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Page 31
"_C'est toi--va-t-en!_" the woman answered in a voice of smothered
fury. She made a menacing gesture toward the door. "_Va-t-en_."
Suddenly her voice rose in a passion of angry phrases that were
indistinguishable to the girl, and then she broke off as suddenly
and flung herself down upon a couch. From behind her the old woman
came shuffling forth and put a hand on Arlee's arm, and Arlee felt
the muscles of that hand as strong and rigid as a man's. Utterly
confused and bewildered, the girl suffered herself to be led back
through the rooms to the foot of her stairs.
"Mariayah!" screamed the old woman, and after a moment the voice of
waiting-maid answered from above, and then as Arlee dumbly ascended
the stairs, the voice of the old woman rose with her in shrill
admonition.
It was the voice of a jailer, thought the white-lipped girl, and
that little, dark-skinned maid who waited upon her so eagerly, with
such sidelong glances of strange interest, was the tool of a jailer.
And though the turning of the key in her own hand gave her a
momentary sense of refuge from them, it was but a false illusion of
the moment. There was neither refuge nor safety here. She was being
deceived ...
The quarantine was lifted.
How else could the Captain be cantering down the street? He did
not look like a man escaping.... Perhaps he had bribed the
doorkeeper--that which he had declared impossible for Arlee....
But certainly he was deceiving her.
Like a swollen river bursting its banks, her racing mind, wild with
suspicion, surged out of its simple channels and swirled in every
direction.... What did he mean? What was he trying to do? Keep her
in ignorance of the outside world, detain her as long as he dared
while the Evershams' absence left her friendless, and inflict his
dreadful love-making upon her? Perhaps he thought that he could
fascinate her!
She laughed aloud, but it was such a ghostly little laugh that it
set her nerves jumping. She stopped in her feverish pacing of the
floor; she tried to control her racing mind, she tried to be very
calm and to plan.
Had he sent all those letters she had written? Steadily she stared
at the possibility that he had not. But at least the Evershams knew
where she was. Even the meager warmth of their telegram was like an
outstretched hand through the dark. She clung tight to it.
It was absurd to be frightened. He would never dare to annoy
her--never, in his sober senses. When they were alone together he
had lost his head, but that was accident--impulse...
She rolled the divan against the locked door. She piled two chairs
upon it.
No, of course, she had nothing really to fear from him. He was too
wise not to understand the gulf between them. To-morrow she would
confront him flatly with his deceit; she would array the power of
the authorities behind her race. She would sweep instantly from that
ill-omened palace. There would be no more philandering.
Her lips moved as she silently rehearsed the mighty speeches that
she would make, and all the while as she leaned there against a
window, staring strangely through the candle-light at the barricade
before the door, she could think of nothing but how mad and unreal
it all seemed--like some bad dream from which she would wake in an
instant.
But she did not wake. The dream persisted, and the iron bars across
her window were very tangible. Down below her in the garden the old
lebbek tree rustled stealthily in the stillness. Gusty clouds hid
the stars. In the distance the interminable tom-tom beat.
She cast herself into the bed and cried convulsively, like a
desperately frightened child, while the awful sense of terror and
utter loneliness seemed to be rolling over and over her, like an
unending sea. Her sobbing racked her from head to foot. She cried
until she was spent with weakness. Then, her wet face still pressed
against the pillow and her tangled hair flung out in disordered
curls, she fell at last into the deep sleep of exhausted youth.
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