Desert Doorway

by Pamela Kent

  Daintry remarked her absorption with the out

  look, and with the artistic arrangement of flowers on the table, and he asked her at last�with a hint of dryness in his tone again:

  "You like my house, and my way of living? Or am I, perhaps, getting the wrong impression altogether?" . , ,

  "Oh, no." She looked at him with a quick, almost eager, smile, which lighted up her face and made her eyes acquire a new depth of color. "I think it's delightful, and I also think for a bachelor you are exceedingly comfortable."

  "Why for a bachelor?" he asked, one of his dark eyebrows lifting. "And how," shattering her composure, "do you know that I am a bachelor?"

  "I don't! At least"�flushing in the fashion over which she had so little control�"I only assumed. . 0 ."'

  "Well, as a matter of fact," he answered with a cool smile, "your assumption is entirely correct. I am a bachelor, and probably likely to remain one �but that's because I enjoy the comforts you

  seem to imagine are the prerogative only of a,

  married man! Whereas, in point of fact, a marriedman's household ceases to hold much comfort for him, and it is the woman who almost certainly gets most out of marriage for the reason that sheusually runs her home as she likes. Never�or very seldom!�as her husband likes!"

  "I see," Jenny said, feeling that by making such a statement he had flung down a challenge�almost certainly quite deliberate�and that thefriendly comradeship which had seemed to existbetween them during the morning had all at once, and very abruptly, flown away out of the window. She felt it was no -longer possible to meet his eyes directly, and stared at the centre-piece of deep purple flowers. "Then, in that ease, it's certainly safer for you to remain a bachelor, isn't it?"

  "I've no intention of doing otherwise!" She felt her neck growing painfully hot. "Though that, of eourse, is rather a selfish

  attitude " "It is? I'm afraid Pm not concerned with how . my attitude strikes other people."

  "I see," she said again, and as they had reached the coffee stage of the meal, and he had just poured her a liqueur, she took a hasty sip at it, although she disliked liqueurs extremely.

  "But, naturally," he remarked, sitting back inhis chair and regarding her with unconcealed amusement, "being a young woman for whomnothing short of marriage was obviously intended, you would deplore what you are pleased to look upon as selfishness! Wasted material, shall we say,

  since there are so many more women in the world than men?" She forced herself to-look at him with a touch of grave consideration.

  "I don't think that aspect of the matter is really important," she replied, "if the material is notlikely to prove suitable for marriage. And on your own admission you have a sort of antipathy towards it."

  "P

  "Not an antipathy�I feel safer as I am!" ,

  "And as there are already so many unhappy marriages"�thinking of Celestine and Raoul de St. Alais, and in particular Raoul's look of silently enduring a good deal, which brought a faint shadow to her eyes�"you are wise not to add to them. Very wise, 3 should say!"

  "Indeed," he murmured. "And what are the essential qualifications for marriage, perhaps you can tell me?"

  She shook her head slowly.

  "I don't know. But a determination to make it work out successfully would be one of them, I should think."

  "You're wiser than I thought you were," he eommented. "Anything else?"

  "An overwhelming desire for it in the first place," she said. "That's surely the most important?"

  He looked at her with a kind of cool approval.

  "An overwhelming desire for anything almost always results in one making a tremendous effort to obtain it. How right you are! But by the sametoken my blood must flow very sluggishly, for I have never felt that overwhelming urge! And you are too young to have done so�yet!"

  She felt that the conversation had become

  acutely embarrassing, and wished she could think

  of something to say to divert it. But in his com

  pany she was not very good at thinking of conversational openings, and she was glad to hear him say suddenly:

  "Tell me something about yourself�your life

  in England. I know it can't have been very excit

  ing," with a sudden, half humorous look in hia

  eyes, "at least, not judged by the standards of

  anyone like�say Celestine! But even so it's prob

  ably had its highlights. Has it?"

  She shook her head again, but she gave him a

  brief word picture of the kind of life she had led

  since the death of her father, when her home was

  aoid, and there was nothing very much from the

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  proceeds except to defray expenses and debts. And she had had one job as a nursery governess, whichhad not worked out very well because her employer had really wanted a domestic help as well, andthe job had been rather a heavy one. And it had not, in any case, been a happy one.

  "And so you decided to come to Morocco," hesaid, "in search of happiness?"

  "No; merely because it was the most suitable job that was offered me, and there were no ties to keep me in England."

  "And that brings us back to the advantages of marriage if one wishes to develop ties!" He smiled at her rather oddly, and then noticed that she looked a shade rebellious. She could not get away from the feeling that he was mocking her deliberately all the time, and wondered whether it was because she had ventured to form her own opinion of him without, as he had said, attempting to check her facts first! In short she had been ready to condemn him from the very word go�but not without a measure of good cause. In fact, quite a generous measure!

  He stood up abruptly. "Come up on to the roof," he said. "It's fairlyhot just now, but it's worth it."

  The roof was more like a garden, with shady awnings to protect them from the worst rays of the afternoon sun. Jenny caught her breath whenshe looked down first on the garden�a sea of color in an oasis of drabness�and then over the rooftops to the slender spires of the minarets, rising into the clear, fierce warmth of the sky, the encircling, rose-red walls of the city, and the impressiveness of the High Atlas beyond. It was certainly worth climbing to the roof to see all that, and'the thought struck her than on a starry night it would be even more worthwhile to make one's way up here. In fact, it would be something very much more than worthwhile.

  And in spite of the things which frightened herdown there in the medina, if she owned a house

  ^ . .

  like this, in just this position, filled as it was with would want one day to leave it and go back to beautiful things, she was not so sure that she

  England.

  She asked suddenly, because she had to knows �"Wh'y do you live'here?"

  "Why?" He smiled at her as if she was a child who had asked an amusing question. "One reasonis because it's a very useful centre when you plythe kind of trade I ply�not overlooking the gunrunning!" and she knew he was laughing at her. "Another is that I like it. I like England, too, and Italy�but here I feel I belong, somehow. It's important to belong somewhere, you know."

  "Yes." She agreed with him, soberly. She herself no longer had a home, and she had no ties of any kind. It was not an entirely satisfactory position to be in, and it brought a little ragged sigh up from the depths of her being, which escaped

  her without her knowing it.

  Max Daintry, who had been leaning against the low parapet, smoking, turned and looked at her curiously. His eyes were inscrutable, and the setof his mouth was somehow remote, giving her thefeeling that one could never properly know this

  man."Tell me," he said, "now that you've been here dose upon a fortnight, how do you really like it?"

  "I like it�in many ways�very much," she

  answered.

  "By which you mean that you like looking after

  the children?"

  "Yes. They're not difficult to manage, a
nd I'm

  already very fond of them."

  "But you're probably fond of most children?" Jenny nodded her head. "As a matter of fact, I am." "You know," he remarked, "you're going tomake some fortunate man an extremely nice little wife some day! You have all the right ideas�1 suspected that from the beginning!�and with your background and upbringing you'll cling to

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  them through thick and thin! And that goes for

  the man, too�cleaving only unto him until death

  you do part! You and Raoul de St. Alais would

  have made a good pair. His ideas are very similar

  to yours."

  She said, stiffly;

  "I like the Comte very much."

  "So you've said before." He tossed away his

  only partly smoked cigarette as if he suddenly

  disliked the taste of it. "You've never said you like the Comtesse."

  "I like her, too�in a�in less a way!"

  "That's honest," he said, resting both elbows on the parapet and staring at the roof-tops opposite. "Don't you want to know how I managed to persuade her to let me take you out to-day? And, even so, she had no idea I intended to bring you here for lunch!"

  "Oh!" Jenny exclaimed, and felt her face suddenly flaming under the deep shade of the awning. He was looking round at her again, and hiseyes were now definitely mocking her, and her own eyes grew confused. "She was perfectly nice about it��"

  "Of course8" The heavy mockery in his voicemade her wonder whether it was his wish to increase her embarrassment. "But, then I have my own methods of subduing the un-subduable!�of dealing with the intractable! It's never terribly difficult, when you bring a battery of personal charm to bear upon the opposition. But naturally you guessed all that?"

  Jenny's color spread wildly for a moment, andthen faded all at once. There was something harsh in his voice�something which told her that this was his method of paying her back for the badopinion she had formed of him at the beginning of their acquaintance. But the harshness was a little unfair, she thought, especially after his kindness in showing her so much during the morning. She swallowed noticeably, wishing earnestly that shehad declined to permit him to act as her host, and

  all at once he straightened himself at the roof edge and turned upon her so quickly that she actually backed a step,

  "You little idiot!" he said�but the mockery was gone from his tone, and it was only harsh. Looking up timidly into his face she saw that it was dark and harsh, too. "You're free to go wherever you want to go while you remain here in Marrakesh, and I'm free to ask anyone here to my house I wish to ask. Do you understand what I mean by that?�I'm perfectly free to behave as I please!"

  "Y-yes," she answered, and as if fascinated by the condemning anger in his grey eyes she stared into them. She stared until all at once something happened to her that had never happened to herbefore, and she felt breathless�just as if she had run thoughtlessly up a steep flight of stairs and

  been forced to halt at the top because of an odd sensation in the region of her heart. She even wanted to put a hand up over her heart to stop itbehaving so eccentrically, while the blood seemedto be pounding heavily through her veins. "Y-yes," she stammered again.

  "Good!" he exclaimed, but his black brows remained almost fiercely knitted together, and there was no softening of the expression on his face. He stood so close to her that there could not have been more than a foot of space between them, andas she looked up at him with her head slightly thrown back she noticed yet again what a strong jaw he had, and what an uncompromisingly strong face his was, and the thought sped swiftly, regretfully through her mind:

  "If only he and I had started off by beingfriends! ... He would make a good friend! . . ." And something hurt dully inside her because she had the feeling that he despised her, and in anycase he probably picked his friends with care. The impecunious governess employed by a long-standing acquaintance�if, indeed, she was nothing

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  more! � was scarcely likely to be numbered amongst them!

  And then all at once he disarmed her completelyby relaxing and smiling at her in a whimsical fashion at the same time.

  "You have a bad effect on me," he told her. "You always make me want to fight�-and we're neither of us Irish!" And then he lightly caught her by the arm and led her towards the flight of steps leading down from the roof. "Come back into the cool and have some tea," he said.

  The rest of the afternoon passed pleasantly enough, and while they drank mint tea made in a silver tea-pot by the servant who carrired in the tray, and served in small glasses with a great deal of sugar so that it tasted more like a liqueur

  �although a very refreshing liqueur. Jenny had to admit�Max Daintry talked to her in the manner of a perfectly correct but friendly host, and showed her part of his collection of ancient coins, as well as a magnificent collection of Egyptian scarabs which he owned. He confessed to a weakness for Egypt, where he had once lived for a time, and she gathered that the whole northern part of Africa fascinated him. The sharp color contrasts, the fierce sunshine, were things he would be loath to give up in order to go home and live in England, where he owned property passed on to him by his father. Although he admitted at the same time that he liked England.

  "And you are very English," he said deliber

  ately, looking at her strangely. Jenny looked away quickly. "It seems a pity," she remarked, "that owning

  a house in England you should never visit it. What sort of a house is it? Is it large or small?" "Reasonably large�in fact, quite large. But not

  too large to be live-in-able." "Where?" she asked "In Hampshire, not far from the sea. An old

  house, I'm sure you would find it attractive," he added with a curious smile.

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  "I have always though," Jenny agreed, with a tiny glow in her eyes, "that to own a house of thatsort would give one more pleasure than almostanything else, particularly if it has a big garden. And Hampshire is a lovely country. My home is in Dorset�or, at least," she corrected herself, with a sudden, sharp sigh, "it was!"

  "Dorset and Hampshire," Daintry remarked, studying her reflectively�"not so very far apart! Perhaps one of these days you'll go back to Dorset �and you may even visit Hampshire?"

  And then he put away the scarabs and the coins, and stood up and announced that if they were not to antagonize Celestine unreasonably Jenny had better be returned to her charges. Jenny, who had enjoyed the last hour more than any otherpart of the day, felt as if she had been brought brutally back to reality, and she stood up quickly, repressing a sigh which he might misunderstand if she allowed it to escape her.

  When they arrirved back at the St. Alais house the Comtesse appeared at once and greeted Daintry with a radiant smile. She was wearing acocktail dress of highly sophisticated black, and there were diamonds in her ears and sparkling at her throat and wrists. By contrast with the sable quality of her dress her hair flamed brilliantly in the sombre magnificence of the St. Alais main entrance hall, and her skin was positively breathtaking. Looking at her. Jenny was sure she had never seen anyone even a tithe as lovely before, and she was sure that her impact on anyonebelonging to the male sex must be devastating.

  "So you're back!" she said, but she spared not so much as a side-glance for Jenny. "This young woman"�merely indicating the governess withher hand�"is in great demand these days! Si Mohammed Menebhi is taking her out to lunch to-morrow, and you've entertained her all day. What a thing it is to be young and unattached!" But her confident eyes, fixed on the man's face, conveyed no yearning to be in Jenny's shoes her

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  self�she was obviously more than satisfied with

  her own status, and eminently sure of herself in

  every way.

  Max Daintry looked sideways at Jenny.

  "You didn't tell me," he said quietly, "about

  your lunch appointment to-morrow." She thought

  that hi
s lips curled. "I had no idea governesses

  were so gay!"

  Jenny was unable to think of anything to say,

  and the Comtesse answered for her;

  "My dear Max, don't make the girl uncomfortable!� She can't help being attractive, can she? And there is no reason at all why a pretty governess shouldn't be gay-^certainly not when shehappens to be my employee. I'm all for it!"

  Her smile looked as if it had been^ delicately painted on her lips, and there was a hint of derisive amusement in her eyes as she gazed up at Max. He gazed back at her for a few moments with a kind of cynical appreciation, and then he turned to the door and ignored Jenny.

  "Women are beyond me," he remarked, in a cool clipped tone. "I never pretend to understandthem."

  "Darling, that's all part of our attraction," Celestine murmured, slipping a hand inside his arm and moving with him out into the patio. Andjust before she started to move towards the stairs Jenny heard the Comtesse add: "You won't belate to-night, will you. Max? Last time you kept me waiting a full five minutes . . ."

  And Jenny fled hastily in the direction of her own quarters.

  CHAPTER NINE

  JENNY was not sorry, from purely selfish motives, when the next day she was unable to keepher luncheon appointment with Si Mohammed

  Menebhi because her small charge Louis developedfeverish symptoms. The Comtesse looked vexed. and disapproving when she saw how he clung tothe English governess's' hand, and declared that

  she thought it would be perfectly all right for

  Jenny to leave him in the charge of Nerida, andthat in any case Dr..Le Croix would be summoned, and he was used to Louis's sudden little up-narings of temperature.

  "Do you mean," Jenny said, looking at her inamazement, "that although it is my job to look

  after the children you would prefer it 'if I kept

  this luncheon date and left someone else to do the thing I am paid to do? Surely Dr. Le Croix would