The color that his eyes perceived was not the color which his stubborn memory persisted in reminding him was the actual hue of the events, and the color that he produced upon canvas was no kin to any of them. But it sufficed for an excuse, and he worked away, whistling cheerily, warily observant of the dark and silent façade of the old palace and alertly interested in the little groups his occupation transiently attracted. But these little groups were all of passers-by, shawl-venders, package-deliverers, beggars, veiled desert women with children astride their shoulders, and the live hens they were selling beneath their mantles, and these groups dissolved and drew away from him without his being able to attract any observation from the palace.
But at least, he thought doggedly, any girl behind those latticed windows up there could see him in the street, and if Arlee were there she would understand his presence and plan to get word down to him. But he began to feel extraordinarily foolish.
At length his patience was rewarded. The small door opened and the stalwart doorkeeper, in blue robes and yellow English shoes, marched pompously out to him and ordered him to be off.
Haughtily Billy responded that this was permitted, and displayed a self-prepared document, gorgeous with red seals, which made the man scowl, mutter, and shake his head and retire surlily to his door, and finding a black-veiled girl peering out of it at Billy, he thrust her violently within. But Billy had caught her eyes and tried to look all the significance into them of which he was capable.
Nothing, however, appeared to develop. The door remained closed, save for brief admissions of bread and market stuff from little boys on donkey-back or on a bicycle, all of whom were led willingly into conservation, but none of whom had been into the palace, and though Billy pressed as close to the door as possible when the boys knocked, he was only rewarded with a glimpse of the tiled vestibule and inner court.
To the irate doorkeeper he protested that he was yearning to paint a palace court, but though he held up gold pieces, the man ordered him away in fury and spoke menacingly of a stick for such fellows.
Now, however cool and fresh it was in the garden that Saturday, it was distinctly hot in the dusty street, and by noon, as Billy sat in the shade beside the palace door, eating the lunch he had brought and drinking out of a thermos bottle, he reflected that for a man to cook himself upon a camp stool, feigning to paint and observing an uneventful door, was the height of Matteawan. He despised himself—but he returned to the camp stool.
Nothing continued to happen.
Travelers were few. Occasionally a carriage passed; once a couple of young Englishmen on polo ponies galloped by; once a poor native came down the road, moving his harem—a donkey-cart load of black shrouded women, with three half-naked children bouncing on a long tailboard.
Several groups of veiled women on foot proceeded to the cemetery and back again.