two long blades of a palm served to hide
them. In the midst of this profound silence a voice that was like and
yet unlike Maruja's said twice, "Go! go!" but each time seemed hushed
in the stifling silence. The next moment the palms were pushed aside,
the dark figure of a young man slipped like some lithe animal through
the shrubbery, and Maruja found herself standing, pale and rigid, in
the middle of the walk, in the full glare of the light, and looking
down the corridor toward her approaching companions. She was furious
and frightened; she was triumphant and trembling; without thought,
sense, or reason, she had been kissed by Henry Guest, and--had returned
it.

The fleetest horses of Aladdin's stud that night could not carry her
far enough or fast enough to take her away from that moment, that
scene, and that sensation. Wise and experienced, confident in her
beauty, secure in her selfishness, strong over others' weaknesses,
weighing accurately the deeds and words of men and women, recognizing
all there was in position and tradition, seeing with her father's clear
eyes the practical meaning of any divergence from that conventionality
which as a woman of the world she valued, she returned again and again
to the trembling joy of that intoxicating moment. She though of her
mother and sisters, of Raymond and Garnier, of Aladdin--she even forced
herself to think of Carroll--only to shut her eyes, with a faint smile,
and dream again the brief but thrilling dream of Guest that began and
ended in their joined and parted lips. Small wonder that, hidden and
silent in her enwrappings, as she lay back in the carriage, with her
pale face against the cold starry sky, two other stars came out and
glistened and trembled on her passion-fringed lashes.

CHAPTER X

The rainy season had set in early. The last three weeks of summer
drought had drained the great valley of its lifeblood; the dead stalks
of grain rustled like dry bones over Dr. West's grave. The desiccating
wind and sun had wrought some disenchanting cracks and fissures in
Aladdin's Palace, and otherwise disjoined it, so that it not only
looked as if it were ready to be packed away, but had become finally
untenable in the furious onset of the southwesterly rains. The
gorgeous furniture of the reception-rooms was wrapped in mackintoshes,
the conservatory was changed into an aquarium, the Bridge of Sighs
crossed an actual canal in the stable-yard. Only the billi