with Paul only experience could prove. It was the only chance of gaining time, however, and he risked it. But it was unbearable going away from, rather than toward his destination—plunging deeper into the desert before he could escape from it.

Terrible to think of Hamar dying—impossible almost. Never till this moment had Lennox realized how much his brother meant to him. Dear old Hamar—so patient—so resourceful—dying. No, no, he must not die—must not be allowed to die. As the camel swung him to and fro in the saddle Lennox lifted his voice to the brazen sky.

“Hang on, old boy—for God’s sake, hang on till I get to you,” he cried.

The clinkered rocks took up the cry dismally. How he hated death and the thought of death—how he loathed its awful conclusiveness. Ever since a child Lennox had feared all forms of death, save his own. The unquenchable life that ran in his veins revolted against death’s mastery. In the war, where times out of number he had faced it and caused it to others, he had never lost the horror it inspired in him. There was no philosophy in his nature to meet that final and supreme emergency. And so in the wilderness he cried aloud that death’s hand should be stayed.

Hamar must not die alone—must not. To solace him came a sudden realization that Eve would be there—else why had Paul written her name in the wire. Yes, Eve was surely there and death would never win with Eve to bar the door against him. Wonderful Eve!

Last to enter his thoughts was Meriem.

It was only natural she should be the last, for in the great crises of life our loves, our friends, our duties, our desires stand revealed in the true order of their worth and merit.

Terribly clear was his vision of Meriem and terribly clear the vision of himself in relation to her. He knew there would be no real future for either of them—he knew that his continence and the aloofness he had shown her did not find its origin in virtue—but in natural repugnance. Pride, not purity, was the barrier that had kept him back. He shrank from giving to her just as much as he shrank from her gifts to him. It was a lie to pretend that moral rectitude was the foundation of his conduct. He had seized upon Meriem as a drowning man grabs at a straw. Through her, his distorted fancy had seen a way of escape from the bitterness of disappointment. He recalled the words he had spoken to Paul at the club the night Eve sent him away.

“I told her I’d marry the first girl I met.”

Why had he said it? There was only one answer. He had intended his marriage should be an insult to the girl he really loved. What a cad—what a coward he had been!

The first girl he met! And she was Meriem.

How Destiny must be laughing at him now, he thought. He had threatened and the threat held good. But it was against himself it acted.

The promise had been made and should be fulfilled. This then was the summary of the affair—this the final price of easy victory—he must stand by his word, even though its fulfilment spelt misery, disaster and degradation.

Meriem loved him, and his duty was to her. Curious that it never once crossed his mind that Meriem’s love for him was every whit as shallow as his for her. A man may cease to care for a woman but he will not readily believe she has ceased to care for him. Perhaps of all others this is the hardest lesson to learn.

Meriem must be taken to Algiers where Paul would see that she was kindly treated and comfortably bestowed. Paul would look after her during his absence in England. Then when Hamar was well again he would return and—well, there was time enough for that later.

He supposed in England he would meet Eve. He would make no effort to avoid her, although the meeting would be terribly painful and difficult. He would make no effort to excite her sympathy, but would tell her frankly and baldly what he had done, or better still, he would say nothing at all.

The sun was burning hot, its rays pierced through the khaki-drill suit he wore and made his skin tingle. A shimmering haze rose up from the rocks, blurring all outline and giving stationary objects an appearance of motion. To his fancy it seemed that millions of tiny figures were dancing and swaying in the haze. It made him giddy to look at them. Even the bones of dead beasts that margined the track appeared to be rolling about in the dust.

A damnable ride through a damnable country—dry and unlovely as the grave. The silence and solitude were terrifying. A sudden thirst seized him by the throat, but in the haste of departure he had forgotten to bring a water bottle. Thus a fresh bitterness was added to the score.

So far as he could tell the camel was proceeding at an even gait of about six miles an hour. As a fact he was mistaken for though by no means a racer, her speed was faster than he imagined. But in the desert speed disappears—five or fifty miles an hour seem much the same. The ghastly monotony of the scenery is responsible for robbing speed of its character.

Night had fallen when at last, burning with thirst and aching in every limb, he slipped from the saddle in the town of Ghardaia. For the most part the good citizens were in bed, although from the street of dancers came the music of pipe and drum. The streets were unlighted and very dark and more than once he stumbled and fell as he made his way over the cobbles. An unpleasant sense of being followed caused him to turn quickly, to find a small Mozabite boy in a gaily striped gondura was pattering along behind him. On being seen the child came forward with an outstretched hand and a prodigious smile.

“Me guide,” he said, “me good guide.”

“The devil you are,” said Lennox. “Is there a hotel in this God-forsaken place?”

“Hotel—velly bad,” said the child candidly. “I take—you follow. Find fleas too—plenty.”

Lennox was seized by the hand and dragged across an open space toward a two storey building of dilapidated appearance. A pencil of light was showing through one of the shutters and in a small courtyard before the hotel a large car was standing with a black boy asleep on the front seat. The sight sent a thrill of hope through Lennox.

“Hoi-hi,” sang out his youthful cicerone, “Hoi-hi.” A moment later the door was opened by a sickly-looking Frenchman with a long black beard, who wore over his shabby European clothes a dirty white burnous. His eyes had the dull lustre of a heavy drinker. In his hand he carried a bent tallow candle, the light from which violently accentuated the cavernous hollows of his cheeks and temples. Altogether a pitiful example of a man.

The smell that issued from the house was the vilest Lennox had ever encountered. The trenches at Bullecourt were a joke to it. It must have been compounded of putrid meat—stale beer, brandy, no drains, a smoking lamp and hot bodies. Lennox forced a handkerchief over his mouth as it rushed out to meet him. His little guide, however, showed no such compunction. He boldly entered the house and beckoned Lennox to follow, the while favouring the good host with a few eulogiums on his capacity to obtain guests for the establishment.

“Come in, M’sieur, come in,” croaked the Frenchman huskily. “M’sieur is welcome to the house.”

Lennox shook his head.

“I do not want accommodation,” he said. “I want to speak to the owner of that car.”

The man made a gesture of surprise.

“But M’sieur must sleep somewhere. There is an apartment ready and waiting.”

Lennox swept him aside and started to mount the stairs. He had heard English voices on the floor above and was in no mood to waste time talking to a man whose thoughts rose to no greater heights than sleep. With a word of protest his host started to follow him, but thinking better of it, seated himself on the lowest step and laid his head against the wall. After all, nothing mattered to him, the spark of his vitality was too far retarded to accelerate him into taking part in other people’s troubles. The desert sun, desert conditions, the calm and the corruption of the desert had extinguished his fires long since.

The stairs were narrow and dark as the pit. At the top was a door which opened upon a wide verandah, at the far end of which a little circle of people were gathered about a lantern that stood on the floor. Lennox heard a woman’s voice saying,

“Well, I think it’s horrible.”

He strode boldly into the centre of this circle when some one seized him by the coat.

“Steady, lad, steady,” said a man with a strong Midland accent.

In his haste Lennox had almost trodden on a viper which was lashing to and fro in a futile effort to escape from the maw of a large lizard. The same class of entertainment was in progress which is so popular in India between cobra and mongoose. In the desert, however, the sport is of a less spirited kind, the viper being picked up in a pair of tongs and handed to the lizard for destruction. And since the lizard is entirely unsusceptible to venom, the fight is one-sided and lacks every element of chance. Lennox, who possessed a healthy man’s detestation of snakes, lost no time in stepping clear.

“I beg your pardon for butting in like this,” he said, “but it’s an affair of life and death. I want to speak to the owner of that car. I’ve just ridden thirty miles on a camel and—”

“The car belongs to me,” said the man who had seized his coat, who was elderly, stout and bore an amiable countenance, “but as we bust the last tire coming in to this place I don’t fancy it’ll do you much good, lad, for another few days.”

Lennox sank down on a bench and took his head in his hands.

“Oh Lord,” he cried, “oh Lord.”

“What’s the matter, lad—come on—out with it?”

“My brother—he’s dying in England—I must get to Algiers. Rode in from Berrian on a camel hearing you were here—was going to beg you to help, and now I’m further away and all this time lost.”

A large motherly looking woman detached herself from the little crowd and came towards him.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

He told her.

She exchanged glances with her husband, who shrugged his shoulders and moved away.

“They were your tents we saw at Berrian?”

He nodded.

“We heard about you,” she said, slowly, “and my husband was very angry. He said it was a disgrace for an Englishman—but I was sorry for you myself.”

“Thank you. I’m not worth much sympathy,” said Lennox with a coughing laugh. “I don’t matter—it’s my brother that matters. It would have made a difference if I could have been there. I won’t bother you any more.”

He rose a trifle unsteadily. “Fate has a pretty nimble way of squaring accounts, hasn’t it? Good-bye.”

“But, you poor thing, you’ll never be starting back again tonight.”

“Must. I suppose that beast of mine is good for another journey.”

“You look worn out.”

“I’m all right.”

But the motherly soul would not hear of his going and put an arm through his.

“Then let me give you some food first,” said she. “We’ve got some nice things in a hamper. My room’s just along here.”

He found himself led down the verandah to a large scantily furnished apartment, the walls of which were distempered and stencilled with Moorish designs.

“There are no chairs, so you must sit on the bed. That’s right,” and while she undid the hamper—“Mr. Fulton is very funny about his food. I am sure these desert messes would have upset him dreadfully. It isn’t very nice when you’re accustomed to English ways all your life to have to change, is it?”

She said this in all innocence and Lennox nodded.

“Not very,” he mumbled.

“Mr. Fulton is such an Englishman, I always say. Sometimes I tell him he’s too English; but after all it’s a good thing to be. There, spread that napkin on your knees. That’s right. We come from Bradford, you know. It’s the first time we’ve been abroad and though it’s very interesting, of course, I must admit we like Bradford better. Still, there’ll be a lot to tell the children when we get back and that’s something. I didn’t like leaving them at all, as you can imagine. Our youngest daughter is still at school. Look, I’m opening a little bottle of champagne for you, if you don’t mind drinking it out of a tin mug. She’s such a big girl—almost as tall as I am. The eldest was married last April twelvemonth. You’d never think I was a grandmother, would you? Oh, this is a funny meal. Just look at it! Tinned tongue and sardines and hard boiled eggs.”

And then Lennox did a thing he had never done before in all his manhood. He buried his face on the pillow and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. In an instant a pair of round arms were about him and his head was lifted to a soft billowy breast.

“There, there,” said the old lady, “you mustn’t take on like that. Everything will turn out all right. You see if it doesn’t.”

After a while he straightened up and dashed a sleeve across his eyes and sniffed.

“I think it was Bradford,” he gulped, “and hard boiled eggs—and—and—being so far away. ’T any rate, I’m a fool.”

“Eat your supper, dear,” said she.

He was finishing the last mouthful when the door opened and Mr. Fulton, followed by a French officer, came in.

“I’ve a bit of news for you, Mr. Casallis,” he said. “This gentleman here has a motor cycle and side-car he might be persuaded to lend.”

Next instant Lennox was wringing the Frenchman furiously by the hand.

“If M’sieur will assure me eet shall be returned as queek as possible.”

Half an hour later, the roar of a twin cylinder engine woke the echoes of the sleeping town. Mr. and Mrs. Fulton came down to see him off and just before he started the little old lady took his hand and whispered.

“If you take my advice, once you’re out of this country you won’t come back.”

“I wish it was as easy as that,” he answered, and impulsively stooped forward and kissed her cheek.

“There goes a thorough paced young scamp,” said her husband.

But she, mindful how he had cried in her arms, shook her head indignantly.

“He was a nice boy,” said she.

The lamp caused the delay. It was an acetylene lamp and water had condensed in the burner. But for the lamp he would have covered those thirty miles in an hour, but with constant stops the journey took three. He had not dared to ride without a light for there was no moon and the road wound perilously and was margined with knife-edged rocks.

But Lennox’s spirits were high. The talk with the old lady at Ghardaia had ironed the creases from his temper and he bore the delays with admirable fortitude. It was after dawn when at last the oasis, sparkling like a jewel in the pale sunlight, came into view. As he stopped beneath the slope leading up to the tents he was greeted with the singing of the wells and the tinkle and splash of falling water. There was in the sound a most excellent freshness—a joy—a purity—a something clean. It was the music of life and of fertility.

As he mounted the slope he cried aloud “Meriem—Meriem,” with a new note in his voice. There was no answer. He entered the tents, first his own, then hers. They were empty. He looked about him, puzzled. He stood outside and called again. His call was answered by the mocking echoes. He returned to Meriem’s tent and saw that her few belongings were not there.

“Meriem,” he cried.

And “Meriem, Meriem, Meriem,” came back and back until the sound was lost in the vastness of the desert.

“Shreeee—schreee—”

The wells were laughing at him now—laughing shrilly as he turned this way and that.

A white figure approached, dragging his way painfully up the hill. It was Aissa the priest. Lennox ran to meet him.

“Meriem?” he cried.

Aissa made a hopeless gesture.

“A man,” he said—“I thought, until he struck me, it was my Lord—he was slender, tall and dark—he carried her away to where a big car waited yonder.”

“Stolen?”

Aissa nodded.

“When? How long ago?”

“Two hours—perhaps three.”

“Describe the man quickly.”

Aissa endeavoured to do so till Lennox cut him short. He had recognized de Marieux.

“She went—willingly?” The question burnt his throat.

Aissa shook his head.

“I cannot say—he carried her. I was dazed by the blow.”

“Not willingly. I’ll swear not willingly. God, the brute. God!”

That was all. He made a bundle of his few belongings; tucked them beneath his arm and raced down the slope. The pistol in his jacket pocket bumped against his side as he ran.

The engine spluttered and he was gone. Seated on the profile of rock that conceals the village of Berrian from the north were four Ouled Nail girls who daily gathered at his tents. News travels quickly in a desert village. As Lennox shot past along the track beneath them their laughter shrilled high and cracked. It continued until his dust had vanished over the horizon.

Lennox did not spare himself or the machine. In his eyes was murder and something else. He had been cheated—cheated of the supreme sacrifice that this very day, had all gone evenly, he would have made. But for Paul’s telegram—but for his rush south to Ghardaia, the native marriage ceremony would have taken place; Meriem would have been his wife. He had convinced himself that in honour he must do this thing, had flogged his conscience to accept it as the inevitable consequence of his act. And now he had been cheated, and Meriem had been cheated. That the thought of making her his wife was an agony to him did not matter. His word had been given. Pain was a secondary consideration—he had learnt pain. The discipline a man imposes upon himself is stronger than any other controlling force.

But he was cheated. The account remained unpaid. It was a terrible, a maddening thought. The whole obstinacy of his obstinate nature rose in arms against it.

To do him justice, to give him a deserved credit, Lennox never for a moment saw in de Marieux’s abduction of Meriem a path of escape for himself. On the contrary, only fresh difficulties rose before him as a result. And yet the path was there, obvious and easy. How simple to follow it. De Marieux had taken the girl—let him keep her. Here was an enemy who was indeed a friend. Why should he bother—why pursue? What was the girl to him but a mere light of love—a trivial shallow thing of petty emotions—the least part of a lesser race. She had looks and that was all—just looks—the possession of all others most perishable. Why should he care? A snap of the fingers—an outward breath—and a clear, a clean future before him. Let her go.

But he did not see the affair in that light. He was English, with all an Englishman’s pride for English traditions. He had vowed he would do a certain thing and good or bad the vow must be kept. Useless to argue that it is below an Englishman’s standard to wed an Arab dancing girl. It is still further below to say he will and evade the issue.

Paul Manet did not apply the rules of cricket to the game of life but Lennox Casallis applied no other.

There was no escape.

As he rode a vision danced on the track before him—a vision hateful, sinister, damnable. De Marieux creeping into the tent while Meriem slept—stooping, seizing her in his arms and running down the slope to the car. And Meriem fighting, crying out, calling on Lennox for help, struggling to be free.

Almost he could hear her cries for aid, almost see the panic and the horror in her eyes. Meriem loved him, for all her wildness and insurgence, he was very sure of her love for him. Her claim, therefore, was the first claim. Nothing weighed beside that. Her love for him.

About nine o’clock Lennox Casallis pulled up at the lonely settlement of Tilghemt. An amiable Arab in white pantaloons and an embroidered Zouave came out to meet him with bows and much rubbing of hands. Breakfast, he announced, was ready, since he had done himself the honour of watching Monsieur’s approach over the last ten miles of desert. There would be coffee, eggs and a most excellent Marga prepared by his own hands in anticipation of Monsieur’s pleasure.

Lennox looked round the square courtyard for de Marieux’s car. There was no sign of it. He asked the question uppermost in his mind.

“They departed an hour ago,” replied Belcassim, “having partaken of some small refreshment in the car. I beseeched them to enter but they would not.”

“You saw the girl.”

Belcassim made a deprecating gesture.

“I did not look, Monsieur. I am a married man and I desire to be contented with my wives.”

“Then you never noticed how she seemed—how she acted?”

“I have explained, Monsieur. It is my wish to live at peace with myself and those responsibilities which I have accepted in this world.”

Lennox pocketed a loaf of native bread and swallowed a cup of burning hot coffee, into which Belcassim broke an egg.

“Thank you,” he said, “I must get on.”

“But Monsieur, the Marga is most excellent.”

“No doubt it is. Sorry.”

He mounted his machine and rode away.

“Verily the world moves apace this morning,” reflected Belcassim. “Would I have done wisely, I wonder, to have informed Monsieur of the love that burned in the eyes of the girl when the tall mi-lord touched her hand. Maybe not—maybe it was better left unsaid.”

In an hotel-keeper tact is a virtue and a necessity.

“Understand clearly,” said Jane Toop, “we’re on this run for the purpose of fetching your friend Lennox Casallis and not as a kind of preliminary honeymoon.”

They were eating sandwiches by the roadside near the spot where, a little while ago, Jane breakfasted with Lennox and Meriem. Things had gone badly. Tires punctured, a feed pipe developed a leak and Paul Manet, with the best intentions in the world, had emptied a four gallon tin of water—carried in case of emergency—into the petrol tank. The results of this misadventure were many and far reaching. Jane had grinned at him and called him a monumental ass—Paul had grinned back and agreed with her—and about six hours were lost. Their original intention of driving by shifts and thus providing an opportunity for rest, had come to nothing owing to the interest excited by each other’s society. When Jane drove Paul sat beside her and beguiled the journey with narrative. When he drove very much the same thing took place—save that instead of narrative Jane devoted herself mainly to criticism. In both instances the result was the same, for neither slept and both felt tired at the same time.

“It’s disgusting of us,” said Jane. “We came out for a certain purpose and we’re shirking it.”

“Yes, but, my dear,” Paul replied, “I can’t be blamed if you keep me awake. Besides, I’m not sleepy.”

“That’s nonsense,” she retorted, “you can hardly keep your eyes open.”

“Neither can you.”

“Well, there you are.”

“You’ve talked more than I have,” Paul protested.

“Possibly, but there’s an excuse for me. You’ve been in love dozens of times before and ought to be used to it by now. This is my first experience.”

Paul laughed.

“Say that again,” he pleaded, “from you it was gorgeous.”

“Oh rats,” said she. “You know what I mean. ’T any rate go and blow up that tire and don’t keep holding my hand, damn you.”

“I like holding your hands because they’re so dirty,” he replied.

“If you hadn’t bunged all that water in the petrol tank I might have washed them.”

“Oh, Fanny,” said Paul, “I think you’re adorable.”

“Dry up about it, can’t you.”

“No, I can’t. Fanny, if I promise to sleep for an hour will you tuck me up on the back seat and kiss me good-night?”

She debated the point. Then—

“I will, if you like,” she said.

She did, and afterward Paul asked,

“What do you think of it all?”

Jane could be candid about love as well as the more practical affairs of life.

“Oh, pretty good,” she answered. “I don’t know—s’pose I’m a fool—but I like this new thing.”

“Love?”

“Oh, go to sleep,” said Jane.

And Paul went.

As she drove Jane smiled to herself for she was happy. This strange disquietude called love suited her very well. It had about it a smack of adventure—of novelty—of thrill. She could not for the life of her tell why she loved Paul; on reflection it seemed the absurdest thing she had ever done. Perhaps it was the cent per cent interest with which he returned her insolence. He was the first man she had ever met who was in no way discomfitted by her affronts. That was marvellous. His crest, so to speak, never fell. Then, too, he was so amusing—so funny—and this chivalry he showed her was attractive. She had always laughed at chivalry before—laughed at the grace note played by chivalry in the common chords of life. But now! It had been fun wrapping him up in a blanket and kissing him good-night in the middle of the morning. These things were good to do and pleasant to have done. For the first time in her life Jane Toop thanked Heaven she was a woman. She thanked Heaven shyly at first and then brazenly—addressing the sky and speaking the words in a loud, clear voice like the honest girl she was.

“I may be a fool,” she said, “but thank God I’m a woman.”

The inclination to sleep had departed, the deadly monotony of the straight white road no longer affected her. She was entirely happy.

She did not attempt to wake Paul. It was pleasant to reflect that his destiny was in her hands, and that he slept peacefully while she drove. Man-like he never stirred. The soothing hum of the back axle and the drift of desert breezes held him chained. He, too, was happy—happily lost in delightful dreams of a future which travestied the best memories of the past.

A queer and contented pair.

They passed through the village of Boghari in the early afternoon and folks were surprised to see how the round, dusty face of the girl who drove was illumined with smiles. She had been driving fast and from Boghari onwards she drove even faster. Much time had been lost already, and there was still a long way to go. Jane hoped to reach Laghouat by nightfall. It was possible Lennox might have come on to Laghouat by the diligence or have secured a lift in some other passing vehicle. From what she knew of his temperament, Jane was certain he could never have endured waiting until they turned up to fetch him. At Laghouat, therefore, enquiries would have to be made.

At 5:45 p.m., or precisely twenty-four hours from the time of their starting, they ran into Djelfa. The main street of the little garrison town was crowded. To clear a path for the car Jane was driven to use the horn with the result that Paul woke up with a start.

“Hullo!” he exclaimed, “where are we?”

And when she told him—

“Ciel! And how long have you been driving, I would like to know. Change places at once.”

She pulled up before the entrance to a café. Inside a few French officers were drinking at tables, and lolling outside, their gorgeous scarlet burnouses looking like mighty splashes of blood against the whitewashed walls, was a company of Spahis.

“Shall we have a glass of coffee before we go on? You must be dead beat,” Paul suggested.

Jane nodded, for with the cessation of work she felt suddenly tired. He offered her an arm and they entered together, and placed their order. Paul was still heavy with sleep and Jane for lack of it. They drank their coffee in silence, vaguely conscious of the hum of talk to right and left.

Suddenly Paul started and touched Jane on the arm.

“Did you hear that?” he said.

She shook her head.

“What?”

“Excuse me a moment.”

He rose, crossed the stone flagged floor, and bowed to a group of three officers who were conversing beneath a window.

“Messieurs,” he said, “I happened to overhear a word or two of your talk and since I believe it had reference to a friend of mine, might I beg you to repeat it.”

Three minutes later he came back to Jane.

“This is extraordinary,” he said, speaking in a low tone.

“Well.”

“At three o’clock this afternoon a Delage car containing a French civilian and an Arab girl came up from the South. They stopped at this café and had a late dejeuner together. The Frenchman was tall and ascetic and, so my informant tells me, had very little back to his head. The girl was little and wore jewellery commonly affected by Ouled Nail women. He could not see her face as her back was toward him and her face was covered by a veil when passing in and out of the café. They stayed about an hour, then took the road leading to Bon Sada and the Sakamody Pass.”

Jane nodded.

“Half an hour later,” Paul continued, “a motor cycle and side-car came pelting down the street also from the South. The rider was an Englishman—tall, fair and powerfully built. He appeared from description to be almost distraught. He burst in here like a hurricane and fired off questions right and left. He wanted to know about the other car and its occupants. When they told him it had left thirty minutes before he arrived, he plunged out, flung himself on to the machine and went in pursuit like a maniac. They say it was a miracle he didn’t kill half a dozen people in the street before he was clear of the town.”

Paul stopped.

“And that’s that,” said he. “There is not much doubt in my mind as to the characters in this little drama.”

“No,” said Jane, slowly, “no.”

Suddenly she brought her fist down on the table with a bang.

“Lord!” she said. “What is the fool up to now? Why, can’t he see the hand of Providence in this turn.”

“You mean?”

“Why couldn’t he let her go and thank God for it. She meant nothing to him—never would mean anything to him. I believe in his heart he hated her and yet—oh, it makes me mad. I suppose he thinks she cares for him. Why are men such utter and absolute fools.”

Paul shrugged his shoulders.

“God made us so,” said he. “But what are we to do, Chérie?”

“Follow and pick up the bits, I s’pose. How much start has he got?”

Paul glanced at his watch.

“An hour or more.”

“It’s the worst road in the desert—a beast of a road. He’ll never get to Bon Sada by nightfall. There’s sure to be a smash up somewhere. Oh well—come on.”

The faint ashy grey of dawn was appearing in the East when Lennox Casallis was roused by a sound behind him on the road. It had been a terrible night—a night of fierce endeavours and difficulties he was impotent to vanquish. The road seemed to have been built expressly to insure disaster. Every here and there it had fallen away and three times he had slithered down the embankment into the soft sand at the bottom. On the last occasion the side-car wheel buckled up like an old umbrella. He almost despaired when this happened for, a moment before, far ahead of him on the road, he had seen a ruby glimmering in the dark. It was the tail-light of De Marieux’s car and the sight had driven him to speed up out of all reason. The result was that awful slither down the slope culminating in the wrench and jar as the side-car wheel impacted against a rock. But he was not beaten. By the wretched light of the acetylene lamp—for the carbide was almost exhausted—he detached the frame of the side-car from the motor cycle and left its ruins and his few belongings lying in the sand. Next came the hardest task of all—to push the machine up the slope to the road. Never had he tackled a more terrific undertaking. His muscles cracked under the strain. Twice he failed, twice he felt himself wrenched back to the starting point, but at last that extra pound of determination which in emergency triumphs over impossible difficulties came to his aid. With a prodigious effort he succeeded in reaching the level and fell gasping beside his fallen machine. It was probably twenty minutes before he moved, so utterly was his energy exhausted. The smell of petrol aroused him and he sprang to his feet with a cry. The machine had been lying on its side and the petrol had spilled from the tank and trickled through the carburettor. There was barely a quart left. The lamp too had burnt itself out. There was no light save from the stars. He mounted and rode on barely above a walking pace, straining his eyes to pierce the darkness, praying, praying, praying that he might not miss the track again. And how abominably it twisted. Ghosts of roads that had no real existence appeared to right and left. But he hung on, covering a dozen miles without mishap. He did not know how far it was to Bon Sada, but he judged it could not be more than another ten miles. On his right was the shadowy outline of mountains and he had heard the little village lay somewhere under the range. It was not likely de Marieux would proceed farther than Bon Sada that night, since he had no reason to imagine himself pursued. Wherefore if he, Lennox, arrived by daybreak he would still be in time for the reckoning.

For the first time the real wildness of the desert had mastered him and swept away his civilization. Murder was in his heart—murder, in the robes of justice. It did not matter that the woman who had been stolen meant little or nothing to him. An ancient code had been violated. The thief must be struck down and down and down. And then the petrol gave out. A spit of fire—a splutter—and the engine stopped.

For a long time he had been climbing a tortuous ascent between twin walls of rock. He dismounted and began to push, buoyed up by the promise of a run down on the far side of the hill. But the ascent went on for ever. The machine seemed to weigh a ton. Fate’s hand was against him. With shortened breath and aching limbs he pushed and pushed and pushed. An hour passed—he was still pushing—half an hour more and still the summit was unreached. And then quite suddenly his legs began to sprawl this way and that. It was as though every vestige of control had been taken from them. With the last of his strength he leant the motor cycle against a rock and fell in a heap. His brain was quite silly—delightfully so.

“Going to sleep now,” he muttered. “Good-night, goo-ni.”

And sleep came to him like a bullet through the brain, blotting out everything.

It was the hum of an approaching car that aroused him. In the absolute stillness of the dawn it sounded like the note of a ’cello. He sprang to his feet, astonished to find how refreshed he was, and down on the plain below he saw milky headlights playing at shadow making with the rocks. A couple of minutes later a white dazzle lit him up from head to foot and Paul Manet’s voice was crying

“Lennox, Lennox.”

And then an excited man and a young woman in khaki were dancing round him in the road, touching him with their hands and firing off a hundred questions and statements.

He was too dazed to reply save in little fragments of speech—in a few incoherent words he told of the night’s doings and disasters.

“Things went against me—went against me,” he kept repeating.

“We’ve been ditched too,” said Jane, “badly ditched. Had to jack up and pack up. Awful job. Lost hours. Finding your side-car delayed us too. This clown (meaning Paul) would stop and search for you. I kept telling him the bike was gone and couldn’t have gone by itself, but he’s an obstinate brute. We had a proper row about it, too. Here, jump into the car. He can bring the bike. It’s only five miles to Bon Sada.”

“No petrol,” said Lennox.

They filled his tank from a spare can.

“Hop inside,” Jane ordered.

Lennox obeyed, while Paul mounted the motor cycle and gave them a lead.

As they topped the hill the oasis of Bon Sada appeared in the half distance ahead of them.

Lennox Casallis did not talk and there was something very grim in the set of his mouth and the glint of his eyes. Jane Toop shot a glance at him sideways.

“Poor old chap,” she said. “You’ve had a bad time.”

He made no reply.

“We’ll have breakfast down there—then I’ll pack you in the back seat and you can sleep it off.”

“Not just yet,” he muttered. Then “Can’t you speed her up a bit?”

“Look here,” said Jane. “I wouldn’t if I were you. She isn’t worth it, you know.”

“What’s that matter—what’s that matter,” he retorted. “Oh, get on, for God’s sake.”

“With any decent luck,” said Jane, “you’ll catch tomorrow’s boat and be in England two days later. I bet your brother’ll be glad when you turn up. Fond of you, isn’t he? Bad luck his being ill. Don’t do anything to delay getting back—wouldn’t be playing the game to disappoint a sick man. Paul says he’s a splendid chap, your brother.”

She talked thus with the object of switching his thoughts in other directions; but the stiff line of his mouth did not relax and the hard glint in his eyes remained constant.

“Why not leave us to fix up things out here. We can be trusted, you know, and just now you can’t be trusted. You’d do something silly. I know you would.”

He interrupted her.

“D’you mind. D’you mind.”

But Jane would not give in.

“Ever noticed,” she asked, “when some one you’re fond of is ill how your mind flicks back to early memories you have of them? Five years ago a sister of mine nearly pegged out with diphtheria. I was in France and couldn’t get leave. Rotten it was. I remember when I was waiting for news one night that happened to me. All sorts of silly forgotten things kept cropping up. Haymaking on a farm we stayed at in Devonshire and her slipping off the wain and crying and me dabbing her eyes and blowing her nose on the pinafore she was wearing. It was blue and there was a bit of red laundry cotton round a hole where she’d caught it in a bramble when we were birds’ nesting. I remember we found a chaffinch’s nest with one egg in it which broke when she touched it and smelt frightful. She was in an awful stew—called herself a murderer—until I pointed out that an egg which smelt as strong as that would never have made a good bird. She laughed then. I often wonder if the same happens to other people. You for instance: those silly nice old memories.”

But his expression did not alter.

“I say, things have happened since last we met,” she began again. “Paul and I—we’re engaged; you know.”

He said nothing. She realized, then, that his ears were deaf to all voices save those that spoke within himself. It was useless to attempt to pierce the armour that covered him. He was invulnerable to sympathy, to humour and to kindness. With a little sigh she relapsed into silence, but with her left hand very gently she removed the pistol from his jacket pocket and slipped it behind the seat cushions. She felt happier after that.

As they were running down the final slope into Bon Sada a long grey car with two passengers slipped out of the main street a few hundred yards ahead of them, turned sharply to the right and took the road leading to Algiers. It was only in view for a couple of seconds, but Jane saw it distinctly and recognized the make. A Delage. She flashed a glance at Lennox to note whether he too had seen it. He was staring at his hands and made no movement. Her relief was immense.

“Yes,” said Lennox unexpectedly. “We’ll have breakfast here and then push on.”

“Thank goodness,” said Jane, under her breath.

Paul was waiting at the door of the hotel. His eyes met Jane’s with a silent enquiry. Ever so slightly she shook her head.

“A wash,” said Lennox, “and then food.”

He seemed to have steadied down and become more like his usual self. He alighted from the car and offered a hand to Jane, afterward standing aside to let her enter the hotel. Then he turned, rubbing his chin, and addressed Paul.

“Lord! I could do with a shave.”

There was a native barber’s shop opposite towards which he nodded.

“Order some grub, old man, while I get this joker to fix me up.”

Paul went into the hotel suspecting nothing.

“Where is he?” Jane demanded.

“Getting shaved.”

“Well, that sounds healthy, anyway.”

The dining room was at the back of the hotel. They entered it together.

Meanwhile Lennox was wheeling the motor cycle up the street. He did not start the engine until he walked a hundred yards. After all, this was his own affair and it would have been blackguardly to drag his friends into the mess.

Amazing Raoul de Marieux! Prince of Lovers! Was ever fire and silk so pleasantly mingled in a single personality? Ardour and passion, grace, solicitude, mastery—a voice as sibilant as a serpent’s—arms of steel—eyes like an eagle’s or a dove’s—he had them all. Astonishing and adorable Raoul de Marieux!

Happy, happy Meriem of the Kasbah. Lucky girl to have found such noble favour—to ride by the side of such a knight—to sit at his board and be partner of his love.

Happy, lucky, eager Meriem! Clap those brown hands and give thanks to Allah for the fulfilment of a dream.

Amazing Raoul and eager Meriem. Was not the world a plaything at their feet. Love’s castle awaited them up there—high up in the mighty forests of the Atlas Mountains. Clinging to the dizzy slopes—slopes dizzier than love itself—Love’s castle with the drawbridge down and trumpeters at the gate. Small wonder they sped—small wonder the dust pillared high behind them as they raced across the dull plains toward the sapphire mountains that touched the dome of heaven.

They could not see the speck that followed, the tiny speck that second by second gained upon them relentlessly. In the minds of both that tiny, moving speck was a forgotten thing—a jest left behind to wring its hands by the singing wells of Berrian.

At Sidi Aissa, the Gate of the Desert, from which point onward the road zigzags up into the mountains, Love’s chariot paused for a few moments to respond to the vulgar necessity of having its radiator filled with water. The Prince of Lovers himself directed operations and greatly added to his prestige by cursing the onlookers and cuffing the heads of those who pressed him too closely. The radiator cap with its mascot, appropriately a cupid discharging an arrow, having been replaced, the Prince of Lovers returned to the wheel. And then, of a sudden, from down the village street came a roar. Meriem turned and seeing the cause of the disturbance, she screamed. Even at a distance there could be no mistaking the expression on the face of the man who rode the motor cycle. It was lethal. The Prince of Lovers had also seen, but he did not wait to study at closer range. He let in the clutch with a jerk and the Delage leapt forward. An Arab boy shrieked as the near-side mudguard buffered him sideways and the near-side wheels bumped over his spindly legs, snapping them like carrots.

Lennox Casallis swerved to avoid the fallen child and wobbled this way and that. He recovered his balance more by luck than judgment and lost a dozen yards in the operation. After that there were two clouds of spinning dust racing up the twisting road into the mountains.

It was thrilling—magnificent—intoxicating. Merchants, muleteers, keepers of Café Maures, bedouins from the desert, and all the riff-raff of the little town charged up the street yelling and crying out to one another. A confusion of sounds and antics, wild shouts and pointings.

“See! there they go—the leader gains— That corner! Allah! how fast! Death, surely death for pursuer and pursued! Aaah—Hoosh! Zee!”

Inarticulate cries, and up-thrown arms, as the grey car, ever followed by the brown speck, skids round hairpin bends, rights itself on the very edge of disaster—disappears—reappears and skids again. And the roar of engines—dying into the hills with a sound like muffled drums.

And then a mighty squawking behind them—a squawking that sends the packed mass of gesticulating humanity scuttling up the banks at the roadside as another leviathan, belching smoke and dust, tears by like a streak of yellow lightning.

“This is where things begin to happen,” shouted Jane.

Paul was at the wheel, his face as impressive as a mask. At the speed at which they plunged into the mountains the risks were terrific. He ignored them utterly. He took the first bend all out with barely an inch to spare. He eyed the ascent before him and stoked up his engine to deal with it—regardless of twist and turn—regardless of the ever increasing height of the slopes and precipices that fell away from the unprotected side of the road. Danger did not count with him—had no existence for this little finicky man with a taste for fine arts and a habit of manicuring his nails three times a week.

It had been said of Paul Manet that he went over the top in a counter attack at Verdun polishing his nails on the lapel of his coat. He was like that.

Jane was thunderstruck. She gasped at his daring—at the cool insolence of the risks he took. If they were smashed up—and nothing was likelier—it would be good to finish in such company. She adored him.

And Meriem? Poor, penny-three-farthing, cheap, changeable and not altogether-to-be-blamed Meriem? She did not know what to think. She only knew that the Prince of Lovers had flung her rudely aside when the rush into the mountains began. True, his expression was very splendid as he swung the wheel this way and that to meet with the emergencies of the road. Oh yes, he was very fine, but it did not altogether suit her ideal portrait of a lover that he should flee from danger. The simple savagery of her nature cried out for a fight and the prize to the victor.

It was tremendous fun, though, to be the cause of such a disturbance, to know that all this power and energy and danger and determination was centred upon her trivial self. And Lennox too, failure though he had proved, could not be dismissed without a thought. His shortcomings as a lover were apparent, but after all he was putting up a fine chase and he looked very fine, sweeping along in their wake, swaying this way and that, head down, hands gripping the bars. Distinctly Lennox had points for admiration. Of course somebody would come to a bad end as a result of all this and then, belike, adjustments would have to be made. To be on the safe side Meriem leant over the side of the car and blew a kiss to Lennox Casallis and beckoned to him with her arms. The Prince of Lovers was too occupied to observe these small amenities and had he seen he must surely have agreed it was very impartial of her and proved a nature that was generous and an outlook broad.

Lennox saw. The little action had a triple significance for him. It meant she had been stolen reluctantly—it meant she counted on his aid—it meant he must not fail. He would not fail—he would not fail. At least one person in the world should find he kept faith.

But though he did not lose ground he could not gain. Try how he might the long grey car kept its lead of a hundred yards as the restless road twisted up the mountain gorges like a hideous snake.

And what a maddening road it was, with its endless turns and doubles. At some of the S bends the Delage was only a few yards away on the section above him. So near was it that he could see the white, set face of de Marieux almost within striking distance. Three times this happened and at the fourth Lennox risked all and felt for his pistol. A cry of agony broke from his lips when he found it was not there. He recovered his self-possession just in time to swing round the bend and avoid shooting over the edge into a black abyss.

And so for an hour the mad race continued—only slackening speed for an instant as it flashed through the mountain town of Aumale and entered the gut of the Sakamody Pass.

The thing had become automatic now. The breathless excitement inspired by sudden twists and turns had through familiarity disappeared. They drove by rote—by instinct, the same peril being repeated a hundred times had ceased to wear the livery of peril. Only the chase mattered and the will to win.

And then without warning a plug cracked on de Marieux’s car and his speed slackened.

The height they had climbed was terrific. From Aumale onward the road clung like a shelf to the sides of a mighty basin of mountains—fretted with chasms, precipices, mile-wide landslips of tumbled screes and tangled forests. The vast and savage loneliness of the scene was amazing—terrifying. In the crystal clearness of the thin mountain air objects stood out with startling definition. It was like seeing the world through a microscope.

The yellow car had just emerged from Aumale when the cry was startled from Jane:

“Look, oh look,” she cried.

It was the first time the chase had come into view. There they were, the grey car and the brown speck, a mile ahead, seemingly clinging to the sides of a precipice like flies upon a window pane. And as they watched the grey car slowed down and the brown speck leapt toward it. Second by second the distance separating them diminished. Another minute and they would be side by side.

Instinctively Paul put out his hand for the brake and rivetted his eyes on the distant drama. He saw de Marieux’s car swing round a right angle bend that would have hidden it from the view of his pursuer. He saw the back panel of the car flash in the sunlight. And then—

“The beast,” cried Jane. “The beast! he’s stopped.”

She was right. A clever idea, too, when you think it over; to stop behind a wall of rock with the certain knowledge that a man on a motor cycle will take that corner at breakneck speed. The road was narrow too—there would be no room to pass. Plenty of room in the valley below. How simple an affair is death.

From somewhere in his throat Paul cried out

“Bon Dieu! don’t look,” and clapped a hand over Jane’s eyes.

How simple an affair is death.

Lennox thought so. He saw the back of the car—had a momentary glimpse of a white face and a brown peering at him. He swerved—outward—and then— It was like a dream—one of those awful falling dreams. First he struck a slope—a slope so steep that he bounced off it like a billiard ball from a cushion. Next something black and sharp rose up and struck at him cruelly—he drew away from it and spiky saw-edged spears sported with his flesh as he passed through them. More blows then, blows everywhere—vicious—stunning. A drop—a beautiful drop, free from hurt and injury—exquisite—painless. So good to drift through air unhindered. Oh why did those black arms come up and stop him—why did they tear his clothes and whip his face and clutch at his limbs? How could he fall through that host of netted arms? He struggled but they conquered him—beat him into quiescence. He tried to fall—it was useless. A black fist smote him on the face and head—a mighty forearm was flung across his chest. He was held. Came a moment of ghastly clear sight and understanding. He saw—what was it? Too absurd. Comic!—ridiculous!— A riderless motor bicycle crashing through a jungle, leaving behind souvenirs as it bounded along. That bright flashing thing was the horn—look at the saddle sitting on that bush. But the frame went bounding on.

There she went, bouncing over stones, screes, twisting and turning and pirouetting like a dead leaf—hitting here and grazing there. Ah! over the precipice she goes. Gone for ever! No, there she is again, half a mile lower down. What a game! Grown very small now, but still descending—still hurtling on with ever increasing velocity—rending a way through that forest of gnarled cork trees, and somersaulting down the final slope to fall at last among the jagged rocks in the bed of the river. It was over.

Lennox Casallis tried to cheer but no sound came. His lips moved and there was a smile upon them.

His head tilted forward among the tangled branches. The world was blotted out.

When Jane Toop opened her eyes the grey car was moving away. There was nothing else on the road. So empty it looked.

She turned to Paul with a funny sound in her throat—a whimpering sound. He kissed her—put his arms round her and kissed her again. He was crying openly—angrily. She cried too—couldn’t stop herself—made no attempt to stop herself. Rage was responsible for their tears—rage and resentment—friendship too—love of fair play and being decent folks. Mix these elements together and you shall have tears.

Paul was first to recover.

“This won’t help,” he said. “Let’s get on and see if anything can be done.”

She huddled close to him, closer than she had ever been to any man, as they approached the spot. It would have been difficult to locate but for the tire marks which told the story clearly.

They got out and looked over the edge.

“I shall go down,” said Paul.

“And I.”

“Better not.”

But she had her way.

It was perilous and painful going, especially at first. They found a rock with blood on it and took it as the line to follow. The belt of prickly cactus scratched abominably. Long spines were broken here and there where Lennox’s body had passed through. Then came a clear drop of fifty feet and a plateau beneath with stunted trees upon it.

Jane pointed at something white that hung inertly in the branches.

“There,” she said.

It took them twenty minutes to find a way down the cliff face and reach the trees. As they came nearer they hesitated for a moment.

“He was a good fellow,” said Paul. “A man he was.”

She nodded, and they went on.

The body lay in a hammock of branches and was terribly difficult to extricate.

It had not occurred to either of them he could still be alive. The discovery was as great a shock as any that had gone before. Torn he was, and bleeding, with a broken collar bone and a great bruise over the left temple, but he still breathed and the faint fluttering pulse gave token of life not yet extinct.

Of the manner in which Paul Manet and Jane Toop succeeded in raising and carrying Lennox Casallis to the road an epic might be written. It was a task accomplished in the face of incredible difficulties. Jane’s peculiar mechanical sense was mainly responsible for their success. The supreme achievement was hoisting the dead weight of his body up the perpendicular face of the rock. They made a stretcher of the back seat cushion and cradled it with a length of rope always carried in the car in case a tow were needed. Then Paul, the other end of the rope about his waist, scaled the sheer face of the little cliff. Jane could not bring herself to watch this part of the proceedings and kept her head averted until a “halloo” from above announced his safe arrival. Paul fastened the rope to a smooth needle of rock and she came up hand over hand like a sailor. After that they looked about them for a boulder such as should weigh more than Lennox weighed. They found it a little distance away and with cracking muscles rolled it to the edge of the precipice. The rope was then fastened securely about the boulder and the slack cast over the upper side of the needle of rock. Over the surfaces where the rope would run Jane smeared a tin of gear grease.

The chances of success were pathetically small but they were not deterred by thoughts of failure. It was a desperate measure to cope with a desperate situation.

“Ready,” said Jane.

And Paul kicked away a wedge of shale with which the boulder was scotched on the cliff edge.

As the boulder fell the rope creaked, strained and a few strands snapped with the sound of a child’s pistol. Then it began to slither and up from the ground like a pantomime fairy came Lennox Casallis. As the rope went past Jane ran it through her hands in which were great dollops of grease.

There was one terrible moment when they thought the descending boulder and the ascending body would meet in mid air. They passed one another with barely half an inch clearance.

Jane could not check an hysterical gasp when Lennox’s head suddenly popped up over the edge of the cliff and hung there suspended. The next move was to bring him ashore and a back-breaking task it proved. Some of the knots had slipped and he hung almost perpendicularly. But that fate was smiling on their endeavours it is probable he would have slipped through the cradle and fallen back into the trees again. Neither Paul nor Jane knew how they succeeded in bringing the affair to a successful issue. The strength they used was out of all proportion to the strength they possessed. But they did it somehow.

Then Paul took Lennox on his back and struggled up the final slope to the road.

That evening a haggard-eyed man and woman, flanked by a dusty yellow car, on the back seat of which lay an unconscious piece of humanity, bound in a dozen bandages which bore a strong resemblance to articles of feminine underwear, presented themselves at the door of a hospital in Algiers and demanded instant attention.

The following morning two persons in districts as remote from each other as the Welsh Mountains and the Sakamody Pass received telegrams from Paul Manet.

The first was M. le Baron de Marieux. The message he received was curt and to the point.

“But, M’sieur,” gasped the astonished clerk in the Post Office, “it is impossible to transmit such a message by a public service.”

“It is merely a piece of humour,” retorted Paul with a smile.

To this wire, in due course, an answer was received. It ran

It was a neat piece of cynicism that Paul was quick to appreciate. Almost it seemed as though the word “men” was underlined.

“He is a tyke,” snorted Jane, when Paul showed it to her.

The second telegram was delivered to Eve while she was occupied with the final arrangements for Hamar’s funeral.

She read the telegram half a dozen times before opening a second that had been delivered on the same salver.

Miss Emily Casallis came into the room as she was reading this curious document. The sound of death’s trumpet never failed to reach the ears of Emily Casallis. The breath had scarcely left the body of Hamar Casallis before she was at the door. And since black was the colour always affected by her, she, so to speak, was ready for a burial at an instant’s notice. Miss Emily Casallis was a useful adjunct to the houses of bereavement, for there was something about a funeral which brought out a livelier side in her nature. It humanized her. With the departure of some poor spirit for regions unknown her own spirits rose as though to bear it company on the heavenly journey. Her appetite moreover improved out of all recognition and none addressed themselves more heartily than she to the decantered sherry and the baked meats.

Of the quick Miss Casallis had but a poor opinion—but of the dead no esteem or admiration could be too great.

Miss Casallis had announced her intention of coming by wire and was very touched when Mr. Halliday Soane, the vicar, met her at the station.

Mr. Soane, however, lost no time in explaining away the belief that his presence was inspired by courtesy.

“It isn’t,” he said. “I came here simply because I hold the opinion that you’re a thoroughly scandalous old lady and the sooner you’re muzzled the happier for every one.”

To his immense surprise she patted his hand in the dog cart.

“If there were more people who spoke their mind like that,” said she, “the world would be a tolerable place to live in.”

Mr. Soane cleared his throat and puffed his cheeks and started afresh.

“You wrote an abominable letter about a young lady who’s one of the finest characters I’ve ever met.”

“Is that your considered opinion?”

“Opinion be damned,” said the Vicar. “It’s what she is.”

“Well,” said Miss Casallis, “with death in the house we won’t quarrel. It has always been my guiding principle to think the worst of every one until I find I’m mistaken.”

“Disgusting,” snorted Mr. Soane.

“Well, it’s what you’ve done about me, isn’t it?”

There was justice in that as he acknowledged.

“I know,” said Miss Casallis, “I am cantankerous—bitter—and, as far as money is concerned, mean. Throughout life I have neither received love nor given it. Since I could not be liked I decided to be disliked and in that direction have been very successful. But, Vicar, I believe after I am dead you will find quite a number of my relations will say agreeable things about me and refer to agreeable things I have done, which to mention during my lifetime they would consider impolitic.”

“None of us are entirely bad,” grumbled Mr. Soane, giving the pony a flick with the whip. “I daresay you have pleasant qualities as well as unpleasant.”

“You shall see,” said Miss Casallis.

He did and was amazed. She did not even raise a protest when, in accordance with Hamar’s written wish, she learnt that his body was to be take to the Churchyard in a farm cart drawn by a plough team and with the mourners following on foot.

Rustling like a fall of dead leaves Miss Casallis approached the window seat where Eve was sitting.

“My good child,” she exclaimed, “how white you are. One would imagine something dreadful had happened.”

“Something dreadful has happened,” said Eve. “There!” And she held out the two crumpled telegrams.

Miss Casallis fixed her glasses and read them at the length of her arm. When she had finished she laid them aside and looked at Eve.

“Well,” said Eve, “say it, Miss Casallis. I know you must be dying to say it.”

Miss Casallis opened her lips and as quietly shut them again. There was something in the face of the girl who confronted her that made rebuke seem a very poor weapon to employ.

“What is it you expect me to say?”

“Need you ask? All those things I’m saying to myself. You were right, Miss Casallis, and I’m quite ready to take the blame.”

“The blame,” said Miss Casallis. “I do not see how you can be fool enough to blame yourself for a motor accident that took place over two thousand miles away.”

It was so utterly unexpected that Eve lost her mental balance and laughed. The laugh knotted itself in her throat and became a sob.

“But I do—I do,” she gasped.

Miss Casallis rang the bell and ordered some tea to be brought immediately.

“I cannot allow this hysteria,” she said, “it must be stopped at once. Why, you could not behave more absurdly if you were in love with Lennox.”

“I am,” came the hot retort. “I am in love with him. You’ll think I’m just saying it now, because he’s ill—dying. You won’t understand how one can love a man and send him away. How one can refuse something one wants more than all the rest of the world to satisfy a vain hope of improving it.”

“Fol de dol de dol,” snapped Miss Casallis. “Don’t be an idiot, child. That’s the only kind of affection I can understand. I’ve spent my whole life packing off persons I’ve a regard for with a flea in their ear.”

“And aren’t you ashamed of yourself? I am.”

“No, certainly not. But I can understand you being ashamed because love and regard are totally different matters.”

Eve looked at her in surprise.

The tea was brought in and despite the fact that it was barely noon, Miss Casallis ordered a piece of cake. She was hungry, she said. Nothing was said until the cake had been brought and consumed. Then Miss Casallis began afresh.

“Since I arrived here,” she said, “I have reformed my views of your character and with certain reservations I am prepared to withdraw some of my remarks at our first meeting. Despite obvious indiscretions on your part you seem to possess a well ordered mind and a pleasant enough disposition. This opinion is supported by every one I have discussed you with.”

“Do you know,” said Eve, “I don’t much care what any one thinks of me just now.”

“That isn’t the point. The point is that in you appears to repose the destiny and the salvation of this branch of my family. If you are the woman I imagine you to be, you will pocket your pride and go off to Algiers and nurse Lennox Casallis back to life again; and when you’ve done that you’ll make a decent husband of him.”

“I had made up my mind to go,” said Eve hotly. “I didn’t need prompting about that. But I don’t see how pride enters into it.”

“It will enter very considerably when you find yours are not the only flowers on the bedside table,” came the answer.

Eve hesitated.

“How—how did you know?”

“God bless us! I’m not a fool,” snapped Miss Casallis. “A cantankerous old woman like me understands the world she lives in even if she gets little enough out of it.”

Eve caught the Continental train from Charing Cross the following evening. She had waited until Hamar’s funeral was over. Five minutes before the procession started a private car, overflowing with flowers, drew up at the door. They were from Lennox. Lennox who did not even know his brother was dead. It needed a practical organized brain like Jane Toop’s to think out and realize so pretty a tribute.

How misused is the word unconsciousness. The doctors who attended Lennox Casallis, those two sterling friends Paul Manet and Jane Toop, and presently a third, who was more lover than friend, all spoke of him as unconscious. Yet never was anything further from the truth. Never for an instant did the wheels within his brain cease their endless revolutions. White and immovable—lost to the power of speech and sight and action, Lennox lay on his bed as the procession of days went by. But his mind was ever active. A restless panorama of thoughts and impressions were chasing each other from cell to cell. Confused thoughts—muddled thoughts—thoughts that pained and pleased—thoughts with blurred outlines and thoughts that were ghastly clear. He knew no peace from them, nor any escape. He was haunted, too, by faces—children’s faces and Eve’s—faces of friends and Eve’s—a dead enemy’s face and Eve’s—and the kind face of an old nurse—and Eve’s. Always Eve’s face was foremost. It materialized in the strangest company, it evolved out of the faces of other people like trick photography in a moving picture. Sometimes the faces frightened him terribly and his reason was only preserved by a certain knowledge that presently hers would appear and calm him. Another face that disquieted him strangely was Hamar’s. It was so white and immovable—it lacked the swift luminous expression, the quick smile, the sympathy it was accustomed to wear. Then Eve’s to soothe him—her eyes brimming with gentleness and reassurance. And always when Eve’s face was before him came a sense of a cool hand on his forehead—deliciously, thrillingly cool.

Then Meriem’s. Meriem was never far distant and yet about her was something faint and unreal. Her impression melted—evaporated—was inconstant. It peeped for an instant through the jungled undergrowth of his thoughts and was gone again. It smiled—but it smiled away from him—at some one beyond—elsewhere. If only she would stay still, he thought, but she would not. It tired him so to try and find her—to try and place her with the rest. When he beckoned, she ran away—when he turned his back she plucked at his sleeve—when he sought to question her she was not there.

Came a dreadful day when all the faces—Meriem’s, de Marieux’s, Paul’s, Jane’s, Hamar’s and the rest were impaled on the spokes of a wheel. He knew the wheel—it belonged to a motor cycle that once had torn riderless through a forest—had leaped over precipices and plunged into the bed of a river. The faces made the tire of the wheel and Eve’s was in the centre for a hub. Terror seized him then, for he knew that once the wheel began to revolve those faces would be thrown off into space where he must follow them. One by one they would be jerked out into the dizzy dark through which was flowing a cataract of stars. A mighty wind began to blow. Lennox could hear its roaring approach. The first touch of it stirred the hair on the impaled heads—wrenched at and blew it free.

“No!” he cried, “no! no!”

And a voice—the loveliest in the world, echoed the cry.

“No, dear, no, no!”

And some one said, in a foreign tongue:

“It is the crisis.”

And the wheel began to turn—to whirl—to whizz. Features and likeness were gone now—lost in a blurry, white circle that faded from grey to an abysmal blackness.

So this was the end. This thing—this nothing! Lennox knew it was the end and out of the deeps of his nature he summoned up strength to meet death as a gentleman, unafraid. He thought he opened his eyes—he believed he folded his arms and stood upright. He knew he was prepared. No one could help him now.

And then he beheld a strange and awful sight. He saw the hospital ward and a doctor who was shaking his head at Paul Manet and Jane Toop, who were holding hands a little distance away. At the far end of the ward a door opened and all was dark beyond. Presently he heard slow footsteps, that clicked like naked bones as they approached. They came nearer—nearer—and were almost at the door when the figure of a man rose up and barred the way. Over the shoulders of the man Lennox saw Death—a shape with jagged outlines. But it was upon the man his attention was rivetted. It was Hamar.

A cry broke from him, for he knew, then, that Hamar had passed over—knew because Hamar spoke to and pleaded with Death in a language not of this world. And all that was left of Hamar was affection and love for a brother he sought to save. His last legacy and it did not serve. The clicking footsteps passed through the petty barrier and came on.

Lennox Casallis did not breathe. Death claims his victims breathless and he was obedient to the command and ready.

And suddenly rose up from beside the bed another figure—a woman’s.

“Meriem fighting for me,” thought Lennox.

But he was wrong. He saw the woman’s face in profile—Eve’s. He couldn’t believe his eyes—could not understand—why Eve?

Her power was titanic. He saw Death waver this way and that as she met him boldly. In his amazement he gasped and the good breath thrilled his veins with life. New life.

“Eve, Eve,” he cried.

Her arms were round him and he heard her voice with triumph in it:

“We’ve won.”

And afterwards sleep. No faces—no wheels—no death—just sleep—on and on and on.

Nearly a month went by before they spoke their real thoughts to one another. With his marvellous recuperative faculty Lennox was almost himself again. Wonderful weeks they had been, with Eve ministering to him. Yet she had never succeeded in lifting the cloud that shadowed his eyes. With his return to consciousness he looked at her as at some object a great distance away. He had spoken to her as though a barrier were between them. His gratitude, his sensibility, was astonishing and yet it seemed as though he deliberately froze an impulse toward confidence—as though he sought to conceal from her a queer overmastering determination.

And then one evening as they sat together on the terrace of the St. George Hotel overlooking the bay, he began to talk.

“Whatever the future holds in store for me,” he said, “the memory of what you’ve done will outlive all others.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” she began. “I don’t want reminding of the debt I owe you.”

“Debt?”

“Aren’t I to blame for all that happened?”

“Good God no.”

“Oh yes. Yet I suppose one can only learn this sort of lesson by experience. Oh, Lennox, how rotten of me it was! I liked you, you know, even then. To stamp on enthusiasm the way I did! I wonder why women believe they have the right to order men’s lives. For they do believe it.”

“We should be pretty hopeless creatures if they didn’t,” he replied.

She laughed.

“That from you!”

“Yes. I suppose it seems strange,” he said gloomily.

“Oh, smile,” she pleaded. “I don’t want to think you’ve lost your boyhood. Do smile.”

“I’m not as cocky as I used to be, Eve, in the old days when everything came my way.”

“I wonder,” she mused, “if everything came your way again whether you would recover the old spark?”

“Would you welcome it?”

“I hate to see you serious. It seems wrong, somehow. Women are inconsistent creatures, aren’t they?”

He seemed to be struggling with himself. At last—

“When are you going back to England?” he asked, almost rudely.

“When are you?” she countered.

“I don’t know—I don’t know if I ever shall.”

He looked as though he meant it.

“But you must,” she said. “There’s the place. And now Hamar—”

“My cousin Jordan can look after the place. He’s less likely to make a mess of it than I should be. It’s getting chilly. Shall we go inside?”

She shook her head.

“Not just yet. Lennox, you asked me to marry you some time ago.”

“I haven’t forgotten. It’s time we were dressing for dinner, isn’t it?”

“Lennox, if I asked you to marry me, would it make any difference?”

He threw up an arm as though to ward off a blow and exclaimed:

“Oh don’t, don’t.”

“I love you, Lennox. I want you to marry me, please—please marry me.”

He turned his head this way and that.

“But you don’t know what you’re saying—you can’t—you mustn’t.”

“I love you,” she said. “Really and really.”

“It wanted this,” said Lennox. “It just wanted this.” He walked away from her—up and down—stopped and threw himself on a chair by her side.

“Oh Eve, oh my dear. Those are the most wonderful words I shall ever hear in this world—and I can’t even—oh, listen.”

He told her then.

“All that love for you—love you had no use for fermenting in my head. It doesn’t vanish—isn’t extinguished, you know, just because the person who inspired it throws it aside. That’s the damn thing—that’s why men make such fools of themselves. You didn’t want my love, I thought, so it was up for auction—open to the first bidder—any one’s property. Like madness, Eve. Oh, I’ve no excuse! Then Meriem, Eve. Any one would have done. I threw it at her feet, the love I had made for you—and she—poor little devil—picked up the trash before I had come to my senses. Afterwards Fate took a hand—Conscience—anything you like. And me afraid of what I’d done—seeing with awful clearness that I’d taken a drug—and refusing—refusing the drug. Shirking going under. Trying to reinstate myself. Fighting to get back to a cleaner level. So this talk of marriage. At first it was no more than talk—the real intention didn’t exist. I had to beat myself into accepting it—beat myself into keeping my word to her. And she loving me with the only kind of love she understood. Who’d blame her for that? I suppose I was a grade above the truck she was used to. That’d be her view—not mine. And how I hated myself you’ll never know. And then the determination to play fair—and the wedding day fixed. Yes, I’d passed the rubicon then. I felt I’d a better right to call myself a man. Suicide, if you like—but better than cowardice—better than staring down the muzzle of the pistol and failing to pull the trigger. Then Paul’s wire and me away—only ten hours, Eve—and returning to find—you know—they’ll have told you what happened. That swine, that brute—and it would have been her wedding day. There’s no choice, Eve. I don’t count—I don’t, can’t, mustn’t. You see that, Eve—admit it—you see it. There is no way—I must go on—I must—”

He dropped his head into his hands and moved it from side to side. After a long while he spoke very gently:

“I shall never forget,” he said.

The strangest light was in her eyes.

“Nor I,” she answered.

Next day she returned to England alone.

Lennox Casallis spoke of his intentions to no one. He had lost the habit of confidence and acted now on his own initiative without the counsel or consent of other men. He stood upon the quay—a solitary, motionless figure—long after the steamer which carried Eve away had vanished into the mist that hung over the horizon.

There had been no farewells. For a moment they had held hands and that was all. It was an end of everything. That they realized and accepted this as the final parting was written in their eyes. The night before she sailed Lennox only slept for an hour and had waked in a sweat of terror. He had dreamed a dreadful dream. It had seemed a huge figure, half judge, half executioner, came to his bedside and in a voice of authority that could not be denied, called on him to reveal and produce every secret hope and ambition his heart contained. And he thought he took from his heart many strange things and made a heap of them. There were his few ideals—his love for Eve—for England—for the Downs—fair play and healthy exercise—desire for admiration—good fellowship—loyalty to friends—and a tiny unformed spirit that one day should be a fondness for children. He made a heap of them—piled high upon the coverlet.

“Is this all,” the figure demanded. “I need all.”

So he searched again and discovered a little religion and some few small pleasures he had overlooked. These he added to the pile. Then the figure with a sweep of the hand gathered all into a bag and carried it away. And nothing was left to Lennox Casallis but an empty shell—a hideous and hopeless void. When he woke he was kneeling up in bed with arms outstretched, crying to the figure to give him back even the littlest part of his lost possessions. It was a terrible experience. Afterwards he paced the floor and prayed for dawn to come.

He waited at the quay until the steamer’s smoke had melted in the morning mists, then turned with an outward breath and walked slowly away. In the Rue d’Isly he bought a stout riding crop and at a local Ecurie he hired a horse—a tall, raw-boned waler equal to heavy work.

Trotting through the outskirts of the town he passed Paul and Jane and gave them a salutation. Paul called out to him but he did not stop to listen. Letting the horse choose his own pace he descended the little pleated valleys and came out upon the vineyards. Thence the road ran straight beneath an avenue of silver birches through St. Moussa to the Pass.

The distance was not considerable and he was at no pains to hurry. An almost Oriental calm descended upon him—for the future, time would be the least factor in existence. He knew from enquiries where de Marieux’s villa was situated. It lay in a forest between the settlements of Sakamody and Tablat.

As he neared the spot his speed decreased and for the last five kilos he allowed the horse to walk. White gate piers on the left of the road and cultivation beyond convinced him he had arrived. He turned slowly up a drive that zigzagged through a steep plantation and came at last to a broad panelled plateau upon which the villa was built. A native servant ran towards him and took the reins, while a second appeared bowing in an open doorway. Lennox dismounted and enquired if M. le Baron was at home. Receiving an affirmative he asked leave to be granted an interview.

“Tell him,” he said, “a gentleman has called. He would not know my name.”

He was shown into an exquisitely furnished apartment with windows overlooking the gorge.

Five minutes went by before the sound of approaching footsteps brought him to his feet. The door opened and de Marieux came into the room. Lennox Casallis was the last man on earth he expected to see and to do him justice his composure was remarkable. He blinked incredulously, exposed the palms of his hands and smilingly remarked:

“What a fool you will think me, M. Casallis, for I have come to this interview entirely unarmed. If you will allow me two minutes to retire I will remedy the mistake.”

“Shut that door,” said Lennox.

“Mon Dieu!” said de Marieux in caricature of alarm. “I perceive the end has come. And there is no priest to receive my dying confession.”

He closed the door, crossed to the mantelpiece and in the most natural manner in the world rang the bell. To the servant who entered immediately he said:

“You have a pistol? Good. Give it to me. That will do—you may retire.”

The servant went out.

“Now, M. Casallis, my handicap being removed, we shall be able to enjoy our talk in greater security.”

“You are a bad judge of men, Baron,” said Lennox Casallis. “Unlike yourself, I am not a murderer.” He turned out his pockets and revealed their emptiness.

“My apologies,” said de Marieux, and again he rang the bell. “You may take this pistol away, Abdul. I have no use for it. Bring Absinthe and some glasses. Unless M. Casallis would prefer a whiskey and soda.”

“Nothing,” said Lennox.

“Cancel the order,” said de Marieux, “and remove Monsieur’s riding crop. Its presence offends me.”

Lennox allowed the crop to be taken away without protest. He could trust his hands in emergency to do all that might be needed.

“At our previous meetings,” said the Baron, “our attitude toward one another has been disgustingly hostile. It is pleasant to renew acquaintance in calmer favour. You will tell me how I may serve you.”

“You’re a swine, de Marieux,” said Lennox slowly, “a sneaking swine, but you’re not such a coward as I imagined. I’ve come for Meriem—the girl you stole when my back was turned—and when you’ve handed her over, I’m going to give you a thrashing—a solid, schoolboy thrashing you’ll remember all your life.”

“Merciful heavens. You almost persuade me to ring for my pistol again. I could never tolerate the indignity of being put across your knee.” His voice suddenly changed and became harsh. “What do you want with Meriem?” he demanded.

“I am going to make her my wife.”

“You come too late, mon ami, too late. You had your chance and let it slip. She belongs to me now.”

“Stolen property does not belong to the thief.”

“I think that while he holds it it belongs.”

“Perhaps, but that time is over.”

“Is it? Are you so sure?”

“I am quite sure. Neither you nor any man will come between us now.”

De Marieux put his head on one side.

“So! between you! And what is there between you? Memory of promises never fulfilled—memory of a calf-like courtship without fire or passion. Sacré Coeur! What a tie!”

“I’m here for Meriem,” said Lennox coldly, “not to listen to you. Tell your servant to bring her at once.”

De Marieux threw back his head and laughed.

“Is it possible,” he cried, “any man can have such conceit? Do you cheat yourself she cares a straw for you. I tell you she laughs when your name is spoken.”

“I wouldn’t go on,” said Lennox Casallis dangerously.

“Who’s to prevent me—not you, cher ami, a wretched creature that a little dancing girl bites her thumb at the thought of. Nom de Dieu, not you. Aah!”

The cry was strangled from him as Lennox’s fingers fastened about his throat.

“M’riem—Abdul! Hussein! H’sau—’sein—Aaah-a-a.”

He was on his knees now, strained back across the arm of a sofa. His spine creaked—it was breaking—breaking as the fearful pressure bore down on him. The light in Lennox’s pale grey eyes was like a white fire—his expression was unrecognizable—terrible to see. He did not hear the rush of feet and scarcely felt the arms that were flung about his waist. The will to murder—to destroy—outclassed all other sensibilities. And then came a burning agony in the right wrist as white teeth bit and met. His hold slackened—he was wrenched back and confronting him with blazing eyes was Meriem. She shook her fists—she spat—she raved.

Next instant she was on her knees beside de Marieux—arms about his neck—pressing his head to her breast, kissing his mouth and pouring words of love into his ears.

Lennox Casallis ceased struggling and his hands fell to his sides. He looked with dull understanding and the will to murder died out of him.

It was a long time before de Marieux struggled to his feet and with an arm around Meriem for support, stood swaying this way and that. He motioned the servants to depart. They went out. Lennox Casallis remained quite still, watching the lovers before him.

“Did—I—lie?” said de Marieux.

Lennox shook his head.

“Ask her,” he mumbled, “if she has any need of me.”

The question was put. Meriem laughed scornfully.

“You see?”

“I see,” said Lennox Casallis.

“Is there further proof you desire?”

“No.”

“Ours is no ordinary love,” said de Marieux, “it will endure.”

He repeated the words to Meriem in her own tongue and she smiled up at him contentedly.

Lennox Casallis passed out of the house, mounted his horse and rode away.

A mile down the gorge he drew rein and looked over his shoulder.

“Not wanted,” he said. “Not wanted—ha—”

And without warning he burst into a great gale of laughter that shook him this way and that in the saddle.

The Lennox Casallis who returned to England was a very different man from the Lennox Casallis who, a few months before, had tempestuously broken away from the society of his fellows. He was graver, more thoughtful, the dash, the fling, the easy assurance and the swagger had gone from him. He came back to London unobtrusively and unannounced. He climbed the steps of his club, walked into the smoking room and ordered a drink as though he had only left the day before. The first man he met was Brodie—Brodie of the Falcon hunt at Laghouat—Brodie who, in the interim, with the best will in the world, had proved chief executioner of his reputation. Lennox knew every one had been saying he had gone under—knew he would have to pass through a barrage of astonished eyes and tactful greetings—knew his fellow members one and all were of the type that ask no questions and would only signify their amazement at his return by shades of over-heartiness which would be harder to endure than point blank interrogation. He knew that so soon as his back was turned his name would be upon every one’s lips, flung hither and thither like a racquets ball. But he faced the ordeal unflinchingly—moved about from group to group—and dined at the most crowded table. Even the Heart-to-heart Brigade, who wooed him into private corners in the hope of winning his confidence, had nothing to complain of his conduct save that he showed a marked unwillingness to talk about himself. He would not enter his name for the billiards handicap nor the Club foursomes on the grounds that he would be away straightening things up on the estate.

“But hang it, Casallis,” protested a man named Tresmayne, “you’re never going to bury yourself in the country.”

“It is precisely what I am going to do,” he answered.

Another member congratulated him on his accession to the title and since it is always embarrassing to congratulate a man of one’s own age he intoned the phrase in what he fondly believed was American twang.

“Say, Surr Lennox, proud to take your hand. Ye are a big luvely boy and ye’ll make a grand baronet.”

“Thank you,” said Lennox, “but the price is a bit high.”

“Sure ye’ll have to entertain some.”

“I was thinking of my brother’s death.”

The member blushed—said he was sorry in English and ordered a “Schwepps, neat.”

The following day Lennox came to Poone Corners. News of his coming had travelled fast and the tenants hung out bunting in his honour and waved their hats and bobbed from doorsteps. Across the village street was a banner bearing the word “Welcome” and the wish was sincere, too, for he had ever been popular in the district. Country people loved a sportsman and to the tenants of Poone Corners Lennox Casallis was a beau ideal.

At the Hall stewards, bailiffs, farmers and representatives from the mines, the outdoor and indoor staffs, were lined up in the courtyard to give him greetings. Through a gap in the rhododendrons he caught sight of the waiting crowd and braced himself up to meet them. To show a smiling face is a duty when loving folks are gathered together for cheering. As his car swung into the big square before the house, voices rose to the tune of “He’s a jolly good fellow.” A lump came in his throat but he contrived to swallow it and produce a grin. A child threw a bunch of flowers into the car and there was confetti. The representative of the local newspaper took a snapshot and an operator of The Animated Gazette turned the handle of a big camera fixed to the top of a flight of steps. Lennox Casallis put a hand over his face comically and drew a roar of laughter. In little places a little joke goes a long way. There was more cheering, then some cries of “speech—speech” and the song broke out afresh.

Lennox rose to his feet in the car and cried out:

“I say—do shut up—you make me feel beastly uncomfortable.”

He knew what he was doing. Had the words been written by Shakespeare they would not have inspired a quarter of the enthusiasm. The simple utterance was greeted with a volley of cheers. Lennox Casallis dropped back in the seat again, let in his gears and made a dash for it.

Was ever such classic modesty—such magnificent eloquence and humour. The car was surrounded—held and its owner dragged forth and carried shoulder high into the house.

Popularity.

Simple men with simple souls felt their destinies were secure in his keeping. Governments might totter and fall—monarchies end, bolshevism run riot through the land, but what mattered it if the Squire was sound? The Squire was the thing. The man who thatched the roof and took the rent—the Squire—the Squire!

In the Tenants Hall, which had been a chapel in the reign of Henry VIII, a collation was spread and much beer and pork was consumed. And there were more speeches of remarkable simplicity and great repetition and an illuminated address was presented to Lennox on behalf of the entire district, and of course he had to reply to that, and return thanks and give assurances and pay tribute to his brother. And very beautifully he did it too, nor was he blamed for the tears that stood in his eyes as he spoke of Hamar and all that Hamar had been to him and done for him.

“What’s ahead will be a big change to me,” he said. “And if I’m to be any use at the job—a job my brother filled as no one can ever fill it—it will call for a big change in me.”

Cries of “No, no.” “Stop as you are, Squire.” “You’re good enough for us.”

“But not good enough for myself just yet,” he answered rather shakily. “Anyway I’m going to have a shot at it.” He filled a glass and raised it high. “Here’s every one’s health.”

He was cheered and chaired before they allowed him to escape.

The long corridor was empty and he stole down it—passed into Hamar’s study and seated himself at the great desk—alone.

From the distance came the sound of voices singing. He could hear the words:

There were papers and a letter lying on the table awaiting his attention. He opened the letter. It was from Hamar, written a week or two before his death. The envelope was addressed to Lennox “To be delivered on his return.” One line shone out above all the rest.

“ ‘If he comes back,’ I asked her, ‘will you help scrape off the mud,’ and she said ‘Of course.’ ”

The letter slipped from his fingers and he stared out before him.

“She kept her promise, Hamar, old boy,” he muttered. “She kept her promise—and in honour bound I couldn’t accept. You wouldn’t have me go to her now and say I wasn’t wanted after all—so please if you’re still of the same mind—”

“He’ll come home and marry me-e” sang the Tenants.

It was in November, six months after his return, that Lennox received Paul Manet’s invitation.

In the interim he had worked hard and with success. He was adored of his people and through their affection things had gone easily with him. Where in the old days, Hamar dealt with difficulties through the medium of diplomacy and meticulous examination of pros and cons, Lennox waltzed in and demanded.

“What’s all this rot?”

As a result of this homely practice, people told him frankly what the rot was. Then if he agreed with the justice of the case he remedied it and if he disagreed he kicked out the complainers with such excellent good humour that they felt he had used them very fairly.

He made it a point of honor never to reveal to any one the depression and loneliness he felt. In public he was his old easy-going self, gay, happy-go-lucky and fearless. He moved in local society—he hunted, shot and performed all the duties expected of him. So well did he conceal his real feelings that not a soul surprised the fact his high spirits were assumed. It was a pretty tremendous undertaking, for often and often the impulse possessed him to put up the shutters and clear out. Life in that great lonely house was like living in a grave, haunted with ghosts.

From the moment they said farewell to each other in Algiers he had never written to Eve—nor she to him. The pages of their disappointed love for one another were closed. Pride prevented him telling her that the other woman had no need of him and the rejected trash that was himself was now at her disposal—pride and an unwillingness to insult her with so contemptible an offer. The past with its hopes and ambitions was buried. Paul’s letter was a surprise and also a delight. Paul and Jane had been married with a suddenness equal to that of their courtship, and after the ceremony had disappeared from mortal eye.

“We have been everywhere,” Paul wrote, “that is to say to all those places she decided we would visit. I have never enjoyed myself so much. Fanny is marvellous. At Constantinople we nearly had our throats cut owing to her insistence that I should ask a Turkish woman her views on emancipation. The Turkish woman’s husband was an Emir or Pasha—one of those substantial fellows with a quick way of misunderstanding wholesome motives. We had to run for it. At Moscow she involved me in fresh difficulties by attacking Trotsky’s policy in a public restaurant. She is an unfailing source of delight and the finest tonic against ennui the world has produced. My dear Lennox, I am head over ears in love with her and she with me. (Heaven knows why.) We are back in England now and have taken a little shooting near Bury in Sussex, Phillimane’s old place. We shall be beating the downs coverts on the 12th and insist on your coming to stay for a week.”

Scrawled across the bottom of the page in Jane’s abominable fist were the words:

“Hullo you! No refusals mind.”

Then a postscript in Paul’s neat penwork.

“She has been persuaded to give up biting her nails but her freckles are still as atrocious as—” Followed a series of deeply embedded scratches—a blot and a hole in the page—clear evidence that a fight had taken place. Lennox laughed. It was the first time for months he had laughed when alone.

“It’ll be good to see them,” he said and wrote that he would come.

Paul and Jane deserted their other guests and turned up at the station to meet him. And throughout their enthusiastic welcomes he was subject to a minute examination.

Later they discussed the result of the examination.

“I was surprised,” said Paul, “I thought he was looking splendid.”

To which Jane responded,

“You poor fish! Any one with half an eye could see he’s as miserable as blazes.”

“I accept your ruling, chérie, and leave him to you for treatment.”

So Jane accompanied Lennox on the first day’s shoot and put him through his paces very thoroughly. But she got little out of him. Neither for that matter did Paul when he came for a chat and sat on Lennox’s bed after the rest of the household had retired. Resolutely he evaded talking about himself. The habit was extinct.

“I’m terribly glad you’re so happy, Paul,” he said.

“And you?”

“I’m fine. Busy, of course, but work suits me.”

“Anodyne?”

“I think it suits every one.”

“Seen Eve?”

“Not since my return.”

“Selfish brute. You owe that girl a great deal, Lennox.”

“Yes, rather. We just don’t happen to have met, that’s all.”

“Well, that’s easily remedied. She is staying with our neighbours, the Trents. You must look in.”

“Yes, I must,” said Lennox, evenly; then “Good-night, old fellar.”

“H’m,” said Paul, and crossed to the window.

Moonlight was playing on the smooth motherly breasts of the downs.

“Better than the Atlas Mountains, eh?”

Lennox put on a dressing gown and joined Paul at the window. Facing them, the sweet contours of Bury Hill rippled along the sky line.

“Much better,” he admitted.

“Remember that day when you spoke of the Downs, Lennox, and the hold they had on you?”

“I remember,” he nodded.

“Bury Hall, was it not?”

“Yes.”

“You drew a good picture.”

Lennox pointed, and began to talk, almost to himself.

“See that strip of dark—of trees? The old Roman road runs through it—Stane Street. It’s marvellous up there—the sense of age and old things steals through you, up there. It’s so English. Once, it seems ages ago, I fell in love up there, with some one—ages ago, it seems, we sat by a fairy ring—and—”

“Any one I knew?” Paul asked, unguardedly.

Lennox started.

“What! what? Let’s get to bed, old fellar, it’s late. Good-night.”

Paul told Jane what had passed between them and she thought about it.

In the morning she spoke to Lennox.

“I’m going to Arundel this afternoon,” said she. “I thought I might leave the car at the cross-roads by the Castle gates and walk back over the Downs.”

“It’s the best walk in the world,” he answered.

“They’ll be shooting the hackets at the end of the day. If you’re finished in time you might stroll up and meet me.”

“I’d love to.”

“At four o’clock then. I want you to show me that old road. I like roads. How’s it compare with the one from Djelfa to Bon Sada?”

“About the same condition,” he smiled.

“Where shall we meet?”

He thought for a moment, then pointed at a juniper tree a couple of miles away. It looked like a tiny figure toiling up the hill.

“I see. Four o’clock, then.”

They had good sport in the hackets—those closely woven nests of elderberry and bramble that lie in the hollows at the foot of the Downs. When they had beaten the last, Lennox gave his guns to a loader and slowly climbed the hill. The indefinable smell of earth came sweetly to his nostrils and the carpet of fine, velvety grass gave a spring to his footsteps. But he could not approach the juniper tree without a feeling of unease and a quickening of the breath. It was there, nearly a year ago, he and Eve had sat side by side and love had come to them. Queer to be returning alone—queer and painful and wretchedly pathetic! But he did not shirk the responsibility. The spot drew him strangely, even though he shrank from going there. He saw the dark circle of the fairy ring and the two hummocks where he and Eve had sat and looked at one another.

Jane was not there, so he lay down to recover his breath and wait for her and think. But he could not think. The silent grandeur of the hills, the tender mystery of the grass and pale mists that rose from the carpet of the weald like Sisters after prayer, absorbed him and banished thought. He could only dream—a dream that deepened as evening gathered round him with its dying rose.

Then a voice said “Lennox” and he started to his feet.

Eve was standing before him.

“You,” he exclaimed.

“You expected me?”

“No.”

Her forehead went into puzzled lines.

“She—Jane—told me you would be here—and wanted me.”

“She shouldn’t have done that,” he frowned, “it wasn’t fair to you.”

“You don’t want me then?”

“Every moment of the day and night,” said a voice inside him. But no, he was wrong, the words were spoken—startled from him by the very depth of their sincerity. Her nearness was to blame. It is easy to keep silence, to build up walls, to stiffen resolves, when the woman is absent. Her nearness was to blame. Only truth was possible then.

“Oh, why have you come?” he cried out.

“Perhaps because you would not send for me.”

“How could I?”

“I was waiting.”

“But you know what happened. How, after your offer—your wonderful offer, Eve, I went to her—and she—she didn’t want me.”

“I was not told but I think I knew,” said Eve. “I think I guessed it would be so when I asked you to marry me. Women, my dear, are much the same, brown or white. There is no great use in loving where love is not returned. I might have told you this and saved you that last injury—I don’t know why I didn’t, except—”

“Well?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you—your pride.”

“My pride is a fine thing,” said he.

“Yes,” she nodded. “Finer than I ever believed. Lennox, do you know how proud of you I was?”

“Proud of me?”

“Yes. When you said ‘no’ and sent me away—when you gave up yourself so entirely to keep that promise. It was flying pretty high. Do you know there was nothing in the world I wouldn’t have done for you after that. I dismissed you and you me, only you did it for a finer reason.”

“I say,” said Lennox in a strained, cracked voice, “don’t talk like that, d’you mind? It’s bad for both of us. All rot, too! I know well enough the sort of chap I am and it won’t help my view to have praises hurled at my head. In plain words I’m a man who was turned down by a woman whose boots he wasn’t fit to black and turned down again by”—he laughed—“by a girl who hadn’t a pair of boots to black. That’s the sum total and it speaks for itself. I’d be terribly grateful if you—if you wouldn’t talk to me as though I were a deserving object for sympathy. I’m not. Not a bullet has hit me that I didn’t stick in the gun myself. And there it is.”

For a long while Eve said nothing. The sun had fallen and night was drawing its mantle over the weald. Presently,

“Lennox,” she said, “you were never her lover?”

“No.”

“Why, Lennox? What held you?”

He was silent.

“Why?” she repeated.

“Because I was in love with you,” he answered harshly. “If you want a reason, there it is.”

She sighed.

“I wanted that reason,” she said.

She rose and stood a little away from him, breathing unsteadily. A shiver ran through her and she turned.

“I’m so cold, Lennox. Put your arms round me. I needn’t be cold, need I?”

There was something strangely wild in the laugh she gave when he crushed her against him. There was something strangely wild in the fierceness of his embrace. So, on that same wild hillside, the simple, wild men and women of three thousand years ago held and loved each other. Black as primeval forests night settled on the weald. One by one stars peered through the darkness overhead and the moon crept over a shoulder of the Downs.

THE END

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

[End of The Singing Wells by Roland Pertwee]