The Moonlit Way: A Novel

But he was thinking of something sharper than her tongue and less subtle, which one day might strike her silent if she laughed too much at Fate.

And, thinking, he showed his teeth again in that noiseless snicker which was his smile and laughter too.

The girl regarded him for a moment, then deliberately mimicked his smile:

“The dogs of Stamboul laugh that way, too,” she 17 said, baring her pretty teeth. “What amuses you? Did the silly old Von-der-Goltz Pasha promise you, also, a dish of Eagle? – old Von-der-Goltz with his spectacles an inch thick and nothing living within what he carries about on his two doddering old legs! There’s a German! – who died twenty years ago and still walks like a damned man – jingling his iron crosses and mumbling his gums! Is it a resurrection from 1870 come to foretell another war? And why are these Prussian vultures gathering here in Stamboul? Can you tell me, Ferez? – these Prussians in Turkish uniforms! Is there anything dying or dead here, that these buzzards appear from the sky and alight? Why do they crowd and huddle in a circle around Constantinople? Is there something dead in Persia? Is the Bagdad railroad dying? Is Enver Bey at his last gasp? Is Talaat? Or perhaps the savoury odour comes from the Yildiz – ”

“Nihla! Is there nothing sacred – nothing thou fearest on earth?”

“Only old age – and thy smile, my Ferez. Neither agrees with me.” She stretched her arms lazily.

“Allons,” she said, stifling a pleasant yawn with one slim hand,“ – my maid will wake below and miss me; and then the dogs of Stamboul yonder will hear a solo such as they never heard before… Tell me, Ferez, do you know when we are to weigh anchor?”

“At sunrise.”

“It is the same to me,” – she yawned again – “my maid is aboard and all my luggage. And my Ferez, also… Mon dieu! And what will Cyril have to say when he arrives to find me vanished! It is, perhaps, well for us that we shall be at sea!”

Her quick laughter pealed; she turned with a careless 18 gesture of salute, friendly and contemptuous; and her white bernous faded away in the moonlit fog.

And Ferez Bey stood staring after her out of his near-set, beady eyes, loving her, desiring her, fearing her, unrepentant that he had sold her, wondering whether the day might dawn when he would find it best to kill her for the prosperity and peace of mind of the only living being in whose service he never tired – himself.

I

A SHADOW DANCE

Three years later Destiny still wore a rosy face for Nihla Quellen. And, for a young American of whom Nihla had never even heard, Destiny still remained the laughing jade he had always known, beckoning him ever nearer, with the coquettish promise of her curved forefinger, to fame and wealth immeasurable.

Seated now on a moonlit lawn, before his sketching easel, this optimistic young man, whose name was Barres, continued to observe the movements of a dim white figure which had emerged from the villa opposite, and was now stealing toward him across the dew-drenched grass.

When the white figure was quite near it halted, holding up filmy skirts and peering intently at him.

“May one look?” she inquired, in that now celebrated voice of hers, through which ever seemed to sound a hint of hidden laughter.

“Certainly,” he replied, rising from his folding camp stool.

She tiptoed over the wet grass, came up beside him, gazed down at the canvas on his easel.

“Can you really see to paint? Is the moon bright enough?” she asked.

“Yes. But one has to be familiar with one’s palette.”

“Oh. You seem to know yours quite perfectly, monsieur.”

“Enough to mix colours properly.”

“I didn’t realise that painters ever actually painted pictures by moonlight.”

“It’s a sort of hit or miss business, but the notes made are interesting,” he explained.

“What do you do with these moonlight studies?”

“Use them as notes in the studio when a moonlight picture is to be painted.”

“Are you then a realist, monsieur?”

“As much of a realist as anybody with imagination can be,” he replied, smiling at her charming, moonlit face.

“I understand. Realism is merely honesty plus the imagination of the individual.”

“A delightful mot, madam – ”

“Mademoiselle,” she corrected him demurely. “Are you English?”

“American.”

“Oh. Then may I venture to converse with you in English?” She said it in exquisite English, entirely without accent.

“You are English!” he exclaimed under his breath.

“No … I don’t know what I am… Isn’t it charming out here? What particular view are you painting?”

“The Seine, yonder.”

She bent daintily over his sketch, holding up the skirts of her ball-gown.

“Your sketch isn’t very far advanced, is it?” she inquired seriously.

“Not very,” he smiled.

They stood there together in silence for a while, 21 looking out over the moonlit river to the misty, tree-covered heights.

Through lighted rows of open windows in the elaborate little villa across the lawn came lively music and the distant noise of animated voices.

“Do you know,” he ventured smilingly, “that your skirts and slippers are soaking wet?”

“I don’t care. Isn’t this June night heavenly?”

She glanced across at the lighted house. “It’s so hot and noisy in there; one dances only with discomfort. A distaste for it all sent me out on the terrace. Then I walked on the lawn. Then I beheld you!.. Am I interrupting your work, monsieur? I suppose I am.” She looked up at him naïvely.

He said something polite. An odd sense of having seen her somewhere possessed him now. From the distant house came the noisy American music of a two-step. With charming grace, still inspecting him out of her dark eyes, the girl began to move her pretty feet in rhythm with the music.

“Shall we?” she inquired mischievously… “Unless you are too busy – ”

The next moment they were dancing together there on the wet lawn, under the high lustre of the moon, her fresh young face and fragrant figure close to his.

During their second dance she said serenely:

“They’ll raise the dickens if I stay here any longer. Do you know the Comte d’Eblis?”