CHAPTER XXVIII.

A DOOR CLOSES

Barry returned home comparatively early. Neither Jim’s airy philosophy nor his more serious sympathy, which was not without a salting of worldly wisdom, had lifted the cloud of despondency that had settled upon him. He felt utterly alone. Never, in the loneliest hours he had known in the desert, had he experienced anything quite like his mood of to-night.

He had fallen in love with a shadow--a mirage; the shadow had materialized; and now, the substance was less real than the shadow.

The whole thing seemed to have gone out of tune. The Zalithea he pictured as he walked along, the Zalithea who went to theatres and parties, _was_ this the sleeping princess they had delivered from an Egyptian tomb? Could it be the same, pale, slender girl from whose lifeless body Danbazzar had torn those age-old wrappings?

In short, where had delusion begun? Where did delusion end?

The tired man smoking a soiled cigar lolled on the corner as Barry approached his home. It occurred to him that it was the same cigar that he had always smoked. It was unreal.

Without removing the root, the man touched his hat as Barry went in and took out his key. John Cumberland kept early hours; and, except when entertaining, his household was abed by midnight. Barry did not expect to find anyone up.

On the tray in the lobby he discovered two letters. Neither was important, but he switched on the light above the table and glanced at them. As he stood there, dimly he could hear steamer whistles on the river. One of them, a deep-throated blare, he thought he recognized as the voice of the _Berengaria_. Even as his glance ran over the typed page, in spirit he had crossed again to Southampton upon that quest never to be forgotten which had led to Zalithea.

Then, thrilling in the stillness of the big house, came a soft cry!

Barry dropped the letter and turned, standing stock still, with clenched hands.

He stared across at the closed door of the library. It was from there the cry had come. All was silent, however, as he stepped quickly in that direction. But, as he reached the door, in a strangled voice:

“Bahree!” he heard; then, in a coarse, laughing tone:

“Don’t be so silly!”

Zalithea was in the library--with Monty Edwards!

Barry flung the door open and walked in.

Across by the big, carved mantelpiece, with its overpowering decoration from the wall of Medinet Habu, Edwards had the girl in his arms. He was a thickset, coarse-grained type, whose boisterous good humour served as a cloak for a rather nasty animalism. At the wrong age for a man of his character he had acquired control of a fortune little less than that of John Cumberland.

Zalithea’s lithe body was bent back like a bow as she strove to avoid his lips. Edwards, holding her fast, stooped lower and lower to the alluring, forbidden red mouth.

By what cunning strategy he had contrived to be left alone with her Barry neither knew nor cared. It was the colossal outrage of the thing that struck him dumb. The affront to him, to his father, was gross enough. But the affront to this delicate, guarded treasure of some long-forgotten court was beyond computation.

To his imaginative mind it appeared that Monty Edwards had disgraced irrevocably the name of American hospitality.

So swiftly did he act, in his white-hot anger, that Edwards, hastily releasing the girl, allowed her to sink down upon the carpet. He turned in a flash--and Barry stood before him dumb with hate.

Edwards’s high colour fled. He spoke huskily.

“Hullo, Barry! Don’t get mad. It was only fun.”

Barry was murderously pale. For ten--fifteen--twenty beats of the library clock, he stood, quivering; then:

“Get out!” he said. “Get out while I can remember you’re in _my_ house.”

Monty Edwards bandied no words with the speaker. He knew when a man was seeing red. Head lowered and lips unsteady, he passed Barry and walked out of the library.

Zalithea stood up, breathing quickly. But Barry never moved, never stirred a muscle of his tensed-up body, until the closing of the front door told him that Monty Edwards had left the house. Then he turned to Zalithea.

She was dressed as he had seen her earlier in the evening. She was pale but more utterly desirable than any woman in all the wide world. Her long, dark eyes were fixed upon him in a sort of wonder--questioningly--doubtingly. He unclenched his fists. No word was spoken. But Zalithea stepped forward as if bidden.

His arms went around her like steel bands. He uttered a queer, pent-up cry. He kissed her lips breathlessly, her hair, her eyes, her smooth, creamy neck. He was in the throes of a veritable madness. His long-repressed passion swept him away.…

When, at last, he released her, she fell back, raised her hands to her eyes for a moment; then, giving him one long look of indescribable intensity, as though she would imprint his image indelibly upon her mind, she ran out of the room.

Standing as she had left him, his back to the lobby, he heard the light patter of her footsteps as she raced upstairs.

Somewhere, above, a door closed softly.

And to that sound Barry found himself listening with a strained intensity. It seemed in some way to be an answer to a question--to a subconscious question that his mind was incapable of framing. Exhausted by the fiercest emotions he had ever known, he dropped into a big padded rest chair in which, evidently, Monty Edwards had been sitting. A still-smouldering cigar lay in the little Oriental tray attached to the chair arm.

Mentally, he was depressed. But his heart was singing. His former experiences might have led him to doubt Zalithea’s sentiments. But he could not forget that she had returned his kisses.

For an hour he waited, hoping yet not expecting that she would come back. He lived again through the strange days and nights he had known since that evening when Fate had steered the Rolls into a private road--and he had seen a vision of Zalithea.

Imagination led him on. Once more he talked with Danbazzar and the others in the tent in the _wâdi_ and walked beside Hassan es-Sugra through those silent halls of the Great Temple. So walking in spirit, with gods and Pharaohs beckoning secretly from moon-touched walls, he fell asleep.

The cigar, in the tray at his elbow, smouldered on. In the still air of the library, a bluish pencilling of smoke stole straightly upward. It burned until only a powdery shell remained attached to a leafy stub. But Barry never stirred. The night sounds of New York did not reach him in his dreams. And the detective on duty outside the house wondered why the library lights were still burning when dawn’s gray mystery crept over the city.

Through the shades, morning light was competing with the electric lamps when soft footsteps sounded on the thickly carpeted stairs. Barry slept on. The footsteps crept lower and lower… and Zalithea stood peeping in at the doorway.

She turned swiftly at sight of the sleeper, her fingers raised to her lips. Old Safîyeh’s wrinkled face appeared in the lamplight. Then Zalithea looked again at Barry, his ruffled curly head resting on one shoulder. She watched him longingly, as a woman watches a sleeping child. Once she stole forward, but hesitated and went back.… Very softly she drew the door partly to.

The man on duty at the corner saw the two women come out and walk away. He was not surprised. They frequently went for a walk in the early hours of the morning, although he could not recall that they had ever set out quite so early before.

As the front door closed, Barry moved. The movement rasped his neck against his collar--and he awoke. Cramped, stale, heavy-headed, he stared about him. Swiftly memory reasserted itself.

He stood up, stretching his cramped limbs. Then he crossed and switched off the lights. The library clock registered half-past five. He went upstairs, pausing outside Zalithea’s door and listening intently. He could detect no sound. He passed on, mounted to the floor above, and went to bed.

His next awakening was a tragic one.

John Cumberland burst into his room, with:

“Barry! Barry! Zalithea has disappeared!”

“What!”

Barry sprang out of bed, his eyes wide in sudden fear. John Cumberland’s face was pale.

“She and Safîyeh went out at half-past five this morning. They have not returned. It’s after ten o’clock.”

Half-past five… what memory did this awaken? Of course!…

“But I was in the library at that time!” Barry cried. “They must have seen me!”

“Explain,” said John Cumberland. “What were you doing in the library so early?”

Barry, very briefly, told the story, mincing no words, concealing nothing. As he spoke, he was dressing in feverish haste.

“The door was closed, I suppose?” his father asked dully.

Barry paused in his task. He looked up.

“By heaven,” he said, “she must have closed it! Edwards left it open, and I fell asleep watching the lobby. But it was half to when I woke up!”

“Do you realize, Barry,” his father asked, “that it was probably the shutting of the front door that awakened you?”

“I can’t bear to think of it.”

The house was in an uproar. Remembering that Zalithea knew next to nothing of the language, and Safîyeh little more, it was impossible to imagine their plight. In one fact, that Zalithea was not alone, Barry found comfort.

John Cumberland’s private secretary was already in touch with the police; and, as Barry came hurrying downstairs, Professor Blackwell arrived.

“Cumberland!” he cried. “What’s this they tell me?”

“She’s gone, Blackwell,” was the reply. “No news.”

The Professor dropped into a lobby chair.

“Somehow, I can’t grasp it,” he said pathetically. “If she had been alone I should have feared an accident, but as Safîyeh is with her----”

“That’s what I think!” Barry interrupted eagerly. “An accident is out of the question.”

“This being so,” the Professor went on, “what are we to conclude? Is Danbazzar here?”

“Expected every minute,” John Cumberland replied shortly. “I naturally ’phoned there first, as she is used to visiting him.”

“She had not been there?”

John Cumberland shook his head.

“Tell him what happened last night, Barry,” he said, and hurried away.

Barry, hoping against hope that something in the occurrences of the night might suggest to the scientific brain of Professor Blackwell a clue to Zalithea’s motive, gave him an account of the matter. At last:

“It may be some primitive reaction,” the Professor murmured. “The psychology of Zalithea is of course an unknown quantity.”

“You think she is frightened and so has run away?”

“Frankly, I don’t know what to think.”

“I can’t believe she would voluntarily leave the house,” Barry declared. “Just think. Where could she possibly go to?”

Professor Blackwell shook his head.

“That is a question I cannot pretend to answer.”

At this moment Danbazzar arrived. As the door was opened he came into the lobby, a big, dominating figure. But his stock was not quite so perfectly knotted as usual, and his strange eyes held a very wild light.

“Still no news?” he asked.

The blank faces about him were sufficient answer.

“Have her apartments been searched to make sure there’s nothing there?”

Aunt Micky, very stern-faced, came downstairs.

“I have searched thoroughly,” she answered. “But it might be as well if you looked, also.”

Danbazzar bowed and walked upstairs. Barry followed.

In the suite of apartments which had been furnished for the use of Zalithea, a very faint perfume lingered. It caught Barry by the throat. It spoke to him intimately. It was as though he had buried his face in her fragrant hair; as though she were in his arms again.

The rooms were strangely appointed. They were scantily furnished in the Eastern manner, with little inlaid tables and cabinets, and many richly cushioned divans. Perforated silver lamps concealed the electric lights, and the windows were screened with _mushrabiyeh_ work. The bedroom struck a more Western note, being equipped with a wonderful dressing table possessing wing mirrors and laden with every imaginable luxury of Paris.

There was no evidence of disorder or of hasty departure. The bleak chamber adjoining in which the old Arab woman spent a great part of her days afforded no better evidence.

Danbazzar crossed to a window and threw back the near-by _mushrabiyeh_ screen. For a long time he stood there, looking out.