CHAPTER XXI – THE CLASH
During the next three days Muriel flung herself into her social engagements with desperation. She wanted to prevent herself from thinking about Daniel, for her attitude towards him baffled her and put her out of conceit with herself. She was violently jealous of this Lizette, whoever she might be; but, somehow her jealousy did not estrange her from her lover. All the more passionately she wanted Daniel to belong to her: she wanted to step into his life, to drive all else out, and to take possession of him. It is true that she meant to hurt him, to punish him; but, even while being angry with him, she knew that she would ultimately forgive him.
Had her training been other than that of the typical young woman of the world, she would probably have regarded her relationship to him as at an end; but she had been brought up to the idea that men have to be indulged in their little peccadillos and excused for their excesses, and now, somewhat to her own annoyance, she found herself exonerating him. She was hurt, she was offended, she was jealous, she was disgusted; but she was not completely estranged. She declared to herself with her lips that she could never feel the same to him again; but her heart, by its very sorrows, gave the lie to her passionate mutterings.
She did not have many opportunities of speaking to him during these three days, and she shunned the beginning of what she knew was going to be a serious quarrel. But on the fourth day circumstances threw them together: and then the trouble began.
They had both accepted an invitation to luncheon with Colonel and Mrs. Cavilland; and, Muriel’s presence being the social feature of the occasion, she did not feel that she ought to disappoint her hostess. Nor could she avoid driving to the house in Daniel’s company; and it was only the shortness of the distance that prevented some sort of an outburst.
As it was, she was distant and preoccupied, and Daniel looked at her every now and then, wondering what could be the matter.
Lady Smith-Evered was one of the guests; and the question as to whether the Colonel should take her or Lady Muriel as his partner must have been the subject of much discussion. It had evidently been decided, however, that the daughter of Lord Blair took precedence of the wife of Sir Henry Smith-Evered; and Colonel Cavilland therefore led the former into the dining-room, and to Daniel fell the duty of giving his arm to the latter.
Lady Smith-Evered plainly showed her indignation at this outrage by a mere colonel of Dragoons upon the martial dignity of the Commander-in-Chief; and for much of the meal she hardly spoke a word. Daniel was thus left to look about him; and he observed how gaily Muriel laughed and joked with her partner, and with Captain Purdett upon her other hand.
Snatches of her conversation came to his ears; and he was conscious, as ever, that the things she said in public had no relation to those meant for his private hearing. When she was alone with him she spoke with frankness and sincerity; but to other people she seemed to be striving after an effect, and just now, somehow, he would have liked to have shaken her, even though she made him laugh.
The colonel was talking about the recent discovery at Alexandria of a Greek papyrus, extracts from which had appeared in translation in the Egyptian Gazette.
“It’s a treatise on love,” Colonel Cavilland was saying. “The Greeks were specialists on that subject.”
“Oh, I thought they were general practitioners,” Muriel replied, and was rewarded with a burst of laughter.
He spoke of the passages quoted as being very charming, direct, and simple; and Muriel remarked that she had always thought of the Greeks as wicked old men who sat on cold marble and made hot epigrams.
“But in this case,” he laughed, “the author seems to have been a poor shepherd.”
“Then no wonder his views were peculiar,” said she. “‘Poverty makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows,’ they say.”
The colonel glanced at her apprehensively, but Muriel’s face seemed to show perfect innocence. “Oh, well, for that matter,” she added, musingly, “I suppose wealth does, too.”
Her host’s breath appeared to be taken away by her audacity. He was not used to the style of chatter current in what are called “smart” circles. He caught Daniel’s eye, and, seeing that he had been listening, winked at him; but Daniel turned quickly away, and made another abortive attempt to engage Lady Smith-Evered in conversation.
Mrs. Cavilland observed his difficulties, and helped him to enter the gaieties at her end of the table; but here, again, he felt himself to be out of harmony with the laughter, and he began to think himself a very surly fellow.
Mrs. Cavilland was amusing her neighbours by making fun of the wives of the minor officials in Cairo; and she was clever enough to rend them so gently that her feline claws were hardly to be observed, her victims seeming, as it were, to fall to pieces of their own accord.
“What a cat I am!” she laughed. “Mr. Lane, I can see your disapproving eye on me.”
Lady Smith-Evered leant forward. “Mr. Lane disapproves of everything English,” she said. “He prefers natives.”
“Oh, it’s not as bad as that,” Daniel replied, with a smile. “I’ve got the greatest admiration for my countrymen in the rough…”
He checked himself. He felt that he was being a boor. He wanted to add: “but I detest the ways of this politely infamous thing called Society.”
It was Muriel, strangely enough, who came to his rescue. “Oh, don’t take any notice of him,” she said, speaking across the table. “That’s only his fun.”
If she spoke with bitterness she concealed the fact; and Mrs. Cavilland, knowing that he had lived much of his life in America, presumed that his form of drollery must be of that kind to which English people are notoriously obtuse. She did not wish to be thought slow in the uptake, and she therefore laughed merrily, declaring that he was “a perfect scream,” which so tickled Daniel that he, too, smiled.
There was to be a garden party at the Residency that afternoon, which, owing to the anticipated presence of a number of native dignitaries, he would be obliged to attend. As soon as luncheon was finished, therefore, he whispered to Muriel, suggesting that they should leave early, and thus have a little time together before the afternoon’s function.
“I must have an hour alone with you, Muriel,” he said. “I’m feeling all on edge.”
Muriel shook her head. “Can’t be done,” she answered casually. “I’ve promised Willie Purdett I’d go for a spin with him in his new car.”
“Well, tell him you’ve changed your mind,” he said, deliberately. “I want you.”
“I’m afraid you’re too late, my dear,” replied Muriel, and turned away from him.
Later, at the garden party he watched her as she moved about the lawn; and he seemed to be unusually sensitive to the number of young men who hovered around her. His philosophy had wholly deserted him, and his mind was disturbed and miserable.
Once he joined a group in which she was the principal figure; and again he was distressed by the tone of her remarks. It was almost as though she were trying to offend his ear.
Somebody had said “The good die young,” but Daniel had not heard the earlier part of the conversation; and Muriel replied, “Yes, dullness is the most deadly thing on earth, and the most contagious.”
He did not wait to hear more: he turned his back on her and walked away, his heart heavy within him. He was utterly out of tune with her.
That evening she was to dine with the Bindanes at Mena House and to spend the night with them, so as to be ready for an early start next morning upon an all-day excursion into the desert. It was to be a large and elegant picnic; and Daniel had been glad to be able to make his work an excuse for not joining the party.
Soon after dark, therefore, he found himself driving out to the Pyramids with Muriel and her maid; and on reaching the hotel he asked her to come into the garden for the half-hour before the first gong would ring.
“Oh, it’s so dark out there,” she replied. “I want to have a talk to you, too. Couldn’t we find a corner in the lounge?”
“No,” he said, “it’s stuffy inside.”
He took her arm, and led her towards the dense group of trees which surrounded the tennis court. She did not resist. This state of veiled hostility was intolerable, and she welcomed the thought of a pitched battle with him.
The night was moonless; and the hot south wind which had been blowing during the day had dropped, leaving the upper air so filled with a hazy dust that the stars were dim. The darkness, when they had passed out of the range of the hotel lights, was intense; and it was with difficulty that they found their way to a bench upon the lawn, under the blackness of the overhanging foliage.
Here they seated themselves in silence; and, though they were close to one another, each could feel, rather than see, the presence of the other. The distant clanging of the tram-car bells, and an occasional grumble of an automobile, reminded them that civilization was not far removed; but here in the obscurity all was hushed, and there was a sense of detachment from the busy ways of mankind which was accentuated by the ominous hooting of an owl and by the gentle rustle of the trees, as the leaves were stirred by the dying wind.
“Well?” said Muriel.
“Well?” he replied. “Let’s have it out.”
“Oh, then you know there’s something wrong.”
“I know you have been trying to hurt me for the past two or three days,” he answered.
He put his hand upon hers as it rested on her knee, and drew her towards him; but she resisted the movement, and he noticed that her fingers, which pushed his own away, were cold.
“Tell me,” he said. “What has been the matter? You have made me very unhappy.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” she answered. “Only …”
“Only what?”
“I don’t think you know what love is,” she murmured, and her voice was so low that her words were almost lost in the darkness.
“But that is just what I was going to say to you,” he replied.
She uttered a little laugh. “It seems that we shall always interpret things differently,” she said.
She turned to him, and in the obscurity his face seemed strange to her. She could not construct the features, nor supply the well-known lines now lost in the shadow. She saw only the great forehead, faintly white, and the upper part of his cheeks; but his eyes were hidden in two deep cavities of blackness, and all expression was extinguished.
“There will always be these misunderstandings,” he told her, “so long as you are tied to this sort of social life.”
“I prefer it to the underworld,” she answered, and her heart beat, for she was launching her attack.
“What d’you mean by the ‘underworld’?” he asked.
“The world that Lizette belongs to,” she replied.
She had said it! – she had hurled her lightning, and now she waited for the roll of the thunder. But there was no cracking of the heavens: only silence; and, as she waited, she could feel the beating of her pulse in her throat.
At last he spoke, and his voice was quiet and clear.
“Please tell me exactly what Cousin Charles has said about Lizette.”
She turned quickly on him. “Why should you think it was Charles Barthampton who told me?”
“Because I was with Lizette the day I first met him,” he answered.
“Then you don’t deny it?”
“Deny it?” he repeated, with scorn in his voice. “Why on earth should I deny it?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “A man generally denies that sort of thing to the girl he wants to marry,” she said.
“That only shows how little you understand me,” he replied, and there was despair in his words.
“O, I understand you well enough,” she answered, bitterly. “You are just like all men. But what I can’t understand is how you could be going about with that woman at the same time that you were making love to me.”
Again he was silent. It seemed that he had to turn her words over in his mind before their significance was clear.
“You mean,” he said at length, “that if I had told you Lizette was an old flame of mine now set aside, you would have condoned it?”
“Women have to forgive a great deal in the men they love,” she answered.
“You mean,” he went on, ruthlessly, “that you think me capable of coming to you with that woman’s kisses on my lips?”
It was she, now, who was silent for a while. “I’ve got to think you capable of it,” she said at last. “You were with her only a few days ago.”
“Yes,” he answered. “I was with her, as you say, a few days ago. Well?”
She moved restlessly in her seat. “That’s not the way to ask my forgiveness,” she said.
Suddenly his shadowy bulk seemed to loom up above her. He gripped her wrist with his left hand, and drew her towards him; while the fingers of his right hand laid themselves upon her throat. His face came close to hers.
“How dare you!” he whispered. “How dare you think of me like that? D’you mean to say that if all this were true, if I were living with that woman, you would be prepared to forgive me?”
She did not speak. “Answer me!” he cried, and his arms crushed her to him.
“I don’t know,” she gasped. “I only know I love you, Daniel.”
He loosed his hold upon her. “Oh, you’re tainted,” he exclaimed. “Intrigues, jealousies, deceptions, quarrels, reconciliations – they’re all part of your scheme of life. I suppose you revel in them, just as you revel in the latest divorce case at your gossiping tea-parties, and the latest dresses from Paris, and the latest dancing craze, and the latest thing in erotic pictures or sensuous music…”
Muriel put her hands over her ears. “I won’t listen!” she cried. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
He stood in front of her, his hands driven into the pockets of his coat. His massive head and shoulders shut out the misty stars, and as she looked up at him he appeared to her as a black and vaporous elemental risen from the ancient soil of Egypt.
It was evident that he was trying to control his anger; and when he spoke again his voice was quiet and restrained.
“I’m afraid I must seem to you very rude,” he said, “but when one is speaking out of the pit of despair the words one utters are black words. These last few days I’ve been seeing you with critical eyes: watching you, listening to you. And the result is …”
“What?” she asked, as he paused.
“I realize more and more how I dislike all this fooling with the surface of things – surface emotions, surface wit, surface honesty. I can’t get down to the real You: the veneer is so thick. All that I have seen and heard belongs to the superficial. I’m beginning to think there’s nothing real or solid under it all. The things you say are clever empty things; the things you do…”
She rose to her feet and faced him – a shadow confronting a shadow.
“We seem to be getting further away all the time from the original point of contention,” she said, her voice rising. “I suppose that is what is called ‘confusing the issue.’ It is rather clever. But please try to remember that I am accusing you of deceit and disgusting duplicity. I am accusing you of being with a woman whom even your obnoxious cousin couldn’t stand seeing you with, so that he had to try to separate you.”
“Oh, he said that, did he?” Daniel’s tone was apathetic.
“Do you deny it?” she asked, quickly.
“No,” he answered. “If you believe the story, it has served its purpose.”
“How can I not believe it?” she cried. “You don’t deny it.”
“Why should I deny it?” he demanded. “It is not a compromise with you I am looking for: I am looking for your trust.”
“Trust!” she scoffed. “You come to me and whisper to me of your wonderful desert, and the wonderful times we shall have there together; you tell me that I am your mate, your sweetheart; your chosen one: and all the time you are carrying on a liaison with a wretched woman in a back street.”
“Yes,” he answered, “and, believing that, you decide to have it out with me and then make it up. Oh, you sicken me! If I were to tell you the whole thing were nonsense, you wouldn’t believe me. You might even be disappointed. The tale would have been found to have no point: it wouldn’t be up to the standard of the stuff you read in your French novels.”
Muriel sat down upon the bench once more, and her hands fell listlessly to her sides. “I don’t think there’s any use in talking,” she murmured.
“No, none,” he answered. “I shall never get to the real you until you cut loose from all this. We belong at present to different worlds. I’m all at sea when I try to look at things from your point of view.”
“Very well, then,” she said. “Please take me back to the hotel. I shall be late for dinner.”
There was a complete silence between them as they made their way through the trees and along the gravel path towards the strongly-illuminated veranda. Through open doors the lounge could be seen, and here groups of visitors were gathering in readiness for dinner. The chatter of voices and little gusts of laughter came to their ears as they approached; and an elegant young man at the piano was lazily fingering the notes of Georges Hüe’s haunting J’ai pleuré en rêve.
Daniel paused at the steps of the veranda, but Muriel walked on, and, without turning her head, passed into the house. He stood for a moment, after she had gone, staring into the brightly lit room with dazed uncomprehending eyes: then he turned towards the desert, and presently was engulfed in the night.
CHAPTER XXII – THE CALL OF THE DESERT
As soon as Daniel arrived at the Residency next morning he sent a message to Lord Blair, asking that he might see him. He had hardly slept at all during the night, and his haggard face showed the ravages of his emotion.
Lying on his bed upon the rocks above his camp, he had striven to examine the entire situation with an impartial mind; and he would not admit that his philosophy had failed him. His reason strove to assert itself, and to quell the tumult of his tortured heart; and again and again he reminded himself that there was no such thing as sorrow of the soul. It was only his body that was miserable; and could he but manage to identify himself with the spiritual aspect of his entity, the pain of the material world would be forgotten in the serenity of his spirit. This was a first principle of his philosophy; and yet it seemed now to be utterly beyond his attainment.
“I could not believe in a merciful God,” he thought to himself, “unless I believed that He had placed within the reach of every man the means to overcome sorrow. Therefore the means must be at hand, if only I can take hold of them.”
And again: “My reason, my soul, is unconquerable. It stands above my miserable body. If only I can look at this disaster with the calm eyes of the spirit, I shall get the victory over the wretched torment of my heart.”
In itself the actual quarrel with Muriel had presented no insuperable obstacle to their relationship. Had the trouble been an isolated incident, it would not have been difficult for them to have kissed and made friends; but Daniel realized that the differences between them had been growing for some time, and for many days now it had seemed clear to him that Muriel was too chained in the prison of her class ever to understand the freedom of the desert. He despaired of her; yet he loved her so deeply that their estrangement was, beyond all words, terrible to him.
While he waited in his room for Lord Blair’s reply, he paced to and fro; and in his weary brain the battle which had raged all night came ever nearer to a definite issue.
“I must get away from it all,” he kept saying to himself. “I must go back to the desert, for only there shall I find peace.”
At length a servant came to him, saying that Lord Blair would receive him; and thereat he betook himself to the Great Man’s study, his impulsive mind made up on the instant and eager to meet his destiny.
“Why, what is the matter, Daniel?” Lord Blair asked, as he entered the room. “You looked troubled.”
“I am more than troubled,” said Daniel. “I’m in despair. It’s about Muriel: I’m afraid we’ve had a definite quarrel.”
Lord Blair wiggled in his chair, apparently with annoyance, though possibly with nothing more than an itch.
“Ah – a lovers’ tiff …” he commented; but Daniel stopped him with a gesture.
“No, it’s a total estrangement,” he said, fiercely. “It’s been growing gradually, and now there’s nothing to be done. I’ve come to give you my resignation. I’m going back to El Hamrân.”
Lord Blair suddenly sat back in his chair, his eyes fixed on his friend, the tips of his fingers touching the edge of the table as though some movement had been arrested. “My dear Daniel,” he said at last, and he spoke sharply, “control yourself! This is an absurd situation.”
“Oh yes, I know,” Daniel replied, “you think I’m just a fool in love, who’s going off in a huff. No, that’s not it. I want to go because I’ve lost my happiness since I’ve been in Cairo: I’m utterly out of tune with the people I meet. Why, yesterday at the Cavillands’ I could feel myself being a boor and a bore. I couldn’t laugh… Yes, that’s it; since I’ve been amongst all these witty people I’ve forgotten how to laugh. Good God! – I hav’n’t smiled for weeks. Out there in the desert, when my mind was at peace, I was always full of laughter; I was always chuckling to myself, just from sheer light-heartedness or whatever you like to call it. But here my heart’s in my boots, and I’m blue all day long. I can’t even whistle.”
“I think – indeed, I am sure – you are taking things too seriously,” said Lord Blair.
“You’re right,” Daniel answered, quickly, interrupting him. “The gay life makes me painfully serious; this fashionable stuff fills me with gloom. It’s all this blasted chase after amusement, this immense preoccupation with the surface of things, that gives me the hump. You see, to my way of thinking, light-heartedness only comes from a tranquil sort of mind. It’s something deep inside oneself; one doesn’t get it from outside – though, on the other hand, outside things do certainly obscure one’s inner vision. Real happiness – not just pleasure – seems to be absolutely essential to life and to all human relations. It’s the key to diplomacy. You’ve got to see the fun of things, you’ve got to bubble inside with happiness before you can really govern or be governed. You’ve got to be the exact opposite of sinister, and nearly the opposite of solemn, before you can get any punch into your dealings with your fellow men, don’t you think? And how, in God’s name, can one be happy unless there is the right mental atmosphere of truth, and sincerity, and trust, and benevolence, and broad understanding?”
He spoke with intensity, and the movement of his hands added expression to his words.
“But do you realize,” said Lord Blair, “what an immense, what an unqualified success your work here has been? And now you would throw it all up just because a chit of a girl has annoyed you.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Daniel replied. “I might have been able to ignore all this miserable Society business; but when Muriel and I grew fond of one another I was drawn into it. And then, gradually, I began to see that that was her world. At first I hoped she would be the buffer between me and that world, and a non-conductor, so to speak, but I find that she transmits the shocks to me direct.”
He told Lord Blair something of the more tangible trouble between them, but he would not reveal all the bitter yearning of his heart. He might have said “I love her, I want her to be wholly mine, I want her to come over to my way of thinking so that I can show her where real happiness is to be found.” He might have said “I am distracted by her, and I want to go away to forget her dear eyes, and the touch of her lips, and the intoxication of her personality.” But on these matters he was silent.
As he talked his mind was filled with a passionate desire for the peace of the desert. He was like a monk, longing for the refuge of his quiet monastery walls; and he seemed to hear in his heart the gentle voice of the wilderness calling to him to come back into the sweet smiling solitude, away from the sorrows of the superficial world.
“I must go back to El Hamrân,” he said. “I beg you not to stop me.”
Lord Blair looked at him with pity. He was in the presence of an emotion which he could not altogether understand, but the reality of which was very apparent. “There must be no question,” he said, “of your resignation. Go away for a time, if you wish, but you mustn’t play the deserter.”
An idea had suddenly come into his head, and he turned to Daniel with relief in his anxious eyes. “Now listen to me,” he said. “Go back to El Hamrân: I can send you there on business.”
He hunted about amongst his papers, and presently produced the memorandum which Benifett Bindane had handed to him. “Here are some matters upon which Mr. Bindane desires information before he starts his tour of the Oases in three or four weeks’ time. You can send your answers in to him on his arrival at El Homra; and after that you can wait at El Hamrân in case he comes there. After that I won’t hurry you to return: I can give you leave of absence. And then, when your mind is more settled you can come back here. The winter season will be over, and what you call ‘Society’ will have left the country for the summer.”
Daniel fell in with the suggestion gladly. “You are very patient with me,” he said. “I don’t deserve it: I feel I’m being very cranky.”
“I don’t want to lose you,” the elder man replied, and his sincerity was apparent. But he was much startled when Daniel asked if he might leave at once.
“Today?” he exclaimed, in surprise.
“Yes, now,” said Daniel, emphatically. “There are practically no outstanding matters. I can put Lestrange wise about everything in ten minutes.”
Lord Blair looked at him, curiously. “Muriel won’t be back from Mena House until this evening,” he said. “Don’t you want to see her before you go?”
“No,” he replied, quickly and decisively, rising to go, “I have nothing to say to her.”
Lord Blair sighed as they walked to the door. “Daniel,” he said, “all this is a great blow to me.”
Thus it came about that an hour after Daniel had arrived at the Residency he was on his way back to the desert, his teeth set, and his brain occupied, by force of will, with his plans. He did not dare to look into the future: he was going, as a sick man goes to an operation, to find by a path of pain the health of mind that he had lost. Perhaps he would return to the Residency; perhaps he would not; but for the present it was of paramount importance that he should master his complaint, and regain the power to see clearly, the power to work happily, the power to laugh.
By mid-afternoon his camp was struck, and he was ready to depart. A camel-owner in the village of Kafr-el-Harâm, near the Pyramids, had supplied the necessary camels and men at a moment’s notice, hastened by the enthusiasm of Hussein and his brother, both overjoyed at the good fortune which was to take them so suddenly back to their home. Some of the tents and the unnecessary articles of furniture had been stored in the village at the house of a native friend; and the remainder were packed upon the camels.
As the afternoon shadows were lengthening the start was made. The camels, grumbling and complaining, lurched to their feet; the three dogs, barking with excitement, ran in circles around the company; and Daniel, swinging into his saddle, took his place at the head of the caravan. In single file, and at a slow trot, they moved away westwards, their long shadows stretching out behind them; and soon they had disappeared into the waste of sand and rocks, golden in the light of the descending sun.
An hour later the picnic party, coming back from a point to the south, rode towards the Pyramids. Muriel had been very silent all day; but Kate, who was in her confidence, had helped her to conceal her depression, and now was riding by her side, a little removed from the others. The desert had had a soothing influence upon the raw wound which the quarrel of the previous day had inflicted; and Muriel was already somewhat happier in her mind.
“Don’t you worry, old girl,” said Kate. “Men have got to be managed, and you’ll soon put things ship-shape in the morning.”
“But the morning is so far off,” Muriel replied, pathetically.
She did not altogether understand what the trouble was about. Daniel had attacked her so suddenly, just when she had been wholly engaged in attacking him. So far as she could make out, he had been angry with her because she had made a fuss about his relationship with Lizette. “I suppose,” she thought to herself, “he thinks a woman oughtn’t to question a man’s movements, or know anything about what he is doing when he is not with her. It doesn’t seem fair somehow…”
She did not in the least realize that Daniel’s hostility had been aroused by her belief that there was anything between him and Lizette, and by her readiness, in spite of that belief, to overlook his supposed deception as soon as she had vented her feelings by a brief show of temper. She felt that he had been harsh, and rather brazen about the whole thing; and yet, so greatly did she yearn for his love, she was prepared to forgive even his brutality.
She turned to her companion. “I don’t think I can wait till the morning,” she said. “I’m going to ride over to his camp now, and say I’m sorry. It’s only a mile out of the way, and I’ll be home almost as soon as you.”
Kate was sympathetic. “Go on, then,” she replied. “I’ll hint to the others that you’ve got a stomach-ache or something, and have ridden on. And let me see more colour in that old mug of yours when you get back.”
She leant forward in her saddle, and struck her companion’s horse with her cane, so that he went off at a gallop across the sand.
Bearing off to the left, Muriel soon described the head of rock which overlooked the camp; but approaching it thus from the south she knew that the tents would not come into view until she had rounded this ridge.