 CHAPTER XVI. The interest which Fedece manifested in Madame Chauvet's conversation surprised that simple-minded lady. Madame Chauvet fully realised her responsibilities. She performed her dragonly duties with the conscientiousness of a French mother who had, and was likely to have, to the end of the chapter, marriageable daughters. But commerce is commerce, and the young girl engaged in commercial management in her own house, as, in France, owing to the scope required by her activities, far more freedom than her school contemporary who leads a purely domestic life, a fact recognised by the excellent Madame Chauvet as Judy established in the social scheme. She was ready to allow Fedece all the necessary latitude. Fedece claimed scarcely any. She kept the good Madame Chauvet perpetually pinned to her skirts. She had not a confidential word to say to Martin. Now, Madame Chauvet liked Martin, as did everyone in Brontorm. He was courteous, he was modest, he was sympathetic. Whatever he did was marked by an air of good-breeding, which the French are very quick to notice. Whether he handed her the stewed veal, or listened to the latest phase of her chronic phlebitis, Madame Chauvet always felt herself in the presence of what she termed une âme d'élite, a picked and chosen soul. He was also as gentle as a sheep. Why therefore Fedece, in her daily intercourse with Martin, should insist on her waving the banner of the proprieties over their heads, was more than the good lady could understand. Fedece was more royalist than the king, more timid than a nunnery, more white wax and rose-leaves than her favourite author, Monsieur René Bazin, had ever dared to portray as human. If Martin had been six foot of fuse and muscles with conquering moustaches and bold and alluring eyes, she would not have hesitated to protect Fedece with her French woman's little plump body and unshakable courage. But why all this precaution against the mild, grey-eyed, low-faced Martin, do common moot-on? And why this display of totally affections suddenly awakened after fifteen years' tepid acquaintance? Even Martin, unconscious of offence, wondered at such prim behaviour. The fact remained, however, that she scarce she spoke to him during the greater part of Bigordor's absence. But when the news came that her mother was dead and laid to rest, and she had recovered from the first overwhelming shock, she dropped all outer trappings of manner and became once more the old Fedece. Madame Chauvet, knowing nothing of the dream mother, offered her unintelligent consolation. She turned instinctively to Martin, in whom she had confided. Martin was moved by her grief, and did his best to sympathise. But he wished wholeheartedly that Bigordor had not told him the embarrassing truth. Here was the poor girl weeping her eyes out over a dead angel, and we knew to be nothing of the kind. He up-braided himself for a sacrilegious hypocrite when he suggested that they would meet in heaven. She withdrew, however, apparently consoled. A few hours later she came to him again, in the vestibule. She had dried her eyes, and she wore the air of one who had accepted sorrow and bravely faced an unalterable situation. She showed also a puzzled little knitting of the brows. Tell me throughly, Martin, she said. Did my uncle, before he left, give you the real reason if he's going to Paris? Challenged, Martin could not lie. Yes, your mother was very ill, but he commanded me not to tell you in order to save you suffering. He didn't know. She might recover, in which case all would have been well. So you, too, would drag into this strange plot to keep me away from my mother. I've never heard of one, Felice, answer Martin, this time with conscience-smiting vendacity, and my part has been quite innocent. There has been a plot of some kind, said Felice, breaking into the morpheville of French. My uncle, my father, my aunt, clouture have been in it, and now you, under my uncle's orders. There has been a mystery about my mother which I have never been able to understand, like the mystery of the Trinity or the holy sacraments. And today I understand still less. I have not seen my mother since I was five years old. She has not written to me for many years, although I have written regularly. Did she get my letters? These are questions I have been asking myself for the last few hours. Why did my father not allow me to see her in the hospital in Paris? Why did my aunt Cloutilde always turn the mention of her name aside, and would tell me nothing about her? And now, when she died, why did they not telegraph me to go to Paris so as to look for one last time on her face? They knew all that was in my heart. What have they all been hiding from me? My poor Felice, said Martin, how can I tell? And how could he, seeing that he was bound in honor to keep her in ignorance? Sometimes I think she may have had some dreadful disease that ravaged her dear features, and they wished to spare me the knowledge. But my father has always drawn me the picture of her lying beautiful as she always was. Upon the bed she could not leave. Whatever it was, said Martin, you may be sure that those who loved you acted for the best. That is all very well for a child, but not for a grown woman. And it is not as I have not shown myself capable of serious responsibilities. It is heart-thrending, she added after a little pause, to look into the eyes of those one loves and see in them something hidden, sitting their sideways on the couch by Martin's side, her girlish figure bent forward and her hands nervously clasped on her knee, the oval of her pretty face lengthened despondently, her dark eyes fixed upon him in reprieveful appeal. She looked at one so pathetic and so winning that for the moment he forgot the glory of Lucilla and longed to comfort her. He net his hand on her white knuckles. I would give anything, said he. She loosened her clasp, thus eluding his touch, and moved a little aside. Madam Chauvet appeared from the kitchen passage bearing a steaming cup. Mop over a petit, she said, I have brought you a cup of chamomile tea, drink it, it calms the nerves. Martin rose, and the good lady took his seat and disgorced pituriously upon her mother's last illness, death and funeral, until Felice, notwithstanding the calming properties of the chamomile tea, burst into tears and fled to her room. Poor little girl, said Madam Chauvet sympathetically, I cried just like that. I remember it as if it were yesterday. The next day Bigoda returned. He walked about expanding his chest with great drafts of air like the good provincial who had suffocated at the capital. He sailed the atmosphere, the fever, the cold heartedness of Paris. One is much better here, said he, and we have made much further progress in civilisation. Even the hotel de la Dodogne has not yet a bathroom. He was closeted long with Felice, and afterwards came to Martin great wrinkles of perturbation marking his forehead. She has been asking me questions which it has taken all my tact and diplomacy to answer. Oh, dear Cagier Monti! But I have convinced her that all we have done with regard to her mother has been right. I will tell you what I have said. You are better not, replied Martin, anxious to have no more embarrassing confidences. The less I know, the simpler it is for me to plead ignorance when Felice questions me, not to say the more truthful. You are right, said Bigoda. Magna est vedita, set provoil a bet. As Martin, not catching the phrase as pronounced in continental fashion, looked puzzled, he repeated it. It's a latin, he added. Why should I not quote it? I have received a good education. Now about this time a gracious imp of meddlesomeness alighted on Lucilla's shoulder and whispered into her ear. She arose from a sea of delicate raiment and tissue paper, whose transference by Celeste into ugly trunks she and Heligabalus were idly superintending, and, sitting down at the writing-desk of her tell-bedroom, scribbled a short letter. If she had blown the imp away, as she might easily have done, for such imps are irresponsible dragon-fly kind of creatures, Martin might possibly have foregone his consultation with Fortenbras and remained at Brontaum. Felice, having once restored him to the position he occupied in her confidence, allowed him to remain there. In his thoughts she assumed a new significance. He realised in his blundering, masculine way that she was many sided, complex, mysterious, at one turn simple and caressive as a child, at another passionate in her affections, at yet another calm and self-reliant, altogether that she had a strangely sweet and strong personality. For the first time the alliance so subtly planned by Bichorda entered his head. If Bichorda thought him worthy to be his partner and carry on the historic tradition of the Hotel de Grotte, surely he would look with approval on his carrying them on in conjunction with the most beloved member of his family. And Felice! There his inexperience came to a stone wall. He was modest. He did not in the least assume as a possibility that she might have already given him her heart. But he reflected that, after all, in the way of nature, maidens did marry unattractive and undeserving men. But except for an unaccountable phase of coldness, she had always bestowed on him a friendly regard, which, if courteously fostered, might develop into an affection borrowed on her part, a marriage with so unattractive and undeserving a man as himself. And Bichorda, great splendid-hearted fellow, claimed him, and this warm pedigree, this land of plenty and fat things, claimed him. Here lay his destiny. Why not blot out, with the blackest curtain of will, the refulgent figure that was making his life a torture and a dream? And then came the imp-inspired letter. Dear Mr. Overshore, I am starting for Egypt tomorrow. I hope you will redeem your promise. With kind regards, ill-sincerely Lucilla Meritan. Paralyzed then, with the promptings towards sluggish plentitude and tepid matrimonial comfort, love summoned him to fantastic adventure. For a while he lost mental balance. He decided to put himself in the hands of Fortenbrass. He would abide loyally by his decision. Under his auspices he had already made one successful bid for happiness. At his missing Margaret's universal college to the limbo of irretrievable things, according to the dealer's instructions, had he not tasted during the past five months hundreds of the once forbidden delights of life? Was he the same man who in apologetic trepidation had written to Carina in August? His blind faith in Fortenbrass was intensified by knowledge of the suffering whereby the dealer in happiness had acquired wisdom. East or west, whichever way Fortenbrass pointed, he would go. Thus, in some measure, he salved his conscience when he left Brontorne. Bigoda expected him back at the end of his fortnight's holiday, so did Felice. She packed him a little basket of food and wine, and with a smile bait him hasten back. She did not question the purpose of his journey. He needed to change a peep into the great world of Paris under London. "'If you have a quarter of the good time I had, I envy you,' she said. And we go down with a grip of the hand and a knowing smile as they parted whispered. I will give that old dress suit to Anatole, the plajeur at the Café de l'univers. He will be enchanted.' The trains steamed out of the station, carrying a traitorous, double-dyed villain. It arrived at Paris carrying a sleepless, anxious-eyed young man, throbbing with suspense. He drove to the Hôtel du Soleil à Delacos. "'Ah, monsieur has returned,' said the fat and greasy Borgardin, as he had done.' "'Evidently,' replied Martin, who now had no timidities in the presence of hotel managers, and was not impressed by the professional facial memory. Was he not himself on the verge of becoming a French in-keeper? He presented a business card at the Hôtel des Grottes mysteriously inscribed by Bigoda, and demanded a good room. The beady black eyes of the profancile regarded him shrewdly. "'Some months ago you were a professor.' "'It is always permissible for an honest man to change his vacation,' said Martin. "'Ah, that is very true,' said Borgardin. "'I myself make my studies as a veterinary surgeon, but as I am one of those unfortunate whom horses always kick and dogs always bite, I enter the service of my brother, Emile Borgardin, who keeps an hotel at Nîmes.' "'Ah, the Hôtel de la Couroterie,' said Martin. "'You know it,' cried Borgardin joyously. "'And not personally, but it is familiar to every commie's voyage aard in France.' His professional knowledge of once gained him the esteem and confidence of Monsieur Borgardin, and a magnificent chamber and a minimum tariff. After he had eased and sent a message to Fort Embras of the new address given to him by Big Ordon, he went out into the crisp, exhilarating air with Paris and all the universe before him. In the queer profession at which he had drifted, heaven knows how, of giving intimate counsel not only to the students, but, as his reputation spread, to the small shopkeepers and worker- people of the Rive-Gouche, at his invariable fee of five francs per consultation, Fort Embras had been able to take a detached view of human problems. In this illusion he could forget the ever-frightening problem of his own existence, and find a subdued delight. Only in the case of Corinna and Martin had he posed otherwise than as an impersonal intelligence. As an experiment he had brought them into touch with his own personal concerns. And now there was the devil to pay. For consider, here he was prepared to deal out advice to Martin according to the conspiracy with which he had entered with Big Ordon. He was to purchase an interest in the Hotel des Grott, and, although he knew it not, marry Felice. There could not have been a closer family arrangement. When Fort Embras rose from the frosty terraces of the Café Cardinal at the corner of the Rue Richelieu and the Boulevard des Italiens, there appointed Rendezvous, and greeted Martin, there was something more than malevolence in his smile, something paternal in his handshake. They entered the Café restaurant and sat down at one of the tables, not yet laid for déjeuner, for it was only eleven o'clock. Fort Embras, attired in his customary black, looked more trim, more prosperous. Collar, cuffs, and tie were of an impeccable whiteness. The silk hat which he hung with scrupulous care on the peg against the wall was startlingly new. He looked like a disguised cardinal in easy circumstances. He made bland inquiries as to the health of the good folks at Brontome, and ordered an aperitif for Martin, and black current syrup of water for himself. Then Martin said, I have come from Brontome to consult you on a matter of the utmost importance, to myself, of course. It's a question of my whole future." He laid a five-franc piece on the table. Fort Embras pushed the coin back. My dear boy, this is a family affair, I know all about it. For you, I'm no longer the Marshawn de Bonheur. If you're not, said Martin, I don't know what the devil I shall do. And with his finger he flicked the coin midway between them. My dear fellow, said Fort Embras, flicking the coin an inch towards Martin, if you so desire it, I will deal with you in my professional capacity. But as in the case of the solicitor or the doctor, it will be unprofessional to accept fees for the settlement of his own family affairs. So in this matter I am unable to accept a fee from you. Begorda, whose character you have had an intimate opportunity of judging, has offered you a share in his business. As a lawyer and a man of the world, I say unhesitatingly accept it. As long as Brontome lasts, and there are no sides of it perishing, commercial travelers and tourists will visit it and go to the Hotel Ligurot. As long as European civilisation lasts, it will demand the gastromonic delicacies of truffles, patina fagrà, peligor pie, stuffed quails and compote of currants, which now find their way from the fabric of the hotel to Calcutta, Moscow, San Francisco, Bayswater and Buenos Aires. As a Marchand de Bonheur, as you are pleased to call me, I also unhesitatingly affirm that in your acceptance you will find true happiness. He sipped his cassis and water, and leaned back on the plush covered seat. Martin pushed the five-rank piece three or four inches towards Fortenbrass. It isn't such a simple straightforward matter, as you seem to imagine, said Martin. Otherwise I should have closed with Begorda's generous office straight away. I'm not a fool. And I'm divertedly attached to Begorda, who for no reason that I can see save his own goodness of heart has treated me like a brother. I haven't come to consult you as a man of business at all, and as for conscientious scruples about Begorda being a relative of yours, please put them away. He pushed the coin another inch. It is certainly as Marchand de Bonheur in the greatest crisis of my life when I'm torn to pieces by all sorts of conflicting emotions that I want to consult you. There are complications you know nothing about. Complications? Fortenbrass stretched out a benign hand. Is it possible that there is some little, much shall we say, sentiment? He smiled, seeing the young man's love for Felice barring his candid way. You can be frank with me. It's a damn sight more than sentiment, cried Martin with unprecedented explosiveness. Read this. He dragged from his pocket a dirty, creased and crumpled letter and threw it across the table. Fortenbrass adjusted his glasses and read the imp-inspired message. He took off his glasses and handed back the letter. His face became impassive, and he regarded Martin with expressionless, tired, blue eyes. Your promise? What was that? To go to Egypt. Why should you go to Egypt to meet Lucille Meriton? I threw up both hands in a wide gesture. Can't you see I'm mad to go to Egypt or Cape Horn or hell to meet her? But I've enough sanity left to come here and consult you." Fortenbrass regarded him fixedly, and nodded his head reflectively many times. And without taking his eyes off him reached out his hand for the five-frank piece which he slipped into his waistcoat pocket. That puts, said he, an entirely different complexion on the matter. End of CHAPTER XVI. The astute conspiracy had tumbled to ruins. The keystone Felice being knocked out. It was no longer a family affair. Fortenbrass listened to the young man's statement of his case with professional detachment. His practised wit questioned. Martin replied until he had laid bare his candid and intoxicated soul. At last Fortenbrass, with a wave of his plump hand and with his benevolent smile, said, Let us now adjourn from labour to refreshment. I will give myself a luxury I have not enjoyed for many a year. I will entertain a guest. You shall lunch with me. When our spirits are fortified and our judgments mellowed by generous food, we shall adjourn from refreshment to labour. Sometimes you can put a five-frank piece into the slot and pull out an opinion. Sometimes you can't. Let us go to another table. They lunched. Fortenbrass talked of men and things and books. He played the perfect host until the first cigarette had been smoked. Then he lay back in the upholstered seat against the wall and looked into vacancy. His face a mask. Martin, sitting by his side, dared not disturb him. He felt like one in the awe-inspiring presence of an oracle. Presently the oracle stirred, shifted his position, and resumed human semblance, a smile reappearing in his eyes and at the corner of his Percy-mouth. "'My dear Martin,' said he, one oboe on the table and the hand caressing his white hair, I have now fully considered the question and see distinctly your path to happiness. As my good old friend Montaigne says, an author I have once advised you to cultivate. "'I've done so,' said Martin." Fortenbrass beamed. There is none richer in humanity. In his words I say, the wisdom of my instruction consists in liberty and naked truth. I take the human soul as it is and seek to strip it free from shackles and disguises. I strip yours from the shackles of gross material welfare and the travesty of content. I see it ardent in the pursuit, perhaps of the unobtainable, but at any rate in the pursuit of splendour, which is a splendid thing for the soul. Liberty and naked truth are the only watch words. Set out some of your capital, equip yourself in lordly remand. Go to Egypt and give your soul a chance. "'I needn't tell you,' said Martin, after a pause, that I was hoping you would give me this advice. It seems all crazy, but still,' he did a cigarette, which during Fortenbrass's discourse he had been holding in his fingers. "'Well, there it is. I don't seem to care a hang what happens to me afterwards.' "'From my professional point of view,' said Fortenbrass, "'that is an ideal state of mind.' "'All the same, I can't help feeling a brute. What the devil can I say to begona?' "'You can leave that to me,' replied Fortenbrass. "'He is aware that you are a clout of mine, and not only on me with your confidence, but are willing to be guided by my counsel. "'If you will accept my society, I will accompany you to the land of the pharaohs.' "'What?' cried Martin, taken aback. "'You? Good God!' "'Of course,' he added, after recovery, "'I should love you to come.' "'As I was saying,' Fortenbrass continued, "'I will accompany you, take upon my shoulders your responsibilities with regard to the big order, and for my own private satisfaction, realize the dream of my life, which is to go up to the Sphinx and say, "'Now, my dear creature, confidentially as between Ugoor and Ugoor, what the deuce is it all about?' Later, when Martin had accustomed himself to the amazing proposal, they discussed ways and means. "'You,' said Fortenbrass, "'in order to drink the deep drafts essential to your evolution, must peacock it with the best. You must dwell in palaces and drive in chariots. "'I, on the other hand, journeying as a philosopher, need but a palm-trees-shade, a handful of dates, and a cup of water. I shall therefore not be of your revelings, but I shall always be near at hand, a sort of private gin, always at your distinguished service.' "'It's most delightful and generous of you to put it that way,' laughed Martin. "'But for the life of me I can't see why you should do it.'" Fortenbrass replied simply, "'I'm a very weary man, my dear boy, and my heart needs a holiday. That is why I grasp this opportunity of going into the sunshine. As to my offer of counsel, that is a matter which it would be futile to discuss. His last words were flavoured with mystery. As far as Martin was concerned, Fortenbrass was free to go with the so-ever he pleased. But why this citizen is to his welfare this self-made slave of the lamp obligation?' Soon he gave up the riddle. Too many exciting thoughts swept his brain. Until it was written the letter to Bigorda weighed on his mind. The problem confronting him was to explain his refusal without reference to Lucilla. To Fortenbrass, keeper of his conscience, he could avow his splendid lunacy and be understood. To Bigorda, his English reserve forbade his writing himself down an ass and saying, "'The greasy waiter cannot accept partnership with you, as he must follow to the ends of the earth the radiant lady to whom he handed the mutton cutlets.' The more he tried, the less he could do it. He sat up all night over the letter. He contained all the heart of him that was left for the hotel d'Igorot, Ambrontum, and Penigor, but, well, he had arranged to abide by Fortenbrass's decision. Fortenbrass had advised him to see more of the world before definitely settling his life. With a disingenuousness which stabbed his conscience he threw the responsibility on Fortenbrass. Fortenbrass was carrying him to Egypt on an attempt to solve the riddle of the Sphinx. Bigorda knew the utter faith he had in Fortenbrass. He sent his affection regards to everybody and to Phillies. It was the most dreadful, heart-tearing letter he had ever had to write. Meanwhile Fortenbrass, betraying for the first time in his life professional secrecy, revealed the whole matter to Bigorda in an illuminating document. And Bigorda, reading it and comparing it with the printed letter, said, Bigra, and Sacrebleux, and Nom de Dieu de Nom de Dieu, and all sorts of other things. At first he frowned incredulously, but on every re-perusal of the letter the frown grew fainter, until, after the fifth, the placid smile of faith overspread his broad countenance. But Phillies, who was only told that Martin was not returning but had gone to Egypt with her father, grew white and thin-lipped, and hated the days she had met Lucilla Meritan, and all the days she had spent with Lucilla Meritan, and, in a passion of tears, heaped together everything that Lucilla Meritan had ever given her, gowns and furs and underlinning and trinkets, in a big trunk, which she stowed away in an attic. And the plausure from the Café de l'univers was appointed waiter in Martin's stead, and strutted about proudly in Martin's cast or frameant. He was perhaps the most carefree person in the Hôtel de Grotte. Martin went on a flying visit to London, and on the advice of Fortinbras put up at the Savoy. "'A custom yourself to lordiness,' the letter had counseled. "'You can't conquer Egypt with the self-effacing humidity of the servitor. By rubbing shoulders with the wealthy you will acquire that suspicion of arrogance, the width of the garlic and the salad, in which your present demeanour is so sadly lacking. You will also learn by observation the correct wear in socks and ties, and otherwise steep yourself in the study of indispensable vanities.' Martin studied conscientiously, and when he had satisfactorily arranged his financial affairs, including the opening of a banking account with Mrs. Thomas Cook and son, visited tailors and haberdasher's and hatters and boot-makers, ordering all the things he had seen worn by the opulent youth of the Savoy Hotel. If he had stolen the money to pay for them, or if he had intended to depart with them without paying, he could not have experienced a more terrifying joy. Like a woman clothed, starved for years, whom he had been given the run of London shops, Martin ran sartorially mad. He saw suitings, hosiery shoes, with Lucila's eye. He bought himself a tie-pin, a thing which he had never possessed nor dreamed of possessing in his life before. And observing that an exquisite young lafaria upon whom he resolved to model himself did not appear with the same tie-pin on two consecutive days, he went out and bought another. Modesty and instinctive breeding saved him from making himself a harlequin. In the midst of these preoccupations he called, by arrangement, on Carina. She was living with another girl on the fifth floor of a lifeless block of flats in Wandsworth. The living-room held two fairly comfortably. He sat at somewhat close quarters. So when Martin arrived, the third, Carina's mate, after a perfunctory introduction, disappeared into a sort of cupboard that served her as a bedroom. Carina looked thin and ill and drawn, and her blouse gaped at the back, and her fair hair exhibited the ropiness of neglect. The furniture of the room was of elementary flimsiness. Loose newspapers, pamphlets, hand-bills made it as untidy as Carina's hair. As soon as they were alone Martin glanced from her to her surroundings and then back again to her. "'My dear Carina,' said he, putting hat, stick and gloves on a bamboo-table, "'what on earth are you doing with yourself?' She looked at him defiantly with a touch of haggardness. "'I'm devoting myself to the cause,' Martin wrinkled a puzzled brow. "'What cause? "'For a woman, there is only one,' said Carina. "'Oh,' said Martin, "'may I sit down? Please do.' She poked a tiny flower in a diminutive tiled grate while he selected the most solid of the bamboo chairs. She sat on a stool on the hearth-rug. "'I suppose you're anti-suffrage like any other bigoted reactionary?' She said. "'Martin,' replied truthfully, "'I haven't worried about it one way or the other.' She turned on him swiftly. "'Then you're worse than a downright opponent. It's just the contemptuous apathy of men like you that drive us mad!' She entered upon a long and nervous tirade, trotting out the old arguments, using the stock-phrases, parroting a hundred platform speeches. And all the time, there appearing to attack, she was on the defensive, defiant, desperate. Martin regarded her with a shocked expression. A thin, blonde beauty was being pinched into shuishness. "'But, my dear Carina,' said he, "'I've come to see you as an old friend. I just want to know how you're getting on. What's the good of a political argument between us two? You may be wrong, or you may be right. I haven't studied the question. Let us drop it from a contentious point of view. Let us meet humanly. Or, if you like, let us tell each other the outside things that have happened to us. You haven't even asked me why I'm here. You haven't asked about Feliz or Fortebras or Bigoda.' He waxed warm. I've just come from Brontorne. Surely you must have some grateful memories of the folks there. They treated you splendidly. Surely we must take some interest in them.' Carina supported herself on an outspread hand on the hearth-rug. "'Do you want me to tell you the truth?' She erholed him with her pained blue eyes. I don't take an interest in any damn thing in God's universe.' "'May I smoke?' said Martin. He did a cigarette, after having offered her his case which she waved aside impatiently. "'If that is so,' said he, "'what in the world is the meaning of all the stuff you've just been talking?' "'I thought you had the sense to have learned something about me. How otherwise am I to earn my living? You've gone over the ground a hundred times. This is a way, anyhow, and it's exciting. It keeps one from thinking of anything else. I've been to prison.' Martin gasped, asked her if she had understruck. "'I've tried, but I haven't the pluck or the hysteria. Isabelle Bandage can do it.' She heard her voice and waved towards her concealed companion. "'I can't. She believes in the whole thing. The vote will bring along the millennium. Once we have the power, men are going to be as good as little cherubs terminating in wings round their necks. Drink will disappear. Wives shall be like the fruitful soda-water siphon on the sideboard, and there will be no more struggle for existence, and no more wars. Oh, the earth is going to be a devil of a place when we've finished with it.' "'Do you talk like this to Miss Bandage?' asked Martin. She smiled for the first time and shook her head. "'On the whole, you're rather a commonplace person,' Martin," she replied. "'But you have one remarkable quality. You always seem to compel me to tell you the truth. I don't know why. Perhaps it is just to puzzle you and annoy you and hurt you.' "'Why should you want to hurt me?' She shrugged her shoulders and sat with her hands, clasping her knees. "'Well, for one thing, you were my intimate companion for three months, and never for a single second did you think of making love to me. For all the impression I made on you I might have been your austere maiden aunt. Sometimes I wanted to take you between my teeth and shake you as a terrier shakes a rat. Instead, like an ass, I've told you the blatant truth.' "'That's interesting,' said Martin calmly. "'But you seem to want to hurt everybody, those who don't fall in love with you, and those who do. You hurt our poor Albi Gorda, and he hasn't got over it.' Corinna looked into the diminutive fire. "'I suppose you think I was a fool?' "'I can't believe it matters to you what I think,' said Martin. His vanity's smart and you've been lashed for a Josie of Andrews. "'It doesn't. But do you think we are fool all the same?' "'I'll go on telling you the truth,' he flashed and answered him. "'Begorda's a million times too good for me. I should have led him a beast of a life. He's had a lucky escape. You can tell him that when you go back.' "'I'm not going back.' "'What?' she said with a start. He repeated his statement and smiled amably. "'Fed up with being a waiter. I wondered how long you could stick it. What are you going to do now? As a polite hostess, I suppose I should have asked that when you first came into the room. I did expect something of a sort, Martin confessed, until you declared you didn't take an interest in any damn thing.' Then they both laughed. They stretched out a hand. "'Forgive me,' she said. I've been standing all day in front of the tube station, dressed in a green, mauve, and white sandwich board, and selling newspapers, and I'm dog-tired and miserable. I would ask you to have some tea, but that would only bring out Isabelle, who would talk our heads off. Why have you left, Brontoam?' He told her of Begorda's proposal and of Fortenbros' council, but he made no reference to the flashing of the Divine Lucilla across his path. Once he had confessed to her the kiss of the onion-eating damsel who had married the plumber. She had jested, but understood. His romantic nighter and passion for Lucilla were stars above her comprehension. When he mentioned the fact of the death of Mrs. Fortenbros, Corinna softened. "'Poor little Philly's, it must have been a great sorrow to her. I'll write to her. She's a dear little girl.' She paused for a few moments. "'Now, look here, Martin,' she said, seizing a fragile poker and smiting a black lump of coal the size of a potato. It strikes me that as fools were very much in the same box. We've both thrown over a feather-bed existence. I have refused to marry Begorda and, incidentally, to run the Hotel de Grotte, and you have refused to run the Hotel de Grotte and, incidentally, marry Philly's.' "'There was never any question of my marrying Philly's,' cried Martin, hotly. She scrambles to her feet and flung an impatient arm. "'You make me tired. Have you a grain of scents in your head or an ounce of blood in your body?' Martin also rose. "'And you,' he counted, "'what have you?' "'Neither,' said Corinna. "'In that case,' said Martin, gathering up hat, stick and gloves, "'I don't see why we should continue a futile conversation.' He devoid of scents and blood. He who had probed the Sola Philly's and found their virgin indifference, he who had flung aside a gross temptation, he who was consumed with a burning passion for an incomparable goddess, a chasm thousands of miles wide yawned between him and Corinna, in the same box indeed, he quivered with indignation. She regarded him curiously through narrowed eyes. "'I do believe,' she said slowly, "'that I've knocked some sparks out of you at last. You would knock sparks out of a putty dog,' Martin retorted rothfully. She took hat and stick away from him, and laid them on the bamboo-table. "'Don't let us quarrel,' she said more graciously. "'Sit down again and finish your story. You said something about Egypt and Fortenbrass going with you.' "'Why Egypt?' "'Why not?' asked Martin. "'I suppose Fortenbrass pointed a prophetic finger. There lies the road to happiness. But what is he doing there himself?' "'He's going to talk to the Sphinx,' said Martin. "'And when you spent all your capital in Rata's living, what are you going to do?' "'I don't know, and I don't care,' said he. "'Well, it's your business, not mine,' said Corinna. "'You're lucky to be able to get out of this beastly climate. I wish I could.' They talked for a while the generalities of travel. Then he asked her to dine with him and go to a theatre. This brought her back to herself. She couldn't. She had no time. All her evenings were taken up with meetings which she had to attend, and she had an evening-gown fit to wear. "'I would rather die than appear in a blaze and skirt in the stalls of a theatre.' "'We can go to the pit, or up a circle,' said Martin, who had never sat in the stalls in his life.' But she declined. The prodigal of the pit was too ludicrous. No. She was conscientious. She had adopted Martyrdom as a profession. She was paid for being a martyr. And to Martyrdom, so long as it didn't include voluntary starvation, she would stick, until she could find a peasanter and more lucrative means of livelihood. "'It's all very wealthy to talk like that,' said Martin, in his sober way. But how can you call yourself conscientious when you take these people's money without believing in their cause?' "'Who told you I didn't believe in it?' she cried. "'Do you know what it means to be an utterly useless woman?' "'I do. I'm one. It is to prevent replicas of myself in the next generation that I get up at a public meeting and bleat out votes for women and get ignominiously chocked. Can't you see?' "'No,' said Martin. "'Your attitude is too laudicine.' "'What?' snapped Griner. "'Oh, it's somewhere in the Bible. The laudicins were people who blew both hot and cold. My father found scriptural terms for me much more pit-resque than that,' said Griner, with a laugh. The door opened, and the frozen, blue-nosed head of Miss Bandage appeared. "'I'm sorry to interrupt you, Griner, but are we never going to have tea?' Griner apologized. Tea was prepared. Miss Bandage talked on the one and only topic. Martin listened politely. During a pause, while he stood offering a cup for Griner to fill for the second time, she remarked casually, "'By the way, you met Miss Merriton, didn't you?' The question was like a knock on the head. He nearly dropped the cup. "'Miss Merriton? Oh, she's a friend of mine. I had a note from her at Christmas to say that she'd been to Blanc-Torne and made your acquaintance, and had carried off Felice to the south of France. Why haven't you told me about her?' Under her calm, smiling gaze, he felt himself grow hot and red and angry. He fenced. "'You must remember my position in Blanc-Torne.'" She poured the milk into his cup. She said she was going to Egypt. Sugar! Miss Bandage resumed her argument. The remainder of the visit was intolerable. As soon as he could swallow his tea, he took his leave. Griner followed him into the tiny passage by the flat door. "'My dear old Martin,' she said, impulsively throwing an arm round him and gripping his shoulder, "'I'm a beast and a brute, and I heard everybody and everything in this infernal world. But I do wish you the very best of good luck.' She opened the door, and with both hands thrust him gently forth. Then quickly she closed the door, all but a few inches behind him. And through the slit she cried, "'Give my love to Lucilla.'" The door banged, and Martin descended the five flights of stairs, lost in the maze of the eternal feminine. End of Chapter 17 Chapter 18 of The Wonderful Year, by William John Locke. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Simon Evers. CHAPTER 18 Cairo Station. An illumination of livid blue. A horde of brown-legged, turbaned figures wearing red jerseys on which flaunted in white the names of hotels and reconstructing Babel. An urbane official lifting a gold-banded cap in the middle of a small oasis of silence, and inviting Martin and the name of the Semiramis Hotel to surrender luggage and all other cares to his keeping, and to follow the stream through the exit to the hotel motor. A fantasmagoria of eastern west rendered more fantastic by the shadows cast by the high arc lamps. He had lost sight of Fortebras, who, beg in hand, his impediment of being of the Scantiest, had disappeared in quest of the palm-tree against whose trunk he presumed it was to pass the night. Martin emerged from the station, entered the automobile, one of a long row, and waited with his fellow passengers until the roof was stacked with luggage. Then the drive through European streets suggested of Paris and the sudden halt of the hotel. A dazzling vision of a lounge, a swift upward journey and a lift worked by a newbie and gorgeous in scarlet and gold. I walked down a corridor, a door flung open, and Martin found himself in his bedroom. An Arab brought hot water and retired. Martin opened the shutters of the window and looked out. It was hard moonlight. Beneath him shimmered a broad ribbon of water, against which facilitated outlandish masts and spars of craft moored against the embankment. The dark mass on the further shore seemed to be pleasant woods. The water could be nothing else than the mile, the sacred river, the first river in which he had taken a romantic interest, on a cart of Moses and the Ark and Pharaoh's daughter, the mighty river which is the very life of a vast country, the most famous river in the world. He regarded it with a curious mixture of awe and a disappointment. On his right it was crossed by a bridge dotted with the slow moving lamps of carts, and now and then flashing with the headlights of a motor-car. It was not unlike any ordinary river, the Thames, the Sain, the Rhone at Geneva. He had imagined it broad as the Amazon. Yet it was wonderful. The historic water, the moonlight, the clear Egyptian air in which floated a vague perfume of spice. The dimly-seen, long-robed figures seated on a bench by the parapet on the other side of the road, whose guttural talk rose like a proclamation of the Orient. He leaned out over the arn railing. On his left stood out dreamily defined against the sky two shadowy little triangles. He wondered what they could be. Suddenly came the shock of certainty. They were the pyramids. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. A thrill ran over his skin. He had not counted on being brought up bang as it were against them. He had imagined that one journeyed for half a day on a camel through a trackless desert in order to visit these wonders of the world. But here he was, staring at them from the hotel window of a luxurious capital. He stared at them for a long time. Yes, there was the Nile, there were the pyramids, and after a knock at the door there was his luggage. He became conscious of hunger. Also of Lucila, more splendid than moonlit Nile and pyramids and all the splendours of Egypt put together. Hunger. It was half past nine, and he'd eaten nothing since lunch on ship-board. Counciled speedy ablutions and a descent in quest of food. Lucila ordained correctitude of vesture. His first evening on board ship had taught him that dinner jackets suit and black tie were the only wear. He changed and went downstairs. A chasseur had informed him that Miss Meriton was staying in the hotel, but that she had gone to the dance at the Savoy. When would she be back? The chasseur, a child rendered old by accumulated knowledge of trivial fact, replied that Cairo was very gay this season, the dances went on till the morning hours, and insinuated that Miss Meriton was as gay as anybody. Martin walked through the lounge into the restaurant and supped. He supped exceedingly well. Bearing in mind Fortinbras' Council of Lordiness and the ways of Lord Imotris passing through Brantorm, he ordered a pint of champagne. He was served by an impeccable waiter with lilac reverse and brass buttons to his coat. He noted the livery with a professional eye. The restaurant was comparatively empty, only at one table set a party of correctly dressed men and women. A few others were occupied by his travelling companions still in the garb of travel. Martin, mellowed by the champagne, adjusted his black tie and preened his white shirt front in the hope that the tweed clad new comers would see him and marvel and learn from him Martin Overshaw obscure an ignorant adventurer what was required by English decorum. After his meal he sat in the lounge and ordered Turkish coffee, liqueur brandy, and cigarettes. And so luxuriously housed, clothed, and fed, he entered on the newest phase of his new life. Six months ago he had considered his sportive ride through France with Carina a thrilling adventure. He smiled at his simplicity. An adventure, that tame jog-trot tour, as comparable to this as his then companion to the radiant lady of his present quest. Now indeed he had burnt his boats, thrown his cap over the windmills, cast his frock to the nettles. The reckless folly of it all had kept his veins a tingle, his head a whirl. At every moment during the past fortnight something amazingly new had flashed into his horizon. His very sleeping berth and the trained looks had been a fresh experience. So too was the awakening to the warmth and sunshine of Marseille. Save for a crowded hour of inglorious life, he was a poor sailor, and now and then on cross-channeled boats he had never set foot on a ship. He wandered about the ocean-going liner with a child's delight. Fortune favoured him with a spell of blue weather. He scoffed at sea sickness. The meals characterised by many passengers as abominable, he devoured as though they were Lucullian feasts. He made acquaintance with folks going not only to Egypt, but to Peshawar and Mandalay and Singapore, and other places with haunting names. Some shocked him by calling them godforsaken holes and cursing their luck. Others, mainly women, going thither for the first time, shared his emotions. He was surprised at the ease with which he fell into casual talk with strangers. Sometimes a child was a means of introduction to his mother, sometimes a woman in the next-deck chair would open a conversation. Sometimes Fortenbrass chatting with a knot of people would catch him as he passed and present him blandly. Among the minor things that gave him cause for wonder was the swift popularity of his companion. No longer did his costume stamp Fortenbrass as a man apart from the laity. He wore the easy tweeds and soft felt hat of a score of other elderly gentlemen on board, even the gold watch chain which he redeemed after a long, long sojourn at the mount of Piety. But this very common place of his attire brought into relief the nobility of his appearance. His massive face lined with care, his broad brow, his prominent light blue kindly eyes, his percy and benevolent mouth, his magnificent abbey-least shock of white hair now carefully tended, his impressive air of dignity, all marked him as a personage of distinction. He aroused the idle curiosity of the idle voyagers. Husbands were bitten by wives to talk to him and see what he was like. Husbands obeyed, as is the human though marriage fire subsers his way of husbands, and meekly returned with information. A capital fellow, most interesting chap, English, of course, very courtly old bird, like so-and-so who was ambassadour. Old school, knows everything, talks like a book. Quote any one of the wives, her woman's mind intent on the particular. But who is he? The careless husband, his masculine mind made concerned with the general, did not know. He had not thought of asking. How could he ask, and what did it matter? The wife sighed. Bring him along, and I will soon find out. Fortebras's fit opportunity was brought along. The lady unconsciously surrendered to his spell. One has not practised as a martial debauneur for nothing. Now I know all about him, said any one of the wives to any one of the husbands. Why, a man so stupid? He's an old Winchester boy. He's a retired philosopher, and he lives in France. That was all she learned about Fortebras. Fortebras, in that trial interview, learned everything about the lady serenely in unconscious of intimate avowal. My young friend, said Heter Martin, the secret of social influence is to present yourself to each individual rather as a sympathetic intelligence than as a forceful personality. The patient takes no interest in the morbid symptoms of his physician. But every patient is eager to discuss his symptoms with the kind of physician who will listen to them, free, gratis, and for nothing. By adopting this attitude I can evoke from one the dramatic ambitions of her secret heart, from another the history of her children's ailments and the recipe for the family coffcure, from a third the moving story of strained relations with his parents because he desired to marry his uncle's typist, the elderly crown and glory of her sex, the elderly crown and glory of her sex, and from a fourth and intricate account of a peculiarly shady deal in lard. That sounds all right, said Martin. But in order to get people to talk to you, say in the four cases you have mentioned, you must know something about the theatre, bronchitis, love, and the lard's trade." Said Fortenbrass, touching the young man's shoulder. The experienced altruist with an eye to his own advantage knows something about everything. Martin, following the precepts of his mentor, practised the arts of fence, parrying the thrusts of personal questions on the part of his opponent, and reposting with such questions on his own. It is necessary, said the stage, what are you among these respectable Britons of substance but an adventurer? Put yourself at the mercy of one of these old warriors with grey motor-vails and steel-knitting needles, and you will pluck out the heart of your mystery in a jiffy, and throw it on the deck for all to feed on. Thus the voyage, incidentally, was it not to Kythera, transcend it all his dreams of social amenity? It was a long protracted party in which he lost his shyness, finding frank welcome on all sides. To the man of thirty who had been deprived all his man's life of the commonplace general intercourse with his kind, this daily talk with a girl here, a young married woman there, an old lady somewhere else, and all sorts of confiditions of men in the smoking-room and on deck, was nothing less than a kind of social debauch, intoxicating him, keeping him blissfully awake of nights in his upper berth, while Fortebras snored below. Then, soon after daybreak, to mount to the wet sunlit deck after his cold sea-water bath, perhaps to meet a hardy and healthy English girl fresh as the Aegean morning, to trample up and down with her for development of appetite, talking of nothing but the glitter of the sea, the stuffiness of cabins, the dishes they each would choose for breakfast, to descend into the warm comforting smell of the dining saloon, to fall voraciously on porridge and eggs and kidneys and marmalade, to go on deck again, knowing that in a couple of hours' time stewards would come to him fainting from hunger with bowls of chicken broth, that in an hour or two afterwards there would be lunch to be deselected from a menu of foot-long in close print, and so on, during the golden and assurian day, to meet Fortebras late and luxurious riser, to bask for an hour like a plum in the sunshine of his wisdom, to continue the debauched of the day before, to sight great sailing vessels with belly-ing canvas, resplendent majesty of past centuries, or, on the other hand, the gray, grim blocks of battleships, to pass the sloping shores of historic islands, Crete, home of the Minotaur, whose inhabitants, Cretans Elias, Cretans of men, and therefore all men Elias, had furnished the stock-example of fallacy and the syllogism, to watch the green wake cleaving the dark blue sea, to make his way up and down decks through the steerage, and down in the boughs swept by the exhilarating air with a pulse-wrecking sense that he was speaking to the lodestar of his one desire, to find wildness of delight in these common places of travel, to live as he lived, to vibrate as he vibrated with every nerve from dawn to dawn, to be drunk with the sheer ecstasy of existence, so that the past became a black abyss, and the future, and a methestine's haze glorified by the suns of the morning singing for joy, is given but to few, is given to none but poor, starved souls, is given to none of the poor, starved souls, but those whom the high gods in obedience to their throw of the dice happen to select. Martin, sitting in a deep-arm chair in the semi-rammy's hotel, dreamed of all these things, unconscious of the flight of time. Suddenly he became aware that he was the only occupant of the lounge, all the other folk having returned soberly to their rooms. Already a few early arrivals from the Savoye dance passed across the outer hall on their way to the lift. Drowsy with happiness he went to bed. Tomorrow, Lucilla, he became aware of her standing by the bureau, licking a stamp to put on a letter. She wore a white coat and skirt and a straw hat with cherries on it. He could not see her face, but he guessed the blue veins on the uplifted, unloved hand that held the stamp. On his approach she turned and uttered a little laughing gasp of recognition. Stuck the stamp on hastily and stretched out her hand. Why, she cried, it's you, you really have come. Did you think I would break my promise? he asked, his eyes drinking in her beauty. I didn't know how seriously you regarded it. I thought of nothing but Egypt, since I said you had pointed out the way, he replied. You commanded, I obeyed. She caught up her long parasol and gloves that lay on the ledge of the bureau. If everybody did everything I told them, she laughed, I should have my hands full. They don't, as a general rule, but when they do I take it as a compliment. Makes me feel good to see you. When did you come? She put him through a short catechism. What boat, what kind of voyage, where was he staying? Finally, do you know many people in Cairo? Not a soul, said Martin. With both arms behind her back she rested lightly on the parasol and beamed graciously. A high in all millions, she said, not without a touch of exaggeration, which pleased him. Would you like to trust yourself to me, put yourself entirely in my hands? I could dream of nothing more enchanting, replied Martin, but bad. I didn't want to make myself an infliction. You're going to be a delight. You know in the cinematograph how an invisible pencil writes things on the sheet, or how a message is stamped out on the tape and you look and wonder what's coming next. Well, I want to see how this country is going to be stamped letter by letter on your virgin mind. It's a thing I've been longing for, to show somebody with sense like yourself. Egypt of the Pharaohs and Egypt of the English. How long can you stay? Indefinitely, said Martin, I have no plans. From here you might go to Palaulu or Rangoon or Greenland or Cape Horn, said Martin. She nodded, smiling approval. That is what I call a free and enlightened citizen of the world. Let us sit down. I'm waiting for my friend, Mrs. Dangerfield of Philadelphia, her husband's here too. You'll like him. I generally travel round with somebody, just for the sake of a table-companion. I'm silly enough to feel a fool eating alone every day in a restaurant. He drew a wicker chair for her and sat beside her. She deposited parasol and gloves on the little round table and swept him with a quizzical glance from his well-fitting brown shoes to his trim black hair. May I, without impertinence, compliment you on your color scheme? His olive cheek flushed like a girl's. He devoted an hour's concentrated thought to it before he rose. How should he appear in the presence of the divinity? He decided on gray flannels, gray shirt, purple socks, and tie. He wondered whether she guessed the part she had played in his anxious selection. Remembering the splotch of grease, he said, I hadn't much choice of clothes when you last saw me. She laughed. Tell me all about Brantorm. How is my dear little friend, Feliz? He gave her discreet news. And the incomparable fought him, Brass. You'll doubt us soon be able to judge for yourself. He's here. In Cairo, you don't say. Mingled with her expression of surprise was a little perplexity of the brow, as though seeing the fought in Brass of the Petit Cornicheaux, she wondered what on earth she could do with him. He came with me, said Martin. Is he staying in this hotel? No, said Martin. Her brow grew smooth again. How did he manage to get all this way? Has he retired from business? I don't think so. He needed a holiday. You see, he came into a little money on the death of his wife. His wife, Dan? Lucille queried. Feliz's mother, I didn't know. Perhaps that's why she hasn't written to me for such a long time. I think there must be some queer story connected with that mother, she added rudely. Anyway, fought in Brass can't be broken hearted, or he wouldn't come on a jaunt to Egypt. Too well bred to examine Martin on his friend's private affairs, she changed the talk in her quick, imperious way. Martin sat like a man bewitched, fascinated by her remembered beauties, the lazy music of her voice, her mobile lips, her brown eyelashes. His heart beat at the realisation of so many dreams. He listened, his brain scarcely following what she said. That she spoke with the tongue of an angel was enough. Presently, a stout, pleasant-faced woman of thirty, came towards them with many apologies for lateness. This was Mrs. Dangerfield. Lucille presented Martin. Behold, in me, the complete Drago-man. Mr. Overshore has engaged me for the season. It is first visit to Egypt, and I'm going to show him round. I'll draw up a programme for a personally conducted tour, every hour accounted for, and replete with distraction. It sounds dreadful, laughed Mrs. Dangerfield. Do you think you'll survive, Mr. Overshore? Not only that, said Martin, but I hope for a new lease of life. We start, said Lucille, with the drive through the town, during which I shall point out the Kazernil Barracks, the Bank of Egypt, and the Opera House. Then we shall enter on the shopping expedition of the Mooski, where I shall prevent Mrs. Dangerfield from being robbed while bargaining for personal lack. I'm ready, Laura, if you are. She led the way out. Martin, exchanging words of common place with Mrs. Dangerfield, followed in an ecstasy. Did ever woman, outside Bottetella's Brimavara, walk with such lissum-ness? A chasseur turned at the four-flange doors, and they emerged into the clear morning sunshine. The old-bearded Arab carriage-porter called an hotel arabaya from the stand. But while the driver, correct in metal-buttoned livery-coat and tabush, was dashing up with his pair, Martin caught sight of Fortinbras walking towards them. There he is, said Martin. Who? Fortinbras. Nonsense, said Lucille. That's an English cabinet-minister, or an American millionaire, or the keeper of a gambling saloon. But when he came nearer, she admitted it was Fortinbras. She waved her hand in recognition. Nothing could have been more charming than her greeting, nothing more obeying than his acknowledgement or his bow on introduction to Mrs. Dangerfield. He had come, said he, to lay his respectful homage at her feet, also to see how his young friend was faring in a strange land. Lucille asked him where he was staying. When last I saw you, he answered, I'd said something about the perch of the old vulture. She eyed him, smiling. You look more like the wanton lap-wing. In that case I need even a smaller perch, the merest twig. But, uh, merest twig-carrow isn't an address, cried Lucille. How am I to get hold of you when I want you? Fortinbras regarded her with humorous benevolence. The question was characteristic. He knew her to be generous, warm-hearted, and impatient of trivial convention. Therefore he had not hesitated to go to her in his anxious hour. But he also knew how those long, delicate fingers had an irresistible habit of drawing unwary humans into her harmless web. He had not come to Cairo just to walk into Lucille's parlour. He wanted to buzz about Egypt in philosophic and economical independence. That, my dear Lucille, said he, is one more enigma to be put to the credit of the land of riddles. Ibrahim stood impassively holding open the door of the Arabaya. A couple of dragemen in resplendent robes and turbans, seeing a new and prosperous English tourist, had risen from their bench on the other side of the road, and lounged gracefully forward. You're the most exasperating person I ever met, exclaimed Lucille. But while I have you, I gotta keep you. Come to lunch at one-fifteen. If you don't, I'll never speak to you again. I'll come to lunch at one-fifteen with very great pleasure, said Fortinbras. The ladies entered the carriage. Martin said hastily, You gave me the stip last night. I did, said Fortinbras. He drew the young man a pace aside and whispered, You think those are dubs, harnessed to the chariot? They're not. They're horses. Martin broke away with a laugh, and sprang to the back seat of the carriage. It drove off. The drageman came up to the lonely Fortinbras. Did he want a guide? The citadels? The pyramids? Sakara? Fortinbras turned to the impassive Ibrahim, and in his grand manner, and with impressive gesture, said, Will you tell them they are too beautiful? They would eclipse the splendour of all the monuments I am here to visit. He walked away, and Ibrahim, translating roughly to the drageman, conveyed uncomplimentary references to the virtue of their grandmothers. Meanwhile Martin, in beatitude, sat on the little seat, facing his goddess. She was an integral part of the exotic setting of Cairo. It was less real life than an Arabian night's tale. She was interfused with all the sunshine and colour and wonder. Only the camels, patting along in single file, their bodies half hidden beneath packs of coarse grass, seemed alien to her. They held up their heads, as the carriage passed them, with a damnably supercilious air. One of them seemed to catch his eye, and express contempt unfathomable. He shook a fist at him. I hate those brutes, said he. Congratulations, why? asked Lucilla. That's all picturesque. A camel is the one thing I really can draw properly. Well, I dislike them intensely, said he. They are inhuman. He could not translate his unformulated thought into conventional words. But he knew that at the summons of the High Gods, all the world of animate beings would fall down and worship her. Every breathing thing but the camel. He hated the camel. CHAPTER XIX Lucilla kept her word. She was not a woman of half-measures. Just as she had set out, impelled by altruistic fancy, to carry provincial little Phillies through part of a Riviera season, and had thoroughly accomplished her object, so now she debated herself wholeheartedly to the guidance of Martin through the land of Egypt. In doing so she was conscious of helping the world along. Hitherto it was impeded in its progress by a mild scholarly gentleman wasting his potentialities in handing soup to commercial travellers. These potentialities she had decided to develop, so that in due season a new force might be evolved which would give the old world a shove. To express her motives in less universal terms, she set herself the holiday task of making a man of him. To herself she avowed her entire disinterestedness. She had often thought of adopting and training a child, but that would take a prodigiously long time, and the child might complicate her future life. On the other hand, with grown men and women, things went more quickly. You could see the grass grow. The swifter process appealed to her temperament. First she incorporated him without a chance of escape, in her own little coterie, the Dangerfields, and the Watney Holcomb's father, mother, and daughter, Americans who lived in Paris. They received him guaranteed by Lucila as an Englishman without guile, with democratic American frankness. Of Mr. Dangerfield a grim featured banker, possessing a dry, subredant humour, Martin was somewhat afraid. But with the Watney Holcomb's cheery, pleasure-loving folk he was soon at his ease. The only thing you mustn't do, said Lucila, is to fall in love with Maisie. Maisie was a step-up of a girl of nineteen, whom he regarded as an amusing and precocious child. There is already a young man floating about in the smoke of St. Louis. It was an opportunity to make romantic repudiation, to proclaim the faith by which he lived. But he had not yet the courage. He laughed and declared that the smoky young man might sleep peacefully at nights. The damsel herself took him as a new toy and played with him harmlessly, and, subtly inspired by Lucila, commanded her father, a chubby, innocent man with a face like a red gold spectre called Apple, to bring Martin from remote mule solitude and establish him permanently at their table. Thus Martin being an accepted member of a joyous company, could go here, there, and everywhere with any one of them without furnishing cause for gossip. Lucila had a deft way of not putting herself in the wrong with a censorious, though charming world. Under the nominal auspices of the Dangerfields and the Watney Holcomb's, Martin mingled with the best of carous society. He attended race meetings, golf club teas, hotel balls, and many little suppers. He went to a reception at the agency and shook hands with the great English ruler of Egypt. He was swept away in automobiles to Heluon and Heliopolis, to the Menor House to see the pyramids and the Sphinx, both by daylight and by moonlight. A young soldier discovering a bond in knowledge of love of France invited him to mess on a guest night. Lucila, ever watchful and tactful, saw that he went in full dress, white tie, and white waistcoat, and not in dinner jacket. She pervaded his atmosphere, teaching him, training him, opening up new vistas for his mind and soul. Every encomium passed on him she accepted as a tribute to herself. It was infinitely more interesting than training a dog or a horse. Martin, blissfully unaware of experiment or even of guidance, lived in a dream of delight. His goddess seemed ever ready to hand. Together they visited mosques and spent enchanted hours in the bazaar. She knew her way about the labyrinth, could even speak a few words of Arabic. Supreme, fair product of the West, she stood divinely pure, amid the swarthy vividness of the unalterable East. She was a flawless jewel in the barbaric setting of those narrow streets, filled with guttural noise, outlandish bustle of camels and donkeys and white-clad men, smells of hoary spiciness, colour from the tattered child's purple and scarlet, colour from the tattered child's purple and scarlet, to the yellow of the cinnamon pounded at doorways in the three-foot mortars. Those streets, winding in short joints, each given up to its particular industry. Copper-beaters, brass-workers, leather-sellers, workers in cedar and mother of pearl, sellers of cakes and kebabs, all plying their trades in the frontless caves that served as shops. Streets so narrow and sunless that one can see but a slit of blue above the latticed fronts of the crazy houses. He loved to see her deal with the supple orientals, in bargaining she did not hangle. With smiling majesty she paid into the long slender palm a third or a half or two-thirds of the price demanded, according to her infallible sense of values, and walked away, serene possessor of the merchant dice. Lucilla, having a facile memory, had not boasted in vain that she could play Dregaman. He found from the books that her archaeological information was correct. He drank in her wisdom. For his benefit she ordained a general expedition to Sokara. One golden day the party took train to Bad Ration, whence on donkeys they plunged into the desert. Riding in front with him she was his for most of that golden day. She discoursed on the colossal statue stretched by the wayside of Ramesses II, on the steppe pyramid, on the beauties of the little tombs of Ty and Patahaptep, whose sculptures and paintings of the Fifth Tennessee were alive, preceding direct from the soul of the artist, and thus crying shame on the conventional invitations of a thousand or two years later, with which most of the great monuments of Egypt are adorned. And all she said was holy writ. And at Marriott's house where they lunched, the bungalow pitched in the middle of the baking desert and overlooking the crumbling brown masses of tombs, he glanced around at their picnicking companions and marveled at her grace in eating a hard-boiled egg. It was a noisy, excited party, and it was Lucilla this and Lucilla that all the time, for there was hot argument. I don't take any stock in bulls, so I'm not going to see the Serapium," the clered Miss Watney Holcomb. But Lucilla says, You've got to, exclaimed Martin. Then he realized that unconsciously he had used her Christian name. He flushed, and under cover of the talk turned to her with an apology. He met laughing eyes. Scrubby little artist in Paris called me Lucilla without the quiver of an eyelash. What may be permissible to a scrubby little artist in Paris, said Martin, may be permitted to one who hoards her to know better. She passed him a plate containing the last banana. He declined with a courteous gesture. Martin, she said, deliberately dumping the fruit in front of him. If it don't look out, he will die of conscientiousness. During part of the blazing ride back to Bad Russian, when the accidents of Root and the vagrum whimsies of donkeys brought him to the side of the dry Mr. Dangerfield, he reflected on the attitude of men admitted to the intimacy of goddesses and great queens. What did Lester call the august Elizabeth when she deigned to lay aside her majesty? And what were the sensations of Anchises, father of Pius Ineus, when he first addressed Venus by her Petit Nord? Well, said Fortenbras the next day, and how is my speculator in happiness getting on? They were sitting on the terrace of Shepherd's Hotel, their usual midday meeting-place. Save on these occasions, the philosopher seemed to live dimly in a sort of oriental twilight. Yet all that Martin had seen, with the exception of the social moving picture, he had also seen, and therefrom sucked vastly more juice than the younger man. How and in what company he had visited the various monuments, he did not say. It amused him to maintain his mysterious independence. Very rarely, and anywhere compelled by the imperious ruthlessness of Lucilla, did he otherwise emerge from his obscurity than on these daily visits to the famous terrace. There, surrounded by chatter in all tongues and by representatives of all cities, from Seattle round the earth's girth to Tokyo, he loved to sit and watch the ever-shifting scene, the traffic of all the centuries and the narrow street, from the laden-ass driven by a replica of one of Joseph's brethren, to the modern Rolls-Royce sweeping along with the fat and tabushed dignitary of the court. The ox cart omnibus carrying its dingy load availed women. The poor funeral procession, a coffin borne on shoulders amid the perfunctory ululations of hard mourners. On the footpaths, the contrast of slave-attended, black-robed, trim-short Egyptian ladies in Yash-Max, and the frank, summer-clad, Western women. Sudanese and Turks and Greeks and Jews, and straight, clear-eyed English officers, and German tourists, attire for the wilds of the Zambezi, and here and there a Gordon Highlander swinging along in kilts and white tunic, and lounging against the terrace balustrade, the Dragemen, flaunting villains gay in rainbow robes, and the vendors of beads and fly-wisks and postcards holding up their wares at arm's height and regarding prospective purchases with the eye of a crumb-expectant, though self-respecting dog who sits on his tail by his master's side, and, across the way, the curio-shops rich with the spoils of Samarkand. From all of these, when alone, he garnered the harvest of a quiet eye. When Martin was with him, he shared with his pupil the golden grain of the panorama. How, said he, as my speculator in happiness getting on? The stock is booming! replied Martin with a laugh. What an education, said Fortebras, is the society of American men of substance. It pleases you to be ironical, said Martin, but you speak literal truth. An American doesn't set a man down as a damned fool because he is ignorant of his own particular line of business. Dangerfield, for instance, who keeps a working balance of his soul locked up in a safe in Wall Street, has explained to me the New York Stock Exchange with the most courteous simplicity. And in return, said Fortebras, waving away a cello of rhinoceros-horm amber with the gesture of a monarch dismissing his chamberlain, you have given him an exhaustive criticism, not untempered with jaundice, of lower middle-class education in England. How the deuce, said Martin, recklessly throwing his half-finished cigarette over the balustrade, how the deuce did you know that? C'est mon secret, replied Fortebras. It is also a secret of a dry and successful man, like Mr. Dangerfield, with whom I am sorry to have had no more than ten-minute conversation. In those ten minutes I discovered in him a lamentable ignorance of the works of Chaucer, Cervantes, and Turgenev, but for my benefit he sized up a few clattering epigrams, the essence of the Anglo-Saxon, Spanish and Slavonic races, and for his own was extracting from me all I know about Tolstoy. When Lucilla called me away to expound to his wife the French family system, from which you will observe that the American believes in a free exchange of knowledge as a system of education. I to refer to my original question, however, you imagine that your present path is strewn with roses? I do, said Martin. That's all I desire to know, my dear fellow, said Fortebras benevolently. And what about yourself, fast Martin? What about your pursuit of happiness? I am studying Arabic, replied Fortebras, and discussing philosophy with one Abu Mohammed, a very learned doctor of theology with a very long white beard, from whose sedative companionship I derive much spiritual anodyne. Soon after this the whole semi-rammy's party packed up their traps and went by night-train to Luxor. There they settled down for a while and did the things that the floating population of Luxor do. They rode on donkeys and on camels, and they drove in carriages and sand-carts. They visited the tombs of the kings and the tombs of the queens, and the tombs of the ministers and Karnak, and their own private and particular temple of Luxor. And Martin amassed a vast amount of erudition, and learned to know gods and goddesses by their attitudes, and talked about them with casual intimacy. His nature drank in all that there was of wonder and charm in these relics of a colossal past like an insatiable sponge. And in Upper Egypt the humble present is but a relic of the past. The twentieth-century Fadahin, guiding the ox-drawn wooden plough, might have served for models of any bas-relief or painting in any tomb of thousands of years ago. So, too, might the half-naked men in the series of terraced trenches draining water from the Nile by means of rude wooden lever and bucket to irrigate the land. The low mud-houses of the villages were the same as those which covered vast expanses on either side of the river made up the mighty and popular city of Thebes. And the peasantry, purer in type than the population of Cairo, which till then was all the Egypt that Martin knew, were of the same race as those warriors who gained vain victories for unsympathetic kings. The ridgy, rocky, sandy deserts, starting the yellow against the near-blue dome of sky. A group of donkeys, donkey-boys, violently-clad dragon-men, one or two black-robed, white-turbant official guides, Europeans as exotic to the scene as Eskimo in Hyde Park. An excavated descent to a hole surmounted by a signboard, as though it were the entrance to some underground boozing-ken. An Egyptian soldier in khaki and red tabush. An inclined plane then flight after flight of wooden steps through painted chamber after painted chamber. And at last, deep down in the earth, lit by electric light, the heart of the tomb's poor mystery. The mummified body of a great king, Amen Heteb II, in an uncovered sandstone sarcophagus. It is the world's greatest monument to the awful and futile vanity of man. Thank God, said Martin, as he came out with Lucilla into the open air. Thank God for the great world and sunshine and life. The whole thing is fascinating, is soul-wrecking. But I hate these people who live for nothing but death. I wanted to bash that king's face in. There was that poor devil of an artist who spent his soul over those sculptures going up the hammer and chisel in the back bowels of the earth with nothing but an oil lamp on the scaffold beside him for years and years. And when he had finished, calmly put to death by that brute lying there, so that he should not glorify any other swollen-headed worm of a tyrant. They sat down on the sand in a triangle, a patch of shade. Lucilla regarded him with approbation. I love to hear you talk vehemently, she remarked. It's because I've learned to feel vehemently, said Martin. Since when? Since I first met you, said Martin, with sudden daring. That's not my example you've been profiting by, she laughed. You've never heard me raving at a poor old mummy? Cool and casual. She warded off the shaft of his implied declaration. He had not another weapon to his hand. He said, you've said things equally violent when you've felt deeply. That is your great power. You live intensely. Everything you do, you put your whole self into. You have the faculty of making everybody around you do the same. At that moment Mr. Watney Holcomb appeared at the mouth of the tomb, mopping his ruby-conned face. At Lucilla he shook a playful fist. Not another darn monument for me this day. I don't seem to have succeeded with him, anyway, she said, in a low and ironical voice. Martin, gentlest of creatures, felt towards Mr. Watney Holcomb for the moment, as he felt towards Armin Heteb. The rosy-faced gentleman sat beside them and talked flippantly of gods and goddesses, and soon the rest of the party joined them. The opportunity for which Martin awaited so long, of which he dreamed the extravagant dreams of an imaginative child, was gone. He would have to wait yet further. But he had spoken as he had never before dared to speak. He had told her unmistakably that she had taught him to feel and to live. As the other ladies approached, he sprang to his feet and held out a hand to aid the divinity to rise. She accepted it frankly, nodding him pleasant thanks. The pressure of her little moist palm kept him a tingle for long afterwards. They had a gay and intimate ride home. The donkey boys tracked the donkeys, so that they galloped to the shattering of sustained conversation between the riders. But in one breathing space, while they jogged alongside by side, she said, If I have done anything to help you on your way, I regard it as a privilege. You've done everything for me, said Martin, to whom else but you do I owe all this? His gesture embraced the earth and sky. I only made a suggestion, said Lucilla. You've done infinitely more. Anybody giving advice could say, go to Egypt. You said, come to Egypt. And therein lies all the difference. You give me of yourself so bountifully, so generously," he paused. Go on, she said. I'll have to hear you talk. But the donkey boys, perceiving Mr. Dangerfield mounted on a fleet quadruped about to break through the advance guard, fact the donkeys again. And Martin, unless he shouted breathlessly, could not go on talking. That evening there was a dance at the Winter Palace Hotel where they were staying. Martin, on his arrival at Cairo, had been as ignorant of dancing as a giraffe. But Lucilla, Mrs. Dangerfield, and Maisie, having commandeered the Watney-Hulkam's private sitting-room at the semi-rammice whenever it suited them, had put him through a severe and summery course. He threw himself devotedly into the new delight. A lithe figure and a quick ear aided him. Before he left Cairo he could dance one steps and two steps with the best. And so a new joy was added to his existence. And to him it was a joy infinitely more sensuous and magnetic than to those who from childhood have regarded dancing as a common place of social pleasure. To understand you must put yourself in the place of this undeveloped, finely tempered man of thirty. His arm was around the beloved body, his hand clasped hers, the fragrance of her hair was in his nostrils, their limbs moved in perfect unison to where the gay tune. His heart sang to the music, his feet were winged with laughter. In young enjoyment she said with literal truthfulness, You are a born dancer. He glowed, murmured glad incoherences of acknowledgement. You're a born all sorts of other things, I believe, she said, that only need bringing out. You have a rhythmical soul. What she meant precisely she did not know, but it's how did mighty fine in Martin's ears. Ever since his first interview with Fortenbrass he had been curiously interested in that vague organ and its evolution. Now it was rhythmical. To explain herself, she added, it is in harmony with the great laws of existence. A new light shone in his eyes and he held himself proudly. He looked quite a gallant fellow, straight, English, masterful. Her skirts swished the feet of a couple of elderly English ladies sitting by the wall. Her quick woman's ears caught the remark. What a handsome couple! She flushed and her eyes sparkled into his. He replied to her psychological dictum. At any rate it's in harmony with the deepest of them all. What is that? The fundamental law, said he. They danced the gay dance to the end. They stopped breathless and laughed at each other's eyes. She took his arm and they left the ballroom. Unless you will dance with me again, he said, this is my last dance tonight. Why? I leave you to guess, said he. It was as near perfection as could be, she admitted. I feel rather like that myself. Perhaps more so for I don't want to spoil things even by dancing with you again. Do you really mean it? She nodded frankly, intimately, deliciously. Let us go outside, away from everybody, he suggested. They crossed the lounge and reached the western door. Both were living a little above themselves. When last we talked sense, she said, you spoke about a fundamental law. Come and expound it to me. They stood on the terrace amid other flushed and happy dances. Let us get away from these people, who know nothing of the fundamental law, said Lucila. So they went along a spur of the terrace, a sort of Rococo bastion guarding the entrance to the hotel, and there they found solitude. They sat beneath the velvet star-hung sky. Fifty yards away flowed the Nile with now and then a flashing ripple. From a gaiassa, with ghostly white sail creeping down the river, came an Arab trant. The flowers of the buconviglia on the hotel porch gleamed dim and pale. A touch of camzin gave languor to the air. Lucila drew off her gloves, made him put them down for her. He preferred to keep them warm and fragrant, a part of herself. Now about this fundamental law, she said in her lazy contralto, her hand hung carelessly, temptingly, over the arm of her chair. Graciously she allowed him to take and hold it. Surely you know. I want you to tell me, Mr. Philosopher. He did it with the adorable situation. Since when have I become master and you pupil, Lucila? Since you began, presumably, to plunge deep into profundities of wisdom where I can't follow you. Behold me at your feet. He moved his chair close to hers, and she allowed him to play with us lender fingers. The fundamental law of life, said he, bending towards her, is love. I wonder, said Lucila. She lay in the long chair, her head against the back. He drew her fingers to his lips. I'm sure of it. I'm sure of it, as I'm sure that there's a God in heaven. As that, he whispered in what the sophisticated midterm and anti-climax, there's a goddess on earth. Who is the goddess? she murmured. You, said he. I like being called a goddess, she said, especially after dancing the two-step. Him's ancient and modern. Do you know what is the most ancient him in the world? No. Shall I tell you? Am I not here to be instructed? You are beautiful, and I love you. You are wonderful, and I love you. You are adorable, and I love you. How did you learn to become so lyrical? Martin knew not. He was embarked on the highest adventure of his life. A super-Martin seemed to speak. Her tone was playful, not ironical. It encouraged him to flight small lyrical still. In the daylight of reason what he said was amazing nonsense. Beneath the Egyptian stars and the atmosphere drowsy with the sense of the east and the touch of Camzin, it sounded to receptive ears beautifully romantic. Through the open door came the strains of an old-fashioned waltz, perhaps meretricious, but in the exotic surroundings sensuous and throbbing with passion. He bent over her, and now possessed both hands. All that I feel for you. All that you are to me, he said, concluding his rhapsody. Then as she made no reply he asked. You aren't angry with me? I'm not a granite sphinx, she said in her low voice. No one has ever said things like that to me before. I don't say men haven't tried. They have. But they've always made themselves ridiculous. I've always wanted to laugh at them. I said, Martin, you are not laughing at me? No, she whispered. And after a long pause. No, I am not laughing at you. She turned her face to him. Her lips were very near. Mortal man could have done neither more nor less than that which Martin did. He kissed her. Then he drew back, shaken to the roots of his being. She, with closed eyes, he saw the rise and fall of her bosom. The universe, earth and stars and the living bit of the cosmos that was he, hung in breath of suspense. Time stopped. There was no space. He was holding her beloved hand so delicately and adorably veined. Before his eyes in the dim light were her lips slightly parted, which he had just kissed. Presently she stirred. With drew her hands, passed them across her eyes and with dainty touches about her hair as she set up. Time went on and there was space again and the stars followed their courses. Martin threw an arm round her. A Lucilla, he cried quiveringly. But with a quick movement she eluded his embrace and rose to her feet. She kept him off with a little gesture. No, no, Martin. There's been enough foolishness for one night. But Martin, man at last, caught her and crushed her to him with his young strength and kissed her, not as worshipper kisses goddess, but as a man kisses a woman. At last she said, like millions of her sisters in similar circumstances, he are hurting me. Like millions of his brethren he released her. She panted for a moment. Then she said, We must go in. Let me go first. Give me a few minutes, Grace. Good night. Mortal gentleman and triumphant lover could do no more or no less. She sped down the terrace and disappeared. He waited, his soul aflame. When he entered the lounge she was not there. He saw the danger fields and the Whatley-Hulkams and one or two others sitting in a group over straw-equipped classes. He knew that Lucilla was not in the dancing room. He knew that she'd fled to solitude. Cheerio-Whatley-Hulkam, catching sight of him, waved an inviting hand. Martin, longing for the sweet loneliness of the velvet night, did not dare refuse. His wits were sharpened. Refusal would give cause for intolerable gossip. He came forward. What have you done with Lucilla? cried Mrs. Dangerfield. She's gone to bed. We've had a heavy day. She's dead beat, said Martin. And thus he entered into the kingdom of the men of the world.