“No, thank you. I tried to tell you something when we met you in the Arab quarter this afternoon, but I don’t think you understood. You were looking at my father. I don’t think you paid any attention to what I was trying to say, you were so busy despising him.”
“I beg your pardon!” he said again. “I think you are mistaken.”
“Do you?” She uttered a short and rueful laugh. “We won’t argue it; I understand perfectly. I’m not very decent to him myself, and of course you know it — you’d be blind if you didn’t; — but I don’t despise him, though perhaps I hate him. That’s my own affair. What I wanted to tell you was that I shouldn’t have said what I did, the last night on the ‘Duumvir,’ if I’d thought I’d ever see you again.”
“I know that,” he said. “You told me so then.” At this she drew an audible quick breath and her eyes opened wide. “I suppose you think I’m merely making it an excuse to speak to you again!”
“Not at all. I meant I understood that you wouldn’t have expressed your opinion of me except as a valedictory. You didn’t need to explain it again.”
“I did need to!” she said in a low voice, fiercely. “You might have thought I knew you were leaving the ship here, and so might see me again. You might have thought I said it only to make you think about me. Girls do that sort of thing sometimes; you might have thought that.”
He was nervous; what he had learned from Tinker had dazed him, and now Tinker’s daughter irritated him. “Believe me,” he said; “I haven’t been thinking of it at all, and it’s not very probable that I ever shall.”
Her cheeks as well as her eyes showed her resentment then, and some violets at her breast moved to her quickened breathing. She gave a half-smothered little outcry. “Oh! How much you’re like them! We’re going away to-morrow, and this time I know I’ll never see you again, so I can add a little to what I told you on the boat. How much you’re like those people we saw to-day.”
“Am I? What people?”
“Those horrible creatures in that Arab slum,” she said. “I thought of it when we got among them to-day and they were all staring at us. You have just their look in your eyes when you look at my father or my mother — or at me!”
Then, with her own eyes not smouldering now, but seeming fairly to blaze blue flame into his, in her hot scorn of him, she turned on her heel and left him.
He abandoned his tea as it was, half consumed, and went out, furious, to the terrace. She had succeeded in making him so angry that for a few moments he almost forgot the shock her father had given him; but as he paced up and down in the falling dusk, his temper cooled in one direction and began to grow warm in another. The insults of the bad-mannered American girl were easier to bear than the unfathomable double-dealing of the exquisite French lady.
Thus, this shift of temper having rapidly taken place, the heat within him grew fiercer and fiercer until, an hour later, he was angrier with Mme. Momoro than he had ever been with anyone in all his life before. At least, that was his own unhappy impression of his state of mind.
XV
IN THE MORNING, having slept little, he beheld from his balcony the magnificent departure of the Tinkers. A quarter of an hour earlier a deferential formality attended the setting forth of the Hereditary Prince Orthe XVIII of Fuhlderstein and his bride, who had been spending part of their honeymoon in Algiers. The manager of the hotel and the concierge, with the two chief porters, the maître d’hôtel, two valets de chambre and an agent of police, all bowed respectfully as the amiable-looking young couple were driven away in an Italian touring car; but this, as the melancholy playwright observed, was only a one-act curtain-raiser, as it were, preceding the full-sized drama of the American family’s departure. Looking down from his stone-railed box, he saw the brisk yet imposing arrival of two long and powerful French automobiles, new and glistening; one a landaulet, the other a limousine. The chauffeurs, trim young men of capable appearance, jumped
down, and, with them, the good-looking courier Ogle had seen in charge of the Tinkers the day before. More impressively, there descended from the landaulet a stout and smiling man who wore a white camellia upon the lapel of his frock coat and a broad black watch guard across his white waistcoat. The playwright recognized him as M. Cayzac, the chief personage of the tourist-agency and branch banking-house to which his letters were consigned.
M. Cayzac was apparently in high spirits, yet solicitous that all might go well with so important an undertaking as he had on hand this morning; — the manager of the hotel came forth to salute him, attended by the concierge; and the three conferred seriously, the gestures of M. Cayzac meanwhile becoming fluent, vigorous, and almost operatic. Then porters appeared, laden with small trunks, large black leather bags, rugs, fur coats, hat boxes, vacuum bottles and lunch baskets, for this was a motoring expedition of wide scope and no small moment; that was to be seen with half an eye. The trunks were strapped to the back of the limousine and upon its roof; the bags, boxes, bottles, furs, and baskets were stowed away inside; and while this was being done more employés of the hotel began to appear and collect themselves gravely in small groups between the landaulet and the principal entrance.
There was a pause; then a bowing began near the doorway, and Mrs. Tinker came forth, whereupon M. Cayzac rushed to her and gracefully kissed her hand — an act of courtesy visibly embarrassing to her; indeed she seemed doubtful of its propriety. He also kissed the hand of Olivia, who followed her mother, looking prettier than ever and not quite so resentful as usual, Ogle thought.
Now a mild commotion was perceptible, and Tinker appeared, wearing a gray ulster over his travelling clothes, for the morning was brisk; his hands were full of paper money, and his great anxiety, obviously, was to get rid of it. Since it was pink in colour and flimsy in texture, possibly he did not regard it as money at all, but merely as an encumbrance. However that may have been, every polite assistance was rendered him in his determination to depart without it; and when he had finished by pressing the last of it upon the manager, he seemed to feel, and was, relieved. Moreover, in this impersonation of a Christmas Tree moving between the door of the hotel and the landaulet, he inspired, for himself and for the golden land whence he came, a passionate enthusiasm combined with a beautifully concealed amazement.
The manager presented bouquets of violets and roses to the two ladies; a gardener presented them with two bouquets of greater variety; the maître d’hôtel presented Mrs. Tinker with a dozen jonquils; another gardener presented Tinker with three camellias, which a valet de chambre reverently pinned upon a lapel of the gray ulster. Then, when Tinker and Mrs. Tinker and Olivia were seated within the landaulet, and the courier had taken his place beside the chauffeur, the manager, the concierge, the maître d’hôtel, the three clerks from the bureau, two chief porters, two waiters, four valets de chambre, and two gardeners stood bowing their adieus; but those of M. Cayzac were vocal as well as gesticulative. With amiable fervour, he made what had the air of being an oration of tribute, as the two cars began slowly to move through the garden; and a clapping of hands and something like a slight cheering from the waiters and porters and gardeners encouraged his effort. Guests of the hotel, American, English, French, Italian, Greek, and Turkish, leaned from their balconies and came out upon the terrace, wondering what potentates incognito could thus be honoured.
M. Cayzac waved his arms ardently. “Bon voyage, Madame, Mademoiselle et Monsieur, et merci mille fois, Monsieur Tankaire!” he cried in conclusion. “Au plaisir, Monsieur Tankaire!”
And Tinker, leaning from the window of the landaulet, and waving his soft hat, shouted cordially in return, “Alley vooze on! We, we! Mon Doo! Mellican man say velly much oblige’! Goo’by!”
The expedition passed out of sight round a turn in the garden driveway, tooted its small brass horns at the gates, then was forth upon the adventure; and the hotel employés returned gayly to work, affluent even beyond expectation. Ten minutes later, General Sir William Broadfeathe
r, with one of the middle-aged ladies and the long-nosed girl, got into a small touring car; a porter and the concierge seeing them off; and to each of these Sir William gave a silver coin, but not until the engine was in full agitation.
Ogle, returning into his room pained by the contrast — for again it was the Americans who had made spectacles of themselves — found the gossiping femme de chambre engaged in making his bed. “Goodmorning, gentleman,” she said; and, with a bright glance at him she added: “Las’ night I have seen my cousin that is marry with the chauffeur at ‘Colline des Roses.’ You know what happen, I think?”
“No. I don’t know.”
“Well, my cousin she don’ know herself,” the femme de chambre admitted. “Her husban’, ’e don’ know too; but is somesing.”
“Something happened at the Daurels’ villa, you mean?”
“Yes, surely,” she said, and nodded three times for emphasis. “Surely is somesing happen. It has been going to happen all the time since they were in North America, my cousin she think; but now it happen the most of all. It is yesterday and the day before. Mademoiselle Lucie Daurel, she cry very much and Mademoiselle Daurel is angry — oh, she is angry! They hear her say that Monsieur Hyacinthe Momoro is a bad, bad boy! Bad!”
“What!” Ogle exclaimed. “How on earth is he ‘bad’? What’s he been doing?”
She shook her head. “Nobody can tell. The servants in the ‘ouse, that is all they know, but they say Mademoiselle Lucie cry so much because she think ’e is bad, too. Mademoiselle Daurel tell her so before they arrive; but she won’ believe. Now she cry because she mus’ got to believe it. You see Madame Momoro?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe she is going to tell you what happen. Maybe she will tell you when you see her; I think not.”
Ogle thought not too; but his greater doubt was that he should see her; and after Tinker’s naïve disclosure he was no longer sure that he indeed wished to see her. He was morose that morning and inclined to be a woman-hater, as he walked down the long hill to M. Cayzac’s office. M. Cayzac was there, somewhat pompously affable behind his desk; but the letters Ogle expected had not arrived, which made him anxious; for they should have reached Algiers by this time, if sent by way of Havre and Marseilles, as he had directed. He took a taxicab back to the hotel and found the terrace occupied by only two people: — one was the Arab merchant, asleep in the sunshine against the wall, and the other was M. Hyacinthe Momoro.
Tilted forward in a painted iron chair, the youth sat with his elbows upon the white stone railing of the terrace balustrade and stared vacantly into the garden. His attitude was one of blank dejection; and, on the part of this quiet and rather lonely boy, it was not without pathos. Moreover, when he turned his head at Ogle’s impulsive “Hello there,” violet tintings under his eyes suggested to the playwright a suspicion that Mile. Lucie Daurel might not have been the only one to weep, of late, at the villa “Colline des Roses.”
Hyacinthe rose, bowed in his formal way, and stood silent, as if respectfully waiting for the older man to say something more.
“You didn’t happen to be calling on me again?” the American inquired. “I’m sure I hope so.”
“You are very kind,” Hyacinthe returned. “No. We have come to stay in the hotel a few days. Then we mus’ go to Marseilles.”
“‘We’? You mean your mother is here with you?”
“In the hotel. Yes, she is here.”
Then it appeared that Ogle’s doubts about wishing to see Mme. Momoro again had not been well founded. “I wonder if there is an hour when I might call on her,” he said. “I wonder if I might—”
“I will ask her,” Hyacinthe said quietly, and went straightway upon this errand. He returned within three minutes and reported a favourable response. “She will be very glad.”
“She will? When?”
“At any time to-day. Now, if you wish.”
“Thank you. Then now, if you think—”
“I will show you,” Hyacinthe said.
He led the way into the hotel and to the second floor, where he knocked upon a door and then, without waiting for a response, opened it, and stood aside while Ogle entered.
Hyacinthe did not follow him. “My mother will come very soon, I am sure,” he said, and, having closed the door, went away.
The room was a small salon furnished in the Moorish manner of the public apartments downstairs — that is to say, it was Moorish after a Gallic interpretation, and reminded Ogle of “oriental rooms” he remembered seeing in a few American houses in his childhood. Here, however, where veritable Moors walked the streets, it seemed less out of place; though after what he had seen of the Arab quarter it did not have the air of being truly Moorish; for it was clean and comfortable and odourless.
Before him, as he stood, there was a doorway with a portière made of painted bits of hollow reed and green and rose glass beads strung, upon long cords; he was conscious of movements behind this gay curtain, and presently a faint spiciness seemed to drift out from it upon the air as if released from an opened vial of scent in the room beyond. Someone spoke softly in French; it was a woman’s voice, perhaps that of a maid or a femme de chambre of the hotel; and Mme. Momoro’s deeper tone replied to it quickly, her words indistinguishable — but when the rich sound of that low and hurried music came to his ears, the young man waiting felt the warm colour rush upon his cheeks and temples.
She had treated him abominably; he was sure of that; and yet now, when he heard her speak again and knew that in a moment he should see her, he could not for his life keep himself from blushing. Then an exquisite, long white hand, smooth and without a ring upon any of the shapely fingers, grasped some strands of the beaded curtain as if to open a passage through it; but Mme. Momoro paused invisible, speaking again to the woman beyond; — and Ogle, looking at that beautiful hand, began to tremble.
The next moment the portière rushed aside with a clattering of beads; she swept in, long, graceful, swift, enhelmed in her pale gold and dramatically intimate in glimpsed lace and a silken robe that swathed her in a fantasia of sombre colours. With the beautiful hand outstretched to him, she crossed the room; and then, tragic and sweet, stood looking down into his eyes.
“My poor friend!” she said. “You must forgive me. I have not been very happy.”
There was a lingering skepticism within him, even though he blushed and even though he trembled; but he could not doubt that she told the truth when she said that she had not been happy. Her face was almost haggard with the traces and shapings of emotion, and yet these traces and shapings were indefinite; they gave her no lines, and marvellously no age; it was as if she had been misted over with sorrow, not marked.
She retained his hand and led him to a chair close beside another. “Will you sit and listen to me?” she asked; and as he obediently did as she wished, she released his fingers from the gentle pressure with which she had enclosed them, turned away, walked to the window, and there turned again to face him. She lifted her arms high in a gesture eloquent of her inability to express what she felt, and, as her hands descended, clasped them behind her head. “Oh!” she cried. “I think it would be very difficult to believe. No one could believe that such a woman as she exists!”
“Do you mean Mademoiselle Daurel?” he asked. “Who else? You do not have such people in America! No, nor in England. Nowhere else but in a Latin country could you find natures so extraordinary.”
“What has she done?”
“It is incredible,” Mme. Momoro said, seeming not to hear him. She came back to the chair beside him, sank down in it, and then, not looking at him but before her, said again: “It is incredible.”
“I’d like to ask you something,” he began huskily.
“On the ‘Duumvir,’ was it on her account—”
“Everything was on her account,” Mme. Momoro said bitterly. “Everything! How long I have devoted myself to her! Always I have proved it; and I don’t say that always she h
as been unkind to me, because often she has been very kind — except for her jealousy. That has grown insufferable. You see, she is old; she has been very spoiled all her life — so many, many years in everything she has had her way. Even in the War she lost nothing. So everybody must do each little thing exactly as she wishes. My friend, you saw how it was upon the steamer: after she came out of her cabin again, I did not dare to speak to you. It was for fear of displeasing her; for fear she would make a terrible scene with me. I was afraid even to look at you!”
Ogle was still capable of doubting her. “But you weren’t afraid of looking at — at that Tinker!” he said. “You certainly—”
“No, no!” She turned to him, surprised. “Not after she was well again. Until then, yes; but not after.”
“What!” Ogle cried indignantly. “Why, he told me himself you’ve been going about with him here in Algiers. He said you—”
“Oh, in Algiers; yes,” she returned frankly; and in spite of her tragic overcasting, there was a twinkling in her eyes. “I could not resist that! Algiers is larger than a steamer. I told dreadful lies at ‘Colline des Roses’ and ran away to be with him because I thought if I could be amused I could endure a little longer what that terrible old woman was making me suffer. It was because with him I could laugh a little bit and forget Mademoiselle Daurel.”
“I see!” Ogle said grimly. “With me you couldn’t hope to be amused. So you didn’t even answer my note.”
She put her hand lightly upon his. “I knew he was going away in such a few days, and you were going to stay in Algiers.” Then she smiled faintly and said in a wistful voice: “Sometimes, can’t you understand, a woman like me must find something to laugh at to keep from crying?”
“But why couldn’t you have written me at least a word of explanation, when you had all that time for him?”
She laughed ruefully, shook her head, and removed her hand from his. “You don’t understand; perhaps you couldn’t. I was in that house: I didn’t dare to write a note. I didn’t write to Mr. Tinker; I had promised on the boat to meet him at M. Cayzac’s office. But what you must think of, please, it is that I knew you would stay in Algiers a long time; I knew I would see you. But I wish to be frank with you: he interests me, that man. I like him very, very much.”
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 400