"Allah!" she thought, "what an awful place, and what on earth am I to do with two shillings in my pocket, and not a cinema handy!" And feeling the native's eyes still fixed on her, she beckoned to the waiter, paid her bill, and once out in the street turned sharply up the first on the right just as the native and the Levantine came to the restaurant door in time to see the last inch of her disappearing skirt. And yet through all her haste and her annoyance the inner membrane of Jill's mind, that delicate fabric woven of intuition and divination, which gives women the pull on so many occasions, and on certain courses get her past the post lengths ahead of man, whispered to her that it had not failed her earlier in the day, and that if she could but stick out the next few hours she would find a sure reward for her present distress.
But she stopped short and clicked her teeth angrily when she met the native of the restaurant face to face in a narrow street, and turned and walked in the opposite direction as quickly as her dignity would allow.
But after the same thing had happened three times, and that it had suddenly struck her that she was being headed in the direction of a quarter where unveiled women peered from windows with great eyes made larger by the rims of kohl smeared on the lid, and the cheeks rendered dead white with the powder that proves so strangely attractive to the eastern prostitute, she suddenly made up her mind to get herself out of the danger and difficulty. She was utterly lost, and walking at a pace that was almost a run, turned into the street she found nearest.
Not one open door did she see; at least, not one that was not congested with women sitting smoking or eating sticky sweetmeats, or drying their heads plastered in the henna clay which would eventually dye their hair the red favoured of man.
She was wellnigh breathless and wondering for how long she could continue when the man suddenly appeared at the top of the street into which she had just turned, and seeing her salaamed deeply.
Back she twisted like a hunted hare and raced up the street through which she had just passed.
It was empty, but on her left standing ajar was a door painted bright blue.
CHAPTER VII
Without pausing to think she entered, closing it behind her just as the man relentlessly pursuing her passed in ignorance on the other side.
In the middle of the courtyard two Eastern women in the domestic act of disembowelling a kid looked up lazily, and one smiling, pointed to the upper storey of the house, through the small windows of which came the sound of stringed instruments, and seeing that the stranger did not understand, explained her gesture in broken French: