Desert Doorway

by Pamela Kent

  "How�how dare you? Oh, how dare you!" she exclaimed, turning white with anger. "I beg your pardon?" His voice'was very smoot smooth. "Have I said something I shouldn't have

  "You suggested I came here to meet Si Mohammed when you haven't the remotest right to suggest anything of the kind! When you know that I am only here at all because it was the Comtesse's wish! You, who have so far forgotten that you owe a certain amount of loyalty to a business partner, if not actually a friend, that you fly here to join his wife as soon as you get back from Paris and find that she has left Marrakesh!

  Her blood was flowing so fast, and her indignation was so high, that it was as much as she could do to get the words out clearly, and yet after the misery of the day and the night before it when she had lain wakeful until dawn�solely on his account�it was such a relief to give vent to all the poisoned doubts in her own mind that she waa

  132

  not intimidated by the gradual change of expression that was taking place in his face. She barely even noticed it.

  But in the white starlight that was piercing the perfume-laden dusk his face was beginning to look entirely different. The mockery had vanished from his eyes, and his mouth was stern�not merely stern, but compressed into lines of utter coldness and hardness. His square jaw might have been made of steel, and when, after a moment of utter silence, he spoke, there was the ring of ice in his voice.

  "Indeed?" he said, and in spite of the ice his voice was silkily soft. "So that's what you think, is it? For such a nicely brought up young woman you have a mind like the Sunday newspapers I remember when I was in England! They were vastly entertaining sometimes, but the entertainment was chiefly sordid. I would hardly have connected you with a desire to delve deeply into unpleasant human relationships, but you seem to

  have a mind that dwells on that sort of thing. Which is a pity, because you're a very attractive young woman."

  Jenny felt her breath catch in her throat, but she managed to lash out at him:

  "You seem to forget that you've never made any pretence with me! From the moment we met it was easy to guess how you feel about�about the Comtesse!"

  "And ever since then you've been lavishing all your pity on the Comte?" "I think he deserves it I think he's had to put up with a great deal." "From me?" "From�as the result of an unhappy marriage 2'"'

  "Dear me!" he exclaimed. "What a discerning child it is! You must have come up against this sort of thing before!"

  "I'm thankful to say I've never come up again'st this sort of thing before!"

  133

  "And we'll hope for your sake you won't come up against it again!" Then all at once his expres- . sion grew bleak and sinister. "But whether you're right or wrong about the reason why I came straight here from Marrakesh, there's one thing you ought to realize�that to a man of my typean attractive woman is always an attractive woman, and when she's young and particularly desirable I find it next door to impossible to resist the temptation to make love to her. And although �according to my own lights�I've held out ratherpraiseworthily in your case, because even for me you seemed just a bit too young for sudden assaults, now that I realize you expect nothing better of me I don't see any reason why I should deny myself any longer! If only for the excellentreason that you look not unlike Celestine��!"

  And before the warning telegraph inside Jenny's brain could prepare her to meet and do battle with his intention he had swooped and caught

  her up violently into his arms, and she could feel herself being crushed so hard against him that for a few moments all the breath seemed driven out of her body. And then while his arms bruised her brutally his dark head was bent down, and for the first time in her life a man's hard lips took possession of hers, and the little breath that was left to her fled while all the bright stars in thesky above her wheeled and dipped crazily and she went utterly limp.

  Max Daintry's own breathing was none too even when at last he lifted his head, and his greyeyes looked black in a lean face that had lost some of its tan. Jenny never afterwards knew why she didn't struggle or, given the opportunity, strike at him with her free hand, or at least make some endeavour to impress the violence of her displeasure upon him�her shocked, bemused displeasure. Unless it was because she was too bemused, and because she seemed incapable of any action just

  then.

  And the opportunity was soon lost, for he took her back tightly into his arms and kissed her again. This time the kiss was more leisurely, and it did not deprive her of her breath, but it set every pulse in her body beating like miniature sledge-hammers, the blood sang in her ears, and she had to fight against a wild, mad impulse to cling to him and to go on clinging. Her mouth must have made some response to his, because when he looked up this time he was smiling strangely.

  "Well," he said, releasing her, "let that be a lesson to you!"

  They stared at one another in the starlight. Jenny's whole body was trembling, and even to her he looked pale�unless it was the starlight. But his mouth twisted in that derisive smile she' loathed.

  "I��" she began. She took a deep breath and began again. "I�I��"

  And then because it was the only thing she could do she fled away from him and left him standing alone where only a moment before he had had her close in his arms.

  As she fled along the path shame and bitter indignation caused her to forget all about her degrading desire to cling to him and return with rapturous abandon those-shattering kisses he had

  pressed upon her lips, and although the lips them

  selves were tingling she Was almost sobbing as

  she raced for the house and the sanctuary of her

  own room. She reached the main patio and crossed it, and

  was turning into the maze of corridors which

  would eventually lead her to a staircase which

  wound upwards when, to her horror, she saw a

  figure approaching her. But it was too late to

  turn back. Si Mohammed, walking with his graceful, pan

  therish stride, and with his head bent thought

  fully, looked up quickly when he heard her flying

  135

  footsteps. He stopped, and she checked herself within a foot of him. "Is anything wrong?"

  He could see at once, dim though the light was, that she was profoundly upset, and her eyes were dark and wild as they gazed at him.

  She shook her head. "No. N-nothing."

  But her voice was quivering, and he could hear her breath coming quickly, and beneath the thin material of her filmy white dress her slender breasts were rising and falling in noticeable agita

  tion.

  "Nevertheless, I think something is wrong," he gaid, and his voice was very soft and gentle. He took her almost possessively by the arm and led her back into the broad patio, and there in the

  brighter light he looked at her closely. "Tell me about it," he invited. "Or would you rather go inside and let me get you something to drink?"

  "No�no, thank you," she answered. She was listening for the footsteps that would mean Max Daintry was himself crossing the patio, but there

  �was no sound of them as yet. " And, if you don't mind," with an appealing look up at the young Moor, "I would like to go up to my room." "It is by no means late yet," he returned, "and I was hoping to see you before you went to bed. I have apologies to make to you for absenting myself all day and causing you to miss your ride this morning, but news of trouble in one of our villages reached us last night, and it was necessary for me to investigate, which meant that I was away all night, and didn't get back until just before dinner time today. And then I had no real opportunity to talk to you."

  "I�I'm sorry," she stammered. "I mean, I'm sorry if the trouble in the village was something

  serious��?" , , , � -, -i.,,

  "It could have been serious, but I quelled it. She thought that he looked unusually dignified in the strange, purifying light of the stars, and
/>   136 � .

  almost startingly handsome. "Our people are ignorant, you know�there is too much ignorance which in time, perhaps, we shall overcome," with a slight sigh. "But," he smiled swiftly, "I must not bore you with things of this sort, and you are distressed about something yourself. Will you not tell me what it is that has upset you so much that you are running away from it?"

  His shrewdness confused her. All at once she heard the footsteps her ears had been straining for, but instead of coming along the path on which she and Si Mohammed were standing, and which would mean that the three would inevitably have met, they went on round an angle of the house, and Jenny breathed an almost audible sigh of relief.

  Si Mohammed lifted his head and listened to the footsteps also, and when they had died away she saw that a queer, hard glitter had entered his eyes, and his voice was harsh when he asked:

  "Was it our newly arrived guest who annoyed you in some way? Has Daintry done something you disliked?" Jenny shook her head hastily. Max's behaviour was not a thing to be discussed with Si Moham

  med. "No, of course not!" The Moor's eyes were on her face, and the ex

  pression in them was almost painfully searching.

  "It has struck me that you two are not very friendly towards one another. He is a strange man �strange and hard, and brutal if the impulse takes him. Are you quite sure he did nothing to annoy you?"

  Jenny turned towards the house. "I would like to go in�please .. .9" she begged, He put out a hand and caught hold of one of her

  slender wrists, and the touch of her seemed to inflame him.

  "Not yet," he said, a trifle indistinctly, "not until I have told you something!" The close grip of his fingers tightened. "I promised that I would

  137

  not force my attentions on you while you are here, but when I find you like this�running away from a man who poses as one of your own countrymen, and who has plainly done something to either frighten or upset you�then I do not think there is any real reason why I should keep that promise 2 And, at least, I have no intention of frightening you�I only want to guard and protect you, and to love you all the rest of my life! I adore you...." His voice shook, and his eyes were glowing and lustrous as they looked down at her. She realized that although it was the last thing she wanted to do she had kindled a blazing passion in him, and all at once it had leapt up and was makink the hand on her wrist shake in a storm of wild and unrepressed feeling. She was secretly appalled. "I will not allow any man to force his unwelcome attentions on you, and I will not be happy until you are mine�and mine alone! Jenny! . . . Mttle Jenny! ..."

  She tried to free her wrist and back away from him, but he was holding her with fingers of steel.

  "You are so small�so lovely, Jenny! I have thought of nothing but possessing you ever since we first met, and if only you will marry me I will give you whatever you wish�take you wherever you wish! There shall be no question of trying to keep you away from the life with which you are familiar. You shall have absolute freedom, and whatever you desire will be my desire also. Only let me love you!"

  His arms were about her, and she was fighting now to keep his face away from hers�to keep his mouth from covering hers. This was too much, she thought, anger rising- in her like a flood and banishing her temporary sensation of panic, and if Max Daintry's attack upon her had been cool and deliberate and yet had left her without any desire to resist at all this scorching ardour�and the thought passed through her brain that if one loved a man -like this the flame of his passion would consume one!�had only the entirely oppo

  138

  site effect of making her determined to free herself in the briefest possible space of time.

  "Let me go!" she cried sharply, a whole world of revulsion and anger in her clear voice as it rang out across the patio. "Let me go! . . ."

  "Not until I have kissed you! Not until you

  have agreed to marry me!" "I have no intention of marrying you!" "Then I will see to it that no other man has the

  chance to do so!" "You are abusing your position as host!" "Quite right," a deadly quiet voice said behind

  them, and Jenny found herself released so suddenly that she staggered back against one of the supports of the balcony above her, and Si Mohammed's eyes looked with unconcealed loathing at the man who was just a shadowy dark form in the gloom, but whose very immobility had something almost menacing about it. "You are most decidedly abusing your position as host, and it will be as well if you don't repeat the expert" ment!"

  Si Mohammed said thickly; "This is the second time you have interfered. I do not forget the first time." "No?" Daintry murmured. "Then let us hope there will not be a third!" "You should confine your attentions to Madame la Comtesse de St. Alais!"

  "And you," Daintry recommended, without any expression of any kind in his voice, "should apologize to Miss Armitage and say good-night to

  � her." Si Mohammed looked around in a sullen way at Jenny. "Good-night, Miss Jenny," he said, his voice as sullen as his looks. "But since I have already asked you to marry me there ia> no need to apologize.'-" ,

  Jenny said nothing, and Daintry stood obviously waiting for him to depart. For a few moments he hesitated, and then he turned and strode away

  -13S>

  along the path, and Daintry produced his cigarette case from his pocket and calmly lighted a cigarette.

  Jenny felt she had had more than enough for one night. "The trouble with you," Daintry remarked, as

  he pressed his thumb down on his lighter and

  caused a tiny spurt of flame to flare up between. . them, "is that despite your vicarage backgroundyou're a highly inflammable young woman, and I'm not at all sure that you oughtn't to have some

  one to look after you�not you look after children!" For the second time that night Jenny, after dismissing a hot retort that rose to her lips, turned

  and fled away from him into the dense purplegloom of the night as if she could not endure his proximity for a moment longer. And upstairs in

  her room, when she finally reached it, she flung herself down on her bed and shed tears of scalding humiliation that were backed by a feeling of utter despair.

  But because she was afraid of disturbing the children she wept silently and dried the tears asspeedily as she could, and a determination took shape in her mind to tell the Comtesse the nextmorning that whatever her plans were she herself would have to return to Marrakesh, and once she reached Marrakesh she would waste no time before catching the first plane home to England.

  140

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  BUT in the morning, while she was struggling with the fastenings of Simone's. smocked frock,

  the Comtesse herself came into the room, wearing

  a gorgeous but flimsy wrapper, and announcedthat they were returning to Marrakesh directlyafter breakfast, and that once again Jenny could pack. ,

  The children let out shrill squeals of delight, but their mother offered no explanation to Jenny of the reason why this apparently sudden decision had been taken. She merely looked at Jenny ratherhard, and the latter, wondered whether the signs of her emotional outburst of the night before were evident on her face, or whether perhaps as a result of it she looked pale and unlike herself.

  But) Celestine said nothing, and returned to her own room, and Jenny started thankfully to refill

  the suitcases they had brought with them. She could wait now until they got back to Marrakesh to tell the Comtesse that she was leaving her employment, but nothing could shake her decision

  now she had finally arrived at it. And having arrived at it the depths of her misery were shot through with a few faint gleams of light.

  Their car was waiting for, them in the outer

  courtyard when they reached it, but there was no

  sign of the host to say good-bye. Max Daintry's

  rich maroon-colored car was standing there, too, and his luggage was stowed away in it.

  Jenny a
nd the children were to travel in the grey car. The Comtesse had arranged to travel inthe red. Just before they started Max appeared, walking leisurely across the courtyard, impeccable as usual in beautifully-tailored white drill, and be- Iorehe joined the Comtesse he went up to the side of the grey car and smiled and said a few words to both the children, who were bouncing excitedlyup and down in it. Then he looked at Jenny with

  a curious expression in his dark grey eyes. But for the fact that she knew she was making a mistake she could have sworn that it was intended to be a gentle expression. It even, in some much more peculiar way, seemed to reach out at her

  like the beginnings of a caress.

  "I hope you won't find the journey too warm, he said "If these children become a nuisance we 11 have them in with us, and that will give you a

  h'PPfl'i'llGT ?9

  "Thank you," Jenny returned, in an icily distant voice "but they are my charges and I shall look

  after them�at least until we get back to Marra_ kesh. After that, since you deem me incapable of looking after other people's children, I shall be

  returning to England." ,,.,,.<.

  He smiled�she thought there was a faint glint of humor in the smile, and then he waved his hand carelessly to her.

  "Well, I should postpone deciding what you re going to do in Marrakesh until we reach there. In the meantime, we have several hours drive

  ahead of us." _. , , , ,

  And they were very long and stiflingly hot hours which wearied Jenny far more than on the outward journey. Perhaps it was because the children were particularly troublesome, full of complaints about the heat but incapable of remaining still for pven a few minutes together. At first they were excited at the thought of returning home, but the monotony of the scenery palled upon them after a time, and it was as much as Jenny could do to prevent them from becoming openly frettuL

  They kept the red car ahead of them in sight for the first mile or so, and then it began to draw away But all at once they came upon it stationary in the middle of the track, waiting, it seemed tor them to catch up. The Comtesse, as delectable as when she started out, in a dress of heavy white silk with a gold bracelet loaded with charms dangling on her slim wrist, walked across the intervening space to Jenny and conjured up an ex