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Page 17
"But if it will do that nasty little cough good, dearest, why wait for
the ball?"
"Do you want to go, Maris?"
"The desert will be so near," evaded the girl. "Half-an-hour's ride at
the most, so--so Ben Kelham told me, and there you see the desert,
miles upon miles of it stretching right away like the sea."
The hawk-eyes flashed across the girl's face, taking in the forced
indifference of the expression and the light which gleamed far down in
the eyes.
"I had a letter from Ben this morning. His lung has been troubling
him; that is why he hasn't been over."
"Did you--has it--is it--?" rather lamely replied the girl.
He had written Damaris a perfunctory note of welcome to the Land of the
Pharaohs; then, a week later, had come over to dine. He had ached to
take his beautiful little chum up in his arms and shake her for her
haughtiness and by sheer strength of arms and will force her to say
"yes" to the question which it took him all his strength not to ask.
Since childhood he had been her slave, her door-mat, and the butt of
her various moods, feeling infinitely well rewarded by a careless smile
or word; so that he found it difficult, in fact well-nigh impossible,
to act up to her grace's plans and suddenly transpose himself into the
strong, silent man.
The girl, spoilt and accustomed to slavish devotion and used to his
worship, felt incensed, then hurt, and finally perplexed, and, to hide
it all, retired therewith into a shell of icy reserve.
He had adored her openly, and now, seemingly, looked upon her as just
one of the crowd of women in the hotel; she had taken his adoration for
granted and as a right, to waken one morning to find the gem she had
tossed in amongst the rubbish of her little experiences, gone!
Is there a greater mistake in the world than that of looking upon love
as an ordinary possession, instead of as a rare jewel?
They were both very young, so that they suffered the agonies of doubt
and uncertainty, whilst the worldly-wise old dame smiled up her sleeve.
From the hour of the early cup of tea until breakfast-time on the
morning of the ball, which was also the girl's birthday morning,
tarbusched, impudent young monkeys of messenger boys, bearing gifts and
flowers, arrived in a stream at the hotel.
Flowers in pots and vases and bunches lay everywhere in the suite;
shawls of many colours, silken veils, slippers, albums of views of
Egypt, rare antiques (made mostly in Birmingham), one mummied cat
(genuine), scarabs (suspicious), and one live gazelle littered the
place.
Ben Kelham had bought her a finger-napkin ring of dull gold; through it
he had forced some flowers, and sent it along.
She held it tight in her hand for a moment, then deliberately and
ostentatiously laid it amongst the clutter on the table, whilst her
grace peeped from behind the newspaper which she was reading in bed.
Arrived at the table in the breakfast-room, the girl suddenly flushed
pink and then went quite white.
Right in the centre, flanked on one side by the glass dish of glowing
fruit and the other by a cut-glass jar of Keiller's marmalade, stood a
cage tied at the top with silver ribbon and containing two cooing doves.
The doves were just ordinary ones, but their prison was no ordinary
cage. Fair-sized and square, it was made of fine white bars of ivory.
The underside was also ivory, square and unblemished, and would have
made an ideal hairpin-tray; it stood upon ebony feet inlaid with
infinitesimal precious stones.
"It has but just arrived, Miss Hethencourt," said the ma�tre d'h�tel,
who had been fluttering around upon the tiptoe of a most unusual
curiosity. "There is no name, no message."
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