CROSS PURPOSES
Luxor was warm and drowsy with afternoon sun. Motionless the fronds of the tall palms along the water front; motionless the columns of the temple reflected in the blue Nile. Even the almost continuous commotion of the landing stage was stilled.
The two big Nile steamers, of rival lines, lay quietly at rest, emptied of their tourists, and on the embankment the dragomans, the donkey boys, the innumerable venders, were lounging in the shade at dominoes or dice.
In the big white hotels facing the river many drawn blinds spoke of napping travelers, and in the shade of the garden of the Grand other travelers were whiling away the listless inertia of the hour before tea.
"I suppose it's quite too early?" murmured a girl at one of the tables, in the shade of a big acacia. Her companion, fussing with a pastel sketch, answered absently, without looking up, "Oh, quite," and then with a note of brisker attention, "I thought we were waiting for Robert?"
"Do you think he'll be back? It's such a trip to the Tombs of the Kings, you know!"
"To be sure he'll be back!" Miss Falconer spoke with asperity. "And why he wanted to go over it again—it's odd you didn't care to go, too, Claire," she added, most inconsequently. "It was such an excellent opportunity—and you had already spoken of wishing to go again."
"But not so exhaustively. They are doing the entire programme. I only wanted some particular things."
"You could have done them."
"And it was hot."
"It must have been just as hot in the bazaars with Mr. Hill."
"Was it?"
This was purposeful vagueness and Miss Falconer's crayon snapped. She made a sound of annoyance, then began gathering her sketching things tidily together. Presently, "He's rather an agreeable person, that young American, after all," she cannily observed.
"Why, after all?" Lady Claire was implacably aloof.
"Well, first impressions, you know——"
"My first impressions of Mr. Hill were very delightful." The English girl laughed softly, her eyes full of reminiscent amusement. "He was a deus ex machina to me—I quite jumped at him, I assure you!"
"You don't have to assure me!" was the elder lady's unspoken comment. She had been in a state of chronic irritation, ever since that Friday noon when Billy B. Hill's tall figure had appeared in the hotel dining room. And hurrying Claire away from the conversation he was promptly evoking, she had encountered Arlee Beecher and the Evershams streaming with the other passengers from their boat to see the temple of Luxor, a wonderfully gay and excited Arlee, so radiant in the happiness of her own safe world again that she was bright gladness incarnate.... Instantly Robert had reverted to his alarming infatuation ... and Lady Claire had most shamelessly welcomed the American. It was all unspeakably annoying....
Aloud Miss Falconer observed, "I wonder what brought Mr. Hill back to the Nile."
"I wonder," said Lady Claire pleasantly. "But it makes it very nice for us, doesn't it?" she continued amiably. "He knows quite everything about temples."
"And particularly nice for Miss Beecher—though I can't say she is treating him very well. However, that may be their way. 'Romance apart from results,' was, I believe, his phrase."
Lady Claire was silent. But not overlong. "You really think——?" she suggested tranquilly.
"He came on the same train."
"Coincidence. He mentioned he did not see her in the train till Balliana."
"Umph!" Miss Falconer drew out of her bag the especial knitting which she reserved for the Sabbath, and her fingers flew with expressive spirit. "It's scandalous," she said at length. "Girls gadding about the face of the earth—picking up chaperons when they remember them."
"It's their way, you know."
"Oh, yes, it's their way. And their men seem to like it. Mr. Hill didn't seem to consider it even unusual.... But as I said, he's hardly a judge," Miss Falconer went on unsparingly. "The man's bewitched. He never takes his eyes off her."
"I'm sure I don't blame him." Lady Claire's tone was most successfully admiring. "She's too wonderful, isn't she, with those great blue eyes and that astonishing hair! I'm sure Robert is bewitched, too!"
"Nonsense!" But Miss Falconer's tone was too vigorous, betraying the effort to rout a palpable enemy. "What nonsense!" she repeated. "He's civil—naturally—when you haven't a moment for him. The boy has pride. Too much." The knitting needles clicked warningly.
"Civil!" The girl's low laughter was mocking. "Dear Miss Falconer, you are such an euphuist!"
Miss Falconer looked up, a trifle startled. Her young charge was more than a match for her in irony, but the elder lady did not lack for solid perseverance, and she charged on undeterred.
"Of course the girl's pretty—too pretty. And Robert's a man—he has eyes in his head and likes to please them. And she knows who he is and draws him on."
"I don't think Miss Beecher cares a twopence who Robert is," said Lady Claire honestly. "When I told her he was going to stand for Roxham she answered that she had a very poor opinion of M.P.s—from reading Mrs. Ward. I can't quite see what she meant—but as for her drawing him on, a moment ago, dear, you were accusing her of luring Mr. Hill back from Cairo."
"I said he followed. I daresay she lured, too. The second string——"
"Then it's quite nice of me, isn't it, to carry off her second string to the bazaars and prevent her playing him against Robert!"
Lady Claire laughed mischievously, in a flight of daring so foreign to her usual reticence that Miss Falconer grimly perceived that she was changed indeed. She thought helplessly that it was a great pity that young people couldn't be treated as the children they were—smacked and made to do what was best for them.
"And after all this dreadful gossiping how can we face our guests at tea?" the girl continued in mock chiding.
"If they are much later we shall not be facing them at all," the older woman declared. "I shall certainly have my tea at the proper time."
The sight of an Arab servant with a tray of dishes had stirred her to this declaration, and promptly she gave her order. In the middle of it, "I'm always late!" said a merry voice, and little Miss Beecher and Falconer were standing on the grass beside them.
"This time we had no following engagement," said Miss Falconer, unpleasantly reminiscent of another tea time in Cairo, ten days before, but even with her resentment of this American girl's intrusion into her long-cherished plans, she could not prevent the softening of her regard as she gazed upon her.
"You don't look as if you had been riding very hard at the Tombs of the Kings," she observed, in reluctant admiration.
"Oh, but we have! We did quite a lot of Tombs—not anything like thoroughly, of course!—and then we rode back early and made ourselves tidy for your tea party," Arlee blithely explained, and Miss Falconer perceived that her brother Robert had returned to the hotel without seeking them out, had arrayed himself in fresh white flannels and returned to the boat to escort Miss Beecher across the road into the hotel garden.
Absently she sighed. Her eyes fell away from the peach-blossom prettiness of Arlee's lovely face to the subtle simplicity of her white frock of loosely woven silk, and she wondered if that heavy embroidery meant money—or merely spending money. And then she looked across at Lady Claire, and sighed again for her dream of an aristocratic alliance.
"Mrs. Eversham—?" she thought to inquire.
"They're having the vicar—or is it the rector?—to tea. They asked him this morning before your message came," Arlee explained. She did not explain that the vicar, or the rector, had imagined, in accepting, that she, too, was to be of that tea party on the boat and was even now inquiring zealously of her of the Evershams.
"Here's Mr. Hill," said Lady Claire.
Miss Falconer stirred; there was room for the fifth chair between her and Arlee. Lady Claire also stirred; there was room between her and Robert Falconer. And there Billy B. Hill seated himself after a general exchange of greetings.
"How were the bazaars?" said Arlee gaily across the table.
"You mean the department store of Mr. Isaac Cohen," Billy laughed back. "They are all under him, you know."
"Not really!" Falconer exclaimed, in disillusionment. "It rather takes it out, doesn't it, to know it is so commercialized."
"What did you expect—it is the twentieth century," Miss Falconer retorted, putting aside her knitting as the tea things arrived.
"Sometimes it is," said Arlee.
"I think it's more so than ever, here," declared Lady Claire. "Egypt's so frightfully civilized——"
"Not when you're camping in the desert."
Again that funny little smile flitted over Arlee's face; not once did she glance at Billy, but for all her air of unconsciousness he felt that she was subtly sharing her thoughts with him and a quick spark of gladness flashed in him.
Those had been three horrible days for Billy B. Hill.
Friday morning he had been practically a prisoner until his trunks had arrived. He had emerged upon a spectacle of England triumphant—Robert Falconer escorting Arlee to the temple of Luxor. Later that afternoon he had called upon Arlee upon the boat to find Falconer still there, and the Evershams very much so.
Robert Falconer had accompanied him back to the hotel. There was something that he wanted to ask, and he asked it bluntly, but with embarrassment. Had Billy said anything at all to Arlee of that nonsense at the palace?
Here was a contingency for which Billy was not provided. He made no provisions for this with Arlee.
"Have you?" he parried.
"Not a word," said the young Englishman. "We've not mentioned the fellow's filthy name. But I wondered——"
"I did tell her we got worried one night, and tried to get into his palace like a pair of brigands," Billy answered slowly.
"She must have thought us great fools," the sandy-haired young man replied disgustedly. Clearly he felt that Billy had flourished this story before Arlee to appear romantic, and he winced at its absurdity.
"Oh, no—she just thought of it as a lark on our part," Billy went on. "I didn't let her in for the horrible details—I don't think she's likely to mention it to you. Or you to her," he added.
"Rather not." The young Englishman was emphatic. "I'm sorry you said anything about it." Then he looked at Billy, a crinkle of amusement in his eyes. "Rather a sell, you know—what?"
"I should say so!" returned Billy, with a hearty appearance of chagrin, and a laugh cemented the understanding.
That was all between them concerning the escapade.
Billy had raced back to the boat, and secured an earnest fifteen minutes with Arlee, who promised unlimited care, and then forced upon him the wretched sovereigns that she owed. She was feeling desperately spent and tired after her day of excitement, and declared herself unequal to the dance upon the boat that evening. Anxiously Billy had urged her to rest, and he spent a drifting and distracted evening roaming alone in the temple of Luxor listening to the distant music from the boat—thinking of Arlee.... Later he had learned that she remained up for at least two dances with Falconer.
So much for Friday. Saturday had been worse. Arlee had said on Friday night that she would join the passengers in the all-day excursion to the Tombs of the Kings, and Billy had somehow found himself in an arrangement with Lady Claire and Falconer to go with them. Then Arlee had not gone. Mrs. Eversham reported that she had a headache, and Falconer had very promptly dropped out of the party, leaving Billy with Lady Claire upon his hands, and so he went, and he and Lady Claire and the Evershams and about sixty other passengers had a brisk and busy day of it. When he returned just before dinner he saw Arlee, apparently headacheless, upon the deck of the steamer, chatting to Falconer.
That night she had attended the dance at the hotel under Miss Falconer's wing. Billy had danced with her twice, and between times his pride had kept him aloof—she might just have made one sign! But though her bright friendliness was ever responsive; though she was instantly, submissively, ready to accept his invitations or fulfill his requests, he felt that there was something strangely lacking.
The gay spark of her coquetry was gone; she did not tease or play with him; animated as she was in company, when they were alone together a constraint fell upon her.
Miserably he felt that he reminded her of unhappy scenes and that she would be secretly relieved when he was gone.
So now he was absurdly glad to hear her declare, in answer to Lady Claire's questionings, "Oh, but the desert is wonderful! I loved it in spite of——"
"In spite of—?" Lady Claire echoed.
"The sand," said Arlee promptly. But under her lashes, her eyes came, at last, half-scared, to Billy's face.
"But the sand is the desert," Lady Claire was murmuring.
"It's only part of it," Billy took it upon himself to answer. "Space is the biggest part—and then color. And sometimes—heat."
"You spent quite a time on the desert edge with some excavators, didn't you?" said the English girl, and Billy fell into talk with her about his friend's work, and Falconer and his sister engrossed Arlee.
And to-night was the very last night of her stay at Luxor. To-morrow the boat would take her on out of his life—unless he pursued her along the Nile, a foolish, unwanted intruder.... The three days here had all slipped from his clumsy grasp—they seemed to have put a widening distance between them.... He heard Falconer calculating that the boat would touch again at Luxor for the next Friday night. There seemed to be talk of a masked ball....
Billy leaned suddenly across the table.
"You have forgotten it's the best of the moon to-night?" he asked. "You must let me take you to see it on Karnak."
Falconer gave him a very blank look.
"We've already planned for that," said he.
"We'll all go," cried Arlee, with instant pleasantness. "We mustn't miss it for anything."
"You haven't seen the moon on the temple yet?" Billy inquired of Lady Claire in the pause that ensued.
"Only once—four nights ago. But it wasn't full then."
Billy remembered that moon acutely. It had lighted two fugitives across a waste of sand. He saw a little figure swaying rhythmically high upon a camel, a quaint, old-world figure in misty white, with a shimmering silver veil—like Rebecca coming across the desert, he thought oddly. Then he looked up and saw a most modern figure in white across the table, nibbling a cress sandwich, and laughing at some jest of the Englishman's....
With a start he realized that Lady Claire was waiting for an answer.
"I beg your pardon. You asked——?"
"If you had seen the temple in moonlight, Mr. Hill."
"Not Karnak—only Luxor—night before last."
"Only Luxor!" The girl beside him laughed. "How spoiled you are, Mr. Hill! Only Luxor!"
It came to Billy, with the force of revelation, that it was going to be only a great many things for him after this.... Those wild days in the desert had seen to that, with devastating completeness.... Girls were only other girls—and delight in them a lost word. This charming one beside him, with the friendly eyes where a faint shadow of wistfulness underlay the surface brightness, was only Lady Claire....
He wondered if he was going on like this forever. He wondered if he was everlastingly to carry this memory about with him, like a bullet.... Suddenly he felt enraged at himself, at his dumb pain and useless longings, and with a stanch semblance of animation he flung himself into the flow of talk which this pretty English girl was so ready to offer him.