The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne Part 33

I contested the proposition. The irony of this peculiarly painful revel lay in the air of gaiety it seemed necessary to maintain. A miserable business is civilisation!

"Did you ever hear of a woman getting youth out of such a bargain?" she retorted with some vehemence.

"As women systematically underpay cabmen," said I, "so do they try to underpay the devil; and he is one too many for them."

"I am afraid," said Pasquale, "that the old days of shrewd bargains are over. There is a glut in the soul-market and they only fetch the price of old bones."

"He is talking foolish things that I do not understand," said Carlotta, putting her hand on my arm.

"It is called sham cynicism, my dear," said I, "and we all ought to be ashamed of ourselves."

"What do you like best to talk about?" Judith asked sweetly.

"Myself. And so does everybody," replied Carlotta.

We laughed, and for a time talk ceased to be allusive. But later, over our coffee, while the band was playing loudly some new American march, and Carlotta and Pasquale were laughing together, Judith drew near me.

"You did not answer my question about those two, Marcus."

My fingers trembled as I lit a fresh cigarette.

"He is not a man to whom any woman's destiny should be entrusted."

"And is she a woman on whom a man should stake his life's happiness?"

"G.o.d knows," said I, setting my teeth.

It was not an enjoyable dinner-party. I longed for the evening to be over, to have Carlotta safe back with me at home. I felt a curious dread of the Empire.

We arrived there towards the end of the first ballet. Carlotta, as soon as she had taken her seat, leaned both elbows on the front of the box and surrendered her senses to the stage. Pasquale talked to Judith.

Wis.h.i.+ng for a few moments alone I left the box and sauntered moodily along the promenade behind the First Circle. The occupants were either leaning over the part.i.tions and watching the spectacle or sitting with drink before them at the little marble tables at the back. The gaudy, gilded, tobacco-smoke and humanity-filled theatre seemed to be unreal, the stage but a phantom cloud effect. I wondered why I, a creature from the concrete world, was there. I had an insane impulse to fly from it all, to go out into the streets, and wander, wander for ever, away from the world. I was walking along the promenade, lost in this lunacy, when I stumbled against a fellow-promenader and the shock brought me to my senses. It was an elderly, obese Oriental wearing a red fez. He had a long nose and small, crafty eyes, and was deeply pitted with smallpox.

I made profuse apologies and he accepted them with suavity. It then occurring to me that I was he having in a discourteous and abjectly absurd manner, I made my way back to the box. I drew a chair to Judith's side.

"You are giving me a captivating evening," she said, with a smile.

"Whom are you captivating?" I asked, idly jesting. "Pasquale?"

"You are cruel," whispered Judith, with a flicker of her eyelids.

I flushed, ashamed, not having weighed the significance of my words.

All I could say was: "I beg your pardon," whereat Judith laughed mirthlessly. I relapsed into silence. Turn followed turn on the stage.

While the curtain was lowered Carlotta sank back with a little sigh of enjoyment, and nodded brightly at me.

"Do you remember," she said, turning to me, at a fresh fall of the curtain, "when you brought me first? I said I should like to live here.

Wasn't I silly?"

She turned again, then suddenly rose to her feet and staggered back to the back of the box, pointing outward, with an expression of wild terror on her face.

"Hamdi--he's down there--he saw me."

I sprang to her a.s.sistance and put my arm around her.

"Nonsense, dear," said I.

But Pasquale, looking around the house, cried:

"By Jove! she's right. I would recognise the old villain a thousand years hence in Tartarus. There he is."

I left Carlotta, and the first person my eyes rested upon in the stalls was my obese but suave Oriental, regarding the box with an impa.s.sive countenance.

"That's Hamdi Effendi, all right," said Pasquale.

Carlotta clutched my arms as I joined her at the back of the box.

"Oh, take me away, Seer Marcous, take me away," she moaned piteously. My poor child was white and shaken with fear. I again put my arm round her.

"No harm can happen to you, dear," I said, soothingly.

"Oh, darling Seer Marcous, take me home," cried Carlotta.

"Very well," said I. I helped her on with her wrap, and apologising to the two others, begged them to remain.

"We'll all go together," said Judith quietly.

"And form a body-guard," laughed Pasquale.

Carlotta clinging to my arm we left the box and slipped through the promenade and down the stairs.

Hamdi Effendi, having antic.i.p.ated our intention, cut off our retreat in the vestibule. Carlotta shrank nearer to me.

"I beg your pardon, Monsieur, but may I have the pleasure of a few words with you about this young lady?" said he in the urbanest manner and the most execrable French.

"I hardly see the necessity," said I.

"Pardon me, but this young lady is a Turkish subject and my daughter.

My name is Hamdi Effendi, Prefect of Police at Aleppo, and my address in London is the Hotel Metropole."

"I am charmed to make your acquaintance," said I. "I have often heard of you from Mademoiselle--but I believe both her father and mother were English, so she is neither your daughter nor a Turkish subject."

"Ah, that we will see," rejoined the polite Oriental. He addressed some words rapidly in Turkish to Carlotta, who shudderingly replied in the same language.

"Mademoiselle unfortunately does not consent to accompany me," he interpreted with a smile. "So I am afraid I will have to take her back without her consent."

"If you do, Hamdi Effendi," said Pasquale in a light tone of conversation, but with the ugliest snarl of the lips that I have ever beheld, "I shall most certainly kill you."

Hamdi turned to him with a polite bow.

"Ah, it is Monsieur Pasquale. I thought I recognised you."