"Ah—my automobile!" echoed the woman on a higher note, and laughed, with a flash of white teeth between carmined lips. "It pleased you?"
"Oh, yes, it is splendid!" the girl declared, in sincere praise. "It is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen."
"I enjoy it very much—that automobile!" said the other, again laughing, with a quick turn of her eyes toward the brother.
Negligently, rather caressingly, the young man murmured a few Turkish words. She shrugged and leaned back in her chair, the flash of animation gone. "And Cairo—that pleases you?" she asked of Arlee.
Stumbling a little in her French, but resolutely rushing over the difficulties, Arlee launched into the expression of how very much it pleased her. Everything was beautiful to her. The color, the sky, the mosques, the minarets, the Nile, the pyramids—they were all wonderful. And the view from the Great Pyramid—and then she stopped, wondering if that were not beyond her hostess's experience.
In confirmation of the thought the Turkish lady smiled, with an effect of disdain. "Ascend the pyramids—that is indeed too much for us," she said. "But nothing is too much for you Americans—no?"
Her curious glance traveled slowly from Arlee's flushed and lovely face, under the rose-crowned hat, down over the filmy white gown and white-gloved hands clasping an ivory card case, to the small, white-shod feet and silken ankles. Arlee did not resent the deliberate scrutiny; in coming to gaze she had been offering herself to be gazed upon, and she was conscious that the three of them presented a most piquant group in this dim and spacious old room of the East—the modern American girl, the cosmopolitan young officer in his vivid uniform, and this sequestered woman, of a period of transition where the kohl and henna of the odalisque contrasted with a coiffure and gown from Paris.
Slowly and disconnectedly the uninspiring conversation progressed. Once, when it appeared halted forever, Arlee cast a helpless look at the Captain and intercepted a sharp glance at his sister. Indeed, Arlee thought, that sister was not distinguishing herself by her grateful courtesy to this guest who was brightening the tristesse of her secluded day, but perhaps this was due to her Oriental languor or the limitations of their medium of speech.
It was a relief to have the Captain suggest music. At their polite insistence Arlee went to the piano and did her best with a piece of MacDowell. Then the sister took her turn, and to her surprise Arlee found herself listening to an exquisite interpretation of some of the most difficult of Brahms. The beringed and tinted fingers touched the notes with rare delicacy, and brought from the piano a quality so vivid and poignant in appeal that Arlee could dream that here the player's very life and heart were finding their real expression.
The last note fell softly into silence, and with her hands still on the keys the woman looked up over her shoulder at her brother, looked with an intentness oddly provocative and prolonged. And for the first time Arlee caught the quality of sudden and unforeseen attraction in her, and realized that this insolence of color, this flaunting hair and painted mouth might have their place in some scheme of allurement outside her own standards.... And then suddenly she felt queerly sorry for her, touched by the quick jarring bitterness of a chord the woman suddenly struck, drowning the laughing words the Captain had murmured to her.... Arlee felt vaguely indignant at him. No one wanted to have jokes tossed at her when she had just poured her heart out in music.