The Fortieth Door

s costume might have been observed by the astonished Egyptian moon striding obliviously along the silent road to the Nile, past sleeping camels and snoring dhurra merchants-a period during which hi

ay wide-eyed on the sleeping porch of McLean's domicile and stared int

he did not know, whose face he had never seen, of whom he knew nothing but that she was t

stery of the unknown?... If he had never really kissed her he might have c

in the days and nights to come ... but a stranger for whom he entertained a sort of se

third perio

ther mood with him, a mood of dark, deep disgust and a shamed inclination to dismiss these events very speedily from memory. For that shadowy and r

world was he

d so thunderingly black and white. Besides, he could not

ness. Unfortunately, he and Jinny were on such terms of old

leave last night an

l. Jinny had a propensity for l

and his ripening experience which taught him to leave no mystery to awaken su

Jinny was equally as brief and twice as cool a

too late to regain his desert camp. But the circumstances seemed to call for some social amend.... And no

mad, stark, starin

their shipment upon the boat that left upon the following morning. That noon he l

he Cairo park, where white-robed Arabs brought them tea over the tiny bridge and violins played behind the shrubbery and wh

uestion if he had enjoyed himself. The Pendletons had not stayed to look on f

st. He could not hug the prote

Petrie to him about his tombs. Mr. Pendleton was neither enthusiastic nor voluble, but he was attacking the objects of their travels in the same thorough-going spirit that he had attacked a

s word that it was an inferior structure although so amazingly effective from below; they had looked studiously down upon the city and tried to distinguish its minarets and towers and ancient gates,

that hilltop on which stood the little ancient mosque of the Sheykh-el-Gauchy, where the sunset

ivid green, of rice and cotton lands, and the silver thread of the winding Nile, and all beyond, west and southwest, the

ack Ryder appreciatively of th

. Pendleton was murmuring, as he

timentally. "He must have

s," said Ryder, grinning. "He had th

to which interpolation he responded, "Wouldn't three

he could overlook the whole city an

ve," objected

ing with a queer, reminiscent pang. He had a moment's rather complicated twinge of amusement at her reactions if she should k

n't decided yet what to tell her a

aunter self-consciously away and make any opportunity for Jack and Jinny, as sympathetic European chaperons might have

er was pointing out

e, if you look-that's the Medun pyramid-tha

ou like the ball?" mur

the ball.

didn't y

, wondering why girls always wanted to go back an

d Jinny, unsympathetically, he

Ryder's lips. "Very suddenly. Like

h the same girl in successi

othing were those bright, gray eyes o

ately. "That girl was a child who hadn't dance

your buckled shoon and you felt a martyr?... But why bolt

. "The fact is, I was feeling awfully

r it. He let it go at th

angry with him for running away, and she remembered his opposition to the idea enough to be susp

were not unknown in Egypt. And for all hi

u hadn't taken anything

d Jack, and then brought himself up short. "I e

her idea. "Does it always take you

air. I came

ame-an

n't come," he murmured, and Jinny

came to dinner?" she offered pacificably. "It's our l

ped short. Now, why didn't h

an engagement." He added, appeasingly, "That's why I was so keen on getting you for

expect," she threw out, carelessl

ed her that indeed, if

h just the right amount of red in her hair. Sanity

e sent him to the Joc

after his farewells at the hotel with the Pendletons, and took him to an out-of-t

story teller, recounting, very probably, a bandied narration of the Thousand and One Nights. Through other open doors drifted the exasperating nasal twang of Cairene music

ors of that stream of Continental night life which sets towards Cairo in the season, Russian dukes and German millionaires, Viennese actresses and Fre

ue of the sky, deepening and darkening, was pierced with the thronging stars. It

from some of the hotels came the soun

since he was so near.... He walked past the hotel.... Jinny would be packing-or ought to be

on the brink of a dark canyon of a lane, runn

girl, whose name he did not know, that he would com

t be unwelcome, absurd, a nuisanc

at the sight of it-and so, sauntering and loitering, he waited in the darkening night, promising himself disgustedly through the drag

ly, the gate