The Golden Silence

ll Caird talked of what they saw, and of Victoria Ray; not at all of Stephen himself. Nevill had asked him what sort of trip he had had, and not another question of any sort

gh Stephen was not sure that he mightn't some day refer, of his own accord, to the distast

one: French, English, and American families; people connected with the government, who remained in Algiers all t

g to each other's entertainments; yet we're so furious if there's anything we're not invited to, we nearly get jaundice. I do myself-though I hate running about promiscuously; and I spend hours thinking up ingenious lies to squeeze out of accepting invitations I'd have been ill with rage not to get. And there are factions which loathe each other worse

t the Arabs?" he asked, with Victoria's errand in

; but most of the best houses have been sold to Europeans, and their Arab owners have gone into the interior where the Roumis don't rub elbows with them quite as offensively as in a big French town like this. Naturally they prefer the count

d!" Stephe

will. You must go to the Governor's ball with me, even if you can't be bothered going anywhere else. It's a magnificent spectacle. And I ge

ms, luscious-sweet in this region of gardens, connected itself in his mind with thoughts of the beautiful woman who had married Cassim ben Halim, and disappeared from the world she had known. He imagined her in an Arab garden where orange blossoms fell lik

our ears. Either he's a person of no particular importance, or else he must have left Algiers before my Uncle James Caird died-the man who willed me his house, you know-broth

id Stephen. "She oughtn't to have much troub

f it. If he didn't, and doesn't, care to be got at, finding him mayn't be as simple as i

here?" as

of Arabs, if no crime's been committed-and they wouldn't do anything in such a case, I should think, in the way of looking up Ben Hali

ch a beautiful creature as Ben Halim's wife, even if her

d, with an emphasis which

u mean?" as

n Halim was in the French Army; but he was a Mussulman. Paris a

ou don't

d it. That's w

e shut

a Mussulman woman. Why, what else could

American

age. They're as subtle as the devil, even the best of them, these Arabs. He'd have to promise the girl anything she wanted, or lose her. Naturally he wouldn't give it away that he meant to veil her and clap her into a harem the minute he got her home. If he'd even hinted anything of that sort she wouldn't have stirred a step. But for a Mussulman to let his wife walk the streets unveiled, l

w, out here, that the man had

our own scandals when we have any. But no Arab could be persuaded or forced to betray another Arab to a European, unless for motives of revenge. For love or hate, they stand together. In virtues and vices they're absolutely different from Europeans. And if Ben Halim doesn't want anybody, no

ether, that looked like blank walls only broken

es on behind those blank walls and those little square holes, in respectable houses

with a face which he happened to catch a glimpse of, under a veil that disarranged itself-on purpose or by accident-in a carriage belonging to a rich Arab. Because of that face he remained in Algiers, bought this house, spent years in restoring it, exactly in Arab style, and making a beautiful garden out of his fifteen or sixteen acres. Whether he ever got to know the owner of the face, history doesn't state: my uncle was as secretive as he was romantic. But odd things have been said. I expect they're still said, behind my back. And they're borne out, I'm bound to confess, by the beauty of the decorations in that part of the house

y tangle of white and purple lilacs, gold-dripping laburnums, acacias with festoons of pearl, roses looping from orange tree to mimosa, and a hundred gorgeous tropical flowers like painted birds and butterflies. In shadowed nooks under dark cypresses, glimmered arum lilies, sparkling with the diamond dew

ss regular, looking like so many huge blocks of marble grouped together. Over one of these blocks fell a crimson torrent of bougainvill?a; anoth

e lustrous as the scale of a serpent, and all along the edge grew tiny flowers

th age; but on the other fa?ades were quaint recessed balconies, under projecting roofs supported with beams of cedar; an

lightness and grace. In front, this court was open, looking on to an inner garden with a fountain more delicate of design than those Stephen had seen outside. The three walls of the court wer

re beautiful in pure simplicity of line; so white, they seemed to turn the sun on them to moonlight; so jewelled with b

h cunningly carved doors of cedar-wood, and small, iron-barred windows festooned with the biggest roses Stephen had ever seen; but the fourth side was formed by an immense loggia with a dais at the back, and an open-fronted room at either end. Walls and floor of this loggia were tiled, and barred windows on either side the dais looked far down over a world which seemed all sky, sea, and garden. One of the little open rooms was hung with Persian prayer-rugs which Stephen thought were like fading rainbows seen through a mist; and there were queer old tinselled pictures such as good Moslems love: Borak, the s

n here and there to point out something of which he was fond, explaining the value of certain old tiles from the point of view of an expert, and glad

as Stephen looked out from a barred w

"You ought to be happy, even if you could never go outside your own house and gardens.

" said Nevill, "where everything was perfect except one thing

alace," Stephen recalled. "Do

e-or my palace. I'll tell you about her some day-soon, perhaps. And maybe you'll see her. But never mind my troubles for the moment. I can put them out of my mind w

d pulled out a green frog, wrapped in a lettuce leaf which w

t, poor little beast. Thought it would be a friendly act to bring him here to join my happy family, which is l

ontentment, so Stephen fancied, on his green face. He looked, Stephen thought, as if he were trying to forget a troubl

id Stephen. "You're being very good to both

ly answer. But he walked into the hous