Part 2

But in the salon, one of Queen Thleeanouhee’s ladies had been desired by her Dreaminess to sing.

“It seems so long,” she declared, “since I heard an Eastern voice, and it would be such a relief.”

“By all means,” Queen Thleeanouhee said, “and let a _darbouka_ or two be brought! For what charms the heart more, what touches it more,” she asked, considering meditatively her babouched feet, “than a _darbouka_?”

It was told that, in the past, her life had been a gallant one, although her adventures, it was believed, had been mostly with men. Those however, who had observed her conduct closely, had not failed to remark how often her eyes had been attracted in the course of the evening towards the dimpled cheeks of the British Ambassadress.

Perceiving her ample form not far away, Queen Thleeanouhee signalled to her amiably to approach.

_Née_ Rosa Bark (and a daughter of the Poet) Lady Something was perhaps not sufficiently tactful to meet all the difficulties of the rôle in which it had pleased life to call her. But still, she tried, and did do her best, which often went far to retrieve her lack of _savoir faire_. “Life is like that, dear,” she would sometimes say to Sir Somebody, but she would never say what it was that life was like. ‘_That_,’ it seemed....

“I was just looking for my daughter,” she declared.

“And is she as sympathetic,” Queen Thleeanouhee softly asked, “as her mamma?”

“She’s shy--of the Violet persuasion, but that’s not a bad thing in a young girl.”

“Where _I_ reign, shyness is a quality which is entirely unknown...!”

“It must be astonishing, ma’am,” Lady Something replied, caressing a parure of false jewels, intended, indeed, to deceive no one, “to be a Queen of a sun-steeped country like yours.”

Queen Thleeanouhee fetched a sigh.

“Dateland--my dear, it’s a scorch!” she averred.

“I conclude, ma’am, it’s what _we_ should call ‘conservatory’ scenery?” Lady Something murmured.

“It is the land of the jessamine-flower, the little amorous jessamine-flower,” the Queen gently cooed with a sidelong smiling glance, “that twines itself sometimes to the right-hand, at others to the left, just according to its caprices!”

“It sounds I fear to be unhealthy, ma’am.”

“And it is the land also, of romance, my dear, where _shyness_ is a quality which is entirely unknown,” the Queen broke off, as one of her ladies, bearing a _darbouka_, advanced with an air of purposefulness towards her.

The hum of voices which filled the room might well have tended to dismay a vocalist of modest powers, but the young matron known to the Court as ‘Tropical Molly,’ and whom her mistress addressed as Timzra, soon shewed herself to be equal to the occasion.

“Under the blue gum-tree I am sitting waiting, Under the blue gum-tree I am waiting all alone!”

Her voice reached the ears of the fresh-faced ensigns and the beardless subalterns in the Guard Room far beyond, and startled the pages in the distant dormitories, as they lay smoking on their beds.

And then, the theme changing, and with an ever-increasing passion, fervour and force:

“I heard a Watch-dog in the night ... Wailing, wailing ... Why is the watch-dog wailing? He is wailing for the Moon!”

“That is one of the very saddest songs,” the King remarked, “that I have ever heard. ‘Why is the watchdog wailing? He is wailing for the Moon!’” And the ambitions and mortifications of kingship, for a moment weighed visibly upon him.

“Something merrier, Timzra!” Queen Thleeanouhee said.

And throwing back her long love-lilac sleeves, Timzra sang:

“A negress with a margaret once, lolled frousting in the sun Thinking of all the little things that she had left undone ... With a hey, hey, hey, hey, hi, hey ho!”

“She has the air of a cannibal!” the Archduchess murmured behind her fan to his Weariness, who had scarcely opened his lips except to yawn throughout the whole of the evening.

“She has the air of a ----” he replied, laconically, turning away.

Since the conversation with his mother earlier in the day, his thoughts had revolved incessantly around Laura. What had they been saying to the poor wee witch, and whereabouts was she to be found?

Leaving the salon, in the wake of a pair of venerable politicians, who were helping each other along with little touches and pats, he made his way towards the ballroom, where a new dance known as the Pisgah Pas was causing some excitement, and gaining a post of vantage, it was not long before he caught a glimpse of the agile, boyish figure of his betrothed. She passed him, without apparently noticing he was there, in a whirlwind of black tulle, her little hand pressed to the breast of a man like a sulky eagle; and he could not help rejoicing inwardly, that, _once_ his wife, it would no longer be possible for her to enjoy herself exactly with whom she pleased. As she swept by again he succeeded in capturing her attention, and nodding meaningly towards a deserted picture-gallery, wandered away towards it. It was but seldom he set foot there, and he amused himself by examining some of the pictures to be seen upon the walls. An old shrew with a rose ... a drawing of a man alone in the last extremes ... a pink-robed Christ ... a seascape, painted probably in winter, with cold, hard colouring....

“Yousef?”

“Rara!”

“Let us go outside, dear.”

A night so absolutely soft and calm, was delicious after the glare and noise within.

“With whom,” he asked, “sweetheart, were you last dancing?”

“Only the brother of one of the Queen’s Maids, dear,” Mademoiselle de Nazianzi replied. “After dinner, though,” she tittered, “when he gets Arabian-Nighty, it’s apt to annoy one a scrap!”

“_Arabian-Nighty?_”

“Oh, never mind!”

“But (pardon me dear) I do.”

“Don’t be tiresome, Yousef! The night is too fine,” she murmured glancing absently away towards the hardly moving trees, from whose branches a thousand drooping necklets of silver lamps palely burned.

Were _those_ the “bladders” then?

Strolling on down hoops of white wisteria in the moon they came to the pillared circle of a rustic-temple, commanding a prospect on the town.

“There,” she murmured smiling elfishly, and designating something, far below them, through the moonmist, with her fan: “is the column of Justice and,” she laughed a little, “of _Liberty_!”

“And there,” he pointed inconsequently, “is _the Automobile Club_!”

“And beyond it ... The Convent of the Flaming-Hood....”

“And those blue revolving lights; can you see them, Rara?”

“Yes, dear ... what are _they_, Yousef?”

“Those,” he told her, contemplating her beautiful white face against the dusky bloom, “are the lights of the Café Cleopatra!”

“And what,” she questioned, as they sauntered on, pursued by all the sweet perfumes of the night, “are those berried-shrubs, that smell so passionately?”

“I don’t know,” he said: “Kiss me, Rara!”

“No, no.”

“Why not?”

“Not now!”

“Put your arm about me, dear.”

“What a boy he is!” she murmured, gazing up into the starry clearness.

Overhead a full moon, a moon of circumstance, rode high in the sky, defining phantasmally far off, the violet-farded hills beyond the town.

“To be out there among the silver bean-fields!” he said.

“Yes, Yousef,” she sighed, starting at a Triton’s face among the trailing ivy on the castle wall. Beneath it, half concealed by water-flags, lay a miniature lake: as a rule now, nobody went near the lake at all, since the Queen had called it ‘_appallingly smelly_,’ so that, for rendezvous, it was quite ideal.

“Tell me, Yousef,” she presently said, pausing to admire the beautiful shadow of an orange-tree on the path before them: “tell me, dear, when Life goes like that to one--what does one do!!”

He shrugged. “Usually nothing,” he replied, the tip of his tongue (like the point of a blade) peeping out between his teeth.

“Ah, but isn’t that being strong?” she said half-audibly, fixing her eyes as though fascinated upon his lips.

“Why,” he demanded with an engaging smile that brought half-moons to his hollow cheeks: “What has the world been doing to Rara?”

“At this instant, Yousef,” she declared, “it brings her nothing but Joy!”

“You’re happy, my sweet, with me?”

“No one knows, dearest, how much I love you.”

“Kiss me, Rara,” he said again.

“Bend, then,” she answered, as the four quarters of the twelve strokes of midnight rang out leisurely from the castle clock.

“I’ve to go to the Ritz!” he announced.

“And _I_ should be going in.”

Retracing reluctantly their steps they were soon in earshot of the ball, and their close farewells were made accompanied by selections from _The Blue Banana_.

She remained a few moments gazing as though entranced at his retreating figure, and would have, perhaps, run after him with some little capricious message, when she became aware of someone watching her from beneath the shadow of a garden vase.

Advancing steadily and with an air of nonchalance, she recognised the delicate, sexless silhouette and slightly hunched shoulders of Olga Blumenghast, whose exotic attraction had aroused not a few heartburnings (and even feuds) among several of the grandes dames about the court.

Poised flatly against the vases’ sculptured plinth, she would have scarcely have been discernible, but for the silver glitter of her gown.

“Olga? Are you faint?”

“No; only my slippers are _torture_.”

“I’d advise you to change them, then!”

“It’s not altogether my feet, dear, that ache....”

“Ah, I see,” Mademoiselle de Nazianzi said, stooping enough to scan the stormy, soul-tossed eyes of her friend: “you’re suffering, I suppose on account of Ann-Jules?”

“He’s such a gold-fish, Rara ... any fingers that will throw him bread....”

“And there’s no doubt, I’m afraid, that lots do!” Mademoiselle de Nazianzi answered lucidly, sinking down by her side.

“I would give all my soul to him, Rara ... my chances of heaven!”

“Your chances, Olga----” Mademoiselle de Nazianzi murmured, avoiding some bird-droppings with her skirt.

“How I envy _the men_, Rara, in his platoon!”

“Take away his uniform, Olga, and what does he become?”

“Ah _what_----!”

“No.... Believe me, my dear, he’s not worth the trouble!”

Mademoiselle Blumenghast clasped her hands brilliantly across the nape of her neck.

“I want to possess him at dawn, at dawn,” she broke out: “Beneath a sky striped with green....”

“Oh, Olga!”

“And I never shall rest,” she declared, turning away on a languid heel, “until I _do_.”

Meditating upon the fever of Love, Mademoiselle de Nazianzi directed her course slowly towards her room. She lodged in that part of the palace known as ‘The Bachelors’ Wing,’ where she had a delicious little suite just below the roof.

“If she loved him absolutely,” she told herself, as she turned the handle of her door, “she would not care about the colour of the sky--; even if it snowed, or hailed!”

Depositing her fan upon the lid of an old wedding-chest that formed a couch, she smiled contentedly about her. It would be a wrench abandoning this little apartment that she had identified already with herself, when the day should come to leave it for others more spacious in the Keep. Although scarcely the size of a ship’s cabin, it was amazing how many people one could receive together at a time merely by pushing the piano back against the wall, and wheeling the wedding-chest on to the stairs, and once no fewer than seventeen persons had sat down to a birthday _fête_, without being made too much to feel like herrings. In the so-called salon, divided from her bedroom by a folding lacquer screen, hung a few studies in oils executed by herself, and which, except to the initiated, or the naturally instinctive, looked sufficiently enigmatic against a wall-paper with a stealthy design.

Yes it would be a wrench to quit the little place, she reflected, as she began setting about her toilet for the night. It was agreeable going to bed late without anybody’s aid, when one could pirouette interestingly before the mirror in the last stages of déshabille, and do a thousand (and one) things besides[2] that one might otherwise lack the courage for. But this evening being in no frivolous mood, she changed her ball-dress swiftly for a robe-de-chambre bordered deeply with ermins, that made her feel nearer somehow to Yousef, and helped her to realise, in its various facets, her position as future Queen.

“Queen!” she breathed, trailing her fur flounces towards the window.

Already the blue revolving lights of the Café Cleopatra were growing paler with the dawn, and the moon had veered a little towards the Convent of the Flaming-Hood. Ah ... how often as a lay boarder there had she gazed up towards the palace wondering half-shrinkingly what life “in the world” was like; for there had been a period indeed, when the impulse to take the veil had been strong with her--more, perhaps, to be near one of the nuns whom she had _idolised_ than from any more immediate vocation.

She remained immersed in thoughts, her introspectiveness fanned insensibly by the floating zephyrs that spring with morning. The slight sway-sway of the trees, the awakening birds in the castle eaves, the green-veined bougainvilleas that fringed her sill--these thrilled her heart with joy. All virginal in the early dawn what magic the world possessed! Slow speeding clouds like knots of pink roses came blowing across the sky, sailing away in titanic bouquets above the town.

Just such a morning should be their wedding-day! she mused, beginning lightly to apply the contents of a jar of Milk of Almonds to her breast and arms. Ah, before that Spina Christi lost its leaves, or that swallow should migrate ... that historic day would come!

Troops ... hysteria ... throngs.... The Blue Jesus packed to suffocation.... She could envisage it all.

And there would be a whole holiday in the Convent, she reflected falling drowsily at her bedside to her knees.

“Oh! help me heaven,” she prayed, “to be decorative and to do right! Let me always look young, never more than sixteen or seventeen--at the _very_ outside, and let Yousef love me--as much as I do him. And I thank you for creating such a darling, God (for he’s a perfect dear), and I can’t tell you how much I love him; especially when he wags it! I mean his tongue.... Bless all the sisters at the Flaming-Hood--above all Sister Ursula ... and be sweet, besides, to old Jane.... Shew me the straight path! And keep me ever free from the malicious scandal of the Court: Amen.”

And her orisons (ending in a brief self-examination) over, Mademoiselle de Nazianzi climbed into bed.

III

In the Salle de Prince or Cabinet d’Antoine, above the Café Cleopatra, Madame Wetme the wife of the proprietor, sat perusing the Court gazettes.

It was not often that a _cabinet particulier_ like Antoine was disengaged at luncheon time, being as a rule reserved many days in advance, but it had been a ‘funny’ season, as the saying went, and there was the possibility that a party of late-risers might look in yet (officers, or artistes from the Halls), who had been passing a night on the ‘tiles.’ But Madame Wetme trusted not. It was pleasant to escape every now and again from her lugubrious back-drawing-room that only faced a wall, or to peruse the early newspapers without having first to wait for them. And to-day precisely was the day for the hebdomadal _causerie_ in the _Jaw-waws’ Journal_ on matters appertaining to society, signed by that ever popular diarist “Eva Schnerb.”

“Never,” Madame Wetme read, ”was a gathering more brilliant than that which I witnessed last night! I stood in a corner of the Great ball room and literally _gasped_ at the wealth of jewels.... Beauty and bravery abounded but no one, _I_ thought, looked better than our most-gracious Queen, etc.... Among the supper-guests I saw their Excellencies Prince and Princess Paul de Pismiche,--the Princess impressed me as being _just_ a trifle pale: she is by no means strong, and unhappily our nefarious climate does not agree with everybody! Their Excellencies, Sir Somebody and Lady Something (Miss Ivy Something charming in cornflower _charmeuse_ danced indefatigably all the evening, as did also one of the de Lambèse girls). The Count and Countess of Tolga--she all in blue furs and literally _ablaze_ with gorgeous gems (I hear on excellent authority she is shortly relinquishing her post of Woman of the Bedchamber which she finds is really too arduous for her). The Duchess of Varna, looking veritably radiant (by the way where has she been?) in the palest of pistachio-green mashlaks, which are all the rage at present.

* * * * *

“_Have you a Mashlak?_

* * * * *

“Owing to the visit of King Jotifa and Queen Thleeanouhee, the Eastern mashlak is being worn by many of the smart women about the Court. I saw an example at the Opera the other night in silver and gold _lamé_ that I thought too----”

Madame Wetme broke off to look up, as a waiter entered the room.

“Did Madame ring?”

“No!...”

“Then it must have been ‘Ptolomy’!” the young man murmured, bustling out.

“I daresay. When will you know your bells?” Madame Wetme retorted, returning with a headshake to the gazette: Her beloved Eva was full of information this week and breathlessly she read on:

“I saw Minnie, Lady Violetrock (whose daughter Sonia is being educated here) at the garden _fête_ the other day, at the Château des Fleurs, looking chic as she _always_ does, in a combination of petunia and purple ninon raffling a donkey.

“I hear on the best authority that before the Court goes to the Summer-Palace later on, there will be at least _one_ more Drawing-room. Applications, from those entitled to attend, should be made to the Lord Chamberlain as _soon_ as possible.”

One more Drawing-room--! the journal fell from Madame Wetme’s hand.

“I’m getting on now,” she reflected, “and if I’m not presented soon, I never will be....”

She raised imploring eyes to the mural imagery--to the “Cleopatra couchant,” to the “Arrival of Anthony,” to the “Sphinx,” to the “Temple of Ra,” as though seeking inspiration: “Ah my God!” she groaned.

But Madame Wetme’s religion, her cruel God, was the _Chic_: The God Chic.

The sound of music from below reached her faintly. There was not a better orchestra (even at the Palace) than that which discoursed at the Café Cleopatra--and they played, the thought had sometimes pleased her, the same identical tunes!

“Does it say when?” she murmured, reopening the gazette. No: But it would be “before” the Court left.... And when would that be?

“I have good grounds for believing,” she continued to read: “that in order to meet his creditors, the Duke of Varna is selling a large portion of his country estate.”

If it were true ... Madame Wetme’s eyes rested in speculation on the Oleanders in the great flower-tubs before the Café, if it were true, why the Varnas must be desperate, and the Duchess ready to do anything. “Anything--for remuneration,” she murmured, rising and going towards a table usually used for correspondence. And seating herself with a look of decision, she opened a leather writing-pad, full of crab-coloured ink-marked blotting paper.

In the fan-shaped mirror above the writing-table she could see herself in fancy, all veils and aigrettes, as she would be on “the day” when coiffed by Ernst.

“Among a bevy of charming débutantes, no one looked more striking than Madame Wetme, who was presented by the Duchess of Varna.” Being a client of the house (with an unpaid bill) she could _dictate_ to Eva.... But first, of course, she must secure the Duchess. And taking up her pen she wrote: “Madame Wetme would give the Duchess of Varna fifty thousand crowns to introduce her at Court.” A trifle terse perhaps?? Madame Wetme considered. How if the Duchess should take offence.... It was just conceivable! And besides, by specifying no fixed sum, she might be got for less.

“Something more mysterious, more delicate in style....” Madame Wetme murmured with a sigh, beginning the letter anew:

“If the Duchess of Varna will call on Madame Wetme this afternoon, about five, and partake of a cup of tea, she will hear of something _to her advantage_.”

Madame Wetme smiled: “That should get her!” she reflected, and selecting an envelope, she directed it boldly to the Ritz. “Being hard up, she is sure to be there!” she reasoned, as she left the room in quest of a page.

The French maid of the Duchess of Varna was just putting on her mistress’s shoes, in a private sitting-room at the Ritz, when Madame Wetme’s letter arrived.

The pleasure of being in the capital once more, after a long spell of the country, had given her an appetite for her lunch and she was feeling braced after an excellent meal.

“I shall not be back, I expect, till late, Louison,” she said to her maid, “and should anyone enquire where I am, I shall either be at the Palace, or at the Skating-Rink.”

“Madame la Duchesse will not be going to her corsetier’s?”

“It depends if there’s time. What did I do with my shopping-list?” the Duchess replied, gathering up abstractedly a large, becoroneted vanity-case and a parasol. She had a gown of khaki and daffodil and a black tricorne hat trimmed with green. “Give me my other sunshade, the jade--and don’t forget--: On me trouvera, Soit au Palais Royal, soit, au Palais de Glace!” she enjoined sailing quickly out.

Leaving the Ritz by a side door, she found herself in a quiet, shady street, bordering the Regina Gardens. Above a sky so blue, so clear, so luminous seemed to cry out: “Nothing matters! Why worry? Be sanguine! Amuse yourself! Nothing matters!”

Traversing the gardens, her mind preoccupied by Madame Wetme’s note, the Duchess branched off into a busy thoroughfare, leading towards the Opera, in whose vicinity lay the city’s principal shops. To learn of anything to one’s advantage was, of course, always welcome, but there were various other claims upon her besides that afternoon, which she was unable, or loath to ignore--the palace, a _thé dansant_ or two, and then her favourite rink ... although the unfortunate part was, most of the rink instructors were still unpaid, and, on the last occasion she had hired a man to waltz with her, he had taken advantage of the fact by pressing her waist with greater freedom than she felt he need have done.

Turning into the Opera Square with its fine arcades, she paused, half furtively, before a Florist’s shop. Only her solicitors and a few in the secret were aware that the premises known as _Haboubet of Egypt_ were her own; for fearful lest they might be occupied one day by sheriffs’ officers, the little business venture had been kept the closest mystery. Lilies “from Karnak,” Roses “from the Land of Punt” (all grown in the gardens of her country house, in the purlieus of the capital) found immediate and daily favour among amateurs of the choice. Indeed as her gardener frequently said, the demand for Roses from the Land of Punt, was more than he could possibly cope with without an extra man.

“I may as well run in and take whatever there’s in the till,” she reflected--“not that, I fear, there’s much....”

The superintendent, a slim Tunisian boy, was crouching pitcher-posture upon the floor, chanting languidly to himself, his head supported by an osier pannier lately arrived from “Punt.”

“Up, Bachir!” the Duchess upbraided. “Remember the fresh consignments perish, while you dream there and sing.”

The young Tunisian smiled.

He worshipped the Duchess, and the song he was improvising as she entered, had been inspired by her. In it (had she known) he had led her by devious tender stages to his Father’s fondouk at Tifilalet “on the blue Lake of Fetzara,” where he was about to present her to the Cheikh, and the whole assembled village, as his chosen bride.

The Duchess considered him. He had a beautiful face spoiled by a bad complexion, which doubtless (the period of puberty passed) he would outgrow.