CHAPTER XXVII.

ABOUT IT AND ABOUT

Danbazzar, in these days, was constantly at the Cumberland home. Next to Barry, it was evident that Zalithea preferred his society to that of anybody else. John Cumberland she respected, but he, for all his knowledge of the old, mysterious land in which they had found her, groped in vain with the strange tongue which she spoke and which Danbazzar alone understood. Nor was he so successful as his son in establishing a link of understanding. Perhaps because he did not speak the language of love, which is God’s esperanto.

Nevertheless, and largely with Danbazzar as interpreter, he had begun his ambitious work. The first and second sections of the book came within scope of his personal knowledge. He believed that they were, now, comparatively valueless without the third. Therefore, beyond arranging his bulky notes, he had done little in this direction. His interest was with Zalithea’s story, and this she surrendered only in provoking fragments, imperfectly understood by Danbazzar.

For instance, urged on one occasion to describe Pharaoh’s court, she became unusually voluble. Danbazzar looked puzzled, thought over what she had said for some time, and then:

“It sounds to me,” he confessed, “uncommonly like back stage at the Metropolitan Opera House!”

And a day was to come when those words should recur to Barry Cumberland.

Social invitations hailed upon them. No door in New York was closed to Princess Zalithea. But She Who Sleeps was as capricious as she was lovely. Modern ideas of good behaviour she simply didn’t understand. They had learned from painful experience, to consult her, _vide_ Danbazzar, before accepting proffered hospitality.

She would inquire closely into the character of the household and the probable guests before consenting to go. More often than not she flatly declined to be present.

And they knew that social embarrassment would almost inevitably follow if Zalithea were urged against her will. This knowledge had come as result of a disaster at the apartment of a prominent member of Washington’s diplomatic set who was entertaining in New York.

Zalithea, reluctantly, had agreed to go. She had looked radiant. She was the sensation of a brilliant gathering. Then, Mrs. Uffington had arrived. As that gushing lady crossed with extended hands:

“Bahree,” Zalithea had said, in her imperious way.

Ignoring Mrs. Uffington, ignoring everybody, she had glided, a slender, stately figure, out of the room--and out of the building!

It was a moment which Barry sometimes lived over again, memory of which brought cold perspiration. He had been furiously angry with her, and had been unable to conceal his anger. Unmoved, apparently, as an ivory statue, she had sat beside him in the car, while he had poured out the vials of his wrath. Perhaps she had understood, perhaps she had not.

But when he saw her face, as they alighted before the door of his home, he would have given much for power to recall those words. Her beautiful eyes were glassy, like those of a tortured animal. Then, as she turned to run up the steps, he saw the long-repressed tears gathering under the dark fringe of her lashes.…

She had refused to see him that night and for half of the next day. His father, and Aunt Micky, who had been left behind to face the appalling task of explaining, arrived later--and were denied admittance to Zalithea’s apartments!

Danbazzar was summoned. Barry knew no sleep that night. He paced the big library, a man demented, knowing--if he had ever doubted it--that the happiness of this girl meant more to him than the opinion of every hostess in America; than any friendship; than anything in life.

Reconciliation had come. But they had all learned their lessons.

Invitations to the Cumberland home were eagerly sought for. It came to be regarded as a sort of mark of distinction to be honestly able to say that Princess Zalithea had consented to know one. What guided her in her selections and rejections, John Cumberland could never make out.

Slowly, provokingly slowly, Zalithea was learning English. There was no lack of voluntary (male) tutors. In fact, by painful degrees, the fact dawned upon Barry that he had to count not only with that intangible dread, his knowledge of the true age of Zalithea, but also with more than one rival.

“There’s something I want to know, young Cumberland,” said Aunt Micky on a certain afternoon when Barry was lounging in her private sanctum.

This room was notable chiefly because of the fact that it differed from every other in the house; it contained not a single Egyptian relic.

“What’s that, Micky?”

Aunt Micky puffed reflectively at her cigarette; then:

“When is Zalithea going home?” she inquired.

“What!”

Barry sat up with a jerk.

“Don’t get excited,” she went on. “It’s a perfectly reasonable question. And as I can’t talk to the girl, and your father won’t talk to _me_, I’m asking _you_. Have we adopted her?”

Barry laughed to hide his embarrassment.

“I suppose in a way we are responsible for her,” he answered evasively. “What does Dad say?”

“Nothing!” Micky replied promptly. “That is, nothing sensible. He told me, only yesterday, that her history was so strange I should never be able to believe it.” She took a fresh cigarette from the box. “He’s very likely right,” she added.

“No, Micky!” Barry protested. “Something has upset you. What is it?”

“It isn’t one thing; it’s several.”

“Tell me one of them.”

“In the first place, who is this girl?”

“It’s very difficult to explain, Micky.”

“Ha!” She lighted her fresh cigarette with the stump of the old one. “That’s what John says--and Blackwell! You’re all lying--all the damn’ lot of you! You can’t tell fairy tales to Micky Colonna! And where, exactly, does the man Danbazzar come in?”

Again Barry hesitated. It was hateful to lie to Aunt Micky. Hitherto, by skillful evasion, he had dodged the necessity. He determined to endeavour to do so again.

“Well,” he replied, “Danbazzar is the only one of the party who knows her language. He knows--all about her father, too.”

Aunt Micky stared at him hard; then:

“_I’ve_ been in Egypt, young lad,” she said, “and although I never went so far, I know where the desert Arabs live--and what they look like. This girl isn’t one! Also, when Dr. Davidson called, why did old Blackwell hurry him away without seeing Zalithea?”

“I don’t know, Micky.”

“But _I_ do! Because Dr. Davidson has just come back from a journey through Zalithea’s home country, among the Senussi Arabs! Teach your grandmother to suck eggs, young Cumberland!”

“Does all this mean you don’t like her?”

“I’d like her well enough if I knew who she _was_. But all I know is that she’s a little impostor and the whole gang of you are backing her up.”

“She isn’t an impostor,” Barry retorted hotly. “No! I didn’t mean to be abrupt, but you don’t understand, Micky. It’s the rest of us who are impostors!”

Aunt Micky shaded her unflinching gray eyes with one upraised hand, a mark of disapproval; then:

“Liars! all the lot of you!” she commented. “I knew it. But what’s the object? Is she wanted by the Egyptian police?”

Barry laughed.

“Not exactly,” he replied. “But there is a likelihood of complications, all the same. You see, we brought a stack of stuff away. It’s all at Danbazzar’s place, now.”

“What has this to do with Zalithea?”

“Well, in a way---- Oh, I can’t explain, Micky! What’s the use of trying?”

“Tell me what your father told me yesterday--that I wouldn’t understand--and I’ll heave this ink-well at you!”

The interview left Barry in a very unsettled frame of mind. He simply could not foresee the future otherwise than through a storm cloud. As he came down into the lobby, Zalithea was just crossing. She was going out to dinner and a theatre with a party that included Monty Edwards, a moneyed undesirable whom Barry detested. She disliked parties but loved theatres, they had discovered.

She was dressed already, and made a sweet picture against a background depicting the wars of Rameses II.

Barry’s heart jumped ridiculously; for she was so close to him that by extending a hand he could have touched her. He suppressed an impulse--which seemed quite natural--to take her in his arms and hold her and kiss her.

“Zalithea,” he said, “you are adorable.”

She paused, looking sideways at Barry. Her smile maddened him.

“You like?” she asked naïvely.

“Yes.”

“Bahree-geeve me-er-kiss,” she invited.

He felt a hot flush rising to his forehead. Truly his sins had found him out! At some time he had murmured those words, and Zalithea, who seemed so slow to learn many things, had seized upon them mysteriously. Perhaps the syllables chanced to resemble those of her own language.

“I shall have to, one day!” he said. “I shan’t be able to help myself!”

The maddest impulses surged up in his brain. Her eyes were beckoning to him. But she was helpless--their guest--to be guarded and protected.

He laughed--quite mirthlessly--turned, and walked across to the library. He never glanced back.

Jim Sakers was calling for him later. They were dining at a club and doing nothing in particular; what Jim termed “a night of well-earned rest.” Barry was looking forward to the evening with great interest, because he had determined, guardedly, to voice his difficulties to his friend and to get the opinion of this honest, worldly soul.

Of Zalithea he purposely saw no more. He heard the others arrive and heard the car drive off. A few minutes later Jim arrived.

At a corner table, placed before a high oak settle, they presently found themselves in one of the Bohemian clubs of which Jim was a member. And Barry began by outlining the position that Zalithea occupied in the Cumberland home.

“I gather,” said Jim, “that your former flaming passion for the balcony princess has now been transferred to the Egyptian princess?”

“Don’t be silly,” Barry returned irritably. “I’m serious. Can’t you understand that that was a vision of the girl I was going to meet?”

“No,” Jim admitted, “I can’t. I have seen Mr. Brown’s house, and I have interviewed Mr. Brown’s housekeeper. There’s nothing visionary about either. Why should there be about Mr. Brown’s balcony?”

“I don’t know; but there is. It’s utterly impossible that I should have seen Zalithea there. It’s utterly impossible that I should have seen her on Fifth Avenue.”

“You saw her twin sister.”

“Her twin sister, if she had had one, would have been dead long ago----”

He broke off. He had said more than he had intended to say. Jim stared curiously.

“How so?” he inquired. “Do they drown one of the twins in those parts? Which one do they keep? Who decides? Answer me that--the local witch doctor?”

“Forget it!” Barry urged, “and talk sense. You have seen Zalithea--many times, now----”

“Undoubtedly. She’s A 1 at Cupid’s--a first-class risk--Bachelor’s Bane, Incorporated.”

“You know her rather imperious spirit.”

“I do. She has practised hard on me.”

“But _I’m_ crazy about her, Jim! And I’m dying to tell her so! But how can I?”

“How can you? Easily. You’re not dumb.”

“She has scarcely any English.”

“Press your hand to your heart and kneel at her feet.”

“It isn’t that. She’s our guest. I have no right----”

“Cable the sable parent. Say, ‘Dear Sir: With reference to your charming daughter----’”

“Jim! you’re not helping me! And, anyway, that’s not all.”

Jim realized that his friend was really serious. He listened, without facetious comments, while Barry hesitantly outlined a hypothetical case. He spoke of a famous physician of the East who had discovered a method of prolonging life for several hundreds of years. He could not bring himself to speak of _thousands!_ He asked him if he should expect the offspring of a marriage between such a subject and an ordinary mortal, to be normal.

But Jim was merely bewildered.

“Are you hinting that Zalithea’s mother is three hundred years old?” he demanded, incredulously. “Is _this_ the skeleton in the cupboard?”

His tone was sufficient for Barry. Jim would never understand. How could he be expected to understand? He was glad he had been no more definite; and he clutched at this straw gratefully.

“So we were led to believe,” he replied.

Jim’s stare became that of a man hypnotized; but finally:

“Does your father believe this?” he asked. “And old Blackwell, and Danbazzar--do they believe it?”

“Yes,” said Barry. “_You_ would have believed it if you had been there.”

But he knew, now, that he could look for guidance to no man. He and those others who had entered the tomb of She Who Sleeps had entered a world controlled by laws other than those known to the rest of mankind.