by Pamela Kent
_ She was called the next morning (by a Moorish S Y"0 ad been ^Puted to wait on her and
the children) at an hour when the sky was still flushed with the rosy glow of sunrise, and the air was sweet and cool like wine. She looked very
slender and attractive in a silk shirt and Celestine s beautifully tailored jodhpurs, and because there was as yet little real power in the sun she contented herself with appearing in the courtyard hatless.
Si Mohammed glanced at her, and then away again quickly, and during the ride he was unfailingly polite and attentive, but nothing more. Jenny
thoroughly enjoyed the ride because for once she was doing a thing that was familiar to her, and she knew that her companion could detect nothing wrong with her horsemanship. The beauty of the Atlas at that hour Of the morning was something to be remembered; and she decided that in some ways she preferred this isolated kasbah to the crowded lanes of Marrakesh.
She healthily enjoyed the Continental breakfast
tHat was awaiting her when she returned, and the following morning she rode again with Si Mohammed, and Celestine assured her she could keep the jodhpurs for the remainder of their stay.
The days slipped by, and somewhat to Jenny's surprise they were very pleasant. Si Mohammed proved himself an excellent host. He kept hia
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word, and Jenny found nothing to complain of in his manner towards her. Sometimes she thought Celestine watched them when they were together with a queer, bright, speculative look in her eyes, but she had no qualms of uneasiness, and was not really sorry when the Comtesse told her she had decided there was no need for them to hurry back to Marrakesh while the Comte was away.
Jenny imagined that she received letters from him, and that he knew where they were. Neither of them discussed Max Daintry, although Celestine volunteered the information that Raoul had intended to visit their chateau in the south of
France, and that he might linger there for a while. Its charms made it difficult for him to leave it once he was there, she told Jenny a little dryly.
At the end of a week Jenny and the two children were returning from an excursion amongst local scenery in one of Si Mohammed's highpowered cars when she was surprised to see another car standing in the courtyard as they drove into it. It was a familiar dark crimson car with an English number plate, and in it she had once been driven to the Mamounia in Marrakesh to drink coffee with its owner. She knew she would recognize it anywhere.
Si Mohammed's eyebrows rose as he decanted his passengers alongside the dark red car, but he offered no comment. Jenny took the children up to their room and washed and tidied them, and then handed them over to the care of the Moorish girl while she went in search of their mother. Her heart was knocking uncomfortably because she knew that when she did come upon her she would not be alone, and in spite of a stern silent lecture to herself while she washed the children, and a determination not fro reveal surprise or any other emotion, her knees felt weak when she entered the patio where Celestine often walked or lounged beside the fountain _
But the patio was empty when she entered it, and the fountain was filling the air with a meamng
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i less, musical plashing noise. Her hand clutched at a spray of jasmine, and she stood crushing the starry white flower between her fingers without realizing what she was doing while she summoned up all her courage and looked beneath the arch into the room which had been set apart for them as a lounge, and which was part of Si Mohammed's own quarters. The sunlight was falling so strongly in the patio that the room appeared dim, but she saw vague figures lounging on a Chesterfield couch. Voices reached her. "I knew you'd come," said Celestine, with a triumphant note in her voice, "J felt absolutely certain of it! As soon as you returned and found out where we were I knew it would be only a matter of hours before you would be on your way here!"
"That was clever of you," a mocking voice
answered, "but of course you were right The
only thing you're wrong about is that I didn't
allow hours to elapse�I came at once!" "Darling," Celestine laughed caressingly, "you must have been impatient!. . ." Jenny turned away, still crushing the jasmine flowers. She wondered whether she had a right to intrude�or whether perhaps it would be more tactful to disappear again. And then a wave of sympathy for the Comte welled over her, and was' followed by succeeding waves of self-disgust, self-pity amounting to something like anguish, and a kind of burning dislike of the Comtesse. She felt that the Comtesse was behaving cruelly ' to her husband. � o , And then she heard quick footsteps on the tiled floor of the patio, and Si Mohammed Menebhi came striding towards her along one of the paths. He looked at her as if in astonishment, and then with a smile he took her arm and guided her towards the arch beyond which her employer sat " with Max Daintryo
123 ;
'"I believe we have a visitor,"' the young Moor said. "Let's go together and meet him, shall we?"
And because she was not looking up into his face she did not see the queer glint in his eye, and the mild derisiveness in his voice passed her by. He1 was still lightly retaining her arm when they entered the room where the two who wereabout to be disturbed were studying one another's
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MAX DAINTRY stood up to greet them. Although he had completed a journey by air not many hours before, and had afterwards driven a considerable number of miles through the heat of the day over uncared-for mountain roads, and had not yet had time to remove the ravages of travel, he was looking remarkably cool and self-contained and as, well dressed as usual.
Jenny felt his eyes travel to her face and rest upon it with an odd, unreadable look in their grey depths, and then they passed on to the man who stood beside her. His voice was perfectly affable as he greeted them both.
"Why, hello!" he said. "Enjoying yourself, Jenny, in these unusual surroundings? And is Si Mohammed trying to impress you with his feudalism?"
Celestine cut in and answered for hers
"Si Mohammed is not in the least feudal, and we've been having a wonderful time here, where there is every comfort save electric light."
"Perhaps next time you come, then. Jenny, even electric light will be installed," Max observed dryly.
Si Mohammed said in a voice that gave away absolutely nothing of what he was thinking and feeling; " "I saw your car in the courtyard, Daintry, and I gathered that our numbers were to be increased." His eyes rested reflectively on Celestine's face, "Shall we insist that he remains with us, Madame? For a few days, at least?"
"I have every intention of remaining _ at
� least for tonight, if you can put me up?" Daintry returned with cool composure. "I know you've got enough bedrooms to accommodate a regiment so that shouldn't seriously inconvenience you," 125
"It won't," Si Mohammed assured him politely. "And it will, of course, be a pleasure," he added, in smooth and polished tones.
"Then that's settled!" Celestine exclaimed, with a kind of kittenish contentment, curling up with her feet under her in a corner of the Chesterfield. "And you can spend the evening telling us about Paris, and how gay it looked, and what exactly you did there, and why you flew back so soon. Not," with a charming, provocative smile up at him, "that your return isn't an extremely pleasant
surprise!"
He looked down at her for a moment, and since, in her lime-green linen that made her skin looklike apple-blossom by contrast, with every shining hair on her head beautifully arranged, and her grpenish-golden eyes pools of mystery and seductiveness, she was the very embodiment of feminine allure there could be no mistake about the admiration that appeared in his eyes as he studied her. Or so Jenny told herself when she noted how blank those eyes became when they returned to her own face�as if, she thought, there was nothing about her that was of any real interest to him, or which justified the faintest glimmering
of approval. And she was not surprised that after
that he seemed deliberately to ignore
her. And although drinks were served, and they all satabout in relaxed attitudes in the cool and pleasant room and Celestine talked a ^reat deal, while bi Mohammed, as the host, interpolated an occasional polite remark�although even he seemed subdued, Jenny thought, and there was no pleasure in his
eves when they rested on his newest guest�thesomewhat noticeable process of ignoring her continued right up until the moment when they all dispersed to change for dinner, and then he half mockingly inquired of her whether or not shecould find her way to her room in such a rabbit warren, and she replied distantly that she could find her way with ease by this time.
"Which only goes to show how well you're settling down, doesn't it?" he remarked, with one corner of his mouth lifting in a faintly unpleasantsmile. But she had no opportunity to answer him because Celestine urged her to hurry if she was to get the children to bed and enjoy a bath herself before dinner.
At dinner she felt very much as she had felt on her first evening in the kasbah�unwilling to talk because her state of mind made it impossible for her to think coherently, and unwilling to listen to the conversation of the other three because
it was the kind she could not have taken part in with ease. It was sparkling conversation led by Celestine, who looked at her best in silvery brocade and pearls, and touched without any real nostalgia on the Paris she insisted she adored, and where, she was just as insistent, Max Daintry,
in spite of the brief duration of his visit, must have found a good deal of reward for the inconveniences of his journey.
Her tone was so arch � although her eyes watched him carefully, even avidly�that Jenny felt a trifle sick, particularly when she saw the little half-smile Daintry gave her in return. By contrast with Si Mohammed, whose looks appeared almost feminine, he was so essentially masculine� so dominatingly masculine, that the sickness was overlaid by a kind of despairing ache. She felt she was up against something ruthless and relentless that had caught at her life merely for the calculated fun of catching at it, and that the fun would increase when she began to betray symptoms of being vanquished by the attraction
�she could not ignore. She wished, as they waded through the endless meal, with its long-drawn-out courses, that she had acted upon the impulse which assailed herwhile she was dressing and made an excuse to stay upstairs with the children. But Celestine, she somehow felt certain;, wouldaot have approved of that.
After dinner they paid a visit to the elderly Caid and drank the usual three cups of mint tea with him, while the last of the light died out of the sky and the African night closed down over the kasbah. Max Daintry obviously was well known to the Caid, and for once the old man's expression became animated while Max talked to him with fluent ease in his own tongue, and the others' were so much left out of it that Celestine quickly showed her boredom and made an excuse to escape. Jenny escaped with her, and Si Mohammed was called away to some other part of the kasbah, so that the two women found themselves alone in the wide patio under its roof of starry sky.
"I'm going to smoke a last cigarette on my balcony," the Comtesse said, "and then I'm going to bed. Your admirer has probably been called away to settle a dispute in the harem, so if I were you I'd go to bed, also."
Jenny looked shocked.
"In the�harem?" she echoed.
Celestine sent her an amused glance.
"My dear, I was only joking. Si Mohammed is
as western'as you or I, and so far as I know hes
not married. In fact, the one thing I really do
know about him is that he is contemplating mar
riage! If there's a harem here it will contain the
female belongings of his father."
But when they had parted, and Jenny had found her way up to her room, she wished for the first time overpoweringly that they had never come to this remote kasbah, for the way of life led m it was not the way of life understood by herself or any member of her own race. Celestine's observa, tion that Si Mohammed was as western as herself was probably true as far as superficial manners
went but underneath all the luxury here and the
evidences of an addiction to modern ways of life
there was something that was inescapably eastern.
She hoped that they would leave soon, and once
they got back to Marrakesh she did not think
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she would remain much longer in the employment of the Comtesse de St. Alais.
Just before she started to undress she discovered in her handbag a small diamante clip belonging to the Gomtesse which she had rescued from one of the mosaic paths in the patio that afternoon, and meant to return to her employer at dinner. Thinking that Celestine might miss itshe decided to slip next door and return it to her, but when she knocked on the door there was no "Come in" in response to her knock, and when she opened the door and looked inside the room was dark and empty. The windows stood wide to the balcony, but that, too, was empty. Celestine was not smoking her final cigarette on her balcony
after all! Jenny returned to her room. From that angle
of the house she could see across the patio into the rooms on the opposite side, and the huge roomwhere they had been received by the Caid was without a sign of light. Which meant that SiMohammed's father had retired for the night, and that Max Daintry was no longer talking tohim.
And even as this realization struck her she caught the glow of cigarette ends down belowher in the patio, and the murmur of voices reached her�even a faint, soft, satisfied, feminine laugh, which was undoubtedly Celestine's.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE next morning Jenny found that she had little
time to devote to anyone save the children, for
Louis was at his most fractious,, and wanting to
return to his own home where all his personal
things were. Simone, too, was cross and unlike herself, and Jenny decided that they had probably had rather too much sun the day before, and thatit would be best to keep them in the cool of their room where she spent almost the whole of the morning reading to them and entertaining them.
At lunch she met Max Daintry for the first timethat day, but apart from the merest civilities he did not take much notice of her. Nothing was said about his return to Marrakesh, so she gathered that he was. remaining at the kasbah for anothernight at least. Celestine looked like a cat that had stolen the cream, and Si Mohammed was not present at the meal because whatever had demanded his presence the night before was still making demands on him, and so far no one had
seen him that day. , , ,,. z.,,, ^
In the afternoon Jenny rested the children for an hour, and then took them out into the patio where the colonnades cast a sufficiency of shadow, and the noise of the fountain splashing into its marble basin was a coolness in itself. Celestine and
i Max did not appear, but just before dinner they 'returned from a drive in Max's dark red car, and the Comtesse still looked as if nothing could shake her equanimity. ^
Jenny excused herself from having drinks with them, and lingered over the task of putting the children to bed, so that by the time she herself was ready to descend to the ground floor of the kasbah it was almost exactly time for the evening meal to be served. Si Mohammed to her relief� for she had been dreading the thought of sharing what would otherwise have been a tete-a-tete
meal with the other two�had returned by thistime, and although he seemed rather quieter than usual, as if something was occupying his mind, at least the conversation flower more evenly than it would otherwise have done.
They did not visit the Caid that evening for tea, but had coffee in the lounge, and again Si Mohammed politely asked if they would excuse him for ashort time. Jenny hurried to make her own excuses and leave the Comtesse and Max alone together, and went up to her room to sit for a while on her balcony and watch the night close down.
But for once, after a swelteringly hot day, the night was warm, and the loneliness of her balcony, and the da
rkness of the room behind her, where
the children slept, began to prey upon her nerves. She was feeling the need of exercise, too, since she had not even had her ride that morning and
so much of the day had been devoted to sitting about in the shade and trying to keep cool, that she felt she must somehow or other escape and stretch her legs.
She was afraid to descend to the main patio in case she bumped into the Comtesse and the man who was keeping her most attentive company in the absence of her husband, but there was a much smaller patio which she had discovered with thechildren on to which backed some rooms which were actually disused harem quarters, and she decided that there at least she was unlikely to be disturbed.
She draped a thin stole about her shoulders over her white dress, which was the one she had worn to the Benoits' dinner-party, and stole like a shadow through the corridors which led to the disusedpatio. She was quite sure she was unobserved, and was pacing up and down in the deliciously cool air, and inhaling all the perfume of flowers hidden in the dusk, when in front of her there suddenly appeared a tall and interested shadow into which she all but stumbled,,
"Either I come up behind you, or you charge into me!" Max Daintry remarked, and steadied her, because she had been thrown partly off her
balance.
Jenny was so taken aback by his sudden appearance, and so vexed because it was the onething she had wished to avoid, that she bit her lip hard and said nothing.
"I hope I'm not interfering with something?" he suggested blandly. "I saw you stealing through here, and it occurred to me that you might be on your way to meet our Si Mohammed, but as he's closeted with his father at the moment that still leaves us time for a little talk. I promise you, if he appears, I'll vanish with the utmost discre
tion."
Jenny could see how his eyes and his mouth mocked her through the purple gloom of the night, and all at once she was so enraged thatshe could only stutter a few words which made his dark eyebrows lift.