The Fortieth Door

each other through their masks in sheepish defiance and curiosity. Adventurous spirits were circulating. Voices, lower

nnese waltz and couple after co

It was so exactly as he had foreseen. He was bored-and he was going to be more bored. He

kind treatment to compensate him for this insanity. He gazed about, and en

caste woman drawn down to her very brows, and over the entire face the black street veil. Not a feature visible. Not an eyebrow. Not

and driven by the instinct of

hake of

lack of all invitation in the black phantom, ma

voice with a note of mirth. "I understan

en, to say

proceeded to the N." Her speech was quaint, unhesitating, but

Ryder towards a geisha girl, but a trace of irritation lingered

arned captivating his outfi

ny Jeffries was wearing one of the many costumes there that passed for Oriental, a glittering assemblage

t was distinct

ten," uttered Ryder appreciatively in the language of the old

believed in her good fortune. "Oh, and beautiful as Roderick Dhu! Didn't I t

in the fox trot before the crowd invaded the floor. "If Andy McLean could hear

Andy M

d also an official of the Agricultural Bank which is by way of being a

't you br

rtunately-grand

Andrew

. You brought me-and I can believe in anythin

d. "If I could only b

say," Jack obligingly assured he

sh I

The Lord who gave you red hair must provide the way to elude its conseq

eyes intent, "Is it a girl

on, in kindness or unkindness, di

s not

ght it such a v

t you really ought to be seei

magine this is a pl

es with their lives all lived. I don't care if you are going to be a very famous person, Jack, you ought

notion, that life was to be encountered at a masquerade! This

ne young English officials ... the comradeship

ng out its shadowy hands for you.... Loneliness and restlessness.... These tropic nights, when the stars burned low and bright, and t

lon bore down upon them. Abandoning Jinny to

nd rose and sapphire, gyrating madly in vivid projection against the black and white stripes of the Moorish walls. The color

s, and two stalwart monks and a thin Hamlet pursued them, keeping up the bombardment amid a great com

d resentment, not a very malicious resentment but a mocking feint of it, for when Ryder turned sharply after him-oddly, he hims

you join the dance?" chanted Harlequin, with a sh

ine fright in her withdrawal that

, laying an intervening

oulder crowded the H

her eyes. Great dark eyes they were, deep as night and soft as shadows, arched with exquisitely

their childish fright. With sudd

a nervous little laugh over her chagrin, drowned in a burst of louder laughter from

e or promenade

s of confetti were glimmering like fishscales over her black wrap an

n how to dance," she murmured

clumsy bulk of her draperies his arm felt the slightness of her young form. She was no more than a child.... No child, either, at a ma

the dance was over. Those momen

said quickly. "What made y

ars, monsieur, since

have been dancing

no

a sc

k domino laughed with ruefulness.

ope, you are n

that-unless it was a

id cheerily, "you ar

s triumph in her young voice, triumph and faint

acious, bewildering.... To look down int

were hindering things-he cou

e, bronzed and rather thin, of the dark hair that looked darker against the scarlet cap, of the deep-set eyes, hazel-brown, that m

ng and confident

n?" slipped out fro

tume. I am a

et an American young man." She added, "I have met old ones-

of yours," said Ryder appre

Teasingly, she laughed. "I am,

stantly aware, and the loveliest voice i

exhilaration, a radiant sense of well-being, and-at the music's beginning-of a small palm pressed

ully entreated. "It's quite time.

m with mock plaintiveness. She shook her

ur, I have an un

ves are

arkled up at him over the black veil that made

u enjoy

g of a girl, veering from gayety to shyness.... Her gaze was no

she said in a muf

d to hear her t

s young and slender, with enchanting eyes and a teasing spirit of wit.... Vaguely he h

l? But what in the world was she doing, b

scination, that French jeunes filles are

me poor companion, stealing in for fun?... She was too young. An

just come

d. "For some time

e Nile

e-no, mo

ou are

not know. Some

ed.... He hurried

myself. I am an excavator-on an ex

you

ut the expedition digs....

n the sands?" The black domino laug

my seco

d at him. "But I cannot understand! What wonderfu

rful as to know who yo

is-is buried

told her very gayly and confide

his arms fell slowly away, and he heard the girl draw a quick, startled breath. Her eyes spe

with an excited little laugh.

e masquerade? How long since he had danced with Jinny, flouting her notion of this sort of thing as life

enly. Juliet happened very suddenly to Ro

g about Romeo and Juliet. He was watching

rmination of the spirit

en most kind to an-an incognita-of a masque. I hope that you

ng good-bye," said Jack Ryder

in her eye

t you too long from

head. "They

the chance to say suc

nice things-unl

r-mon

s he had assured another girl, in what different meaning, hou

at goes with the Scotch costume. I ha

he Americans. You must kno

o that watch. And when she raised them again th

ot-if you would get m

convention turned him about and marched him du

too-often consulted watch and that strange look in her eyes, tha

een them. He hurried through an

mpty. The black

mingled with the crowd. But the niche was deserted as a rifled nest. Then his eyes sp

ce in daytime-palms and shrubs and a graveled walk and painted chairs where he had

mystery of velvet dusks and ivory pallors. The graveled path ran glimmering beneath the magnolias

thing ... or did that shadow sti

nd fell with gripping fierceness upon the huddled dark figure that had sped so franticall

th a dash of desperation.... He was unconscious how his own were bla

er to see him again. He had frustrated her, but

en it came, s

going to

iance, the panic fear, faded. A clo

" she said

dows with involuntary caution, and he felt her slender body tr

in the Egyptian night, in the motley of a Scotch chieftain, grasping this mysterious creature of the masquer

im, as if she wanted to go. He knew what he knew.... Those had

arkly back at him

life." Her voice was a whisper.

onfusion of conjecture, fantastic, horrible, impossibl

e you,

im, to the door which

ur.... For me, the

elt his blood stop a moment,

turmoil of contradiction of this impo

the lane another door leads to another gard

his thing that had happened ... the astounding, unbelievable thing.... He had heard something of those Turk

s, London, perhaps-and then, as the girl eclipses the child-the veil. Still indulgence and l

to be the husband-until the bride is safe in the husband's home. Hidden women. Secret, secluded lives....

ure in the black domino

looked out of hi

urk?" he

done. That is a shameful thing. To steal out at night-to a hotel-to a ball-And to dance with a man! To tell him who

nd no words and the shadow on his fa

uch a thing. My greatest fault was to be out in the garden after sunse

ng possessed me. I had heard of the masque, and I remembered the balls of the Embassy where I danced when I was so young and so I slipped away-

Lord," said

sked, "Are you-do you-

But with whom but my father-he is Te

me next you were mar

ughing the sudden, incredibl

voltées-the moderns-and I am the only

Ryder's comment upon that. He added, "But

ouble of her answering look told him

beyond hours.... This was a high-born Mos

ddenly serious, tre

e," she rallied her spirit to protest, "I do not think they would sew me in a

tain in spite of her, "I m

e way?" said

e lane. Silence and darkness. Not a loiterer, only one of t

wall, and turned towards the right, stopping before the deeper shadow of a small, pointed do

efully she pressed open the gate and stared anxiously

her voice as sh

m safe, now.... And s

ere you live?"

, and he stole after her, and looked across the garden, thro

ck as a prison, only here and there the

out the windo

il came a little so

indows of the haremlik!... No, I stole down by a

aried of her modernity and transferred her to other rooms, as barred and screened, in the palace of some husband!... That thought was brushing Ryder ... with other thoughts of her present risk ...

mother-?" he aske

girl told him, with

I was so little-but I remember her, oh,

And s

e was so lovely," said the girl wistfully. "My father must have loved her very much ... he n

ad-les

reams ... and our memories ... We are so young and already the real world is a memory.... Sometimes," she said, with a tremor of suppressed passion in her still little tones, "I could wish that I had died when I wa

w, if you have been here two years.... And emancipated as we may be, there is no changing the c

ust be very far from what so

r-the spirit that took me to the ball?... To-morrow this will be a dream to

id Ryder und

you must go now, monsieur.

cing in his hazel eyes. "It is

Her confusion

c-black magic," he murmured b

touched the lovely curves of her arched brows and the tender pallor of the skin about those great wells of dark eyes.... From his own

asp, she tried to slip away. "T

ghted and wary young life.... He felt dazed and wondering at himself ... and irresponsible ... and appalled ... but deeper than all else, he felt eager and exultant and strangely,

"Oh, never again! To-

shall wait-and other nights after th

r if I were missed there wou

o her. "To-morrow night-or ano

fortieth door in the old story.... There are thirty and nine doors i

he insisted. "To-mor

her head

morrow nor a

rapery, and then all duality of consciousness was blotted out in the rush of his young madness. For within that drapery was the soft,

own the walk: Footste

ng senses could not know, although it was their passionate concern. But his

for her sa