The gay music from the ball-room danced towards him on the air in sweet, broken echoes,—he heard nothing and saw nothing.
“My God!” he said at last, under his breath. “Can it be possible that I love this woman?”
CHAPTER III.
Within the ball-room the tide of gayety was rising to its height. It may be a very trivial matter, yet it is certain that fancy dress gives a peculiar charm, freedom, and brightness to festivities of the kind; and men who in the ordinary mournful black evening-suit would be taciturn of speech and conventional in bearing, throw off their customary reserve when they find themselves in the brilliant and becoming attire of some picturesque period when dress was an art as well as a fashion; and not only do they look their best, but they somehow manage to put on “manner” with costume, and to become courteous, witty, and graceful to a degree that sometimes causes their own relatives to wonder at them and speculate as to why they have grown so suddenly interesting. Few have read Sartor Resartus with either comprehension or profit, and are therefore unaware, as Teufelsdröckh was, that “Society is founded upon Cloth”—i.e. that man does adapt his manners very much to suit his clothes; and that as the costume of the days of Louis Quinze or Louis Seize inspired graceful deportment and studied courtesy to women, so does the costume of our nineteenth century inspire brusque demeanor and curt forms of speech, which, however sincere, are not flattering to the fair sex.
More love-making goes on at a fancy-dress ball than at an ordinary one; and numerous were the couples that strolled through the corridors and along the terraces of the Gezireh Palace Hotel when, after the first dozen dances were ended, it was discovered that one of the most glorious of full moons had risen over the turrets and minarets of Cairo, illumining every visible object with as clear a lustre as that of day. Then it was that warriors and nobles of mediæval days were seen strolling with mythological goddesses and out-of-date peasants of Italy and Spain; then audacious “toreadors” were perceived whispering in the ears of crowned queens, and clowns were caught lingering amorously by the side of impossible flower-girls of all nations. Then it was that Sir Chetwynd Lyle, with his paunch discreetly restrained within the limits of a Windsor uniform which had been made for him some two or three years since, paced up and down complacently in the moonlight, watching his two “girls,” Muriel and Dolly, doing business with certain “eligibles”; then it was that Lady Fulkeward, fearfully and wonderfully got up as the “Duchess of Gainsborough” sidled to and fro, flirted with this man, flouted that, giggled, shrugged her shoulders, waved her fan, and comported herself altogether as if she were a hoyden of seventeen just let loose from school for the holidays. And then the worthy Dr. Maxwell Dean, somewhat exhausted by vigorous capering in the “Lancers,” strolled forth to inhale the air, fanning himself with his cap as he walked, and listening keenly to every chance word or sentence he could hear, whether it concerned himself or not. He had peculiar theories, and one of them was, as he would tell you, that if you overheard a remark apparently not intended for you, you were to make yourself quite easy, as it was “a point of predestination” that you should at that particular moment, consciously or unconsciously, play the eavesdropper. The reason of it would, he always averred, be explained to you later on in your career. The well-known saying “listeners never hear any good of themselves” was, he declared, a most ridiculous aphorism. “You overhear persons talking and you listen. Very well. It may chance that you hear yourself abused. What then? Nothing can be so good for you as such abuse; the instruction given is twofold; it warns you against foes whom you have perhaps considered friends, and it tones down any overweening conceit you may have had concerning your own importance or ability. Listen to everything if you are wise—I always do. I am an old and practised listener. And I have never listened in vain. All the information I have gained through listening, though apparently at first disconnected and unclassified, has fitted into my work like the stray pieces of a puzzle, and has proved eminently useful. Wherever I am I always keep my ears well open.”
With such views as he thus entertained, life was always enormously interesting to Dr. Dean—he found nothing tiresome, not even the conversation of the type known as Noodle. The Noodle was as curious a specimen of nature to him as the emu or the crocodile. And as he turned up his intellectual little physiognomy to the deep, warm Egyptian sky and inhaled the air sniffingly, as though it were a monster scent-bottle just uncorked for his special gratification, he smiled as he observed Muriel Chetwynd Lyle standing entirely alone at the end of the terrace, attired as a “Boulogne fish-wife,” and looking daggers after the hastily-retreating figure of a “White Hussar,”—no other than Ross Courtney.
“How extremely droll a ‘Boulogne fish-wife’ looks in Egypt,” commented the Doctor to his inward self. “Re-markable! The incongruity is peculiarly typical of the Chetwynd Lyles. The costume of the young woman is like the knighthood of her father,—droll, droll, very droll!” Aloud he said—“Why are you not dancing, Miss Muriel?”
“Oh, I don’t know—I’m tired,” she said, petulantly. “Besides, all the men are after that Ziska woman,—they seem to have lost their heads about her!”
“Ah!” and Dr. Dean rubbed his hands. “Yes—possibly! Well, she is certainly very beautiful.”
“I cannot see it!” and Muriel Chetwynd Lyle flushed with the inward rage which could not be spoken. “It’s the way she dresses more than her looks. Nobody knows who she is—but they do not seem to care about that. They are all raving like lunatics over her, and that man—that artist who arrived here to-day, Armand Gervase,—seems the maddest of the lot. Haven’t you noticed how often he has danced with her?”