Part 16

She dissembled her satisfaction, however. "If I had let you buy everything you have started to since we came into the street, we should have had to charter a donkey," she began.

"Look ou-at--look ou-at for Yanka Doodoo," bawled Achmet, the donkey boy, directly upon them.

"I don't like to feel that I mustn't admire anything," finished the girl as Jack stepped between her and the little quadruped who carried a much-excited and curled maiden of five.

"I like this lamp so much, I don't know that I shall let you have it," responded Van Tassel serenely, as he took the package. "Look up, Mildred. What a deep blue the sky gets between those irregular roofs."

"Only one of us can look up at a time, while the other keeps watch of the menagerie."

"There appears to be an extra crowd yonder," remarked Jack.

"Oh, that is the camel-stand. Hear the people laughing. How can anybody be willing to furnish so much amusement to the public as to mount one of those beasts? There is always just such a crowd there."

"Well, are we through here?" asked Van Tassel.

"What? Are you weary of Cairo Street?"

"Not if you are not; but it is rather warm, and there is a good deal of a mob, and I have inhaled enough attar of roses to last until my next incarnation. I thought perhaps you might be tired, standing."

"I am."

"There isn't a place to sit down, either," said Jack, looking around.

"That is just what almost every one thinks. I don't know how soon people will find out my enchanted palace, but they hadn't done so last week."

"Well, now, an enchanted palace is exactly what I am looking for," returned Van Tassel hopefully. "How did you learn the open sesame?"

"The open sesame is"--Mildred paused apologetically. "I am sorry to have to say it, but it is the only prosaic feature,--the open sesame is fifteen cents."

They moved along toward the crowd by the camel stand, and here in the noisiest, busiest portion of the winding street, Mildred led her companion into an open door which revealed a long, blank corridor. The dragon guarding it was a most commonplace American. Most people whose curiosity led them to look into the uninviting hallway were quickly frightened off by the placard stating the fifteen-cent admission fee. There was so much to see, and time and money were so limited, little wonder that the obvious attractions of the street decided them not to explore this side-show.

Mildred and Jack, leaving the din and bustle behind, pass the easily placated dragon, and at the end of the low, empty corridor found themselves in and open, floored court, out of which led a flight of stairs. A large earthen jar filled with water stood at one side over a smaller vessel into which the water filtered in crystal drops through the porous clay. Palms and lilies stood about, and edged the entire length of the staircase. It was very quiet here, and Van Tassel looked about him curiously.

Mildred gave him a smiling glance of mystery, "Let us go up and see Sayed Ibrahim," she said.

"Look here," returned Jack, frowning and smiling, "you are altogether too sophisticated."

"Sayed doesn't think so," answered the girl, and they proceeded upstairs. Entering a hallway where was a heavy bronze door of fabulous age and richness of design, they were met by a tall handsome Oriental in robes and fez, whose melting eyes lighted as they recognized Mildred. He bowed low.

"How do you do, Sayed Ibrahim; I have brought another friend to see the beautiful house."

He bowed again and held aside a portiere of cloth-of-gold. The visitors passed within and found themselves in a spacious shadowy room with lofty arched ceiling. The windows were unglazed and shielded by curious hand-carved lattice work. Thick rugs were upon the floor, and small tables inlaid with pearl and ivory stood about. On a larger one were a number of tiny and precious coffee cups, held in little brass stands. Long-stemmed pipes hung upon the walls, and divans or cushions upon the floor invited to repose. Rich portieres divided the suite of rooms one from another.

The light was dim, coming out of the glaring street, and the colors in rugs and hangings were tempered in the wonderful Oriental weaving. There were no other visitors. Jack looked at the swarthy cicerone who stood ready to answer their questions.

"I do not wonder," he said to Mildred, "that you call this mysterious spot enchanted. It is a chapter out of the Arabian Nights."

"Yes; are you ready to come back to the nineteenth century? The nineteenth century in Egypt, you know. I wouldn't make your fall too sudden and profound."

Mildred moved to the broad window-seat which was covered with a rug, and smiled at the Arab. It was a language he understood as clearly as the Harvard graduate, and he hastened forward and threw open the lattice.

Van Tassel seated himself opposite Mildred, and together they looked down upon the madding crowd.

Their position was just opposite the camel stand, and from their height they commanded a view of the kaleidoscopic life of the street. The bystanders pressed about the cushions upon which the camels knelt to take on or be relieved of their burdens, and seemed to find never-failing entertainment in the behavior of those intrepid passengers who embarked for the adventurous journey to the end of the street and back again.

Mildred and Jack in their romantic eyrie held their sides with laughter over the absurdities enacted before their eyes.

"If any trip ever deserved the name of pleasure exertion, that is the one," said Mildred, wiping her eyes, while she watched two girls who evidently took their lives in their hands as they seated themselves on the cushioned back of one of the patient beasts. The Arab driver cried out, and tapped the creature on the neck.

"Now then," said Jack, "see the ship of the desert let out the reefs in its legs!"

Shrieks arose from the maidens at the first ascent, wilder and wilder cries and clutchings at the second and third, and by the time the animal had reached the stature of a camel and swung away, the whole crowd was uproarious, only quieting to observe the next pair embark.

"Miss Amelia Edwards says the camel is a beast that hates its rider," said Jack. "I wonder what are the private prejudices of the Cairo Street variety."

"As if you couldn't see!" answered Mildred. "It wouldn't be half so funny if the camels didn't curl their lips and look so supercilious all the time those idiots are shrieking so. 'What fools these mortals be!' is the sentiment their faces express chronically. Poor things! Just think, that they are only intended to kneel once or twice a day, and here they have to go down every three minutes. How they would execrate Columbus if they only knew how! Oh, look at that old lady! It is a shame to let her go," added Mildred. "They will laugh at her, too."

"Never mind. She will be the heroine of Perkins Point, or wherever it is, all the rest of her life."

"She looks scared, Jack. Oh, dear! her bonnet is falling off. I wish she wouldn't. Why, there are Clover and Mr. Page! Do you see them? Let us go out on the balcony." Mildred left the window-seat, and Jack followed.

"Is there a balcony? Why didn't you say so?"

"Because I am economical of my pleasant surprises." The watchful Sayed threw open double doors of the lattice work, and revealed a small, square balcony upon which the visitors stepped into the sunlight. The fanciful minarets and spires of the street gleamed against an azure sky.

Clover and Gorham had paused just below, also interested in the venturesome old lady, who was followed by cheers as her scornful camel bore her up the street.

Jack took advantage of the temporary lull that followed, to whistle the bit from "Carmen."

Clover instantly looked up and called the attention of her companion.

Mildred beckoned.

"Clover knows the way," said Jack.

"Most certainly she does. We Chicagoans aren't Fair visitors. We are Fair livers."

"Don't be so toplofty, mademoiselle. What am I, if not a Chicagoan?"

"Oh, a sort of deserter."

"'I deny the allegation and despise the allegator.' I am going to marry a Chicago girl, and live here all my days."

"Have you asked her?"

Van Tassel, perhaps reminded by the neighborhood of his mentor, forbore from replying to the saucy smiling eyes, and here Clover and Gorham appeared at the door of the balcony.

"Come out," said Mildred, "it holds five. Is this the way you visit the Anthropological Building?"

"Why, this is all right," answered Page. "'Midway Plaisance, Department M. Ethnology.' Look on the catalogue, and you will see this is all a part of the Anthropological exhibit."

"And apart from it," suggested Mildred, "which certainly is in its favor. I thought you would see enough ghastly pictures and graveyards and mummies in a short time."

"The exhibits in the gallery are wonderful and beautiful," said Clover. "I don't believe you know what you are talking about."

"I do, my dear. I have oh'd and ah'd over them all, from the dainty infinitesimal sea creatures on pink cotton to the mammoth. I felt so much obliged to him. He really made me feel small. Then the realistic cliff, with the birds and beasts artistically disposed, and the waterfall and flowing brook. I've seen them. How long have you been here?"

"Not very long. We have been watching the antics of the women on the camels, and the long-legged men on those tiny donkeys."

"A great deal of human nature comes out in Cairo Street," said Page with interest. "One sees a great variety of motives, and many grades of self-control by that camel stand. See that little woman going now to take a trip. Is it amusement she's after? Not at all. Note the determination in her face. Duty calls and she obeys. Dollars to doughnuts she doesn't scream, Jack."

"I'm out of doughnuts; but I'll bet you the supper she does. I haven't seen a quiet one yet."

"Done! You will see one now."

"That girl is from the East," said Mildred.

"I am sure of it," returned Page, gazing with pleased curiosity at his protegee, who stood waiting her turn; "but what brings you to that conclusion?"

"The trimming of her hat looks as if it were nailed on. They say all Boston women's bonnet trimmings are nailed on."

"She is a character," said Page. "Now I would like to know what her motive is in riding that camel."

Jack guffawed. "I am sure you would. You will be asking her the next thing we know."

"Well, it is no idle one, I'm sure of that."

"Perhaps she is a school teacher," suggested Van Tassel, "and wants to go home and tell her scholars how pitch-and-toss in Cairo Street differs from the usual game."

"There she goes," said Clover, and they all watched the fair-faced girl approach and mount a camel whose expression for utter boredom rather outdid its neighbors. At the driver's cry it gathered itself convulsively. The rider lurched forward. Her back was to the watchers on the balcony, but they could not hear a sound from her. She lurched backward, still without a cry, and they were not surprised when the camel swung around to see her face still set in its determined and composed lines while the crowd looked on in silence.

"I shall enjoy that supper very much, Jack," said Gorham.

"You haven't won it yet. Wait till she comes back. When his Nibs kneels down is the time a girl's lungs really come into play. After she thinks every joint in his body has doubled up there comes one unexpected plunge that fetches the most dignified of them every time. They say a sailor came in here the other day and after riding one of our humped friends said that the camel played cup-and-ball with him the whole length of the street, and only missed him twice."

In a few minutes, back came Gorham's heroine, still composed as she rocked back and forth clinging to the rope which the driver had handed her for a support.

"Now that supper hangs in the balance," remarked Page.

"I'm safe enough," returned Jack nonchalantly, "and I assure you my appetite is in prime condition."

The camel, slowly winking and holding his nose aloft, approached his cushion, and began the series of spasmodic collapses which made its rider look as though at the mercy of a rocking-chair gone mad. She pitched wildly, but valiantly held her peace. Even Jack had to admit that she did not make a murmur, and all his protests against playing off a dumb girl on him were unheeded as Page gazed benignly down on the young woman, who smiled sweetly and triumphantly as she rejoined her friends.

"Five minutes of four," said Mildred. "The wedding procession will soon pass. Aren't we fortunate to have the balcony? Do you see, other people are daring to visit the house and taking our window-seat?"

"Your window-seat! That is pretty good," said Clover, turning toward the speaker with an arch smile. "We thought that was our window-seat, didn't we, Jack?"

She saw the color flash over her sister's face in the instant before the girl controlled herself. She wondered if Jack had seen the novel evidence of feeling before Mildred turned to him coolly.

"So you have been here before," she remarked. "Why didn't you mention it?"

"Clover and I looked in a short time only, the evening we took supper in Germany," answered Van Tassel. "I did not examine the curious place at all then, so this is really my first view of it."

Clover turned away to conceal her amusement. Jack in his embarrassment had implied all she could have asked from the disciplinary standpoint.

But now the attention of the quartette was claimed by the wedding procession, which was seen coming down the street, the camels nearly hidden under their gaudy, bulky trappings, and the din of the tom-toms filling the air. When the music, dancing, and sword play were ended, Mildred spoke to her sister.

"What have you done with Mr. and Mrs. Page?"

"They went to the Chinese theatre, and we have promised to meet them in Old Vienna and take supper there."

"Our dear Jack will have to take supper with us now," declared Gorham cordially.

"I suppose," said Van Tassel, addressing Mildred, "that Old Vienna is an oft-repeated experience to you?"

"At least I shall not pretend that it is a novelty," she answered without looking at him, and Jack was silent. He even colored, but it was not with proper contrition. It was a flush of pleasure that overspread his countenance as his brown eyes sent a quick glance into Clover's.

*CHAPTER XXI.*

*OLD VIENNA.*

"How remarkable that you met Mildred," said Clover to Jack, after the four had wended their way out of Cairo and turned west.

"It was a lucky chance," replied Van Tassel.

"Where did you meet?" The fun in his face gave Clover her first suspicion.

"In the Ferris Wheel. Wasn't it a coincidence that we should have chosen the same cab? And I'll tell you in confidence, Clover, that I think Mildred was considerably impressed with his Wheelship."

"Why should you make a confidence of that?" asked Mildred nonchalantly. "We are all impressed, aren't we?"

"Not to the verge of pallor, Milly."

"Don't call me Milly. No one does that but Clover."

"Were you really frightened, Mildred?" asked her sister with much interest.

"Why do you ask me? Ask Jack. He evidently knows all about it."

"No, I insist on referring you to Mildred herself. She scorns petty deceits of all kinds. I cannot be relied on to tell the absolute truth."

Mildred looked at the speaker with a dangerous sparkle in her eyes. "Why don't you give Clover her present?" she asked suddenly.

"A present for me? Why, hurry," exclaimed Clover. "What new extravagance have you been committing, Milly?"

"It isn't I this time, it is Jack. He has bought you the most adorable little silver hanging-lamp you ever saw. Open it, Jack; or shall we wait till we are seated in Old Vienna?"

"You told him I wanted it, you naughty girl."

"No, I didn't." Mildred was bubbling over with mischievous satisfaction in Van Tassel's struggles to look bland. "It was purely spontaneous on his part. I even went so far as to urge him not to get it. Didn't I, Jack?"

Van Tassel's reply was scarcely audible; but they had reached the guard, who with puffed sleeves and feathered hat stood motionless, spear in hand, before the entrance to the Vienna of two hundred years ago.

Inside they found the Pages, standing before one of the many open shops which formed the first floors of the weather-stained, peaked, and turreted houses.

"Hilda is buying a spoon," announced Mr. Page as his friends approached; "but that goes without saying. I have kept careful count, and this is the seventy-seventh she has purchased while with me. Of course there may be others. I can't tell what pleasant surprises may be awaiting me when we get home."

"How was the Chinese theatre?" asked Gorham, while Clover and Mildred gravitated naturally to Mrs. Page's side to lend her their aid in deciding between the merits of two spoons she was examining.

"Immense; you must go."

"You mustn't go unless you want to be driven crazy with noise," put in Hilda. "Robert says I am deficient in the sense of humor, but you positively can't think in that place. There was a Chinese-American in the audience acting as an interpreter, and I suppose he saw that Robert was interested; so he just stayed with us, and put the crowning touch to the confusion by explaining the play at a pitch to be heard above the squealing music and the shrieking actors."

"Women's parts all taken by men, of course," explained her husband, "and they jabber in a high monotonous falsetto without any change of countenance except an occasional attack of pathetic strabismus. Two lovers meet after a separation of ten years. They start, then with two simultaneous squeaks fall backward in a swoon, feet to feet, and lie there with their elaborately dressed heads sticking up in the air, while a supe runs in with wooden supports which he tucks under their necks. The interpreter explained: 'Of course they cannot spoil their hair!' Ha! ha! It was great; and as for the costumes and hangings, they would stand alone for the gold and silver embroidery in them. Confess, Hilda, they were consoling."

"Yes, they were; and so was the baby we saw upstairs in the Joss-house. He was ten months old, with a black tuft of hair on top of his head exactly like the Chinese dolls, and was dressed in green silk trousers and a red silk shirt."

"You must have wanted to steal him," said Mildred.

"That is what his mother thought, I am sure. He lay asleep in a little wagon, and when she heard me exclaim, she flew out from behind a curtain with a very suspicious expression on her pretty face. Yes, she was really pretty, and dimpled, and young; and her hands were loaded with rings. Robert, just look here one minute. Don't you think the filigree handle is the prettier?"

"My dear, I ate too many bananas once, and have never since been able to endure the sight of them. If you knew the sentiments with which a souvenir spoon inspires me, you would tremble."

"I will take the filigree one," said Mrs. Page, with a sigh of relief.

The six ate supper together at a table pleasantly distant from the fine German orchestra. Feathery bits of white cloud scudded over the blue above them. Picturesque gables and weather-beaten facades illuminated with the decorations of a bygone time closed them in from the outside world with such an atmosphere of antiquity, that even the dignified beauty of Handel's Largo, as its stately measures pealed forth on the evening air, seemed an anachronism.

Mildred sat at Jack's right hand.

"What shall I put down for you?" he asked, looking up from the order he was writing. "I found nothing on the card injurious enough to be appropriate."

Mildred smiled slightly as she glanced over the menu.

"You deserved a worse punishment than that," she answered.

"It is true it was no great punishment. I should like to give Clover all Cairo Street if she wants it."

Clover was sitting opposite between the other men, and the music effectually concealed from her the above colloquy.

"Hurry up, Jack," she said, leaning forward; "they keep you waiting forever here. Give her bread and milk if she can't decide. It is good for the young."

While the party were waiting for their meal to be brought, Jack, now at ease in the situation, produced the silver lamp, which received much praise as it was passed about.

Gorham, Mildred's other neighbor, turned to her. "Your sister suggests that you must have practiced much self-control," he remarked. "She says this is just the sort of lamp you have been searching for."

"Do you hear that, Jack?" asked Mildred demurely. "I am afraid Jack does not appreciate me, Mr. Page."

Mildred, ever since the evening of her confidential talk with Gorham, had carried the half-nettled, wholly amused consciousness that he was regarding her with considerations of her search for that affinity she had described. She felt sure he would not repeat their talk to Jack; but if he should! The thought brought a stinging red to her cheeks.

Page was not thinking of her now, however. This little circumstance of the gift of the lamp impressed him. That Jack should, while with Mildred, buy this bauble which the latter coveted and give it to Clover, looked as though Hilda's convictions might be correct. As he caught a serene glance from Clover's violet eyes it suddenly seemed to him very improbable that an impressionable fellow like his cousin should not dream by day and night of that pure and beautiful face.

Jack was not worthy of her, he could not precisely state to himself why; and he ran over his acquaintances in his mind to see if he could find one the consideration of whom would rouse less antagonism. He had not succeeded when the waiter appeared with the supper.

"What are you indefatigable people going to do next?" asked Robert Page, lighting a cigar when their meal was finished. "I am extremely comfortable and good-natured now, but I warn you I shall turn dangerous if any one suggests the illumination. To be asked just to step over from Old Vienna to the Court of Honor sounds pleasant. It was played on me once when I was a tenderfoot; but I'm not to be roped into any such pilgrimage to-night. If I wasn't a married man, I should sit right here and listen to the music, and see the Wheel go round, until it was time to go to my little bed."

"What nonsense!" remarked Hilda. "If you weren't married you would be urging me to go with you in a gondola."

"My dear, where would be the use? You know the gondolas are all bespoken by this time. What a sweet consciousness it is, by the way," added Page, sighing restfully.

"We are going, though, some night," returned his wife. "Before we leave the White City, you must take me in a gondola and hold my hand."

"See the lengths to which this woman's frenzy for spoons carries her! Why, I'll hold your hand now, my dear. Any suggestion which presupposes so little exertion as that will find me in an affirmative state of mind every time."

Hilda glanced at his offered hand scornfully. "We haven't the stage-setting," she replied. "Be careful, Robert Page, or you will frighten Mildred out of getting married at all."

"Is that true, Miss Mildred? Oh, I don't believe it. You are so level-headed you must see the situation in the right light. Did you ever hear the simile of the horse-car? When a man is trying to catch a horse-car and afraid it is going to escape him, he waves his arms, shouts, hurries, and disturbs himself generally. After he has caught the conveyance, if he continued to behave in the same perturbed fashion he would be set down as a lunatic. You see the point, of course?"

Mildred pursed her lips and shook her head. "You are a very audacious man," she answered.