CHAPTER V.

"_Oh, yet we trust that somehow good

Will be the final goal of ill_."

TENNYSON.

After the fight in the bazaar, the ducal party stayed for another

fortnight in Cairo, during which time Damaris saw as much of the place

and its surroundings as she could in fourteen days and a few hours out

of each of the fourteen nights; whilst her godmother played bridge or

poker, paid and received visits, took her to dances and parties, and

busied her fingers in the tangled threads Fate had tossed into her lap.

It was an understood thing that the girl should be ready to conduct the

old aristocrat to the dining-room at the dinner-hour and give her the

evening; other than that her time was her own, though, owing to her

innate courtesy and her love for her godmother, she never once absented

herself without having obtained permission.

"You are a positive tonic, child, in these perplexing days," remarked

her grace, when the girl had concluded the recital of the fight in the

bazaar. "Only, do remember to come straight to me if ever you get into

a real scrape."

And that night, the old lady, who had lost heavily at poker, fairly

snapped at Maria Hobson, who, tucking her up in bed, remarked, greatly

daring, upon the amount of liberty allowed the child.

"Don't be foolish, my good woman," she said, "and do for goodness' sake

mind your business of looking after me. Although my god-daughter may

bluff a bit for the fun of the game, and get let down a bit for her own

good, yet I shouldn't advise anyone to get seeing her too often. Fate

dealt her a royal straight flush in hearts, and better that you

can't--no! not even if you hold a full house of intrigue and bad intent

t'other end of Life's table."

"Humff!" replied the maid heavily through her nose, not having

understood one word of her mistress's admonition.

Each day at breakfast and at dinner a bunch, big or little, of simple

or hothouse flowers lay beside the girl's plate, without name or

message.

Now, the finding of flowers upon your table does not, in Egypt,

necessarily imply that the donor thereof is a son of the desert; the

maître d'hôtel has been known to do it out of deference to your rank or

purse; and only once had Jane Coop had the mixed pleasure of meeting

the deaf-mute Nubian who daily left the posies at the hotel.

Refreshed from her siesta, she had descended to the hall _via_ the

stairs instead of the lift, and bumped into the ebony-hued slave as he

bent to lay a sheaf of flowers upon the matting outside her mistress's

door.

He had straightened himself and salaamed almost to the ground--which

had delighted Jane Coop--and had offered the bunch to her.

"Oh, no, my man!" she had said, bridling, "you don't come over me that

way. Just you take that trash back to where it came from. My young

lady ain't that kind," and had shaken her fist in his face and flounced

downstairs to lay a complaint.

What with the militant maids, the parrot and the dog, the ducal party

was continually breaking out in some direction or another, but the

maître d'hôtel, who simply worshipped the old lady, merely smiled and

poured the oil of soothing words upon the troubled waters.

The girl had quite casually recounted the fight in the bazaar, and the

wise old woman had made no comment; but, all the same, next day she

indifferently asked a few questions of Lady Thistleton, who had a big

heart, narrow mind, an ever-wagging tongue and two daughters.

"Oh, that's the son of the Arab and the English girl. You must

remember the fuse there was in England over the runaway marriage--what

was her name?--how she could, you know----"

"Ah! yes. You must be talking of Jill Carden. I knew her very well.

Naughty girl, she refused the invitation I sent them asking them to

come to England and stay with me, and gave up writing to me after a

while. Does she live in Cairo?"

It seemed that Jill, the wife of the Sheikh el-Umbar, lived in the Flat

Oasis t'other side of the Canal, in Arabia proper, but, according to

current gossip, was at the moment upon a visit to her son at the House

'an Mahabbha, which had been built for the elder branch of the House

el-Umbar on a verdant patch watered by the springs, from the limestone

hills which stretch on the desert side of the Oasis of Khargegh.

"He's not in Cairo, then?"

"No; he left to-day," replied the gossip. "You see, his mother is

expected any time at his home, if she isn't already there. My maid

will chatter so, there's absolutely no stopping her. Funnily enough, I

arrived at the station as he was leaving in a special train. Such a

handsome man, educated in England, millionaire too. Of course it's a

case of a touch of the tarbrush--such a pity, too!"

The duchess suddenly shivered.

"Little Jill!" she said gently. "Little Jill! I must go and see her

if she will let me. Ah! General, what about a hand at écarté before

dinner?"--and she rose with a stormy rustling of her softly-scented

silks, leaving the gossip wondering in what way she had put her foot in

it.

That night, as she lay like a little brown mouse under the

mosquito-net, watching the stars through the open window, the old lady

suddenly decided to bestir herself.

"It's too risky! She's too beautiful, too young and unsophisticated,"

she murmured as she lit a cigarette under the curtains, which is

strictly against the rules. "I'd bet my last _piastre_ that Jill

Carden's son's all right, but, all the same, one has to reckon with the

glamour of the East. Love's all very well in a cool climate, but it's

the dickens out here. Must get her anchored in safe waters. What

d'you think, Dekko old friend? What course shall I set? Shall we go

home, or to Heliopolis?"

The bird scrambled awkwardly on to the dressing-table.

"Well, old man, how about it?"

"Steer a straight course for hell, old dear," came the muffled reply,

as the bird twisted its head under its wing, then untucked it to murmur

sleepily: "T'hell!"

So she made up her mind to move on the very day after the girl's

birthday, which fell in a fortnights time. She would, indeed, have

left at once if it had not been that she had issued invitations on a

gigantic scale for a fancy-dress ball in honour of the anniversary.

Inwardly Damaris rebelled at the suggestion of moving on to Heliopolis;

outwardly she acquiesced without enthusiasm.

"But if it will do that nasty little cough good, dearest, why wait for

the ball?"

"Do you want to go, Maris?"

"The desert will be so near," evaded the girl. "Half-an-hour's ride at

the most, so--so Ben Kelham told me, and there you see the desert,

miles upon miles of it stretching right away like the sea."

The hawk-eyes flashed across the girl's face, taking in the forced

indifference of the expression and the light which gleamed far down in

the eyes.

"I had a letter from Ben this morning. His lung has been troubling

him; that is why he hasn't been over."

"Did you--has it--is it--?" rather lamely replied the girl.

He had written Damaris a perfunctory note of welcome to the Land of the

Pharaohs; then, a week later, had come over to dine. He had ached to

take his beautiful little chum up in his arms and shake her for her

haughtiness and by sheer strength of arms and will force her to say

"yes" to the question which it took him all his strength not to ask.

Since childhood he had been her slave, her door-mat, and the butt of

her various moods, feeling infinitely well rewarded by a careless smile

or word; so that he found it difficult, in fact well-nigh impossible,

to act up to her grace's plans and suddenly transpose himself into the

strong, silent man.

The girl, spoilt and accustomed to slavish devotion and used to his

worship, felt incensed, then hurt, and finally perplexed, and, to hide

it all, retired therewith into a shell of icy reserve.

He had adored her openly, and now, seemingly, looked upon her as just

one of the crowd of women in the hotel; she had taken his adoration for

granted and as a right, to waken one morning to find the gem she had

tossed in amongst the rubbish of her little experiences, gone!

Is there a greater mistake in the world than that of looking upon love

as an ordinary possession, instead of as a rare jewel?

They were both very young, so that they suffered the agonies of doubt

and uncertainty, whilst the worldly-wise old dame smiled up her sleeve.

From the hour of the early cup of tea until breakfast-time on the

morning of the ball, which was also the girl's birthday morning,

tarbusched, impudent young monkeys of messenger boys, bearing gifts and

flowers, arrived in a stream at the hotel.

Flowers in pots and vases and bunches lay everywhere in the suite;

shawls of many colours, silken veils, slippers, albums of views of

Egypt, rare antiques (made mostly in Birmingham), one mummied cat

(genuine), scarabs (suspicious), and one live gazelle littered the

place.

Ben Kelham had bought her a finger-napkin ring of dull gold; through it

he had forced some flowers, and sent it along.

She held it tight in her hand for a moment, then deliberately and

ostentatiously laid it amongst the clutter on the table, whilst her

grace peeped from behind the newspaper which she was reading in bed.

Arrived at the table in the breakfast-room, the girl suddenly flushed

pink and then went quite white.

Right in the centre, flanked on one side by the glass dish of glowing

fruit and the other by a cut-glass jar of Keiller's marmalade, stood a

cage tied at the top with silver ribbon and containing two cooing doves.

The doves were just ordinary ones, but their prison was no ordinary

cage. Fair-sized and square, it was made of fine white bars of ivory.

The underside was also ivory, square and unblemished, and would have

made an ideal hairpin-tray; it stood upon ebony feet inlaid with

infinitesimal precious stones.

"It has but just arrived, Miss Hethencourt," said the maître d'hôtel,

who had been fluttering around upon the tiptoe of a most unusual

curiosity. "There is no name, no message."

"Please send it to my room," she replied indifferently, whilst, for

some unaccountable reason, her heart throbbed as she responded to the

birthday greetings which came from every corner of the room.