"Did you hit him?" asked Paul grimly.
"Yes; but I wish it had been a brick."
"So do I," replied Paul. "I shall not ask you for particulars, Flamby, but I shall take certain steps which will make London too hot to hold Mr. Orlando James." His restrained passion was electric and it acted upon Flamby in a curious way and seemed to set her heart singing.
When Martin returned to report that a cab waited, Paul walked out under the arch to the street and having placed Flamby in the cab, he held her hand for a moment and their glances met. "Dear little wild-haired Flamby," he said, and his voice had the same note of tenderness which she had heard in it once before and of which she had dreamed ever since. "Take care of yourself, little girl. You belong to the clean hills and the sweet green woods which I almost wish you had never left."
For long after the cab had passed around the corner Paul stood by the archway staring in that direction, but presently he aroused himself and returned to the courtyard. He tried the handle of James's door but learned that the bolt remained fastened, whereupon he determined to proceed to Thessaly's flat.
A definite change had taken place in the relations existing between himself and Flamby. For all her wildness and her reckless behaviour, that day she had appealed to him as something fragrantly innocent and bewilderingly sweet. The memory of the Charleswood photographs had assumed a different form, too, and he suddenly perceived possibilities of an explanation which should exculpate the girl from a graver sin than that of bravado. He had seen something in her eyes which had rendered such an explanation necessary, had found there something stainless as the heart of a wild rose. Devil-may-care was in her blood and he doubted if she knew the meaning of fear, but for evil he now sought in vain and wondered greatly because he had so misjudged her. He experienced a passionate desire to protect her, to enfold her in careful guardianship. He knew that he had not wanted to leave her at the gate of the studios, but he had only recognised this to be the case at the very moment of parting. He had never entertained an interest quite identical in anyone and he sought to assure himself that it was thus that a father thought of his child. He wondered if it had been her hair or her lips which had maddened Orlando James; he wondered why she had been in the studio; and a cold hatred of James took up a permanent place in his heart.
In the narrow thoroughfare connecting Victoria Street with that in which Thessaly's flat was situated were a number of curious shops devoted to the sale of church ornaments, altar candlesticks, lecterns, silk banners, cassocks and birettas, statuettes of the Virgin, crucifixes and rosaries. Paul stood before the window of one, reading the titles of the books which were also displayed there, Garden of the Soul, The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi. A phrase arose before him; he did not seem to hear it but to see it dancing in smoky characters which partially obscured a large ivory crucifix: "To shatter at a blow the structure of the ages." He recalled that Cardinal Pescara had used those words. His mood was unrestful and his brain was haunted by unaccountable memories, so that when he found himself in the shadow of the lofty campanile of Westminster Cathedral his spirit became translated to an obscure lane in Cairo. Faint organ notes reached his ears.
Thessaly received him in a little room having a balcony which overhung the street. Delicate ivory plaques decorated the walls and the fanciful curtains of Indian muslin hung like smoke of incense in the still air. There were some extraordinary pastels by Degas forming a kind of frieze. The evening was warm and the campanile upstood against a sky blue as a sapphire dome. The Cairo illusion persisted.
"Do you know, Thessaly," said Paul, "to-night I cannot help thinking of a scene I once witnessed in El Wasr. I formed one of a party of three and we were wandering aimlessly through those indescribable lanes. Pipes wailed in the darkness to an accompaniment of throbbing—throbbing of the eternal darâbukeh which is like the pulsing of evil life through the arteries of the secret city. Harsh woman-voices cried out in the night and bizarre figures flitted like bats from the lighted dance halls into the shadows of nameless houses. We came to a long, narrow street entirely devoted to those dungeon-like chambers with barred windows whose occupants represent all the classified races of the East and all the unclassified sins of the Marquis de Sade. Another street crossed it at right angles and at the cross roads was a mosque. The minaret stood up blackly against the midnight sky and as we turned the corner we perceived what appeared to be another of the 'cages' immediately facing the door of the mosque. Out of the turmoil of the one street we came into this other and leaving discord and evil behind us entered into silence and peace. We looked in at the barred window. Woman voices reached us faintly from the street we had left and the muted pulse of the darâbukeh pursued us. Upon a raised dais having candles set at his head and feet reposed a venerable sheikh, dead. His white beard flowed over his breast. He reclined in majestic sleep where the pipes were wailing the call of El Wasr, and the shadow of the minaret lay upon life and upon death. Is it not strange that this scene should recur to me to-night?"
"Strange and uncomplimentary," replied Thessaly. "Whilst I have no objection to your finding an analogy between my perfectly respectable neighbours and the women of the Wasr, the rôle of a defunct and saintly Arab does not appeal to me." Some reflection of the setting sun touched him where he stood and bathed him as in fire. The small tight curls of hair and beard became each a tongue of flame and his eyes glittered like molten gold. "Pardon my apparent rudeness, but I don't think you are listening."