Zahara, whose father had been a Frenchman, possessed1 skin of a subtle cream colour very far removed from the warm brown of her Egyptian mother, but yet not white. At night it appeared dazzling, for she enhanced its smooth, creamy pallor with a wonderful liquid solution which came from Paris. It was hard, Zahara had learned, to avoid a certain streaky appearance, but much practice had made her an adept2.
This portion of her toilet she had already completed and studying her own reflection she wondered, as she had always wondered, what Agapoulos could see in Safiyeh. Safiyeh was as brown as a berry; quite pretty for an Egyptian girl, as Zahara admitted scornfully, but brown—brown. It was a great puzzle to Zahara. The mystery of life indeed had puzzled little Zahara very much from the moment when she had first begun to notice things with those big, surprising blue eyes of hers, right up to the present twenty-fourth year of her life. She had an uneasy feeling that Safiyeh, who was only sixteen, knew more of this mystery than she did. Once, shortly after the Egyptian girl had come to the house of Agapoulos, Zahara had playfully placed her round white arm against that of the more dusky beauty, and:
“Look!” she had exclaimed. “I am cream and you are coffee.”
“It is true,” the other had admitted in her practical, serious way, “but some men do not like cream. All men like coffee.”
Zahara rested her elbows upon the table and surveyed the reflection of her perfect shoulders with disapproval3. She had been taught at her mother's knee that men did not understand women, and she, who had been born and reared in that quarter of Cairo where there is no day but one long night, had lived to learn the truth of the lesson. Yet she was not surprised that this was so; for Zahara did not understand herself. Her desires were so simple and so seemingly natural, yet it would appear that they were contrary to the established order of things.
She was proud to think that she was French, although someone had told her that the French, though brave, were mercenary. Zahara admired the French for being brave, and thought it very sensible that they should be mercenary. For there was nothing that Zahara wanted of the world that money could not obtain (or so she believed), and she knew no higher philosophy than the quest of happiness. Because others did not seem to share this philosophy she often wondered if she could be unusual. She had come to the conclusion that she was ignorant. If only Harry4 Grantham would talk to her she felt sure he could teach her so much.
There were so many things that puzzled her. She knew that at twenty-four she was young for a French girl, although as an Egyptian she would have been considered old. She had been taught that gold was the key to happiness and that man was the ogre from whom this key must be wheedled5. A ready pupil, Zahara had early acquired the art of attracting, and now at twenty-four she was a past mistress of the Great Craft, and as her mirror told her, more beautiful than she had ever been.
Therefore, what did Agapoulos see in Safiyeh?
It was a problem which made Zahara's head ache. She could not understand why as her power of winning men increased her power to hold them diminished. Safiyeh was a mere6 inexperienced child—yet Agapoulos had brought her to the house, and Zahara, wise in woman's lore7, had recognized the familiar change of manner.
It was a great problem, the age-old problem which doubtless set the first silver thread among Phryne's red-gold locks and which now brought a little perplexed8 wrinkle between Zahara's delicately pencilled brows.
It had not always been so. In those early days in Cairo there had been an American boy. Zahara had never forgotten. Her beauty had bewildered him. He had wanted to take her to New York; and oh! how she had wanted to go. But her mother, who was then alive, had held other views, and he had gone alone. Heavens! How old she felt. How many had come and gone since that Egyptian winter, but now, although admiration9 was fatally easy to win how few were so sincere as that fresh-faced boy from beyond the Atlantic.
Zahara, staring into the mirror, observed that there was not a wrinkle upon her face, not a flaw upon her perfect skin. Nor in this was she blinded by vanity. Nature, indeed, had cast her in a rare mould, and from her unusual hair, which was like dull gold, to her slender ankles and tiny feet, she was one of the most perfectly10 fashioned human beings who ever added to the beauty of the world.
Yet Agapoulos preferred Safiyeh. Zahara could hear him coming to her room even as she sat there, chin in hands, staring at her own bewitching reflection. Presently she would slip out and speak to Harry Grantham. Twice she had read in his eyes that sort of interest which she knew so well how to detect. She liked him very much, but because of a sense of loyalty11 to Agapoulos (a sentiment purely12 Egyptian which she longed to crush) Zahara had never so much as glanced at Grantham in the Right Way. She was glad, though, that he had not gone, and she hoped that Agapoulos would not detain her long.
As a matter of fact, the Greek's manner was even more cold than usual. He rested his hand upon her shoulder for a moment, and meeting her glance reflected in the mirror:
“There will be a lot of money here to-night,” he said. “Make the best of your opportunities. Chinatown is foggy, yes—but it pays better than Port Said.”
He ran fat fingers carelessly through her hair, the big diamond glittering effectively in the wavy13 gold, then turned and went out. Sitting listening intently, Zahara could hear him talking in a subdued14 voice to Safiyeh, and could detect the Egyptian's low-spoken replies.
Grantham looked up with a start. A new and subtle perfume had added itself to that with which the air of the room was already laden15. He found Zahara standing16 beside him.
His glance travelled upward from a pair of absurdly tiny brocaded shoes past slender white ankles to the embroidered17 edge of a wonderful mandarin18 robe decorated with the figures of peacocks; upward again to a little bejewelled hand which held the robe confined about the slender figure of Zahara, and upward to where, sideways upon a bare shoulder peeping impudently19 out from Chinese embroidery20, rested the half-mocking and half-serious face of the girl.
“Hallo!” he said, smiling, “I didn't hear you come in.”
“I walk very soft,” explained Zahara, “because I am not supposed to be here.”
She looked at him quizzically. “I don't see you for a long time,” she added, and in the tone of her voice there was a caress21. “I saw you more often in Port Said than here.”
“No,” replied Grantham, “I have been giving Agapoulos a rest. Besides, there has been nobody worth while at any of the hotels or clubs during the last fortnight.”
“Somebody worth while coming to-night?” asked Zahara with professional interest.
At the very moment that she uttered the words she recognized her error, for she saw Grantham's expression change. Yet to her strange soul there was a challenge in his coldness and the joy of contest in the task of melting the ice of this English reserve.
“Lots of money,” he said bitterly; “we shall all do well to-night.”
Zahara did not reply for a moment. She wished to close this line of conversation which inadvertently she had opened up. So that, presently:
“You look very lonely and bored,” she said softly.
As a matter of fact, it was she who was bored of the life she led in Limehouse—in chilly22, misty23 Limehouse—and who had grown so very lonely since Safiyeh had come. In the dark gray eyes looking up at her she read recognition of her secret. Here was a man possessing that rare masculine attribute, intuition. Zahara knew a fear that was half delightful24. Fear because she might fail in either of two ways and delight because the contest was equal.
“Yes,” he replied slowly, “my looks tell the truth. How did you know?”
Zahara observed that his curiosity had not yet become actual interest. She toyed with the silken tassel25 on her robe, tying and untying26 it with quick nervous fingers and resting the while against the side of the carved chair.
“Perhaps because I am so lonely myself,” she said. “I matter to no one. What I do, where I go, if I live or die. It is all——”
She spread her small hands eloquently27 and shrugged28 so that another white shoulder escaped from the Chinese wrapping. Thereupon Zahara demurely29 drew her robe about her with a naive30 air of modesty31 which nine out of ten beholding32 must have supposed to be affected33.
In reality it was a perfectly natural, instinctive34 movement. To Zahara her own beauty was a commonplace to be displayed or concealed35 as circumstances might dictate36. In a certain sense, which few could appreciate, this half-caste dancing girl and daughter of El Wasr was as innocent as a baby. It was one of the things which men did not understand. She thought that if Harry Grantham asked her to go away with him it would be nice to go. Suddenly she realized how deep was her loathing37 of this Limehouse and of the people she met there, who were all alike.
He sat looking at her for some time, and then: “Perhaps you are wrong,” he said. “There may be some who could understand.”
And because he had answered her thoughts rather than her words, the fear within Zahara grew greater than the joy of the contest.
Awhile longer she stayed, seeking for a chink in the armour38. But she failed to kindle39 the light in his eyes which—unless she had deluded40 herself—she had seen there in the past; and because she failed and could detect no note of tenderness in his impersonal41 curiosity:
“You are lonely because you are so English, so cold,” she exclaimed, drawing her robe about her and glancing sideways toward the door by which Agapoulos might be expected to enter. “You are bored, yes. Of course. You look on at life. It is not exciting, that game—except for the players.”
Never once had she looked at him in the Right Way; for to have done so and to have evoked42 only that amused yet compassionate43 smile would have meant hatred44, and Zahara had been taught that such hatred was fatal because it was a confession45 of defeat.
“I shall see you again to-night, shall I not?” he said as she turned away.
“Oh, yes, I shall be—on show. I hope you will approve.”
She tossed her head like a petulant46 child, turned, and with never another glance in his direction, walked from the room. She was very graceful47, he thought.
Yet it was not entirely48 of this strange half-caste, whose beauty was provoking, although he resolutely49 repelled50 her tentative advances, that Grantham was thinking. In that last gesture when she had scornfully tossed her head in turning aside, had lain a bitter memory. Grantham stood for a moment watching the swaying draperies. Then, dropping the end of his cigarette into a little brass51 ash-tray, he took up his hat, gloves, and cane52 from the floor, and walked toward the doorway53 through which he had entered.
A bell rang somewhere, and Grantham paused. A close observer might have been puzzled by his expression. Evidently changing his mind, he crossed the room, opened the door and went out, leaving the house of Agapoulos by a side entrance. Crossing the little courtyard below he hurried in the direction of the main street, seeming to doubt the shadows which dusk was painting in the narrow ways.
Many men who know Chinatown distrust its shadows, but the furtive54 fear of which Grantham had become aware was due not to anticipation55 but to memory—to a memory conjured56 up by that gesture of Zahara's.
There were few people in London or elsewhere who knew the history of this scallywag Englishman. That he had held the King's commission at some time was generally assumed to be the fact, but that his real name was not Grantham equally was taken for granted. His continuing, nevertheless, to style himself “Major” was sufficient evidence to those interested that Grantham lived by his wits; and from the fact that he lived well and dressed well one might have deduced that his wits were bright if his morals were turbid57.
Now, the gesture of a woman piqued58 had called up the deathless past. Hurrying through nearly empty squalid streets, he found himself longing59 to pronounce a name, to hear it spoken that he might linger over its bitter sweetness. To this longing he presently succumbed60, and:
“Inez,” he whispered, and again more loudly, “Inez.”
Such a wave of lonely wretchedness and remorse61 swept up about his heart that he was almost overwhelmed by it, yet he resigned himself to its ruthless cruelty with a sort of savage62 joy. The shadowed ways of Limehouse ceased to exist for him, and in spirit he stood once more in a queer, climbing, sunbathed63 street of Gibraltar looking out across that blue ribbon of the Straits to where the African coast lay hidden in the haze64.
“I never knew,” he said aloud. And one meeting this man who hurried along and muttered to himself must have supposed him to be mad. “I never knew. Oh, God! if I had only known.”
But he was one of those to whom knowledge comes as a bitter aftermath. When his regiment65 had received orders to move from the Rock, and he had informed Inez of his departure, she had turned aside, just as Zahara had done; scornfully and in silence. Because of his disbelief in her he had guarded his heart against this beautiful Spanish girl who (as he realized too late) had brought him the only real happiness he had ever known. Often she had told him of her brother, Miguel, who would kill her—would kill them both—if he so much as suspected their meetings; of her affianced husband, absent in Tunis, whose jealousy66 knew no bounds.
He had pretended to believe, had even wanted to believe; but the witchery of the girl's presence removed, he had laughed—at himself and at Inez. She was playing the Great Game, skilfully67, exquisitely68. When he was gone—there would soon be someone else. Yet he had never told her that he doubted. He had promised many things—and had left her.
She died by her own hand on the night of his departure.
Now, as a wandering taxi came into view: “Inez!” he moaned—“I never knew.”
That brother whom he had counted a myth had succeeded in getting on board the transport. Before Grantham's inner vision the whole dreadful scene now was reenacted: the struggle in the stateroom; he even seemed to hear the sound of the shot, to see the Spaniard, drenched69 with blood from a wound in his forehead, to hear his cry:
“I cannot see! I cannot see! Mother of Mercy! I have lost my sight!”
It had broken Grantham. The scandal was hushed up, but retirement70 was inevitable71. He knew, too, that the light had gone out of the world for him as it had gone for Miguel da Mura.
It is sometimes thus that a scallywag is made.
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1
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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adept
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| adj.老练的，精通的 | |
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disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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5
wheedled
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| v.骗取（某物），哄骗（某人干某事）( wheedle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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6
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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lore
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| n.传说；学问，经验，知识 | |
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8
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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14
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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15
laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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16
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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Mandarin
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| n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的 | |
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impudently
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embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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tassel
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| n.流苏，穗；v.抽穗， （玉米）长穗须 | |
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26
untying
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| untie的现在分词 | |
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eloquently
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| adv. 雄辩地(有口才地, 富于表情地) | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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demurely
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| adv.装成端庄地，认真地 | |
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30
naive
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| adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的 | |
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modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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32
beholding
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| v.看，注视( behold的现在分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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33
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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34
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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35
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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dictate
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| v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令 | |
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37
loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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38
armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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kindle
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| v.点燃，着火 | |
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40
deluded
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| v.欺骗，哄骗( delude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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42
evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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43
compassionate
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| adj.有同情心的，表示同情的 | |
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44
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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45
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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petulant
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| adj.性急的，暴躁的 | |
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47
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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48
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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49
resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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50
repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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51
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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52
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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53
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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54
furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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55
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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56
conjured
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| 用魔术变出( conjure的过去式和过去分词 )； 祈求，恳求； 变戏法； （变魔术般地） 使…出现 | |
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57
turbid
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| adj.混浊的，泥水的，浓的 | |
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58
piqued
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| v.伤害…的自尊心( pique的过去式和过去分词 )；激起（好奇心） | |
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59
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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60
succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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61
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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62
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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63
sunbathed
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| 日光浴( sunbathe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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66
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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67
skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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68
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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69
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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70
retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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71
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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