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 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 ^ ^ottbon Right's ©ittcrtiunmcut. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 gcto iofacls at €htxu fibrarg. 
 
 A Secret Inheritance. By B. L. Farjeon. 3 vols. 
 
 A Modern Circe. By the Author of " Molly Bawn." 3 vols. 
 
 Logic Town. By Sarah Tytler. 3 vols. 
 
 This Man's Wife. By G. M. Fenn. 3 vols. 
 
 A Tory Lordling. By Blinkhoolie. 3 vols. 
 
 Love the Conqueror. By S. Carstone. 3 vols. 
 
 His Helpmate. By Frank Barrett. 1 vol. 
 
 A Terrible Legacy. By G. W. Appletox. 1 vol. 
 
 WARD AND DOWNEY, Publishers, London.
 
 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 BY 
 
 FLORENCE WARDEN, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 A TKIXCE OF DARKNESS," "THE HOUSE ON THE MARSH," ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 $0ubon: 
 WARD AND DOWNEY, 
 
 12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 1887. 
 
 \AU Rights reserved.]
 
 RicHAKD Clay & Sons, 
 
 BREAD STREET HILL, LONDON, 
 
 Bungay, Si'.ffolk.
 
 
 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Here, shall we go three in a hansom ? " 
 " Hansom be hanged ! It's a lovely night. 
 ^ Let's walk." 
 
 "Massey is afraid the loved one will be 
 there before him." 
 
 "Never fear! A beautiful woman was 
 never yet kept waiting by an Irishman." 
 ^ " Right ye are I And yet there are no 
 '^ men about better worth waiting for," retorted 
 p Clarence Massey, amid the laughter of his 
 \ companions. 
 
 The speakers were three young subalterns, 
 who had been dining in Fitzroy Square with 
 ^^ an enthusiastic old soldier who had been a 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
 ^
 
 2 SCHEHEPtAZADE : 
 
 major in their regiment fifteen years before. 
 On learning, three weeks ago, of the arrival 
 of his old regiment at Ilounslow, he had sent 
 to all the officers an invitation to dinner, 
 which had been accepted by the Colonel and 
 by such of the rest as were disengaged on the 
 evening named. Clarence Massey, a pale- 
 faced, bright- witted little Irishman ; ' Dicky ' 
 Wood, a tall, thin, weedy-looking youn^^ 
 fellow, renowned for the sweetness of his 
 disposition ; and George Lauriston, the best- 
 looking man and most promising young 
 soldier in the regiment, w^ere on their way to 
 finish the evening at difi'erent entertainments. 
 
 Lauriston was rather too well-conducted a 
 young fellow to be altogether popular, having 
 been brought up in Scotland, and being too 
 much occupied with his ambitions to shake off 
 a certain amount of reserve and rigidity left 
 by his early training. But, on the other hand, 
 these qualities served to heighten the strong 
 individuality of a character uncommon both in 
 its strength and in its weakness, and to add 
 to that subtle gift of prestige which is so 
 capriciously bestowed by nature. So tlat
 
 A LONDOX NTCHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 3 
 
 now, as in the old time at Sandhurst, his 
 comrades would rather be in his society than 
 in that of companions with whom they had 
 greater sympathy. 
 
 They had not gone many steps down Fitz- 
 roy Street, when Massey began to beguile the 
 weary hours by singing snatches of the most 
 amorous of Moore's melodies below his breath 
 as he walked along. On being asked to desist, 
 he reviled his companions for their insensi- 
 bility to music and love, and there ensued a 
 hot, if amicable, dispute both as to the justice 
 of the accusation and the competence of the 
 accuser. Dicky Wood took up the challenge 
 on behalf of music, and Lauriston on that of 
 love, and Massey grew more and more pert in 
 his assertions that no Saxon could possibly do 
 justice to either the one or the other. 
 
 *' There's no warm blood in your veins," he 
 maintained energetically. " Young or old 
 handsome or ugly, ye're all tame — tame as 
 dormice, and ye haven't a chance with the 
 Irish boys. For your passionate lover, your 
 devoted husband, the ladies must come to 
 us." 
 
 B 2
 
 4 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 " How about the Colonel ? " asked Dicky, in 
 a voice louder than he intended ; for, as he 
 spoke, a figure some little distance ahead of 
 them, on the other side of the street, stopped 
 and turned. 
 
 '' Talk of the d ! " said Lauriston, in a 
 
 low voice. 
 
 Massey, much dismayed, looked ready to 
 take refuge in flight. 
 
 '* Let's go back and turn down the first 
 street," he murmured, his brogue coming out 
 strongly in his excitement. '' There's a kind 
 of court-martial look about his left eye that 
 makes him a w^orse person to face than one's 
 tailor at Christmas-time." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said Lauriston. " Don't be a 
 fool, Massey. He's in an angelic temper this 
 evening; and he's not half a bad fellow at 
 any time." 
 
 " Not to you — you w^ere born with a silver 
 spoon in your mouth, and if you were to blow 
 up an arsenal you would get oflf with a 'severe 
 censure.' But I'm not so lucky." 
 
 However, he was persuaded to walk on ; 
 and in the mean time the dreaded Colonel was
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 5 
 
 crossing the street to meet the young men. 
 He was a small sjjare man, who from the 
 other side of the road looked insignificant, 
 but who seemed to grow in height and im- 
 portance as he came closer, until, when face 
 to face with you, he had the dignity and 
 imposing appearance of six feet two. A 
 sabre-cut over his left eye had drawn up the 
 eyebrow in a manner which gave an odd 
 expression to his weather-beaten and prema- 
 turely-old features, and imparted additional 
 intensity to the gaze of a pair of piercing 
 blue-gray eyes, which looked out from his 
 thin, rugged face like the guns from a con- 
 cealed battery. His expression, however, as 
 he drew near the young men, was one of 
 such mitigated ferocity as passed in him for 
 amiability, and the grating tones of his voice 
 were charged with as little harshness as the 
 unmusical nature of the organ permitted. 
 
 ^'Who is that calling on the Colonel?" 
 he asked, turning to keep pace with them in an 
 unexpected and unwelcome access of sociability. 
 
 Colonel Lord Florencecourt was an Irish- 
 man, and his countryman, finding him in a
 
 6 SCHEHERAZADE I 
 
 softer mood than usual, plucked up his native 
 audacity. 
 
 **They were running down love and the 
 ladies, Colonel, and I was calling upon all 
 true Irishmen to help me to support their 
 cause." 
 
 The young lieutenant had recovered suffi- 
 ciently from his fright to wing this speech 
 with a little mischievous barb, for Lady 
 Florencecourt was a notoriously undesirable 
 helpmeet. 
 
 The Colonel laughed harshly. 
 
 " Support the cause of the ladies ? Very 
 like supporting the cause of the cannon-balls 
 that come whizzing about your ears from the 
 enemy's camp ! While you are praising their 
 velocity, and the directness of their flight, 
 whir-r-r comes one through the air and stops 
 your fool's tongue for ever." 
 
 The dry grimness with which he spoke set 
 the young men laughing. But Massey, en- 
 couraged by perceiving that his chief was in 
 good humour, began again softly to sing : 
 
 *' Oh, say, wilt thou weep when they darken the fame 
 Of a life that for thee was resigned ] "
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 
 
 " Not at all, my boy," broke in the Colonel, 
 in his file-like voice ; " she will say : ' What 
 a fool that boy was, and how tiresome he 
 got at the last ! ' Nothing, believe me, wearies 
 a woman so much as a gr ancle passion. Trust 
 me ; I once watched a friend through all the 
 phases of one." 
 
 " Did he die. Colonel 1 " asked Massey, in 
 a small voice. 
 
 ''No, but he had to take a very strong 
 remedy. Well, now, lads, I don't want to 
 impose a misogynist's society on you any 
 longer, especially as I have small hopes of 
 making any converts under five-and-twenty. 
 Only take an old fellow's advice : Singe your 
 wangs at as many candles as possible, and you 
 will run the less risk of being burnt to a 
 cinder by any one of them. Good night." 
 
 They raised their hats to him, and he 
 hailed a passing hansom and drove oflf, just 
 as they turned w^estward into one of the 
 streets leading: into Portland Place. 
 
 *' He himself w^as the friend, I suppose," 
 said Dicky, wdien they had commented on 
 the Colonel's sociability.
 
 8 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 " The grande passion was certainly not for 
 Lady F.," said Massey. 
 
 "By Jove, if she was the remedy, it was 
 a strong; one 1 " added Lauriston. 
 
 "I shall take his advice, and distribute 
 my attentions more," remarked Massey, who 
 was never in the society of any woman under 
 fifty, of high or low degree, without devoting 
 all his enerofies to ing-ratiatino; himself with her. 
 
 o o o 
 
 " Old buffers like that always talk in that 
 strained fashion about the dangers of women, 
 but as a matter of fact it isn't till you're 
 over fifty yourself that they become dangerous 
 at all/' 
 
 "No," said Lauriston, with a blase air, 
 pardonable at three-and-twenty. "Hang it 
 all, the difficulty is, not to avoid their charms, 
 but to find a girl decent-looking enough to 
 dance with twice and take down to supper 
 without being bored to death ! " 
 
 "You don't find many grandes passions 
 knockin' about now-a-days," observed Dicky 
 sagely. 
 
 " At least not in our set," amended Massey ; 
 " nor in this country."
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 9 
 
 *' Oh ! I suppose they're common enough 
 over the Channel ! " 
 
 "I won't say that, but there's something 
 in the eye of an Irish girl that sets your 
 heart beatinof nineteen to the dozen " 
 
 ** Provided it's an Irish heart." 
 
 '' Provided it's nothing of the sort ! " cried 
 Massey hotly. " Provided it's any heart with 
 warm red blood in it, and not brimstone and 
 treacle ! " 
 
 " Gentlemen, a little calmness, please," 
 suggested Lauriston, who was beiug hustled 
 off the pavement by the uneven walk and 
 excited gesticulations of the disputants, or it 
 will come to a vivisection in a minute to prove 
 the correctness of your studies in anatomy." 
 
 However, the argument still went on, grow- 
 ing every moment more lively, until, both 
 disputants turning to Lauriston as referee at 
 the same time, they found that he had dis- 
 appeared. The common wrong made them 
 friends again at once." 
 
 " He's given us the slip," said Dicky. 
 
 " We'll pay him out for it," added Massey. 
 
 They were standing on the pavement of
 
 iO SCHEHERAZADE I 
 
 one of those shabby, ill-kept streets which 
 intersect the busier, broader thoroughfares 
 of this part of London. The noisy children, 
 who played in the gutters during the day 
 and turned their skipping-ropes across the 
 flag-stones in the evening, had now gone 
 to bed, and the stream of poor, struggling, 
 obscure London life flowed by intermittently. 
 A quiet, care-worn woman passed quickly, 
 with her basket on her arm, counting up the 
 pence she had left after her evening's bar- 
 gaining ; a few paces behind her came a 
 couple of public-house loafers — pallid, vacuous, 
 with flabby hats, and the slimy black coats, a 
 great deal too long for them, so much afiected 
 by this class ; and then a line of loud-voiced, 
 shrill-laughing girls, with dirty faces and 
 Gainsborough hats o'ershadowed by a plenti- 
 ful crop of bedraggled feathers. 
 
 Not a tempting neighbourhood this by any 
 means, nor one in which two dashing hussars 
 of one or two and twenty could expect to 
 pick up desirable acquaintances, or to take 
 a deep interest in their unknown brethren ; 
 and yet the eyes of these two young soldiers
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 11 
 
 had fallen there upon a sight fascinating 
 enough to make them forget the mean flight 
 of their companion, and to ignore the smell 
 of fried fish, the hoarse cry of the coster- 
 monger at the corner of the street, even the 
 occasional contact of a greasy elbow. 
 
 A low iron railing stood out from the wall 
 of the house by which they had stopped, 
 fencing oflf a third of the pavement. It was 
 a house with a large, arched double- door, an 
 imitation, on a modest scale, of the more 
 imposing entrances of the dwellings in ad- 
 jacent Portland Place ; a house that had 
 evidently seen better days, and still held its 
 head higher than most of its neighbours. To 
 the left of the door were three bells, placed 
 the one above the other; over the lowest of 
 these was a small brass plate, with this in- 
 scription in red letters, " Eahas and Fanah ; " 
 while between the two windows of the ground- 
 floor hung a board with the same names 
 painted on it, and underneath the words, 
 * Oriental Merchants.' These lower windows 
 were so begrimed with dust and soot that 
 they imparted a film of occidental unloveli-
 
 12 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 ness to the Oriental merchandise within. 
 Eows of engraved brass bowls and vases, of 
 curious design, and without the rich golden 
 glow which, in the magnificent and expensive 
 Eastern bazaars of Eegent Street, suggests 
 the popularising touch of Birmingham ; hang 
 ing lamps of metal and glass, of strange and 
 clumsy shapes, lovely only to the initiated ; 
 a long, graceful, and unserviceable-looking 
 gun, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, inviting 
 you to believe it came fresh from the hands 
 of an Arab sheikh — all these, against a back- 
 ground of Turkish tables, Indian plaster 
 figures, hookahs, and strange weapons, formed 
 an odd collection which, veiled by the murky 
 dimness of ostentatiously dirty window-panes, 
 and railed off three feet from the reckless 
 errand-boy, had no attraction whatever for 
 the denizens of Mary Street. 
 
 Now Clarence Massey and Dicky Wood 
 were not Oriental enthusiasts. They had 
 been educated up to toleration of Japanese 
 screens, and to a soulless and calm admiration 
 of the colours of Japanese plates. So much 
 their girl cousins, their partners at balls, had
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 13 
 
 done for them ; but tliey had soared no higher, 
 and hanging himps, unless of coloured glass 
 profusely ornamented with beads, had little 
 meaning for them. Yet there they stood 
 spellbound, staring into the mysteriously 
 obscure little Oriental warehouse, as if it had 
 been an Aladdin's palace of quaint splendours. 
 For the little picture had human interest. 
 A small lamp, not of ancient Asiatic, but of 
 modern European pattern, Avas set on the 
 narrow mantelpiece in a space cleared for it 
 amid brass trays and Indian pottery, and by 
 its light the young men could see, seated at 
 a table close under the dismantled fire-place, 
 a dark-faced man whose head was covered 
 by a scarlet fez. Behind him stood a girl 
 attractive enough to rivet the attention, not 
 alone of a couple of susceptible young hussars, 
 but of an army of veterans. From her head 
 hung veil-fashion over her shoulders a long 
 piece of thin, yellowish, undyed silk, kept in 
 its place by a fillet of gold, from which 
 dangled a row of tiny sequins that glittered 
 and shone on the peeping fringe of black hair 
 that overshadowed the upper part of a little
 
 14 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 face that looked dusky against the shining 
 silk. A strip of gold-intersected gauze, worn 
 as a yashmak, covered, but scarcely concealed 
 her breast and the lower part of her young 
 face, showing row upon row of many-coloured 
 beads around her neck, and gleaming, regular 
 teeth between open lips, that were, perhaps, 
 somewhat too flexible and somewhat too full. 
 'She stood there motionless for a few moments, 
 evidently unseen by the man at the table, 
 and brimming over with hardly contained 
 girlish merriment. The young men watched, 
 fascinated, unwilling to acknowledge to them- 
 selves that this little scene, passing in what 
 was after all a public shop crammed with 
 wares piled high to attract all comers, was 
 part of a strictly domestic drama into which 
 it was not their business to pry. 
 
 " Why doesn't she look up ? I can swear 
 she has deuced fine eyes ! " murmured Massey, 
 who was getting much excited. 
 
 Dicky nudged his friend impatiently into 
 silence, feeling that speech destroyed the 
 spell, and awoke unwelcome recollections of 
 the ordinary rules of social life which they
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 15 
 
 were bluntly ignoring. In one moment they 
 would walk on certainly. In the mean time, 
 Dicky thrust his arm through that of his 
 friend, and turned slowly round as a pre- 
 liminary movement, keeping his eyes, how- 
 ever, still fixed upon the veiled houri. She 
 remained immovable for a moment, and then 
 from under the pale folds of rough silk 
 appeared two slender arms of an ivory tint, 
 several shades lighter than that of her face. 
 They were bare to the shoulder, laden with 
 massive bracelets, some silver, some silver- 
 gilt, that stood out like cables round the soft 
 flesh, or glittered with sparkling pendants of 
 the precious metal : as, her face alight with 
 girlish gaiety, she slowly advanced her small, 
 lithe, olive-tinted hands, with the fingers 
 curved ready to close upon the young man s 
 eyes, a couple of bracelets slid down her left 
 arm with a little clash, which, though in- 
 audible to the two spectators outside the 
 window, was evidently the means of announc- 
 ing her presence to her companion. He 
 started up, and, turning round, seized her 
 wrists as she attempted to spring, laughing,
 
 16 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 away from him. She was now so far back 
 in the room that Massey and Dicky Wood 
 caught only a vague, indistinct glimpse of 
 long folds of soft white stuff under the silken 
 veil, and of a crimson sash bound loosely 
 round the hips of the little figure that 
 crouched, laughing, against the wall. But 
 they saw the eyes, such long, roguish, 
 languishing eyes, that Massey felt that what 
 heart his small and early loves had left to 
 him was gone again, while even the more 
 self-contained Dicky felt an odd and un- 
 accustomed sensation, which he was after- 
 wards unromantic enough to compare to a 
 premonitory symptom of sea-sickness. 
 
 At that moment, however, the girl suddenly 
 caught sight of the faces outside, and directed 
 her companion s attention to the window. 
 As he turned abruptly, drew back into him- 
 self with a sudden expression of reserved 
 and haughty indignation, and approached the 
 window to draw down the blind, the girl, 
 with a ringing laugh of mischief, which even 
 the lads outside could hear, took advantage of 
 his momentary retreat to escape.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 17 
 
 The two young men, on finding they were 
 discovered, walked on at once with involun- 
 tary and guilty haste, without at first speaking. 
 Massey broke the silence with a deep sigh, and 
 stepping into the road, hunted out the name of 
 the street and entered it in his pocket-book. 
 
 **No. 36, Mary Street," he murmured 
 devoutly. 
 
 " You will dare to show your face here again 
 then ? " 
 
 " My face ! I mean to show more than 
 my face next time. I shall go boldly in and 
 buy up the shop." 
 
 " Always supposing the fire-worshipping 
 gentleman with the fez does not recognise 
 you and try some pretty little Eastern 
 practical joke upon you, such as inducing 
 you to spend a couple of hours head down- 
 wards in the water-butt, or nailing you up 
 in one of his own packing-cases. Oriental 
 husbands have got a nasty name, you know." 
 
 *' Husbands ! That lovely girl is never the 
 wife of a man with a face like old brown 
 Windsor ! Or if she is, he has so many others 
 that he can't have time to look after them all. 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 If I only knew her number, that when I call 
 I might inquire for the right one 1 " 
 
 " You'd better give it up, Massey ; Indian 
 dishes are proverbially hot ones," said Dicky 
 warningly. 
 
 But the young Irishman was too much 
 excited to listen to anything but the sugges- 
 tions of his own imagination concerning the 
 lady. 
 
 " I don t believe she's Indian," he rambled 
 on ; '^ I never saw a type C[uite like it. The 
 face is too delicate for a Creole ; I wonder 
 if she's an Arabian. She looks like a princess 
 out of the Arabian Nights, now doesn't she ? " 
 
 "Yes, perhaps she does. And you had 
 better remember all that means before you 
 set about stealing a march on the genie. 
 Little cunning, sensual creatures with the 
 mind and manners of cats " 
 
 '' I tell you who she is like," pursued Massey, 
 ignoring interruptions, " she is Scheherazade. 
 You remember, the sultan's wife who tells 
 the stories, and fascinates him into sparing 
 her life, after he'd sworn to kill all his wives 
 on discovering what a faithless lot they were."
 
 A LOXDOX night's ENTERTAINMENT. 19 
 
 " And then tlic story breaks off without 
 letting one know whether she turned out any 
 better than the rest. Wise chronicler, he 
 knew where to stop ! And if you're wise, 
 you'll follow his example, and leave the tale 
 where it is at present." 
 
 But that was asking too much. The 
 very next day, Massey rang boldly at the 
 bell of Kahas and Fanah, Oriental mer- 
 chants, and spent two or three pounds on 
 trumpery brass pots and pans and on ill- 
 made plaster animals, purposely choosing 
 small articles that he might fritter away his 
 time the more slowly, and in fact hang 
 about on the chance of another sight of the 
 Eastern beauty. He was served by the man 
 he had seen the evenino; before, a Q;enuine 
 Oriental with grave, composed, leisurely man- 
 ners. ]\rassey longed to put some question 
 to him which should lead to the discovery 
 whether he was married, but this was not 
 easy, as the Oriental merchant's black eyes 
 had an expression which suggested that he 
 was not to be trifled with ; "a sort of creepy^ 
 crafty, stick-you-through-with-a-chopstick-aud- 
 
 2
 
 20 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 serve-you-up-with-chilis look," as he afterwards 
 described it to Dicky. However, he elicited 
 the information that the dark-visag;ed one 
 came from Smyrna, which did not help 
 him much, as the only thing he recol- 
 lected to bave heard about that place was 
 that : 
 
 " There was a young person of Smyrna, whose grand- 
 mother threatened to burn her." 
 
 He came out crestfallen after a stay of 
 an hour aud a quarter, but had his drooping 
 spirits raised by running against Dicky Wood 
 as he turned into Portland Place. 
 
 " Hallo, where are you goiug to ? " " Hallo, 
 where are you coming froml" said they at 
 the same moment. 
 
 They both had grown red, and presently 
 began to laugh as the truth came out. Sche- 
 herazade, whatever names you might call 
 her, had a captivating presence which abso- 
 lutely demanded to be seen again. 
 
 The ardour of those two young men for 
 Indian art-products grew^ hotter and hotter 
 as the week wore on, and their alternate 
 pilgrimages to Mary Street resulted in nothing
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 21 
 
 but tlie accumulation of a vast hoard of 
 lacquered and engraved articles which not 
 even the most indiscriminate present-giving 
 could keep within due bounds. The senior 
 partner in the firm, a small gentleman, leather- 
 coloured and lean, with a grey beard and 
 a white turban, had indeed turned up and 
 induced suggestions that the mysterious lady 
 might be his daughter, and glimpses had been 
 caught of a lean, withered, white-robed ayah, 
 who could by no means be mistaken for the 
 interesting fair one ; but it was not until the 
 ninth day after their first visit that Massey 
 was able, with great excitement, to announce 
 that, on paying a late evening visit to Mary 
 Street, he had seen the mysterious fair one 
 disappearing helter-skelter up the staircase, 
 and heard her close sharply, not to say bang, 
 a door on the first floor. 
 
 " She had bare feet in loose sandals — feet 
 you would have given ten years of your life 
 to be walked upon by," continued Massey 
 rapidly, "with anklets that jingled as she 
 went up. Old brown Windsor hustled her 
 off as I came in — I'm afraid he must be her
 
 22 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 husband ; and yet — I don't know. "Wonder 
 if one could get lodgings in that house ; it's 
 let out in floors, I know." 
 
 *' Not to us ; they'd know what we were 
 up to," said Dicky gloomily. " I believe 
 both of those beggars suspect us already. 
 They're only waiting for us to have spent our 
 last half-crown on narghilis that we can't 
 smoke and cotton-wool beetles, and then 
 they'll politely bow us out and snigger to 
 themselves over our greenness. AVe've been 
 making fools of ourselves, Massey ; I shouldn't 
 wonder if she was a decoy, a made-up old 
 thing, very likely the mother of old brown 
 Windsor, henna'd and dyed and veiled till 
 she looked beautiful at a distance, but a 
 regular mummy at less than twelve paces." 
 
 "What, would ye slander beauty herself? 
 Is nothing sacred to you ? Look here, I've 
 got an idea. You know how jolly quick Mr. 
 George Lauriston shuts us both up if we 
 venture to have an oj^inion of our own about 
 anything — female beauty for instance?" 
 
 '' He has been putting on a little too much 
 side lately, certainly."
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 23 
 
 '' I tell you that young man wants taking 
 down. You know how he sneered the other 
 nisfht at mess when we said we'd discovered 
 a new beauty ? " 
 
 " Yes, he did. Well ? " 
 
 " Well, we'll make him see her and judge 
 for himself and satisfy our curiosity at the 
 same time. ' 
 
 ** What are you up to now ? " 
 
 " I tell Mr. George Lauriston my brother 
 has taken rooms at 36, Mary Street; I ask 
 him to call. I tell him to go straight in, 
 upstairs to the first floor, and that the first 
 door is my brother's. He won't find him 
 naturally, because he will not be there ; so 
 he'll inevitably see the lady, and we'll pump 
 him afterwards, as to what she looked like, 
 what she said, how she spoke." 
 
 **Massey, you're ofi" your head. Thcre'd 
 ])e a deuce of a row. Scheherazade would 
 scream, brown Windsor would draw his scimi- 
 tar, there'd be a scrimmage on the stairs, and 
 what would happen to you and me when 
 Lauriston got Imck would be better imagined 
 than described."
 
 24 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 '* By Jove, if I could find out who slie is 
 Fd think it cheap at a black eye." 
 
 'a shouldn't." 
 
 Dicky being the weaker if the wiser, how- 
 ever, gave w^ay in the end, and George 
 Lauriston duly received and accepted the 
 invitation to call at 36, Mary Street, on a 
 certain evening to see Massey's Vjrother, a 
 clever and risinor enmneer, whom Lauriston 
 had met and was anxious to meet again. 
 
 As the day of the appointment drew near, 
 both of the conspirators, who had grown more 
 lax in their attendance at the Oriental ware- 
 house as repeated disappointments told upon 
 their energy, felt qualms as to Lauriston's 
 action when he should have discovered the 
 trick played upon him ; and at last IMasssy 
 told Dicky that he had an invitation up the 
 river which w^ould take him out of town 
 on the evening named, and Dicky confessed 
 in reply that he had got leave to go down 
 to Brighton that afternoon. 
 
 *' It will be just as much fun to hear what 
 he says afterwards as it w^ould be to watch 
 him go in from the little shop on the other
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 25 
 
 side of the ^YaJ, as ^ye proposed," said 
 Massey. 
 
 "And he'll have cooled dowD a bit before 
 he sees us, so that if anything comes of it he 
 won't be able to rush off red-hot and do for 
 us," added Dicky, more honestly. " I suppose 
 old brown Windsor won't stick him with a 
 yataghan, or anything of that sort, if he really 
 does meet the lady," he continued in a low 
 and lugubrious voice. " You see, I'm sure the 
 black men guess what we're after, spending all 
 our time and money over tea-trays and idols 
 as we've done lately. And it would be rather 
 hard if they were to think poor Lauriston was 
 in it, only cheekier than the rest of us, and 
 were to make him into a curry for what we've 
 done." 
 
 "Pooh, nonsense, Lauriston can take care 
 of himself as well as anybody. He isn't 
 much of a soldier if he won't think a back- 
 hander over the staircase a small enough price 
 to pay for the sight of a houri handsome 
 enough for a Sultan's harem." 
 
 "But, Massey, he's half a Scotchman. He 
 wouldn't look twice at a woman who hadn't
 
 26 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 raw bones and red hair, and not at her if she 
 wasn't well provided with the bawbees," sug- 
 gested Dicky in the pride of his knowledge of 
 diflferent phases of human nature. 
 
 ''All the better for us then; he'll think it's 
 a mistake and won't guess what we've been 
 up to." 
 
 So the guilty pair went their ways and left 
 their consciences behind them.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 27 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 If there were in the wide world a good- 
 looking, stalwart young man of twenty-three 
 for whom an unexpected meeting in romantic 
 and picturesque circumstances with a beauti- 
 ful woman could be expected to be without 
 danger, George Lauriston might well have 
 been the man. 
 
 Not that he was a prig ; not that the highly 
 inflammable substance, a soldier's heart, was 
 in his case consuming for some other lady. 
 But he was not quite in the position, and not 
 at all in the mind, of the majority of his com- 
 rades of his own age. He was the poor son of 
 a brilliant but unlucky soldier who had died 
 bravely in his first campaign ; and he was so 
 eaten up with the ambition to distinguish 
 himself, and to render famous the name which 
 his father had already made honourable, that
 
 28 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 all other passions merely simmered in him 
 while that one boiled and seethed on the fires 
 of an intense and ardent nature that as yet 
 had shown but little of its powers. That he 
 had a keen intellect was well known ; it shone 
 out of his brown eyes, and gave interest to 
 a face, the chief characteristic of which was 
 a certain, frank, boyish brightness. A good 
 face, an honest face ; none but the better 
 qualities of the nature it illustrated showing 
 through it yet, no sensual curves to spoil the 
 firm lines of the mouth, which, for the rest, 
 was more than half hidden by a moustache 
 some shades lighter than the brown hair, 
 wdiich had a very pretty hero-like curl about 
 the temples. To the rare eyes which read 
 more than superficial signs in a man's coun- 
 tenance, there might perhaps have been some- 
 thing suggestive in the fact, unnoticeable to 
 any but the very keenest observer, and there- 
 fore unknown even by most of his intimate 
 friends, that the two sides of his face did not 
 exactly correspond in a single feature. One 
 nostril was somewhat larger and liigher than 
 the other ; the left corner of the mouth
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 29 
 
 scarcely level with the right ; and the same 
 with the eyes and eyebrows, the difference 
 being in all cases very slight but none the 
 less real. It mig:ht have been arf^^ued with 
 some point that a man whose face showed 
 these irregularities was just as likely to be 
 guilty of startling inconsistencies as a man 
 with a heavy jaw is to turn out a brute, or 
 one with a receding chin to prove a soft and 
 yielding fooL So far, however, George Lauris- 
 ton coidd boast a fair record, having earned 
 his universally high character as much by the 
 heartiness and spirit with which he threw 
 himself into all games and sports, as by the 
 energy and devotion he showed in the dis- 
 charo'e of the various duties of his career. 
 
 Like most men of strong natures, he en- 
 joyed more prestige than popularity among 
 his equals in age an rank, being looked upon 
 by the weaklings with secret contempt for his 
 temperate and orderly life, and by the superior 
 sort with a little unacknowledged fear. For 
 these latter had an inklino: that there was 
 something under the crest, whether boiling 
 lava or a mere bed of harmless, quiescent
 
 30 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 pebbles who should say ? It was only the 
 old officers in the regiment, as it had been 
 only the more experienced masters at college, 
 who could discern of what stuff this brio^ht- 
 eyed young soldier was made, and knew that 
 the fire within him, which could never find 
 enouo'h food for its devouring enerory, was a 
 spark of the flame that, fanned by the breeze 
 of blessed opportunity, makes men heroes. 
 Love, except in its most fleeting forms, he 
 had not yet felt, and did not, for the present 
 at least, mean to feel : it would come to bim 
 at the proper time, like other good things, in 
 some glorified form, and not, as it had come 
 to his father, in the shape of a romantic 
 devotion to a pretty but foolish woman, who 
 had been a clog and a burden as long as her 
 short life lasted. With a well-defined ideal 
 in his mind, and with all thoughts of pleasure 
 in the present swallowed up by dreams of 
 distinction in the future, he found all women 
 charming, but none irresistible. Many of the 
 girls he knew were handsome enough to please 
 a fastidious taste, some had an amusing 
 vivacity, some a fascinating innocence, here
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 31 
 
 and there was one witli the rarer attraction of 
 sweet and gentle manners ; but the beauties 
 were vain and spoilt, the simple ones inane 
 or ill-dressed, and one had doubts about the 
 heart of the wits, and the head of the soft 
 and silent ones. So that George Lauriston 
 had never yet been brought face to face with 
 the alternative of vain long;ing; for a v/om^an 
 he could not get, or marriage on £200 a year. 
 In such a situation, he had often avowed what 
 course he would take : " Marry her and have 
 done with it," was his brief formula. He was 
 of a nature too independent and self-sufficing 
 to be very strongly influenced by the vary- 
 ing outside circumstances of his life, or by 
 the more lax and easy-going principles of 
 his common-place companions ; therefore the 
 views inculcated by his old Scotch aunt of 
 a woman as a sacred thing, and of love and 
 marriaoje as concerns in which a Divine 
 providence took an extra and special interest, 
 still remained in his mind, though of course 
 somewhat clouded by the haze of experience. 
 It follows that his opinions on conjugal 
 loyalty were even aggressively strong.
 
 32 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 On one occasion, when a young married 
 officer of the regiment — a harmless creature 
 enough, but with a youthful ambition to 
 be thought * fast ' — was vapouring away at 
 mess about his achievements with the girls, 
 Lauriston broke in, in a deep voice : 
 
 *' Nonsense, ladclie, everybody knows you 
 can't tear yourself away from your little wife. 
 And do you think we should think better of 
 you if you could ? " 
 
 With these well-known principles and 
 opinions, his more susceptible young com- 
 rades, Massey and Dicky Wood, were justified 
 in not considering that they were exposing 
 Lauriston to any danger of the heart, in 
 plotting his encounter with the dusky little 
 wife of a foreign shopkeeper. 
 
 It was nine o'clock on the evening appointed 
 by the conspirators when Lauriston, after 
 dining at the ' Criterion ' with a friend, 
 drove up in a hansom to number 36, Mary 
 Street. 
 
 It was dull, wet, and rather cold — the fag 
 end of one of those dismal days which so often 
 mar the brightness of the season in an English
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 33 
 
 May. Seen through the damp drizzle in the 
 darkness which was already closing in, as if 
 night were jealous of the gloom of day, and 
 were hurrying to push her out of the field, 
 the street looked dirtier and shabbier than 
 ever, and Lauriston wondered to himself how 
 Frank Massey could have taken rooms in such 
 a wretched neighbourhood. He did not re- 
 cognise it as the street in which he had slipped 
 away from his friends on the night of the 
 dinner-party in Fitzroy Square ; but seeing 
 the number 36 on the door, and observing 
 that a light was burning in two of the three 
 windows on the first floor, he paid the cab- 
 man, and, according to his instructions, turned 
 the handle of the door, and walked in. There 
 was a modest and economical light over the 
 door, which threw small and weak rays over 
 a bare, wide, and dingy hall, papered with a 
 greasy and smoke-dyed imitation of a marble 
 w^hich exists only in the imagination of 
 the more old-fashioned order of wall-paper 
 designers. The ceiling was blackened and 
 smoke-hung, the deep wainscoting and the 
 wood of the once handsome banisters were 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 worn and worm-eaten, the wide stairs had 
 only a narrow strip of cheap oilcloth up the 
 middle, scarcely reaching to the now ill- 
 polished space on either side. On the left 
 hand were two doors, framed in oak with a 
 little carving at the top ; between the panels 
 of both these doors a small white card w^as 
 nailed, with the words "Eahas and Fanah, 
 Oriental Merchants." Only one chair — a 
 substantial, elaborately-carved old hall chair, 
 which looked like a relic of some sale at a 
 nobleman's house, but on which errand boys' 
 pocket-knives had now for some years exer- 
 cised their uninspired art carvings — broke up 
 the monotony of the bare walls ; and a well- 
 used door-mat lay at the foot of the stairs. 
 There was no other attempt at furnishing, but 
 against a door at the end of the passage by 
 the staircase a huge stack of packing-cases 
 marked with foreign characters were piled 
 almost to the ceiling, and gave forth a scent 
 of mouldy straw to complete the attractions 
 of the entrance-hall. 
 
 " Rum place to hang out in ! " he murmured, 
 as he put his first foot on the creaking stairs.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 35 
 
 ** Number 36, Mary Street — yes, that was 
 certainly the address." 
 
 On the first landing things looked a little 
 more promising. There was a carpet, and 
 outside each of the three doors a small, black 
 skin rug, while against the wall, on a bracket 
 of dark wood, with a looking-glass let in the 
 back, there burned a lamp with a pink glass 
 shade. 
 
 Lauriston knocked at the door which he 
 judged to be that of the room in the windows 
 of which he had seen a light. 
 
 There was no answer, and there was no 
 sound. 
 
 He waited a few moments, and then knocked 
 aorain — a soundinoj rat-tat-tat with the handle 
 of his umbrella, such as none but a deaf per- 
 son or a person fast asleep could fail to hear. 
 Again no answer ; again no sound. He tried 
 the other two doors with the same result ; 
 then, much puzzled by this reception, he went 
 back to the first door, and after a third fruit- 
 less knock, turned the handle and peeped 
 in. Nothing but black darkness in the two 
 inches he allowed himself to see. He opened 
 
 D 2
 
 36 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 the next door. Although the blind was down 
 and there was no light inside, he could see 
 quite clearly that it was a small room with 
 nobody in it. Now, as this apartment looked 
 on to the street, it was evident that the lights 
 he had seen in the windows must be those of 
 the room into which he had first peeped, as 
 the two doors were on a line with each other. 
 
 " There must be a double door," he said to 
 himself, and going back again, he opened the 
 first door wide and found, not indeed the 
 obstacle he had expected, but a heavy curtain, 
 thick as a carpet, which might well be supposed 
 to deaden all outer sounds. 
 
 He drew this back, and in a moment became 
 conscious of an intoxicating change from the 
 gloom and the drizzle outside. A faint, sweet 
 perfume, like the smell of a burning fir-forest, 
 a soft, many-tinted subdued light, the gentle 
 plash -plash of falling water all became mani- 
 fest to his senses at the same moment, and 
 filled him with bewilderment and surprise. 
 In front of him, at the distance of three or 
 four feet, was a high screen of fine sandal- 
 wood lattice work, over which was flung a
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 37 
 
 dark curtain, embroidered thickly with golden 
 lilies. Through the interstices of the aromatic 
 wood were seen the glimmer of quaint brass 
 lamps, the flashing of gold and silver em- 
 broideries, the soft green of large-leaved 
 plants. 
 
 Lauriston knew he must have made some 
 awful mistake ; no young English engineer 
 would go in for this sort of thing. But his 
 curiosity was so great concerning the inhabit- 
 ants of this Eastern palace on a first floor in 
 Mary Street, that he was unable to resist the 
 temptation of a further peep into the interior. 
 He stepped forward and looked behind the 
 screen. 
 
 It was a large room. No inch of the floor- 
 ing was to be seen, for it was covered with 
 thick carpets and the unlined skins of beasts. 
 The fireplace and the entire walls were hidden 
 by shining silks and soft muslins, draped so 
 loosely that they shimmered in the draught 
 of the open door. At the four corners of the 
 room stood clusters of broad-leaved tropical 
 plants, round the bases of which were piled 
 small metal shields, glittering yataghans, long
 
 38 SCHEHEKAZADE : 
 
 yellowish elephant-tusks, and quaintly-shaped 
 vessels of many-hued pottery ; above the dark 
 foliage sjDears and lances were piled against 
 the wall, pressing back the graceful draperies 
 into their places, and shooting up, straight 
 and glistening, like clumps of tall reeds. The 
 ceiling was painted like a night sky — deep 
 dark blue, with fleecy grayish clouds ; from 
 it hung, at irregular intervals, innumerable 
 tiny opalescent lamps, in each of which glowed 
 a little spark of light. Besides this, a large 
 lamp of brass and tinted glass hung sus- 
 pended from two crossed silken cords nearly 
 in the middle of the room, and immediately 
 under it a small fountain played in a bronze 
 basin. 
 
 Eound three sides of the room was a low 
 divan, covered with loosely thrown rugs and 
 cushions, some of sombre-hued tapestry, some 
 resplendent with gorgeous embroidery. 
 
 The whole of this most unexj^ected scene 
 formed only a hazy and harmonious back- 
 ground in George Lauriston's eyes ; for in 
 front of him on the divan, between the two 
 trellised windows, lay a creature so bewitch-
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 39 
 
 ingly unlike anything of flesh and blood he 
 had ever seen or dreamed of, that the young 
 Englishman felt his brain swim, and held his 
 breath with a great fear lest the dazzling 
 vision before him should melt away, with the 
 scents and the soft lights and the rustle of the 
 night air in the hanging draperies, into the 
 drizzling rain and the damp and the darkness 
 of the street outside. 
 
 It was a woman he saw, a small and slender 
 woman, lying almost at full length, supported 
 by a sliding pile of cushions, the one on which 
 her head rested being a huge square of gold- 
 tinted satin, with peacocks feathers stitched 
 down in all directions upon the smooth silk. 
 Below her on the ground was a little inlaid 
 Turkish table, on which burnt, in rather 
 dangerous proximity to the lady's light 
 draperies, an open lamp. A loose but clinging 
 garment of soft white stuff hid her figure and 
 yet disclosed its outlines, the graceful curves 
 from shoulder to hip, and from hip to heel, 
 w^hile the tip of an embroidered velvet slipper 
 peeped out Ijeneath its folds, and a slender 
 rounded arm, laden from shoulder to wrist
 
 40 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 with armlets and bracelets, gold, silver, and 
 enamelled, escaping from its loose open sleeve, 
 huno^ down straio^ht over the side of the divan, 
 and looked in the soft light which fell on it 
 from the lamp, like purest ivory seen in the 
 last rays of a sunset. Long gold and silver 
 chains which, had she been erect, would have 
 reached below her waist, hung round her neck 
 and jingled together over the side of the 
 couch. A great soft scarf of many skilfully 
 blended colours was bound about her waist 
 and fastened by a large Indian ornament of 
 roughly hewn precious stones. The robe she 
 wore had become disarranged by her reclining 
 posture, so that great folds of the soft white 
 muslin had gathered about her neck, forming 
 a white nest-like frame for her small head, 
 which was covered by a tiny scarlet velvet 
 cap, from under which her short and curly 
 black hair escaped in a tangled bush that cast 
 a shade over a little white face. Her eyes 
 were closed and a most ghastly livid pallor 
 was spread over her features from forehead 
 to chin ; so that Lauriston, with a great shock, 
 was awakened out of the state of moonstruck
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 41 
 
 bewilderment and admiration into which the 
 strange sight had thrown him, by a horrible 
 belief that he was standing in the presence 
 of a dead woman. 
 
 '' Great Heaven ! " broke from his stammer- 
 ing lips as he made one quick step forward. 
 
 But at the sound of his voice the sleeping 
 girl awoke ; and her opening eyes falling at 
 once upon a stranger, she sprang into a sitting 
 position with a startled cry. In a moment he 
 saw what had caused his mistake. A blue 
 glass in one side of the octagonal lantern 
 above had thrown a livid light on the young 
 girl's face, which he now saw to be healthily 
 flushed with sleep, and animated with the 
 most vivid alarm. 
 
 He was retreating hastily with a confused 
 murmur of apologies for his intrusion, when 
 a bright glare of flame flashed up blindingly 
 in a pointed tongue of light and smoke 
 towards the ceiling, and wdth a shriek the 
 girl started to her feet. The hanging open 
 sleeve of her white gow^n had caught fire as, 
 waking like a child and not yet quite mistress 
 of all her faculties, she had, in her change
 
 42 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 of position, allowed the flimsy light material 
 to swing over the little lamp. Lauriston's 
 light overcoat hung on his arm. He wrapped 
 it round the panting, struggling, moaning girl, 
 swept up with his left hand a leopard skin 
 that was uppermost amongst the rugs at his 
 feet, and binding that also tightly about her, 
 succeeded in very few moments in stifling the 
 flame. He had said nothing all the while, 
 there being no time for discussion ; the girl, 
 after the first cry, had submitted, with only 
 low murmurs of fright and pain, to his quick 
 and vigorous treatment. He looked down, 
 when she at last fell merely to sighing and 
 trembling and gasping for breath, at the curly 
 head from which the little scarlet cap had 
 fallen in his rough embrace. The thick tousle 
 of hair, soft, not as silk, but as finest wool, 
 was entirely innocent of curling tongs, and 
 hung in disorder about a face which had some- 
 thing more of passion, something more of a 
 most innocent voluptuousness in every curve 
 and in every glance than are ever to be found 
 in the countenance of an English girl. 
 
 Lauriston still held the little creature tightly
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 43 
 
 in his arms, and as he did so the feelino^s of 
 pity and anxiety, which had been the first 
 to stir in his heart when his prompt measures 
 choked down the rising flame, gave place to 
 an impulse of tenderness as she looked up 
 with long, soft, shining, black eyes full of 
 wondering inquiry. This small helpless thing, 
 quivering and sighing in his arms and gazing 
 with the velvet, innocent eyes of a fawn into 
 his face, made his heart leap ; with an agita- 
 tion new and strange, he pressed her close to 
 him, and clasped her head against his breast. 
 
 If it had been indeed a fawn that he had 
 been caressing, he could not have been more 
 amazed and confused when the girl slipped 
 lithely through his arms, and shaking oflf the 
 impromptu bandages in which he had swathed 
 her, tossed the ends of her long scarf over her 
 burnt and blistered left arm and the black- 
 ened rags of her sleeve and bodice, and 
 said haughtily, in English as good as his 
 own, and moreover w^ith the accent of perfect 
 refinement : 
 
 " I am much obliged to you, sir, for your 
 kind help ; but as you are a complete stranger
 
 44 SCHEHEKAZADE : 
 
 to me, I shall be glad if you will either give 
 an explanation of your visit, or bring it to a 
 close ! " 
 
 The unexpected dignity and self-possession 
 of this young creature, who could not be more 
 than sixteen, together with the shock of dis- 
 covering that the fantastic and dreamy-eyed 
 beino^ whom he had been treating: somewhat 
 in the free-and-easy fashion of the Arabian 
 Nights was a mere nineteenth century young 
 English lady, reduced poor Lauriston to a 
 level of abject consternation. And yet, 
 against her will, there was something in her 
 indignation more alluring than repellent ; 
 even as he stammered out the first words 
 of a humble apology, the transient gleam of 
 anger faded out of her long eyes, and he saw 
 only before him a graceful tiny creature, call- 
 ing forth his pity by the pain in her arm 
 which made her wince and bite her under lip, 
 and passionate yearning admiration by the 
 seductive charm of every attitude and every 
 movement. 
 
 " I beg you to forgive my intrusion, madam. 
 This address was given to me, by mistake, as
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 45 
 
 that of one of my friends. I can t describe to 
 you the distress I feel at my share in your 
 accident. Tell me how to summon your 
 friends ; I will go at once, and send a doctor. 
 Please forgive me ; for heaven's sake, forgive 
 me." 
 
 White wet beads stood on his forehead ; he 
 was in an agony as, the danger past, she evi- 
 dently felt more and more acutely the smart- 
 ing pain of her^ injured arm and shoulder. 
 She gave way, as her plaintive eyes met those 
 of the young soldier, and burst into tears. 
 
 " There's no one here. Mrs. Ellis has gone 
 out ; Sundran, my servant, is in bed, and I 
 won't — won't let Rahas come. I'm afraid of 
 him ; I hate him, I hate him." And she 
 stamped her little velvet-shod foot, that came 
 softly enough down on the pile of disordered 
 rugs. *' Oh, send some one to me — it does 
 hurt so." 
 
 "I will! I will!" he said hastily. And 
 afraid of the emotion which was choking his 
 voice and causing his own eyes to overflow, 
 he dashed out of the room and down the 
 stairs.
 
 46 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 At the foot of them he came suddenly, with 
 a great start, face to face with a tall, gaunt, 
 dark-visaged man, who seemed to spring up 
 like a magician from out of the gloom with- 
 out sound or warning. He wore an Oriental 
 dress of loose trousers, jacket and sash of a 
 deep crimson, and a fez on his black hair ; 
 but there was no trace of likeness, no trace of 
 a similarity of race, between the ivory skin 
 and long liquid eyes of the girl Lauriston had 
 just left, and the swarthy complexion and 
 fierce, lowering expression of this man. 
 
 " What are you doing here ? " he said 
 fluently enough, but with a strong foreign 
 accent, clutching at the young man's coat with 
 lonor lean fino^ers. 
 
 Lauriston, without replying, flung him aside 
 so deftly as well as forcibly that the other 
 staggered and reeled back against the wall, 
 and the young soldier dashed open the door 
 and was out of the house in a moment. Ad- 
 dressing the first respectable-looking man he 
 met in the street as he hastened in the direc- 
 tion of Fitzroy Square, he asked the address 
 of the nearest doctor's, and a few moments
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 47 
 
 later was at the door of the house indicated. 
 He hurried the doctor up as if it had been a 
 case of life or death, and burned with impati- 
 ence because that gentleman's footsteps were 
 more deliberate than his own. For there was 
 more in his heart than anxiety that the tender 
 little arm should be quickly eased of its pain. 
 The forbidding face of the man he had met on 
 his way out haunted him, and filled him with 
 a sullen rage, the origin of which he did not 
 clearly understand. He was the " Kahas " 
 the girl had wished to avoid ; Lauriston felt 
 sure of that : and he was alone, excited with 
 indignation against the strange intruder, in 
 the house with the injured girl. He would 
 go up-stairs to her, furious, full of savage 
 inquiries. What claim had he upon her ? 
 What would he do to her ? 
 
 Lauriston was in a fever of doubts and 
 questions and tempestuous impulses utterly 
 foreign to him. An odd fancy would recur 
 again and again to his mind in this new 
 tumult of thouo-hts and feelino:3. 
 
 She — the lovely, lissom creature whom he 
 had held in his arms, whose heart he had felt
 
 48 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 for a short moment beating as^ainst his own, 
 was the fascinating if somewhat soulless lady 
 of the Eastern tales; he — the dark-faced, 
 evil-looking being whose eyes and teeth had 
 gleamed out upon him menacingly in the 
 darkness, was the wicked genie who held her 
 in his power. 
 
 Well, and if so, what part in the tale was 
 he, George Lauriston, to play ? 
 
 Within one short hour, the self-contained, 
 ambitious young man seemed to have changed 
 his nature. The absurd, frivolous, or perhaps 
 dangerous question had become one of 
 momentous importance to him.
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTEETAINMENT. 49 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 AVhen George Lauriston arrived with the 
 doctor at the door of 36, Mary Street, the 
 lights in the windows on the first floor had 
 grown dimmer, and George, who would have 
 opened the door as he had done before, and 
 gone np-stairs with the doctor without cere- 
 mony, found that the key had been turned 
 and the bolts drawn. He rang the bell, and 
 made the knocker sound with a loud rata-ta- 
 ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat that echoed through the 
 now quiet street. No notice whatever was 
 taken of this, except by a gentleman who 
 lodged on the third-floor front opposite, who 
 threw open his window and wanted to know 
 in a husky voice what the things unutterable 
 they meant by kicking up such an adjective- 
 left-to-the-imagination row in a respectable 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 But No. 36, Mary Street remained as silent 
 and unresponsive as ever. 
 
 After a pause Lauriston knocked again, 
 regardless of the growinp: strength of the 
 maledictions of the gentleman opposite. 
 Then a shadow was seen against the cur- 
 tains of one of the first-floor windows, and 
 over the carved lattice- work a head looked 
 out. George moved closer to the door, and 
 left the doctor to speak. 
 
 " Who is it knocking ? " 
 
 *' It is I, l)r. Bannerman. I have been 
 sent for to attend a young lady who has 
 been severely burned, and if the door is not 
 opened immediately I shall return to my 
 house." 
 
 " Ai-e you alone ? " 
 
 " Say yes. I'll go," said Lauriston in a 
 low tone. 
 
 " Alone ? Yes." 
 
 The head disappeared, and Lauriston went 
 a little distance down the street and crossed 
 to the other side. He saw the door of No. 
 36 cautiously opened upon the chain, and 
 then, after a few impatient words from the
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 51 
 
 doctor, it was thrown wide by the man in 
 the fez, and shut as the other entered. The 
 young man walked up and down impatiently, 
 never letting the house go out of sight until, 
 after about half an hour, the doctor re- 
 appeared, and the clank of the chain was 
 heard as the door was bolted again behind him. 
 
 " \Yell ! " said Lauriston eagerly. 
 
 " Well ! " said the doctor easily. 
 
 A doctor is the last sort of man to be 
 readily astonished ; but it was hardly possible 
 that the oldest priest of the body should 
 find himself in attendance on the entrancing 
 mistress of an Eastern palace on the first floor 
 of a lodging-house in Mary Street without 
 a mild sense of passing through an unusual 
 experience. 
 
 " You — you saw her ? " continued the 
 young man, breathlessly. 
 
 "Yes, and dressed the arm. Nothing at 
 all serious ; nothing to alarm anybody. She 
 won't be able to wear short sleeves for some 
 time, and that's about the worst of it." 
 
 "Unimpressive logs these doctors are," 
 thought Lauriston, perceiving that his mar- 
 
 UNIVER5ITY Of 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY
 
 52 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 vellous Eastern lady, with all Ler romance- 
 stirring surroundings, had awakened in the 
 man of science absolutely no more interest 
 than he would have felt in a butcher who 
 had broken his leg. The only thing to be 
 noted in his quiet, intelligent countenance 
 was a deep and curious scrutiny of the face 
 of his young companion. 
 
 " You are not a friend of long standing of 
 this lady's, I understand ? " he said, after an 
 unobtrusive but careful examination. 
 
 " Oh, no ; it was by the merest accident I 
 was in the house at all. I was given that 
 address by mistake as that of one of my 
 friends. Why do you ask ? " 
 
 " It is nothing, nothing. Your manner 
 when you came to me was so strangely 
 excited — in fact, it is so still — that I could 
 not help thinking what a difference thirty 
 years make in a man's view of things." 
 
 " I was thinking something of the same 
 sort. You seem to see nothing new, interest- 
 ing, or strange in a patient who appears to me 
 to be the mysterious Eosamond in a labyrinth 
 of extraordinary circumstances."
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 53 
 
 " I admit I cannot sec anything extra- 
 ordinary in the circumstances ; moreover, I 
 marvel at the strength of an imagination 
 which is able to do so." 
 
 ** Will you tell me just what you did inside 
 that house, and just what you saw ? " 
 
 " Certainly. I was admitted, as you know, 
 by a tall dark man who, by his dress and 
 complexion, I should judge to be either an 
 Arab or a North African." 
 
 " Don't you think it strange that no at- 
 tention was paid to my first knock, and 
 that you were admitted with as many 
 precautions as a policeman in a thieves' 
 kitchen ? '' 
 
 *' That was all explained to me by the 
 young man himself, who seemed to be a very 
 intelligent fellow." 
 
 '' How ? ^ What did he say ? " 
 
 " He said that a lady wdio lodged in the 
 house with her governess and chaperon, and 
 who, he gave me to understand, was shortly 
 to become his wife " 
 
 " His wife ! " interrupted Lauriston, with a 
 rush of blood to his head.
 
 54 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 " • — had been frightened by an utter stranger 
 who had by some means got into the house, 
 and forcing himself into the presence of the 
 young lady, who was asleep during the tem- 
 porary absence of her companion, had woke 
 her, and caused her, in her alarmed attempt 
 to escape, to set on fire the thin muslin 
 wrapper she was wearing. Is not this sub- 
 stantially correct ? " asked the doctor calmly. 
 
 ^' Yes ; but " 
 
 " It seemed to me quite natural that our 
 Arabian or African friend should look upon 
 the unexpected visit as something like an 
 intrusion, especially as the stranger, on leaving 
 the house, flung the aggrieved fiance headlong 
 over the staircase of his own dwelling." 
 
 *' Fiance I How do you know he is her 
 fiance f You have only his word for it." 
 
 " It did not occur to me to ask for the 
 lady's," said the doctor drily. 
 
 " Well, but the room, the lamps and the 
 spears and the tapestries ! Her dress too ! Do 
 you have many patients dressed like 
 that ? " 
 
 Dr. Bannerman looked at him ac^ain. If
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 55 
 
 he had seen nothing to surprise him in his 
 patient, he saw much in his questioner. 
 
 " Her dress ? Let me see ; she had on a 
 white muslin wrapper with one sleeve burnt 
 off. No, I saw nothing astonishing in that. 
 Her governess, a rigidly dignified English- 
 woman, was with her." 
 
 " And the furniture of the room " 
 
 " Was the usual furniture of a back bed- 
 room in the better class of London apart- 
 ments." 
 
 " Oh." A pause. Lauriston looked half 
 relieved, half puzzled. 
 
 He did not want to think that the little 
 section of an enchanted palace, in which he 
 had passed through such a brief but exciting 
 experience of something altogether new and 
 intoxicating in life, was the mere vision that 
 his calmer reason began already to tell him 
 it must be. 
 
 " You didn't go into the front room then ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 Lauriston felt better. 
 
 '* But I could see into it, and there was 
 nothing extraordinary in it."
 
 56 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 " It was the other room," murmured 
 Lanriston. 
 
 " Well, we are at the corner of my street, 
 and I will wish you good night. We pro- 
 fessional men have to keep early hours when 
 we can." 
 
 *' Shall you call there again ? " 
 
 *' Possibly. But, if you will take an old 
 man's advice, you will not." 
 
 " You will tell me why ? " 
 
 " I will. I saw nothing of the marvellous 
 sights you appear to have witnessed, but I 
 saw something which you did not, or at least 
 not in the same way. That little black-haired 
 girl's eyes are the eyes of a woman who is 
 born to be a coquette — perhaps something 
 more ; and who can no more help looking up 
 into the eyes of every man she meets with a 
 look that draws out his soul and his senses, 
 and leaves him a mere automaton to be moved 
 by her as she pleases, than fire can help 
 burning, or the spider help spinning his 
 thread." 
 
 " I will never believe it. You may have 
 had thirty years' more experience than I ; but.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 57 
 
 by Jove, where a woman is concerned, one 
 man's fitness is as o-ood as another's. And I 
 am quite as firmly convinced that the child 
 is an innocent and good little girl as you are 
 that she is the contrary. I know it, I am sure 
 of it ; as I held her in my arms " 
 
 " Ah ! " interrupted the doctor. 
 
 " Wrapping my coat about her to 2')ut out 
 the flames," continued Lauriston hastily, " I 
 looked at her face, and was quite touched by 
 its helpless, childlike expression of innocence." 
 
 " And will it take my thirty years of extra 
 experience to teach you that to hold a woman 
 in your arms is not a judicial attitude ? " 
 
 Lauriston was silent. Emboldened by the 
 knowledofe that the doctor did not even know 
 his name, and was by no means likely to 
 meet him as^ain, he had allowed himself to 
 talk more freely than he would otherwise 
 have done to a stranger. In the ferment of 
 emotions he was in, however, the older man's 
 drily cynical tone seemed to him satanic. 
 He was by this time, therefore, quite as 
 anxious to leave the doctor, as the latter 
 could possibly be to get rid of him. He was
 
 58 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 raising his hat for a rather reserved and abrupt 
 leave-taking, when Dr. Bannerman stopped 
 him with a good-humoured touch on his arm. 
 
 "Now what have I done that you should 
 give me my dismissal like that ? JMerely told 
 you what your own good sense — for you're a 
 Scotchman I know by your accent, though it's 
 far enough from a canny Scot you've been 
 to-night — will tell you in the morning. Set 
 your affections on a blue-eyed lassie among 
 the hills, or on a prim little English miss ; she 
 may not be quite so warm to you as a little 
 southern baggage would be, but then she'll be 
 colder to other people, and that restores the 
 balance to your advantage. Now, I shall 
 probably never see you again, so we may as 
 well part good friends ; and for goodness' " 
 (the doctor said something stronger than this) 
 " for goodness' sake think over my advice. 
 It's ten times better than any physic I ever 
 prescribed." 
 
 He held out his hand, which Lauriston 
 shook warmly. 
 
 " Thank you, doctor. I'm not a Scotch- 
 man, though I was brought up among the
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 59 
 
 heather. You're right. Your prescription is 
 a very good one, and I'll take as much of the 
 dose as — as I can swallow." 
 
 And in a moment he was striding down the 
 street. 
 
 When he woke up the next morniug, 
 George Lauriston felt like a small boy who 
 has been well thrashed the night before, and 
 w^ho, sleeping soundly after an exhaustiug 
 burst of grief, can t for the life of him re- 
 member, for the first moment, the nature of 
 the load of affliction which still burdens his 
 little soul. Had he had more champagne the 
 night before than was strictly necessaiy to 
 support existence ? Or had he been plucked 
 in an exam. ? 
 
 The sight of his overcoat lying on a chair, 
 with the lining blackened and burnt, recalled 
 the adventures of tlie preceding evening. 
 But they came back to his mind in a hazy 
 sort of way, nothing very clear but that odd 
 little figure in wdiite, with the slender arms, 
 and the long black eyes, and the chains and 
 bracelets that jingled and glittered as she 
 moved. It w^as an odd incident certainly, and
 
 60 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 not the least odd part of it was the serious- 
 ness with which the old doctor had warned 
 him to have nothing more to do with the 
 mysterious lady of the sandal-wood screens 
 and skin-covered couch. Nothing was less 
 likely than that he should : in cold blood and 
 in the healthy and prosaic atmosphere of 
 mornino^, Lauriston felt not the slightest wish 
 to run possible melodramatic dangers in the 
 endeavour to see again the beautiful little 
 girl wdiose romantic surroundings had afforded 
 him an hour's excitement the night before. 
 The burn she had so unluckily sustained 
 through no fault of his, had been pronounced 
 not serious ; if he were to attempt even a civil 
 call for inquiries, he would probably be ill 
 received in the house as a person whose 
 presence had already brought more harm than 
 good. 
 
 Therefore George Lauriston, who was 
 deeply interested in a war-game which was 
 being played that day, treated the subject as 
 dismissed, not without some shame at the 
 absurd pitch of excitement to which this 
 meeting with a presumably low-bred woman
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 61 
 
 had for a short time raised him. He retained, 
 nevertheless, just sufficient interest in the little 
 episode, or perhaps just enough shyness about 
 his own share in it, to say nothing whatever 
 upon the subject to Massey or Dicky Wood, 
 neither of whom had the courage to question 
 him. The blunder — for he never suspected a 
 plot — might remain unexplained. And the 
 conspirators, not guessing what a brilliant 
 success they had had, decided that the train 
 had been laid in vain. 
 
 But accident — Lauriston was the last person 
 in the world to call it fate — threw him within 
 a fortnight again in the way of the mysterious 
 lady. He was returning one afternoon from 
 Fitzroy Square, after a call at the house of the 
 old officer whose dinner-party had indirectly 
 led to the adventure, when by pure accident 
 he found himself in Mary Street, op2)osite to 
 the very house where his mysterious intro- 
 duction had taken place. He retained a vivid 
 enouo'll recollection of all the circumstances 
 to feel a strange shock, half pleasure, half a 
 vague terror, when the red-lettered inscription 
 '' Rahas and Fanah, Oriental Merchants," with
 
 62 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 the star and crescent underneath, caught his 
 eye. He stopped involuntarily, and glanced 
 up at the windows. Nothing in the daylight 
 appearance of the house gave any indication 
 of the luxurious glories within. The blinds 
 of the two windows in which the lights had 
 shone on the evening: of his startlino; visit 
 were half drawn down, and there was no sign 
 of the carved lattice -work w^hich he remem- 
 bered so clearly. The third window on the 
 first-floor was open, and while he looked the 
 curtain — not a gorgeous hanging of bullion- 
 embroidered tapestry, but the common white 
 lace curtain of commerce — moved, and the 
 black curly head of a young girl appeared at 
 the window. It was the mysterious lady of 
 the lamps. 
 
 Althouo:h seen thus in the stroni?- afternoon 
 sunlight, apparently dressed like an ordinary 
 English girl in a silk dress that was a sort of 
 green shot with pale grey, she produced an 
 entirely different impression on him from that 
 of his first sight of her, the charm of the 
 warm-tinted skin and the glowing eyes was as 
 great for him as ever. He raised his hat, and
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. G'3 
 
 she beckoned to him with a coquettish and 
 mischievous little curve of her tiny fore-finger 
 under her chin. He felt his heart leap up, 
 and though, when she whirled round and dis- 
 appeared from the window, he tried to walk 
 on, telling himself vehemently that he should 
 be worse than a fool to yield to the magnetic 
 attraction this dark-skinned elf seemed to ex- 
 ercise upon him, he relaxed his speed, trying 
 to assure himself that it was too hot to race 
 along like a postman. But at the creaking of 
 a door in the street behind him he was obli2:ed 
 to look back, and there, peeping out like a 
 tiny enchantress in this dingy London wilder- 
 ness of dirty, screaming children, costers with 
 their barrows, the public-house loafer and the 
 cats'-meat man, stood the girl, laughing at him, 
 and invitincr him with bewitchins: eves and 
 dazzling teeth, her head bent downwards to 
 avoid the blaze of the sun, which shone full 
 on her head and on the little ivory hand 
 w^hich she held up against her dusky soft 
 black hair as a most inadequate screen. 
 
 George Lauriston hesitated. If he had fore- 
 seen in continuing this acquaintance merely a
 
 64 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 flirtation with a pretty and somewhat forward 
 girl, all his ascetic principles and resolutions 
 would have had to give way under the strong 
 admiration she had excited in him. But the 
 strange circumstances of his first meeting 
 with her which, though they had been thrust 
 into the background of his mind by the ab- 
 sorbing interest of his deep-seated ambition, 
 now again appealed to his imagination with 
 o^reat force : the advice of the old doctor, and 
 perhaps a suggestion of that sacred instinct 
 which the lower animals listen to and live by, 
 all tended to w^arn him from a danger more 
 than ephemeral, and at the same time to 
 throw over the acquaintance an extraordinary 
 glamour of romantic attraction. 
 
 The girl apparently guessed his reluctance, 
 which she w^as not without means to overcome. 
 Advancing a step further in the doorway, and 
 leaning forward so that her slight grey-and- 
 green-clad figure was visible almost to the 
 waist, she pointed to her left arm, which hung 
 in a picturesque sling of soft orange Indian 
 silk. This gesture was irresistible. He felt 
 that it justified his immediate and hasty
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 65 
 
 return. How could he excuse his boorish 
 conduct in not calling before to ask after the 
 little arm that had been injured through 
 him ? 
 
 The lady, however, was in forgiving mood. 
 She drew back into the doorway as soon as 
 she saw that her end was gained, and when 
 he reached it she was leaning against the old 
 carved oak banisters, waiting for him, all 
 smiles and laughter. 
 
 " Yes, come in," she whispered, putting her 
 finger to her lips and glancing at the inner 
 door on her right hand. 
 
 Again Lauriston thought reluctantly of the 
 Arabian Nights, and the lady kept in a cage 
 by the tyrannical genie, but it was too late to 
 retreat now, even if he could have found 
 strength to resist the spell of the dancing 
 eyes, or the dumb eloquence of the wounded 
 arm. She sprang forward as soon as he had 
 entered and shut the door softly. It was cool 
 in the bare hall after the heat of the streets. 
 The girl's dress was a simple robe of silk, with 
 lights and shades of grey changing into green, 
 made something after the fashion of the 
 VOL. I. r
 
 66 -SCHEHERAZADE I 
 
 so-called aesthetic gowns he had aforetime 
 abhorred, but falling in straight crisp folds 
 instead of clinging to her like damp rags, as 
 did the garments of crumpled South Kensing- 
 ton devotees a few years ago. 
 
 She mounted two steps and turned, holding 
 the banister-rail and leaning on it. 
 
 "I thought you would have come before," 
 she said with a first touch of shyness, looking 
 down upon her hand with a most coquettish 
 air of being quite ready to look up again if 
 she were invited to do so. 
 
 ^' I didn't dare," said Lauriston at the foot 
 of the stairs, " I was so ashamed of the 
 mischief I had done." 
 
 " You might have called to ask if I had got 
 better." 
 
 " "What would Mr. Eahas have said ? " 
 
 " Eahas ! " A great flood of crimson blood 
 mounted to her face, glowed in her cheeks, 
 and heightened the brilliancy of her eyes, 
 which flashed a liquid light of haughty indig- 
 nation from china-blue white and velvet-brow^n 
 iris. '' Eahas ! What right has he to speak ? 
 He has no claim in the world upon me ! "
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 67 
 
 Evidently the impetuous little lady and tlie 
 despised Kalias, whatever their relation to 
 each other might be, had been expressing a 
 mutual difference of opinion. The Englishman 
 watched with equal measure of admiration and 
 astonishment the rise of the sudden wave of 
 passion which seemed almost incredibly strong 
 for such a, small creature to sustain. She was 
 struck in the midst of her anger by the 
 expression of his face. 
 
 " What are you laughing at ? " 
 
 " I did not mean to laugh. I was wondering 
 to see you so angry." 
 
 The girl smiled, quite restored to good 
 humour. 
 
 " Ah, yes, they used to say that when I was 
 at school. English girls " — with a flash of 
 contempt — " can't be angry or sorry or happy 
 or anything ; they can only eat and drink and 
 sleep and wrangle and giggle." 
 
 " You are not English then ? " 
 
 " I English ! You did not think I was 
 English the other night ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 '' What did you think I was ? " 
 
 P 2
 
 68 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 '' A little fairy princess." 
 
 " But when my sleeve caught fire, and you 
 took me in your arms and put it out ; you did 
 not think I was a fairy then ? " 
 
 " No," said Lauriston, stupefied by the 
 daring of her childish coquetry. 
 
 " AVell, what did you think I was then ? " ' 
 
 " A poor little creature in danger through 
 my blundering." 
 
 " And what did you think of me when I 
 said : ' Away ; leave my presence ? ' " asked 
 she, imitating the stately tone and attitude 
 she had used. 
 
 " I thought you a very dignified young 
 lady." 
 
 "You did not think me unkind?" with 
 anxiety. 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " Oh ! " A pause. " I am very glad you 
 did not think me unkind." 
 
 She looked down for a few moments, and 
 played wdth the tiny bow at the top of her 
 injured arm's silken sling. " You see," she 
 went on earnestly, " when Eahas came up- 
 stairs he said you had flung him on one side,
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 69 
 
 aud I said you were perfectly right, and he 
 was then very disagreeable. And Mrs. Ellis, 
 my governess, came in, and they both said 
 they did not believe what you said, and you 
 would never dare to show your face here 
 again. And I said " — the girl drew herself 
 up like a queen as she repeated her own words 
 — " 'Do you think that I, the daughter of an 
 Eoglish gentleman, do not know the signs 
 by which to tell an English gentleman ? ' He 
 will come back to ask my pardon for the 
 accident, to learn if it was serious. That is 
 what I said," she continued, dropping her 
 majestic manner, " and so I have watched for 
 you ; oh, how 1 have watched for you ! You 
 see, I was anxious, for my credit's sake, that 
 you should not long delay." The last words 
 were uttered in a demure tone, an afterthought 
 evidently. 
 
 " I have been very busy," murmured Lauris- 
 ton, trying guiltily to look like a Cabinet 
 Minister on the eve of a dissolution. " I really 
 couldn't get away before." 
 
 " Of course not, or you would have come," 
 said she simply. " And I suppose you did
 
 70 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 not like to come in because you did not know 
 my people. But you will come up-stairs now 
 and know my governess, and she will see tliat 
 all I have said about you is true. Please 
 follow me. I forgot that it was discourteous 
 to keep you waiting here." 
 
 She was like a child playing a dozen dif- 
 ferent parts in half an hour. Now, with the 
 manner of a chamberlain, she led the way up- 
 stairs and ushered Lauriston into the smaller 
 sittino;-room into which on the nisfht of his 
 unexpected visit he had only peeped.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 71 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 At the table was sitting a matronly lady 
 in black, with a stodgy and inexpressive face. 
 She was writing^ letters at a neat little 
 morocco desk ; and on the entrance of her 
 pupil followed by a good-looking but perfectly 
 unknown gentleman, she drew herself up from 
 her occupation, and rubbed her nose with 
 her ivory-handled pen in evident dismay. 
 
 "Dear me !" she ejaculated softly, in tones 
 of abject consternation, " who has she picked 
 up now ? " 
 
 Before the elder lady had time to give any 
 other indication of the manner in which she 
 intended to receive the stranger, the young 
 girl flung her uninjured arm from behind 
 round the neck of her less impulsive fellow- 
 woman, and cried : 
 
 "Mammy Ellis, you see — you see I was
 
 72 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 right. This is the gentleman who saved me 
 from being burnt. He has come to say he 
 is sorry." 
 
 And with this introduction, uttered in a 
 tone of the utmost triumph, she made a step 
 back, as if she expected that a full and un- 
 interrupted view of him would remove all 
 lingering doubts as to the perfect eligibility 
 of her new acquaintance. 
 
 It was rather embarrassing certainly. For 
 the elderly lady, who had risen from her 
 chair and was taking a good look at the mid- 
 night intruder, continued to glare at him 
 with cold British stolidity, and Lauriston had 
 none of the aplomb given by a long and 
 varied course of flirtations. 
 
 "I am afraid, madam," he began humbly, 
 and with a good deal of hesitation, " that 
 you — that you will not forgive my — er — 
 my appearance here, I mean my last appear- 
 ance, in fact my first appearance." He 
 paused to gather an idea to go on with, and 
 continued his explanation more calmly, 
 taking care, with all the signs of conscious 
 guilt, to avoid the lady's stony eye. " A
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 73 
 
 comrade of mine (his name is Massey — we 
 
 are lieutenants in the same regiment, th 
 
 Hussars) gave me the address '36, Mary 
 Street, West,' as that of his brother, who is 
 an old friend of mine. He told me to go 
 right in and up to the first floor. Of course 
 I must have come to the wrong Mary Street, 
 but I knew of no other, drove straight here, 
 and carrying out my instructions, had the 
 misfortune, as you know, to intrude upon 
 this young lady, with the unhappy conse- 
 quence of waking her and causing the accident. 
 I cannot express my regret. I have been 
 ashamed to call. I would bring my friend to 
 back me up if I thought you would believe 
 him more than me. But you would not. I 
 am a gentleman, madam, an officer. I hope 
 you will believe me." 
 
 Whether the eloquence of this speech would 
 have been strong enough to melt the rigid 
 lady is unknown. But there is magic to 
 feminine ears in the word ' officer ' ; and as 
 the young fellow brought his explanation to 
 an end with much brusque fervour, she 
 softened visibly, and glanced from him to
 
 74 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 her charge in a wavering and uncertain 
 manner. 
 
 '' Well, really I don't know," she began 
 vaguely, when the girl cut her short, slipping 
 her slim hand between her guardian's plump 
 arm and matronly figure, and resting her head, 
 gently tilted back, on the lady's breast in 
 wheedling and seductive fashion. 
 
 " Yes, yes, you do know. Mammy Ellis, you 
 know your own husband was an officer — 
 you're always telling us so, and you're only 
 being dignified for fun, and you must shake 
 hands with this gentleman and thank him 
 for saving your little Nouna from having her 
 arm burnt off.'' 
 
 Thus adjured, Mrs. Ellis, still doubtfully 
 murmuring and of rather distressful visage, 
 did end by holding out a crumby hand, which 
 George Lauriston shook with reverence and 
 gratitude. He had got his cue now, and he 
 at once made respectful inquiries about the 
 husband, was fortunate enough to be able 
 to tell the widow certain details concerning 
 the regiment to which he had belonged, and 
 soon succeeded in obtaining the lady's confid-
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 75 
 
 ence to sucli an extent that she entertained 
 him with a long and minute account of the 
 late officer's distinguished though bloodless 
 services to his country, and of the niggard- 
 liness of an ungrateful government to the 
 hero's family. 
 
 George was becomingly overwhelmed with 
 indignation, though the monotony of the 
 narrator's delivery, the pleasant atmosphere 
 of the half-darkened room, the window of 
 wdiich was shaded with thick blinds, and the 
 sight of Miss Nouna stretched comfortably 
 in an American well-cushioned chair, wavinof 
 a palm-leaf lazily to keep the fiies oft, and 
 looking at him half shyly, half mischievously 
 from behind it through long black eyelashes, 
 all tended to lull him into a drowsy state, in 
 W'hich he half imagined himself to be in some 
 tropical country where passions spring up in 
 a day to a fervour never felt in foggy 
 England, w^here life fiows on without energy 
 or eft'ort, and where woman, instead of being 
 the modest partner of our joys and sorrows, 
 is the passionate, voluptuous and irresponsible 
 source of them.
 
 76 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 The apartment, though far smaller, more 
 commonplace and less gorgeous than the room 
 which he had seen on his first visit, helped 
 the illusion. Tall [^narrow glasses from floor 
 to ceiling on each side of the door, reflected 
 a long, two-tiered stand full of large-leaved 
 hothouse plants which ran the whole length 
 of the windowed-wall of the room. Half-a- 
 dozen of these plants were little orange trees, 
 their round yellow fruit giving pretty touches 
 of colour to the dark green mass, while the 
 white blossoms gave forth a faint, sweet 
 perfume. The glass over the mantelpiece 
 was draped with dark tapestry curtains, 
 caught up here and there on each side by 
 palm-leaf and peacock fans, of the kind with 
 which a freak of fashion has lately made us 
 all familiar. The curtains came down to the 
 ground, while the deep valance which hung 
 from the mantelpiece over the empty fireplace 
 was caught up in the middle by a bronze 
 statuette of a Hindoo girl, whose right arm 
 held high above her head a shaded lamp. A 
 pair of black Persian kittens were curled up 
 asleep on a cushion at the feet of the
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 77 
 
 statue. A harp stood in one corner, and a 
 guitar lay on a chair. Tlie rest of the room 
 did not harmonise with these fantastic ar- 
 rangements. The best had been done to 
 conceal a bilious * high art' carpet by means 
 of handsome rugs, and the table was beauti- 
 fied by an embroidered cover ; but the chairs 
 and side-board breathed forth legends of no 
 more interesting locality than the Tottenham 
 Court Koad, and the walls were made hideous 
 by an obtrusive and yet melancholy paper. 
 
 George Lauriston noted all these things, 
 and his curiosity about this queer little house- 
 hold grew more intense. Who was this 
 fascinating young girl Why was she living 
 in this dingy corner of London with the 
 garrulous middle-aged lady who must evi- 
 dently find her impulsive charge ' a hand- 
 ful ' ? The buzz of Mrs. Ellis's tedious 
 monolosrue be^an at last to madden him, and 
 he followed the young girl with eager eyes as 
 she slid off her chair and rang the bell. 
 
 '' I'm thirsty, Mammy Ellis," she explained. 
 Then, tired of silence, she swooped down upon 
 the table, thrust the pen her governess had
 
 78 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 been using again into the astonished lady's 
 hand and said, coaxingly but imperatively : 
 " Write — write to mamma. This gentleman 
 does not wish to interrupt you. I will enter- 
 tain him. Tell her what you think of him. 
 And then I will read the letter, and see if it 
 may go." 
 
 Mrs. Ellis laughed gently, and obeyed with 
 a protest. Evidently that was the usual order 
 of things between them. Nouna improvised 
 herself a low seat beside the plants by piling 
 on the floor the cushions from her American 
 chair, then she crossed her hands round one 
 knee, and looked up at Lauriston. 
 
 " You have not told us your name," said 
 she diffidently. 
 
 " Nouna," protested the lady from the 
 table. 
 
 " Don't you want to tell us your name ? " 
 " Certainly. George Lauriston." 
 " That is a pretty name. Mine is Nouna." 
 *' Nouna ! That is not an English name." 
 *' Of course not. It is an Indian name. Do 
 you like Indians ? " 
 
 " I have only known one West Indian lady."
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 79 
 
 " IFcst Indian ! That is not Indian at all. 
 I come from the land of the Eajahs. My 
 grandmother was a Maharanee. She was the 
 most beautiful woman in all India, and she 
 wore chains of diamonds round her neck that 
 flashed and sparkled like a thousand suns, and 
 she lived in a marble palace that was called 
 the Palace of Palms, where the floors glittered 
 with gold, and soft music came like wind 
 through the halls, and a great tall tower with 
 a minaret and a spire rose up into the sky 
 over the room where she slept, to tell all the 
 world that there w^as the sj)ot where the Lady 
 of the Seven Stars was resting. And she had 
 a thousand slaves who knelt and bowed them- 
 selves to the earth when she spoke to them, 
 and her palanquin was all of ebony-w^ood 
 inlaid with pearl, and it was hung with silver 
 fringe, and the inside was satin, the colour of 
 the opening roses ; and she travelled on an 
 elephant whose trappings were of gold. Ah, 
 that is the beautiful land ; where the sun is 
 scorching hot on the fields, and shines bright 
 and glorious, and throws golden darts through 
 the chinks of the blinds. And yet there the
 
 80 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 ladies of high rank — like my grandmother and 
 my mother and I — lie still and cool in their 
 apartments, or step down soft-footed into 
 their marble baths where no hot glare can 
 reach them, only the sense that it is warm 
 and bright outside. Oh, that is the place to 
 live in, to be happy in. How could my 
 mother leave it to come to a land like this 1 " 
 
 She had worked herself up as she sang 
 the praises of her own country to a pitch of 
 glowing excitement, which changed suddenly 
 to an almost heartbroken wail with her last 
 words. Mrs. Ellis looked up from the table 
 reprovingly. 
 
 " You forget, Nouna, that India is a heathen 
 country, and that your grandmother probably 
 never had the chance of seeing so much as a 
 single missionary, and seems to have been 
 very ignorant of her higher duties.'' 
 
 " There are no duties out there," sighed 
 Nouna, with a most plaintive look into the 
 dream-distance from her black eyes ; " at least 
 for the high-caste women. You have only to 
 live, and love, and grow old, and die, and 
 nothing to learn but what you breathe in from
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 81 
 
 the flowers and the sweet scents, and love- 
 songs to please your lord the prince." 
 
 Mrs. Ellis looked scandalised. 
 
 "Dear me, Nouna," she bleated out nerv- 
 ously, " you really don't know what you are 
 talking about. You never talked like this 
 before. I don't know what Mr. Lauriston 
 will think ! " 
 
 Mr. Lauriston thought the look of passion- 
 ate yearning in the young eyes inexpressibly 
 fascinating, but he did not say so, merely 
 murmurino; somethinor about the allowance to 
 be made for a tropical temperament. And, 
 Nouna being reduced by the interruption to a 
 silent trance of regret, the conversation be- 
 came an intermittent duologue between the 
 other two until tea was brought in. The 
 manner in which this was served clispla3^ed 
 the same inconsistencies as the furniture of 
 the room. Sundran, Nouna's ayah, in her 
 native dress, placed upon the table an or- 
 dinary black and battered tray, on which 
 stood a chased silver-gilt tea-service of quaint 
 design, cups, saucers, and plates of a common 
 English pattern, and tiny silver-gilt tea-spoons 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 82 SCHEHEEAZADE : 
 
 with heort-sliaped bowls and delicately enam- 
 elled dark-blue handles. A great water-melon 
 lay among vine-leaves in a shallow silver dish. 
 
 Mrs. Ellis laid aside her writing materials 
 and poured out the tea, but she could not 
 forget the young girl's alarming outburst. 
 
 " I'm sure, Nouna, I don't know what the 
 Countess would say if she could hear you, so 
 very particular as she is about your religious 
 education. I am afraid I have given way to 
 you too much ; I ought never to have let Mr. 
 Eahas fit up that room for you ; it fills your 
 head with all sorts of heathen notions, not fit 
 for a Christian young English lady." 
 
 " Mamma always lets me have my Indian 
 things about me, and sends me Indian dresses, 
 and she said herself I might have just one 
 room without the horrid stiff European chairs 
 and tables," said Nouna, her voice taking a 
 particularly sweet and tender inflection at the 
 word " Mamma." " But I'm going to give it 
 up ; I've told Mr. Eahas I don't want it, and 
 I've pulled down half the things. I will not 
 accept gifts from one I despise." 
 
 Springing in a moment from languor into
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 83 
 
 life, she put her cup down on the table and 
 went to the door. 
 
 " Come and see what I have done," said 
 she, beckoning to the young Englishman, her 
 eyes dancing with mischief. 
 
 " Really, Nouna, I must say you are very 
 ungrateful," said Mrs. Ellis in despairing tones. 
 "Mr. Rahas is always most considerate and 
 gentlemanly, and when you said, you longed 
 for an Indian room he put it so prettily, 
 asking whether he might fit up one large 
 sitting-room as a show-room for his things ; 
 and then never showing anybody up into it ! 
 I really think you ought " 
 
 But Nouna had flown out of the room, and 
 she was haranguing only Lauriston, who had 
 risen obediently at the young girl's imperious 
 gesture, but did not like to leave the elder 
 lady alone so unceremoniously. 
 
 " She is a wilful little thing," he said 
 smilino;. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Lauriston, what we English 
 people call wilfulness is lamb-like docility 
 compared to that girl's ! She's like an eel, 
 like quicksilver, like a will-o'-the-wisp." 
 
 G 2
 
 84 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 '' Or a sunbeam," suggested he. 
 "Ah, of course, you're a young man, you 
 think her charmmg ; and so, I believe, at the 
 bottom of my heart, do I. But give me a 
 good, sensible, solid, matter-of-fact English 
 girl to look after, rather than this creature 
 who is shaking with passion at one moment, 
 flashing her teeth, stamping her foot ; and the 
 next suffocating you, and crushing up your 
 bonnet with kisses. As if kisses could cure 
 the headaches her wild fits give me, or as if 
 you could squeeze resentment out of a person, 
 as you do water out of a sponge ! " 
 
 " Has she been in your charge long ? " 
 '' Ever since she left school, six months 
 ago," said Mrs. Ellis with a sigh. ".Her 
 mother, one of the kindest and most charm- 
 ing women I have ever met, with all the 
 high-bred ease that nothing will give to 
 Nouna, wished her to have finishing lessons 
 in music and dancino^ and lang^uages in 
 London. Music ! " ejaculated the poor lady 
 in a contemptuous manner. "Nothing would 
 ever induce her to learn the piano, as every 
 well-educated English girl should do. At
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 85 
 
 school, after her first lesson, she crept down- 
 stairs at night, and undid all the strings of 
 the instrument ; so that had to be given up. 
 I believe she wanted to learn the tom-tom, 
 or some hideous Indian thing with jam-pot 
 covers at each end, and they had to com- 
 promise by teaching her the harp and the 
 guitar. Then languages ! They only managed 
 to get her to study French by telling her it 
 was one of the dialects of India. As to 
 dancing, that came to her like magic, from 
 a waltz to a kind of wild dance of her own, 
 more like the leaps and bounds of a young 
 animal than the decorous movements of a 
 young lady ! I dare not think what the 
 Countess would say if she could see her." 
 
 " Why doesn't she live with her mother, 
 then, who would surely have more influence 
 over her than any one ? " 
 
 '' You must not blame the Countess," said 
 Mrs. Ellis, as if he had been guilty of blas- 
 phemy. " A more loving mother never lived. 
 You should read the beautiful letters she 
 writes to her daughter. But she has married 
 again ; and her husband, the Conde di Val-
 
 86 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 destillas, a Spanisli nobleman much older than 
 herself, is a great invalid, and she is obliged 
 to travel about with him wherever he fancies 
 to go." 
 
 *'But surely the daughter ought to be con- 
 sidered as well as the husband." 
 
 *' The Countess feels that ; and next year, 
 when her daughter's education will be finished, 
 she intends settling down either in London or 
 in Paris, and introducing the young lady to 
 the world. If I can only keep the girl out of 
 serious mischief so long," sighed the lady, who 
 seemed delighted to have a confidant ; " but 
 really it is too trying. The first thing we do 
 after we have left the school (I was a boarder 
 there, and as Nouna had taken a fancy to me, 
 the Countess requested me to undertake the 
 duties of chapemn) and come to London to 
 look for apartments, is to pass this house on 
 the way from Paddington to the Countess's 
 lawyers, from whom I draw my salary and 
 Nouna's allowance. There is a card — 'Apart- 
 ments, furnished ' — in one of the first-floor 
 windows. Nouna catches sight of the Oriental 
 names on the board outside, sees Indian lamps
 
 A LOXDOX night's ENTERTAINMENT. 87 
 
 in the windows down-stairs, and nothing will 
 satisfy her but to come back to this house and 
 settle here. Then, of course, the younger 
 gentleman, Mr. Ralias, falls in love with her 
 and " 
 
 At this point Mrs. Ellis was interrupted by 
 the Einging open of the door, and Nouna re- 
 appeared, her face distorted with anger, and 
 her eyes flashing with contempt : like an en- 
 raged empress she held open the door, keeping 
 her head at a very haughty angle, and dis- 
 daining: to look at the visitor. 
 
 " I know^ that nothing I can show my guest 
 can have any interest for him," she said icily ; 
 "but yet I think it would have been more 
 courteous to me to disguise that fact." 
 
 She made one step towards her American 
 chair, when Lauriston, with an amused glance 
 at Mrs. Ellis which he might well suppose to 
 be unseen, hastened to the door, and held it 
 open for her with a bow. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said he humbly, '' I 
 am very much interested in whatever you like 
 to show me. But you left the room so sud- 
 denly that, before a clumsy man could hope
 
 88 SCHEHEEAZADE I 
 
 to get up to you, you disappeared like a wave 
 of the sea. 
 
 She looked up at him with a very intelli- 
 gent and searching expression, and was suffi- 
 ciently mollified to lead the way out, turning 
 sharply just in time to catch an exchange 
 of glances, amused on the one side, apologetic 
 on the other, between the visitor and her 
 guardian. 
 
 She affected not to notice this, however, but 
 opened the door of the next room without 
 speaking, lifted the heavy curtain, ushered 
 him in, and then shut the door and drew 
 the hanging close. Lauriston looked about 
 him in astonishment. The thick blinds, 
 which w^ere plain canvas on the outer, and 
 rose-colour and gold puckered silk on the 
 inner side, were drawn down, and made the 
 room very dark, except for the chinks of 
 sun-light that crept in at the sides. But 
 there was quite enough light left to show 
 what a wreck had been made of the luxurious 
 beauty of the apartment since the night when 
 it had burst on his eyes like a vision of fairy- 
 land. The silk and muslin hangings had been
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTEETATNMENT. 89 
 
 half torn from the walls, showing the ugly 
 paper underneath ; the spears and weapons 
 had been tossed down on the crround as if 
 they were so much firewood ; the sandalwood 
 screen had been folded and pushed into a 
 corner ; while of the smaller ornaments — 
 cushions, daggers, Moorish table — a great pile 
 had been made in the middle of the floor, 
 and covered up with the tiger skins turned 
 inside out. Nothing but the plants was re- 
 spected ; she had not had the heart to hurt 
 them. Lauriston could scarcely help laugh- 
 ing ; but when he glanced at the girl, and 
 saw that she was standing; ag^ainst the dis- 
 mantled wall, leaning back with an expression 
 of as much triumph as if she had sacked a 
 city, he felt really rather shocked, and clear- 
 ing his throat he shook his head at her 
 gravely. 
 
 "I did it all," she said, nodding proudly 
 and glancing round, as if anxious that no 
 detail of the noble work should escape him. 
 " Eahas said that Englishmen were cads, that 
 you were a cad, and so I pulled the things 
 down. Yes, I saw you and Mrs. Ellis laugh-
 
 90 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 ing at each other, as if I were a silly little 
 thing, and couldn't do anything ; but you 
 see I can." 
 
 It was harder than ever not either to burst 
 out laughing, or to catch her and kiss her like 
 a spoilt child ; but Lauriston resisted both 
 temptations, and said seriously : 
 
 '' I think it was very silly and very un- 
 grateful of you." 
 
 She brought her head down to a less 
 aggressive angle, and stared at him in sur- 
 prise. He cpite expected another outburst 
 of anger, but none came. She only said 
 " Oh ! " reflectively in a soft undertone. 
 
 " He has been very kind to you, has he 
 not, this Kahas ? " 
 
 " Ye — es, he has been kind," slowly, 
 thoughtfully, and reluctantly. ''He wants" 
 — she laughed shyly — " to marry me ! " 
 
 '' Oh ! " Lauriston was disconcerted. A 
 sudden flash of jealousy, acute and unmis- 
 takeable, flamed up in his heart at the 
 intelligence, communicated with this pro- 
 voking coquetry. '' You are going to marry 
 him then 1 " he said rashly, on the impulse
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 91 
 
 of the moment, unable to hide from her 
 sharp eyes an expression of pique. 
 
 By quite impalpable changes of tone and 
 attitude, she grew upon the instant a hundred 
 times more seductive, more bewitching. 
 
 " Marry him ! " She moved her hand to 
 her head languidly. "I don't know. One 
 ought to marry the person one loves best — in 
 Eno'land, ouo-ht one not ? " 
 
 '' Certainly," assented Lauriston, w^ondering 
 at the power this mere child possessed of mov- 
 ing him, an altogether unsusceptible mortal 
 as he flattered himself, to impulses of passion. 
 
 " Then I must wait a little longer and be 
 sure," she said, twisting her head upon her 
 neck with the daring, instinctive coquetry of 
 a girl of five. 
 
 " You would rather have a — a — an Oriental 
 like this Eahas, wouldn't you ? " he said in a 
 low^ voice, his tone bearing more meaning than 
 he wished. 
 
 *' I don't know," she said, and stooping, she 
 picked up a string of beads from among the 
 debris on the floor. 
 
 He had come a step nearer to her, and as
 
 92 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 she stooped, by accident or design — witli such 
 a coquette one could not say which — she 
 stumbled upon a rug and fell forward against 
 him. He seized her with a gasp, and held 
 her as she looked up with a laughing, pro- 
 voking, irresistible face. She felt him shiver 
 as he withdrew from her with such suddenness 
 that she, leaning upon his arm, almost staggered. 
 
 " What is the matter "? " she asked, as he 
 drew^ out his w^atch with fingers so unsteady 
 that he detached the chain. 
 
 '' I — I beg your pardon," he stammered, 
 " but I have a most desperately important 
 appointment with — with my colonel, in fact, 
 which I shall miss if I don't fly in the most 
 unceremonious manner." 
 
 Her face changed. A glow, not of anger, 
 but of passionate disappointment, flushed her 
 face, and the hot tears welled up into her 
 eyes. Lauriston grew very hot, and, all in a 
 fever of excitement, wondered at this. 
 
 " When will you come again ? " she asked 
 breathlessly, raising her beautiful face with 
 parted red lips. " You will not come again. 
 Ah, I know you, you cold Englishman, you
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 93 
 
 will forget me, forget the poor little girl whom 
 you saw in flames. Oh, no ; you must not ! " 
 With another passionate change, her face grew 
 tender and caressing, as she cooed out the 
 pleading words like music to his unwilling 
 ears. " Promise you will come again within 
 a week. No, no, a promise won't do," as 
 Lauriston, glad to be let off so easily, opened 
 his mouth. " Swear, swear that you will 
 come here again — within a week." 
 " But " 
 
 " You shall not go till you have sworn." 
 
 The little tigress, with one spring towards 
 the door, locked it, and drew out the key ; with 
 another, she had reached the nearest window. 
 
 " No, no, don't. I swear ! " cried Lauriston, 
 who saw with stupefaction that she had raised 
 the blind, and was about to throw the key 
 from the open window. 
 
 She turned round, tossed the key into the 
 air, and caught it in her hand with a laugh of 
 triumph. 
 
 "Now," she said, "I know you must come. 
 For an English gentleman always keeps his 
 word.'^
 
 94 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 She raised the curtain before the door, and 
 put tlie key in the lock; before she turned 
 it she twisted herself back towards the young 
 fellow, and said : 
 
 '' Kiss me ! " 
 
 He could not hesitate. If she would flirt 
 it w^as not his fault. He put his arm round 
 the lithe bending waist, and pressed a passion- 
 ate kiss on her red lips. 
 
 '' Now I know you will come again," she 
 whispered as she let him out. 
 
 When Lauriston had taken a decorous leave 
 of the innocent guardian in the next room, 
 and found himself once more in the street, 
 he w\as inclined to think that he had changed 
 his identity. Some new power, horrible in 
 its strength, seemed to have fastened upon 
 him, and to twist and turn him like an osier. 
 He walked on quickly and firmly, trying to 
 recall his old, calmer self. 
 
 " I will keep my oath and go there again," 
 he said to himself with clenched teeth. " But 
 by all I hold sacred, I won't see that demon- 
 girl again. Heaven help the man who may 
 ever trust his happiness in her hands ! "
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 95 
 
 CHAPTER y. 
 
 It was not so easy, after this second inter- 
 view with the mysterious lady of Mary Street, 
 for George Lauriston to keep the image of the 
 little black- eyed enchantress out of his mind. 
 Her prompt and passionate advances to him- 
 self raised strong doubts as to the result of 
 the education which Mrs. Ellis declared to 
 have been so careful, while on the other hand, 
 against his better judgment, he would fain 
 have believed that it was the romantic cir- 
 cumstances of their strangely made acquaint- 
 ance which had broken down, for the first 
 time, the maidenly reserve of the passionate 
 and wayward girl. In spite of himself, a 
 small slim, supple form, dark sun- warm com- 
 plexion, April changing moods, kisses from 
 fresh young lips that clung to your own with 
 frank, passionate enjoyment, had all become 
 attributes of his ideal of womanhood. It came
 
 96 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 upon him with a shock therefore, when, a few 
 days later, he suddenly discovered that he 
 was expected to find his ideal in a lady who 
 was destitute of any one of them. 
 
 It came about in this w^ay. Chief among 
 the houses where George Lauriston was always 
 sure of a welcome was the tow^n establishment 
 of Sir Henry Millard, Lady Florencecourt's 
 brother, an uninteresting and rather incapable 
 gentleman who had raised himself from poverty 
 and obscurity by marrying, or rather letting 
 himself be married by, an American heiress 
 wdio was the possessor of a quite incalculable 
 number of dollars. They had three daughters, 
 Cicely, Charlotte, and Ella, all of whom would 
 be well dowered, and who w^ere therefore sur- 
 feited with attentions which custom had taught 
 them to rate at their proper value. Lady 
 Millard was a lean, restless, bright-eyed little 
 woman, who had acquired some repose of 
 manner only by putting the strongest con- 
 straint upon herself, and wdio was consumed 
 by an ardent ambition to be the mother-in-law 
 of an English duke. Sir Henry's w^hole soul 
 was bound up in a model farm in Norfolk,
 
 A LOXDOX night's ENTERTAINMENT. 97 
 
 which his wife's fortune enaLled him to mis- 
 manage with impunity. He had never got 
 over his intense diso-ust with his dauo^hters 
 for not being sons, and he left them and the 
 disposal of them entirely in the hands of his 
 wife and of their uncle Lord Florencecourt, 
 who, having no daughters of his own, took an 
 almost paternal interest in his nieces. 
 
 Lord Florencecourt had made up his mind 
 that a marriage between his favourite, George 
 Lauriston, and one of his nieces would be an 
 admirable arrangement, giving to the young 
 officer the money which would do so much to 
 forward his advancement in the world, and to 
 one of the girls an honourable, manly husband, 
 who might some day do great things. The 
 match would, besides, strengthen the bonds of 
 mutual friendship and liking between himself 
 and the young man. 
 
 It was one evening, when the two men were 
 driving in a hansom to dine at Sir Henry's, 
 that the elder broached the subject in his 
 usual harsh, abrupt tone, but with a generous 
 fire in his eyes, which showed the depth and 
 the quality of his interest in the matter. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 Laiiriston, taken by surprise, betrayed a 
 reluctance, almost a repugnance, to the idea, 
 which filled the elder man with anger and 
 disappointment. 
 
 " I see," said he, with a short, dry laugh. 
 *' You have picked up with some pretty chorus- 
 girl, and are not ready for matrimony." 
 
 " You are mistaken, Colonel, I assure you. 
 I have picked up nobody. But it is hardly 
 surprising if your constant jibes at love and 
 matrimony should have taken root in me, w^ho 
 honour your opinions so much." 
 
 He spoke somewhat stiffly, because he had 
 to choose his words, feeling rather guilty. 
 Lord Florencecourt broke in brusquely : 
 
 " All d d nonsense ! Jibes at love only 
 
 take root in a young man to grow into 
 intrigues. There's an end of the matter ; 
 don't refer to it again." 
 
 They were at their destination. Lord 
 Florencecourt sprang from the hansom j5rst, 
 out of temper for the evening ; Lauriston 
 followed very soberly. 
 
 Sir Henry's town house was one of the big 
 mansions of Grosvenor Square. It had a
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 99 
 
 larsre dome -like arcli over the entrance, and 
 was painted a violent staring white, which 
 made the smoke-begrimed houses on either 
 side, with their rusty iron lamp-frames and 
 antiquated extinguishers, quite a refreshing 
 sight. The interior was furnished handsomely, 
 in the prevailing upholsterer's taste, without 
 any distinguishing features ; for Lady Millard, 
 though she still cherished certain luxurious 
 and unconventional notions which in her 
 native country she would have indulged, was 
 too much bound down by the prejudices of 
 her present rank, to dare to infringe ever so 
 little on the rules which governed the rest of 
 her order. So that while she inwardly knew 
 an indiarubber plant by itself in a bilious or 
 livid earthenware vase to be an abomination, 
 she had an indiarubber plant in a bilious 
 yellow vase in front of her middle dining- 
 room window, because the Countess of Eedscar 
 had one in a livid blue vase in hers. And in 
 spite of her feeling that to strew a litter of 
 natural flowers over a dinner- table, to fade 
 and wither before one's eyes in the heated air, 
 
 is stupid, inconvenient, and ugly, she yielded 
 
 n 2
 
 100 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 to that, as slie did to every passing fasliion set 
 by her higher-born neighbours. 
 
 She followed a more sensible Eno;lish 
 fashion in havino; two most beautiful crirls 
 among her children. Cicely and Charlotte, 
 the two eldest, were tall, fair as lilies, limpid- 
 eyed, small-mouthed, innocent, sweet, and 
 rather silly. Dressed as they were on this 
 evening in white muslin dresses, wiiich looked 
 to masculine eyes as if they might have been 
 made by the wearers themselves, though they 
 were in reality a triumph of a Bond Street 
 milliner, they made the dull minutes before 
 dinner interesting by their mere physical 
 loveliness. Unfortunately for her, fortunately 
 perhaps for them, the youngest of the three 
 girls was a foil, not an addition to the family 
 beauty. Small, sallow, and plain, Ella MiJlard 
 did not attempt to make up for her deficiency 
 in good looks by any special attraction of 
 manner. To most people she seemed shy, 
 abrupt, and almost repellent ; such a contrast, 
 as everybody said, to her charming and 
 amiable sisters. But with the minority for 
 whom fools, however beautiful, have no
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 101 
 
 charm, Ella was the favourite ; and George 
 Lauriston, an habitue of the house, had got 
 into the habit of making straight for the 
 chair by her side at every opportunity, with 
 the distinct conviction that she was an 
 awfully nice girl. 
 
 On this occasion he took in to dinner the 
 second sister, Charlotte, and he found that 
 her placid, amiable face and wearisome gabble 
 about the Opera, the Academy, and Marion 
 Crawford's new novel — (Charlotte prided her- 
 self on having plenty to say) — irritated him 
 to a deo^ree he had never before thouofht him- 
 self capable of reaching. 
 
 When the gentlemen entered the drawing- 
 room after dinner, George Lauriston, seeing 
 Ella in a corner by herself, made at once for 
 the seat by her side. She made way for him 
 almost without looking up, as if she had ex- 
 pected him. 
 
 " How cross you looked at dinner," she 
 said ; "I was glad you took Charlotte in and 
 not me." 
 
 '*No, you were not. If I had taken you 
 I should not have been cross."
 
 102 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 "That is quite true. Charlotte is sweet- 
 tempered and will put up with a man's 
 moods; I should have turned my back upon 
 you and let you sulk.'' 
 
 " Yes ; you are a hard, disagreeable 
 creature." 
 
 "But such a relief after my poor Charlotte. 
 Now tell me what is the matter with you." 
 
 "Nothing except ill-temper. At least — to 
 say the truth, I hardly can tell you." 
 
 "Nonsense. You can tell me anything, 
 after the stream of nonsense I have heard 
 at different times from you." 
 
 "But this isn't nonsense. Lord Florence- 
 court wants me to marry one of your sisters." 
 
 " Well, I dare say you could get one of 
 them to have you, if I backed you up. You 
 see I am so out of the running that they 
 think a good deal of my advice." 
 
 " Don't tease. He really has set his heart 
 upon it." 
 
 "And pray, my lord commander-in-chief, 
 don't you think you might do much worse ? 
 They are both as pretty as peaches, perfectly 
 sweet and good, and either would worship you
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 103 
 
 meekly and mildly as a god and a hero ; 
 besides which they have other and more 
 substantial advantages, and you would have 
 the satisfaction of cutting out many better 
 men." 
 
 ''You are very cheeky this evening." 
 
 "Do you know I used to think you rather 
 admired Charlotte ? " 
 
 " Admired her ! How can one help admiring 
 them both ? Only they are such a perfect 
 match that one couldn't love, honour, and 
 obey — that's it, isn't it ? — the one without 
 loving, honouring, and obeying the other." 
 
 " That's an evasion," said Ella, piercing 
 him with her brown, bead-like eyes. She 
 continued to look at him fixedly while she 
 counted slowly on her fingers. " One — two 
 — three — three weeks ago you were not in 
 the same mind." 
 
 Lauriston started and grew red, and the 
 brown eyes twinkled. 
 
 "Three weeks ago, if my uncle had made 
 you this suggestion, you would have taken 
 it differently." 
 
 " What do you mean ? "
 
 104 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 " That something has happened in the 
 mean time to divert your admiration into 
 another channel. Oh, I know. I am not 
 a ' silent member ' for nothing ; when I am 
 called upon to give my vote, my mind is a 
 good deal clearer on the subject in hand than 
 those of the active debaters.'^ 
 
 *'Well, supposing I told you I wanted to 
 marry you ? " 
 
 " You would not dare to come to me with 
 such a story." 
 
 " Why not ? You like me ; you have 
 always shown it. You are nicer to me than 
 you are to almost anybody." 
 
 " I like you certainly, though I think at 
 present you're rather a prig ; but perhaps 
 that is only because it is a case of sour 
 grapes." 
 
 *' Sour grapes ! " 
 
 "Yes. For if I had been handsome I 
 would have married you ; I like you enough 
 for that." 
 
 " Then why in heaven's name won't you 
 marry me ? " asked Lauriston, much excited. 
 
 " Simply because you would take me to
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 105 
 
 avoid something worse ; and that I have no 
 attractions strong enough to keep you if the 
 * something worse' should try to get hold of 
 you again." 
 
 Lauriston was amazed and shocked at this 
 penetration on the part of a young girl. He 
 gave her a shy look out of the corners of his 
 eyes, and leaned forward on his knees, his 
 handsome brown head bent, playing with his 
 moustache with moist, nervous fingers. She 
 laughed as she looked at him, with a sound in 
 her voice which struck him, though he could 
 not quite make up his mind whether it was 
 tender or bitter. 
 
 " I have some astonishing notions for a girl, 
 haven't IV she said quietly. " But after all 
 it is not so very surprising if you will consider 
 the facts a little. Here am I, a girl too plain, 
 too unattractive to be worshipped like my 
 sisters, too proud to be married for the only 
 attraction I share with them, and not at all 
 inclined to do homage to a sex that prefers a 
 beautiful wax dolly to — well, to a faithful and 
 intellio^ent dog-" There was no mistakino; the 
 bitterness of her tone now, while the half
 
 106 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 resentful, half plaintive expression of her eyes 
 made her face at least interesting. ''So I 
 have had to carve out a life for myself, with 
 peculiar pleasures and peculiar interests. I 
 read and I study to an extent which would 
 almost disgust you perhaps ; and I watch, and 
 listen, and think until I know as much of life 
 and of the people I meet as Charlotte and 
 Cicely know of their ' points ' and the colours 
 which suit their complexions." 
 
 " I shall begin to be afraid of you," said 
 George. 
 
 "Why?" asked Ella, folding her hands and 
 sitting up stiff and straight as a school-teacher. 
 There was d. jardiniere full of pretty flowering 
 plants near the ottoman on which they were 
 sitting. Charlotte or Cicely would have 
 taken the op]3ortunity to lean forward and 
 play with or gather some of the blossoms, 
 to show off their figure and the pretty curves 
 of their wrists. But Ella, when she chose 
 to talk, always became too much interested 
 in her subject to have thought for petty 
 coquetries, and so she sat, with the calm 
 intent face of a judge, prepared to give an
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 107 
 
 impartial, yet kindly, hearing to George's 
 answer. 
 
 " Because you are so clever." 
 
 ''And so are you. But even if you were 
 not, you would have no need to be afraid of 
 me. It would be as reasonable of me to be 
 afraid of you, because I know that if you liked 
 you are strong enough to kill me with one 
 blow of your fist, as for you to think I would 
 use my wits to do you harm. One does not 
 turn one's streno-th ag:ainst one's friends." 
 
 " That is true," said George, touched by 
 the girl's tone. " Ella, why won't you marry 
 me ? Only two women in all my life have 
 ever woke any strong feeling in me : until 
 this evening I could have said ' only one ' — 
 a little wild girl whose influence I dread, 
 though I have only met her twice. You will 
 think me a weak fool, perhaps, but a woman, 
 however clever she may be, cannot in. such 
 a case judge a man. There are influences at 
 work in a man's coarser nature that no sweet 
 and innocent girl could understand. To-night 
 you have given me the first glimpse I have 
 ever been able to catch into the depths of
 
 108 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 your warm heart and your noble mind ; I see 
 in you the type of all that is best in women ; 
 and I know that if you would have me all 
 that is best in me would grow and expand 
 until I might in time be worthy of the affec- 
 tion of a good woman. Ella, will you try 
 me?" 
 
 The girl was looking away from him, still 
 sitting very upright, and drinking in his 
 words with an intent expression on her face. 
 At last she turned her head slowly, and her 
 eyes, mournful and earnest, gazed full into 
 those of the young man, who had poured out 
 his appeal with passionate excitement, and 
 now sat, flushed and eager, awaiting her 
 answer. 
 
 " Can you wait for my reply till to- 
 morrow ? " she asked, with a curiously search- 
 ing expression. 
 
 *' Why to-morrow ? AVhat w^ould you know 
 to-morrow that you don't know to-night ? " 
 
 " You are going to see the girl to-night ! ' 
 said Ella, with a sudden inspiration. 
 
 " If you will not have me — yes. It is a 
 promise. If you, now that you know every-
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 109 
 
 tiling, will take me, I hold myself absolved 
 from a promise to another woman, and before 
 Heaven I swear that you will have nothing 
 more to fear : I will never see her aofain. 
 Only a woman can drive another woman out 
 of a man's head. Ella, no one has ever crept 
 so near to my heart as you. Will you come 
 right in ? " 
 
 If she had not cared for him so much, she 
 would have said yes. But the tenderness she 
 had long secretly felt, without owning it to 
 herself, for the handsome young officer, made 
 her timid. If she were to marry him, she, 
 with the fierce depths of unsuspected passion 
 she felt stirring at her heart, would adore him, 
 would be at his mercy, bereft of the shield of 
 sarcasm and reserve with which she could hide 
 her weakness now. She knew that the feeling 
 which brought him to her was not so strons: 
 as, though it was probably better than, that 
 which impelled him away. She dared not risk 
 so much on a single stroke. Yearning, doubt, 
 fear, resolution, all passed so quickly through 
 her mind that she had kept him waiting for 
 his reply very few moments when she rose,
 
 110 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 and with a face as still and set as if she had 
 not for a moment wavered, she said : 
 
 *^ I can give you no answer now. If you 
 are in the same mind a month hence, ask me 
 again." 
 
 George gave a hard laugh as he too rose. 
 
 *' It will be too late," he said coldly. " But 
 I thank you for hearing me. Good night." 
 
 He shook hands with her in a mechanical 
 manner, not even noticing in his agitation the 
 nervous pressure of her fingers. If he had 
 looked again in her face he would have seen 
 that she relented ; as it was, he was at the 
 other end of the room taking leave of her 
 father and mother before she had time to 
 realise the decisiveness of the step she had 
 taken. Scourging herself with reproaches, 
 remorseful, miserable, Ella Millard got little 
 sleep that night. 
 
 George Lauriston had hardly got half-a- 
 dozen yards from the house when he heard 
 Lord Florencecourt's short, youthful step be- 
 hind him, and a moment later the Colonel had 
 slipped his arm through his, with a friend- 
 liness he showed to no one but his favourite.
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTEETAINMENT. Ill 
 
 " Well, George, which of the two is it ? " he 
 asked in a much more genial tone than usual. 
 
 " Which of the two ! " repeated Lauriston 
 vaguely. 
 
 "Yes, yes, you were talking to the sister 
 all the evening ; now there is only one subject 
 which makes a young man so utterly oblivious 
 of everything else. Come, you can confess 
 to me ; which of her two sisters were you 
 trying to get her influence with ? " 
 
 " I was trying to get her influence with 
 Ella Millard." 
 
 The Colonel stopped, pulled the young man 
 face to face with him by a sharp wrench of 
 the arm, and looked up into his face with his 
 most steely expression. 
 
 " Are you serious ? " he asked in a grating 
 voice. 
 
 " Most serious, I assure you, sir." 
 
 "You asked that yellow-skinned, swarthy 
 little girl to marry you ? " 
 
 " I think. Colonel, the most important thing 
 about a wdfe is not the colour of her skin." 
 
 "There you're wrong, entirely wrong. Your 
 fair white woman may be cold, may be irri-
 
 112 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 tating, she may henpeck you by clay, she may 
 nag at you at night. But for treachery, for 
 unfaithfulness, for every quality which leads 
 a man to ruin, despair, and dishonour, go to 
 your dark-complexioned woman. Ella is my 
 niece, and as she is plain, she may go through 
 life without doing much harm. But I would 
 rather see a hump grow on her shoulders, and 
 flames come from her mouth as she talked, 
 than see her marry a man in whom I take 
 an interest, as I do in you, George." 
 
 " You need have no fear in this case, 
 Colonel, for she won't have me," said Lauris- 
 ton, not attempting to combat the Colonel's 
 superstitious prejudices, which were as strong 
 as those of any old woman. 
 
 And as, in his relief on finding that his 
 fears were groundless. Lord Florencecourt let 
 his hand drop from the young man's arm, the 
 latter took the opportunity to bid him good 
 night and walk off with the excuse of an 
 appointment. 
 
 If even Ella's skin was too dark to please 
 him, what would the Colonel find to say of 
 No Una's, he thought, wondering how the old
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 113 
 
 soldier had picked up liis stroni^ prejudice. 
 Could he really have been once under the 
 sway of a woman compared to whom even 
 the present Lady Florencecourt, with all her 
 tyranny, ill-humour, and caprices, was as light 
 after darkness ? Lauriston had no means of 
 telling, and the question did not trouble liini 
 loni;. For to-niojht was the last niij^ht of the 
 week in the course of which Nouna had made 
 him swear that he would return, and he knew 
 that the girl was even now anxiously on the 
 watch for him. He felt that he would have 
 done better to have made his call that morning, 
 to have seen her under the prosaic influences 
 of daylight and Mrs. Ellis, as he had intended 
 to do. But a friend had called unexpectedly 
 to carry him off to liurlingham, and had left 
 him no chance of keeping his oath except by 
 slipping a note into the letter-box of 3G, Mary 
 Street, in the darkness of the evening. This 
 would satisfy his conscience and save him 
 from the danger of the girl's alluring eyes. 
 
 Yet as he walked quickly through the quiet 
 West-End streets, past brightly-lighted houses, 
 where a strip of carpet was thrown across the 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 SCHEHERAZADE I 
 
 pavement, and a seedy, silent old man or a 
 couple of lads waited to see the ladies come 
 out, Lauriston felt his heart beating faster 
 as the image of the little Indian girl came 
 to his mind with a thousandfold additional 
 charm after his evening spent in the common- 
 place ennui of a London dinner-party. He 
 honestly tried to think of Ella — -good, clever 
 little Ella — whose kindness and sweetness had 
 touched him so much only half-an-hour ago. 
 But then had she not herself rejected his 
 offered homage, thrown him back on the 
 charm that was now drawing hiai with an 
 attraction which o-rew strons^er with his re- 
 sistance to it ? 
 
 He reached Mary Street at last. By this 
 tim^e it had grown so dark that it was reason- 
 able to think he might drop his note in the 
 letter-box and walk away without being seen. 
 But he knew all the same that he should not 
 be allowed to do so. The lights were burn- 
 ing both on the first-floor and the ground- 
 floor of No. 36 when he slipped his little 
 missive into the box; as he did so the blind 
 of one of the ground- floor windows was raised,
 
 A LONDON NIGHT S ENTERTAINMENT. 115 
 
 and a woman looked out and instantly dis- 
 appeared. He thought he would not ring, 
 but was lino^eriner for one moment on the 
 doorstep almost as if he knew that his 
 presence must be known, when he heard the 
 chain drawn and the door opened. He felt 
 that his whole body was throbbing with fierce 
 excitement. 
 
 But it was not Nouna. It was the dark- 
 complexioned Rahas whom he had treated so 
 unceremoniously on his first visit, and who 
 now stood in the same handsome Eastern 
 dress he had worn on that occasion, but with 
 a very difi'erent demeanour, holding the door 
 wide open, and with dignified and courteous 
 words invitins: the young; Engflishman to 
 
 O J CD O 
 
 enter. Lauriston, after a moment's hesitation, 
 accepted the invitation, and passing in stood in 
 the hall while his host closed the door, wonder- 
 ing what were to be his adventures that night. 
 The shutting of the door was accomplished 
 very slowly, with infinite precautions against 
 noise, while Lauriston glanced up the stair- 
 case, listened intently for a light footfall, 
 and felt all the enervating rapture which the 
 
 I 2
 
 116 SCHEHEKAZADE : 
 
 near neighbourhood of his first passionate 
 love gives to a very young man. Turning 
 rather suddenly again towards his companion, 
 he found the eyes of the Oriental fixed upon 
 him in what struck him as a peculiar manner. 
 As their eyes met, the merchant, with a low 
 bow and a gesture of courteous invitation, 
 held open the door on the left and ushered 
 his visitor in. Lauriston entered with a 
 glance at the doors and a glance at the 
 windows to decide upon the best w^ay of 
 escape should the conduct of the gentleman 
 in the fez be consistent with the sinister 
 expression of his face.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 117 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 We have all met fairly bad people with 
 strikingly good faces, and perhaps fairly good 
 people with strikingly bad faces ; but when 
 the eyes of a stranger who has no reason to 
 love you are much nearer together than 
 beauty demands, when his lips are thin, 
 straight, and very close under his nose, more- 
 over when he smiles at you with his mouth 
 only and shows you even more politeness 
 than the occasion requires, you must be more 
 than simple-minded to put implicit trust in 
 him. 
 
 Lauriston noted these traits in Rahas, and 
 mistrusted him accordingly. But the meeting 
 itself being an adventure, and therefore wel- 
 come to a young man in love, he beamed with 
 perfect good humour and began to apologise 
 for his abrupt conduct on the night of his
 
 1 1 8 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 first visit. Eahas stopped him at once, 
 smiling and waving the subject away as if to 
 be flung over the rail of his own staircase by 
 such a person as his visitor were the highest 
 honour he could wish for. He^ for his part, 
 seeing this gentleman pass, could not resist 
 the impulse which jDronipted him to open the 
 door and beg him to enter, that he might 
 apologise for his obtuseness in not instinct- 
 ively recognising the gentleman as a person 
 of high honour and distinction, incapable of 
 any but the noblest motives, the most lofty 
 conduct. He bowed to Lauriston, Lauriston 
 bowed to him ; they positively overflowed 
 with civility, though from the sly black eyes 
 of the Asiatic, and from the frank brown ones 
 of the Englishman, there peeped out an easily 
 discernible mutual antagonism. 
 
 '' AVill this gentleman, whose name I have 
 not the honour of knowing " 
 
 "My name is Lauriston," said George, who 
 knew that this cunning -looking person could 
 easily find it out if he were to conceal it. 
 
 " Will Mr. Lauriston," continued the mer- 
 chant with a bow, "do me the honour to
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 119 
 
 smoke with me ? I have narofhilis, cis^cars, 
 cigarettes, such as, if 1 may make the boast, 
 you could not find in the palaces of your 
 Prince of Wales." 
 
 " Thank you," said Lauiiston, who indeed 
 felt some temptation to stay in the house, but 
 had no fancy for his companion ; " it is very 
 kind of you to ask me, but I must be returning 
 to my quarters. We soldiers, you know, are 
 very strictly looked after in England." 
 
 The merchant smiled in a manner which 
 implied that his ignorance of English manners 
 and customs was not so limited as mig;ht have 
 been inferred from his slow, pedantic speech 
 and his retention of the costume of his own 
 country. 
 
 " That strictness is, however, somewhat re- 
 laxed in the case of favoured officers — at least, 
 they say so in Smyrna," said he ingenuously. 
 " But perhaps the real reason of Mr. Lauris- 
 ton's reluctance to accept my humble invit- 
 ation is the feeling that to do so would be 
 an unbecoming act of condescension from an 
 English officer to a foreio^n tradesman." 
 " No, I assure you "
 
 120 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 The merchant raised his hand. "Perhaps 
 Mr. Lauriston will allow me to explain. My 
 uncle and 1 are established here at present in 
 only a very modest manner. We live in what 
 I suppose may be called a back street of your 
 vast city ; w^e have no acre-wide apartmenti', 
 no gaudy shop- windows in which our treasures 
 are arranged by cunning shopmen to catch the 
 eye of the vulgar. We have only, as you 
 know, a few of the cheaper and simpler pro- 
 ducts of our own rich land, placed without 
 thought or care in these two small dusty 
 window^s, not to attract the casual passer-by, 
 but to let our great clients know that this is 
 where Ealias and Fan ah may be found. We 
 are merchants, not shopmen ; we have for our 
 customers the chiefs of your great bazaars, 
 the heads of your most renowned London 
 houses. If an English nobleman wants a 
 carpet such as emperors might tread upon, 
 or a millionnaire of Manchester seeks a price- 
 less cabinet of carved ivory, delicate as lace, 
 fragile as a fairy's fingers, it is to us that their 
 agents come, to Eahas and Fanah, who are 
 here merely obscure tradesmen known to a
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 121 
 
 few, but in our country (and all Asia is our 
 country, overrun by our agents, swarming 
 with our depots) merchant-nobles, the guests 
 and the friends of kings." 
 
 It was not difficult to believe him as he 
 stood, stately and dignified, his black eyes 
 glowing with roused pride, his graceful dress 
 giving an air of distinction to his tall, lean 
 figure. Under the influence of a passion 
 which was at least genuine he appeared to so 
 much o;reater advantaQ-e that George Lauris- 
 ton did not hesitate to give way to his 
 importunity ; and the merchant led him from 
 the little front-room in which they had been 
 standing, Avhere small objects such as those 
 that filled the windows were scattered about 
 on tables and shelves and piled on packing- 
 cases, into an apartment of the same size at 
 the back, communicating with the front-room 
 by folding-doors, but showing, as soon as 
 they were passed, the difference between a 
 living-room and a mere workshop or office. 
 
 It was furnished with extreme simplicity 
 and hung with the most inexpensive kind of 
 thin Indian curtains. There w^ere two or
 
 122 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 three small painted tables, on one of whicli 
 was a common metal coffee-pot surrounded 
 by three or four tiny earthenware cups, while 
 on another stood a small decanter labelled 
 brandy, an ice-pail, a stand with soda-water 
 bottles, two deep tumblers, and a liqueur 
 glass. The seats consisted of ottomans covered 
 with dark striped stuff, a few plain large 
 cushions, and a couple of low chairs, very 
 small in the seat and very wide in the back. 
 A brass lantern took the place formerly filled 
 by a chandelier, and gave forth a soft weak 
 light through orange-tinted glass. The floor 
 was entirely covered by matting, which added 
 to the invitingly cool aspect of the room. To 
 the right as he entered from the front room, 
 Lauriston noticed a tall paper screen placed 
 before the doorway of a third apartment, the 
 door of which had been taken away and 
 replaced by thin coloured curtains, through 
 which there shone a much brio;hter \ig-\\t than 
 that given by the brass lamp. 
 
 " My uncle's room," said Rahas, indicating 
 the inner apartment with a movement of his 
 hand, as he brought forth for his guest, from
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 123 
 
 a cupboard in the wall beliind the curtains, 
 ciofars, cigjarettes, and a hookah. " He gives 
 up the best to me, though I am only a junior 
 partner in the firm, by right of my father — a 
 mere clerk in fact." 
 
 Lauriston took a cigar and seated himself 
 in a chair ; while his host sat on one of the 
 ottomans, his left elbow buried in a cushion, 
 languidly smoking a long hookah. Something 
 in the atmosphere of the room, its studied 
 coolness, the stately composure of its owner, 
 the faint perfume wdnch began to rise from 
 the bubbling w^ater of the hookah, began to 
 exercise over Lauriston the same enervating 
 influence w^hich he had felt in the fcir more 
 luxurious chamber above. The soft voice of 
 the merchant, speaking in measured tones, as 
 if speech were spontaneous music, lulled him 
 into a state of dreamy expectancy of some 
 further experience new and strange. 
 
 " You would fall very easily and naturally 
 into our Eastern w^ays, more easily than most 
 of your race, I think," he said ; and Lauriston 
 felt conscious, now that he saw him reclining 
 at his ease, of a charm in the manner of the
 
 124 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 Oriental wliich he had not seen before. '' You 
 can rest, which is to most of the men of North 
 Europe an impossibility." 
 
 Lauriston sat upright in his chair, con- 
 sciously struggling against the charm which 
 was ensnaring his senses. " What you call 
 rest," he said earnestly, ''is a temporary torpor 
 necessary to you, a warmer-blooded race, and 
 is the natural reaction from your passionate 
 moods, in which you are all fire. But for us, 
 a colder nation, what you call rest is a dan- 
 gerous soothing of the mind and stimulating 
 of the senses, an enslaving pleasure to be 
 avoided by those who have a battle to fight, 
 and much to win. The only wholesome rest 
 for us is dead, dreamless sleep." 
 
 " And yet," said the Oriental, smoking 
 solemnly on, yet observing his companion 
 with attentive eyes, " you give way to the 
 pleasure, and you court the charm." 
 
 Lauriston grew red, though the subdued 
 light did not betray his blushes. " When one 
 suddenly meets with a new experience, a little 
 curiosity and interest are only natural," he 
 said.
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 125 
 
 " Yes, yes. But tlie cariosity and interest 
 of Englishmen display themselves in ways so 
 strange to us of another race. For instance, I 
 will tell you a tale : Two young men of your 
 race, men well-born perhaps, clothed in the 
 fashion of your princes and your nobles, 
 hideous and ill-chosen to us, but of the taste 
 which in England is called the very best — see 
 by night in a dark little dusty room where 
 the blinds have not been pulled down, a man 
 and a lady. The lady is beautiful, not dressed 
 as their women are, and neither is English, 
 the young men think. So they stare in until 
 they attract the man's attention, when for 
 shame they slink off, to return the next day, 
 and the next, and the next, always foolish, 
 trifling, impertinent, spying and prying for 
 another sight of the lady, whom they never 
 behold again. Then a third young English- 
 man — perhaps I need not say more about his 
 course, but that it is bolder than that of the 
 others " 
 
 Lauriston interrupted him. '' I see," he 
 said in a low voice strongly controlled, " that 
 you believe me to be merely the accomplice of
 
 126 SCHEHERAZADE I 
 
 the two others. I do know who they are, I 
 know they got me here by a trick, although 
 until this moment I never guessed one word 
 of it. Sir," he rose, very quietly and com- 
 posedly, but with passion which was unmistak- 
 ably fierce and strong glowing in his handsome 
 face, " I don't know how to address a gentleman 
 of your country, but I wish to apologise in 
 the humblest and fullest manner for an offence 
 which I committed in all ignorance. By 
 Heaven, when I meet those two infernal little 
 
 cads ! " he broke out suddenly, forfeiting 
 
 all right, in his vehemence, to the praise be- 
 stowed by Rahas on his capabilities of repose. 
 
 But he was checked in all the heat of his 
 outbreak by sounds behind him which recalled 
 him to the fact that he might have unseen 
 listeners to his very unrestrained language. 
 Turning sharply, he saw the curtains behind 
 the screen move and open against the light, as 
 if some one were retreating between them. 
 Rahas attempted to reassure him by a gesture 
 of the hand. 
 
 *' My uncle thought we were quarrelling 
 perhaps," said he in a leisurely manner.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 127 
 
 But tlie knowledge that everything he 
 uttered could be heard by a person who might 
 or might not be a desirable confidant cast a 
 strong constraint on Lauriston, who tossed the 
 end of his cigar into an ash-tray by his side 
 and made at once for the door. The merchant 
 shook his head gently, and with courteous 
 words beo^pjed him to return. 
 
 " I guessed the truth before, and you must 
 pardon my anxiety to have it confirmed by 
 your own lips," he said gravely and deferenti- 
 ally. " Or rather," he went on, as Lauriston 
 turned and hesitated, " I did not guess, I 
 knew." 
 
 In his astonishment at the merchant's con- 
 fident tone, his companion came a step nearer 
 to the chair he had left, and at the next words 
 of his host reseated himself, overcome by an 
 attraction he this time made no great eff"ort to 
 resist. 
 
 " Between your first and your second visit I 
 learnt the causes and eff'ects of your appearance 
 here ; between your second visit and this, the 
 third, I learnt tliat it was not your intention 
 to appear here again."
 
 ] 2 8 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 *' How did you learn it ? " asked Laiiriston, 
 with some incredulity, but witli the tinge of 
 respect for possibly supernatural agencies to 
 be expected in a man brought up north o' 
 Tweed. 
 
 " You are an Englishman, and would not 
 believe me. Yours is a brave nation, an 
 energetic and a splendid race ; but you have 
 no imagination, no religion but faith in beef 
 and bricks and mortar and the Stock Ex- 
 change." 
 
 '' I believe in beef certainly, and I don't 
 like humbug," said the young officer rather 
 shortly. " But I'm not a fool, and when I 
 hear about anything of which I have no 
 experience, I listen and do my best to 
 understand." 
 
 The merchant bowed and went on : " You 
 are doubtless not ignorant, Mr. Lauriston, of 
 the importance we of the East attach to astral 
 influences, nor of the fact that the subject is 
 with us considered a study worthy a high 
 place among the sciences." Lauriston bowed 
 his head in assent. "It is one of the prin- 
 ciples of that science — you understand I speak
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 129 
 
 according to the beliefs of my countrymen, 
 without prejudice to the acumen of yours — 
 that persons born under the ascendency of a 
 particular star, whose name in your tongue 
 I do not know, and whose name in mine 
 would bear no meaning to you, possess a 
 power which I can best describe as magnetic 
 over persons born under the ascendency of 
 another particular planet. Now I am one of 
 the former class, and the lady who lives on 
 the first floor of this house is one of the 
 latter." 
 
 Lauriston felt an impulse of rage at the 
 fellow's presumption. 
 
 " How did you know anything about her 
 planet ? " he asked in a constrained tone. 
 
 "X cast her nativity two days ago," 
 answered the merchant, dropping his voice 
 as if from pure laziness, almost to a whisper. 
 " I know something about astrology myself, 
 and as I take in the lady the respectful in- 
 terest of a friend, 1 put my services at her 
 disposal, by her own request. I may own 
 that I took a personal interest in finding out 
 whether her destiny would cross my own." 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 SCHEHERAZADE I 
 
 He paused a few moments, during which 
 Lauriston, in spite of the studied incredulity 
 with which he listened to all this, felt his 
 excitement rising. *' But I could find nothing 
 to justify my hopes. As far as my skill could 
 serve, I made out that her destiny was bound 
 up with the countrymen of her father, the 
 land of her adoption." 
 
 While setting this down as quackery, the 
 young Englishman was interested and stirred 
 by the Oriental's measured utterances. 
 
 "Yet you say your own planet, horoscope, 
 whatever you call it, gave you an influence 
 over her ? " he asked in a careless tone. 
 
 " In this way," the merchant went on : "I 
 can make her sleep, and in her sleep I can 
 bring before her eyes what vision I will ; I 
 can learn things concerning her which she 
 herself in her waking hours does not know." 
 
 " Why, that is a sort of mesmerism ; they 
 do that over here without any aid from the 
 planets." 
 
 " So you think. So perhaps the sea thinks 
 that her tides advance and recede independ- 
 ently of the moon. And so, in Europe,
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 131 
 
 Nature's occult marvels are sneered at, and 
 orreat forces wasted, which we Asiatics turn 
 to account in moulding the courses of our 
 lives." 
 
 ''Will you explain?" 
 
 "In England a person gifted with this force 
 which his neighbours ignore and he himself 
 cannot understand, casts another into a sleep, 
 a trance. Here is this creature, for good or 
 for ill, at his mercy, in his power. AVhat 
 does he do ? Teach him some great truth ? 
 Force from him some vital secret ? Subdue 
 the acknowledged evil in him to some good 
 end ? No. He makes him find a pin, drink 
 a glass of water, blow his nose. Then, having 
 accomplished this noble end at some expen- 
 diture of his own vital force, he awakens the 
 sleeper ; and what is gained ? A dozen fools 
 have gaped, cried, ' Marvellous ! ' or, ' Well, I 
 never ! ' according to their measure of refine- 
 ment, and gone their ways no whit wiser than 
 before." 
 
 " Yes, well, and you ? How do you use this 
 force ? " 
 
 '' In different ways. Sometimes to extort 
 
 K 2
 
 132 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 an enemy's secret, sometimes to test a woman's 
 faith — but this last not often ; for experience 
 and Mahomet teach us that women have no 
 souls, and that by concerning ourselves more 
 with what they do than with what they feel, 
 we shall spare ourselves many disappoint- 
 ments." 
 
 "You are a Mahometan then?" 
 
 " With the modifications which result from 
 long contact with men of other faiths. Thus 
 I drink wine, in moderation ; I look upon 
 images and statues without horror; and I 
 believe that by springing from a race whose 
 men have for generations believed that women 
 may have spiritual life, the best of your Euro- 
 pean maids do indeed attain in time to some- 
 thing which may pass for a soul." 
 
 " And Nouna ? " 
 
 The merchant smiled. " Ask Mrs. Ellis, 
 her guardian, who has known her for some 
 years, what impression the bible-readings, the 
 church-goings, the preachings, the prayings, 
 the exhortations of her Christian teachers, have 
 had on her, the letters of her mother, whom 
 she adores, and who never writes to her
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 133 
 
 dauofliter without an exhortation to relio;ion ! 
 All the bishops in the world would not make 
 Nouna more of a Christian than her Persian 
 kittens." 
 
 "You can say as much of English girls," 
 said Lauriston hastily and uneasily. 
 
 " Of most," assented the Oriental readily. 
 "And of nine-tenths of the most orthodox 
 of your alms-giving and priest-loving women. 
 What spirit lives in their charity ? in their 
 worship ? When man no longer cares for their 
 devotion, they yield it to God, the priest, and 
 the respectful poor." 
 
 " And you can see no evidence of a soul 
 in that very capacity for devotion ? " 
 
 " No more than I see in the much more 
 absorbing devotion of my dog." 
 
 " That seems to me a creed as degrading 
 to the man who holds it as to the woman 
 whose self-respect it kills." 
 
 "And like all creeds, in practice it loses 
 both its best and its worst characteristics. 
 I never go out in London without seeing 
 hundreds of women more vile, more wretched, 
 more miserable, than my more merciful
 
 134 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 religion would ever allow those weaker crea- 
 tures to become ; while in our harems, which 
 shock you so much, there is many a woman 
 for whose power on earth some of your proud 
 European beauties would willingly exchange 
 their hopes of heaven." 
 
 ** Perhaps," said Lauriston shortly; and, 
 after a pause, he said, "You say Nouna's 
 destiny is bound up with that of an English- 
 man ; if that is so, and he is one of the right 
 sort, depend upon it he will do more for her 
 than all her teachers and preachers ever did." 
 
 " You think so ? " 
 
 *' I am sure of it. I believe the influence of 
 an honest man's love to be stronger than that 
 of all the mesmerists that ever hid pins or 
 learned secrets." 
 
 " You believe it, even after the proof I gave 
 you I Will you hold to your belief in the face 
 of this ? I now, at this moment, by the force 
 I hold over her, command her to leave her 
 room up-stairs and come down here to us." 
 
 There was a long silence : the Asiatic held 
 the stem of his hookah in his hand and sat 
 like a statue, his lips tightly compressed, his
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 135 
 
 eyes brilliant ami fixed. Lauriston also left 
 off smoking, listening and watching the door 
 with intense excitement which made him sick 
 and cold. For some minutes there was not 
 a sound to be heard but the faint niolit-cries 
 
 o 
 
 and noises that came through the open window. 
 At last a board creaked in the hall outside, a 
 knock was heard on the door of the front- 
 room, then the turning of the handle, and 
 a voice called weakly : 
 
 " Eahas, are you there ? " 
 
 Lauriston started up ; the merchant never 
 moved. The door of the room they were in 
 was drawn softly ajar, and Nouna's voice 
 almost in a whisper asked : 
 
 " Has Mr. Lauriston been here ? Tell me, 
 hasn't he been here "? " 
 
 The young Englishman crossed the room 
 with two strides, and pushed the door gently 
 open with a shaking hand. The little weak 
 voice thrilled him to the heart. She peeped 
 in round the door, all in clinging white, with 
 a laugh in her eyes at sight of him, but with 
 a rather subdued and dreamy manner. 
 
 " I fancied you were here. I seemed to
 
 136 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 hear you call me," slie said sleepily, as she 
 came in and very composedly leaned upon his 
 arm. 
 
 In the midst of the glow and the glamour 
 cast upon him by the girl's entrance, Lauris- 
 ton was startled by the voice of Eahas close 
 to his ear : 
 
 " Will you not acknowledge now that it 
 was my influence over her which brought her 
 down ? " 
 
 " No," answered the young Englishman in 
 a husky voice, '^ her own words prove that it 
 was mine.'' 
 
 The merchant shrugged his shoulders, and 
 with a bow to the lady, who was too much 
 occupied with her companion to notice it, 
 retreated behind the screen into the curtained 
 room.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 137 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 George Lauriston was very much in love ; 
 but all the circumstances of his love adventure 
 wore so strange, so mysterious, that at this 
 moment, when the suj^ernatural appeared to 
 have come to the aid of the simply marvellous, 
 the chill of some uncanny horror seemed to 
 check his passion, and he looked down at the 
 girl by his side rather as on some fairy change- 
 ling; than as on the beautiful woman who had 
 lately usurped such an undue share of his 
 inmost thoughts. After a short silence Nouna 
 looked up, half timidly, half saucily : 
 
 " Have you then nothing to say to me ? Is 
 a week so long a time that you have forgotten 
 I speak your language ? " 
 
 " I have forgotten nothing about you," said 
 he, not encouraging her clinging pressure on
 
 138 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 his arm, but standing up stiff and straight, 
 with his eyes fixed on the screen and the 
 curtains behind it. " I will come and see 
 you and Mrs. Ellis to-morrrow, Nouna, it is 
 too late for me to stay now." 
 
 She followed the glance of his eyes, and 
 suddenly droj)ping his arm made a cat-like 
 bound to the screen, and pulled it down. A 
 figure was seen to move away quickly, like a 
 shadow, from behind the curtains, and the next 
 moment Kahas came through them. 
 
 " Who is in that room ? " asked Nouna 
 imperiously. 
 
 " My uncle, Nouna. Why are you so 
 excited ? " 
 
 " Your uncle Fanah ? No one else ? " 
 
 "No one." 
 
 He stepped back, and opening the curtains 
 again, said a few^ words in a language strange 
 to Lauriston. A little old man with a grey 
 beard and a dried- up, wrinkled face, wearing 
 a crimson turban and a very simple Eastern 
 dress, came slowly in and bowed to the 
 strano:er. 
 
 " Are you satisfied now ? " asked Eahas.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 139 
 
 " Ye — es," said the girl doubtfully, passing 
 her hand over her eyes and shivering, " I 
 suppose so." Then, turning to Lauriston, she 
 continued, with the tone of a child playing at 
 royalty, *' You will honour me by coming up- 
 stairs to my apartments for a few minutes. I 
 will not detain you long." 
 
 She curtseyed to the two merchants, and led 
 the way back through the front room with a 
 gesture to the young Englishman to follow 
 her, as Lauriston did, after taking a hasty 
 leave of his host. The girl seemed to be in 
 such a subdued, sleepy mood that he was 
 prepared for her to behave in a more con- 
 ventional manner than usual. He was quite 
 off his guard therefore when, having reached 
 the top of the staircase, she suddenly swept 
 round, her white garments swirling after her, 
 and threw herself like a panther upon him, 
 with such electric suddenness and force that, 
 if his hand had not been upon the stair-rail, he 
 would have fallen down the stairs. She was 
 curled about him, her feet off the ground, her 
 arms round his neck, her breast against his. 
 It was such an alto<zether unlooked-for and
 
 140 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 bewildering proceeding that Lauriston, after 
 a moment's choking sensation, put his arms 
 round her, carried her to the door of her 
 smaller sitting-room, and attempted to put her 
 down on her feet. As she resisted and refused 
 to stand, he looked round him, and seeing a 
 chair against the wall, placed her, still limp 
 and aj)parently helpless, very gently upon it, 
 and laid his fingers on the handle of the 
 sitting-room door. The little lady sprang back 
 into vigorous life immediately. 
 
 " You are not going in ! " she said in a 
 hissing whisper, her face full of alarm and 
 disappointment ; '* Mrs. Ellis is in there ! " 
 
 ''That is why Tm going in. I came to see 
 Mrs. Ellis, not you." 
 
 For a moment the girl looked ready to 
 burst into tears, but with another change of 
 mood she slid off her chair and came up to 
 him, laughing. 
 
 " Are all Englishmen like you, all stone and 
 steel ? or has poor little Nouna fallen upon the 
 very hardest ? " she asked, her tone changing 
 from playful to plaintive before she had 
 finished speaking. And she folded her small
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 141 
 
 hands one in the other and looked up with 
 a face so doleful that Lauriston wanted to 
 laugh. '* Mamma says Englishmen are noble 
 and brave and good, and so I thought — when 
 I saw you, and you w^ere kind and sweet to 
 me — that you were perhaps sent to me — 
 coming so suddenly in the midst of my sleep 
 — the great Eajah mamma said I was to wait 
 for and obey and humble myself to, as a 
 woman should to her lord. She said he 
 would come certainly if I was very good, and 
 I had been good for nearly three weeks, and 
 had given Mrs. Ellis hardly any trouble at 
 all ; so I thought, you see," she said, looking 
 "up into his face naively, ^' that you were the 
 Eajah. Well, I w^as wrong, that's all. You 
 prefer Mrs. Ellis." 
 
 George Lauriston listened to this harangue 
 W'ith every feeling of tenderness that can 
 move a man, from that of a father for a 
 wayward child to that of a lover for a beau- 
 tiful woman. He saw in her alternately 
 bold and ingenuous words, in the w^ondering 
 child looks that came into her eyes between 
 passionate ebullitions of love, of anger, and of
 
 142 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 pride, in the utter absence of a grown woman's 
 modest reticence, that the little creature before 
 him was now, whatever time and her fellow- 
 men might hereafter make of her, nothing 
 but a wild, untrained, half-grown young thing, 
 with the good and bad impulses of a savage, 
 and a thousand fascinations which would be 
 so many desperate dangers to her ill-guarded 
 womanhood. 
 
 In those few moments Lauriston made up 
 his mind. The girl had for him an irresistible 
 attraction which made every other woman 
 insipid and inane. In spite of her mysterious 
 antecedents, of her equivocal surroundings, 
 he believed most firmly in her native inno- 
 cence and goodness. Her odd sense of her 
 own dignity, her passionate love for her 
 mother, her plaintive account of her impres- 
 sion of the first meeting with himself, all 
 tended to confirm this opinion, and also to 
 give some weight to the shadowy legends 
 which seemed to form her personal history. 
 He would write to the mother, if possible go 
 and see her, ask her consent to his engage- 
 ment to her daughter, and himself choose
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 143 
 
 some home where the girl might spend a 
 couple of years in good hands, while he on 
 his side would strain every nerve and save 
 every penny that he might be able, at the 
 end of that time, to make her his wife. He 
 had no doubts about the success of his suit ; 
 everything pointed to the fact that this 
 shadowy adored and adoring mother would 
 be glad to get the half- spoilt, half-neglected, 
 wholly ill-brought-up girl, off her hands. 
 
 He looked down again on the little creature 
 as she, in a fit of petulance at her inability 
 to pique him, leant against the wall and, like 
 a mischievous monkey, tore one of the loose 
 muslin sleeves of her dress into strips. Ob- 
 serving this suggestive occupation, George felt 
 suddenly appalled by the enormous hardihood 
 of the undertaking to which he was inwardly 
 pledging himself. She glanced up, saw the 
 look of consternation on his face, and fell into' 
 convulsions of stifled laughter. The set ex- 
 pression on his features broke up, as he laid 
 his hand very tenderly upon her shoulder. 
 
 " Hush, you mustn't laugh like that. You 
 will make yourself ill."
 
 144 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 Sensitive to every change of feeling as an 
 Eolian harp is to every breath of air, she was 
 quiet at once, and putting both her own 
 hands on his to keep it on her shoulders, she 
 said in a very soft voice, wdth earnest eyes 
 that seemed to draw out from his the emotion 
 she knew how to excite in him : 
 
 " Ah, I like to hear you speak to me like 
 that. You must always speak like that to 
 me, and then I will always be like this." 
 
 She folded her little hands, still with one 
 of his clasped between them, madonna-like 
 ao-ainst her breast, and bowed her head low in 
 token of deep, devoted humility. It was the 
 passionate human warmth within her, glow- 
 ing in her impulses of love and hate, and 
 freezing in her bursts of pride, which had 
 melted so quickly the heart of the reserved 
 young Englishman, and made her irresistible 
 to him. 
 
 In a burst of most deep, most loyal tender- 
 ness, he lifted her up in his arms, and curled 
 her slender limbs about him, and held her like 
 a cherished pet lamb against his breast. 
 
 " Mv darling," he whispered in her ear — a
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 145 
 
 little shell-like ear of rose and ivorv tints — " I 
 shall speak to you always as a man speaks to 
 the creature that lives in his heart, whom he 
 loves, whom he trusts, w^liom he worships. And 
 you, Nouna, must be good and gentle, and grow 
 up into a sweet, noble woman for me, so that 
 my love for you may make me better. I can 
 never give you a palace, Nouna, or elephants 
 with golden trappings ; if I can ever buy you 
 diamonds it will not be till you are too old 
 to care for them ; and you will only have one 
 slave. But you will be a queen to me, my 
 darling, as long as our lives last ; and I will 
 get on and make my name famous, so that 
 you shall not envy the proudest maharanee in 
 India, you shall be so happy as the good true 
 wife of a plain English gentleman." 
 
 " Wife ! " repeated Nouna wonderingly, 
 raising her head from his shoulder to peer 
 into his eyes. *' That is what mamma always 
 says. I must be good and be the wdfe of 
 an English gentleman, and then I shall be 
 happy ! Are all the wives of English gentle- 
 men so happy ? " 
 
 George felt hot. Those gleaming black 
 
 VOL. L L
 
 146 SCHEHEEAZADE : 
 
 eyes, thougli they could not read thoughts 
 half so quickly and surely as they did feel- 
 ings, had a steadiness and persistency that 
 made it hard to look into them and tell a 
 lie. 
 
 '^ All those that are beautiful and good like 
 you are happy, unless they marry bad men." 
 
 " How can they tell they're bad before 
 they've married them ? You might be bad, 
 and I shouldn't know." 
 
 " You will have time to find out in the two 
 years that must pass before I can marry 
 
 you." 
 
 '' Two years ! " She began writhing and 
 wriggling in his arms like an electric eel. 
 " Put me down, put me down at once ! " 
 She enforced her command with such ao^ile 
 movements that he had to comply. " I'm 
 not going to wait two years ! " And she 
 readjusted her crumpled draperies with an 
 injured manner. " I shall marry you at once, 
 or else I shall not marry you at all. I shall 
 have Eahas ; he has changed to-day, and says 
 he only desires my happiness ; but he shall 
 change back again and desire me for a wife.
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 147 
 
 I will not wait two years. You do not love 
 me. Love is for now, not for two years ! " 
 
 He has clianged to-day ! Those words 
 struck Lauriston, and reminded him ao-ain of 
 the strangeness of the circumstances which 
 surrounded the girl he loved, and of the 
 impossibility of settling anything nntil he 
 had heard from her mother. 
 
 " Very Avell, Nouna," he said gently, '' I 
 won't quarrel with you for wanting to have 
 me before I am well off. I must leave you 
 now, my darling, and I will write to your 
 mother in the morning. Tell me her address." 
 
 " She is in Spain now, travelling about ; we 
 always v/rite to her lawyers." 
 
 '* Well, I will write through them." 
 
 He took a note-book from his pocket, and 
 at her dictation wrote down the name and 
 address of a firm of solicitors in Lincoln's Inn. 
 During the slight pause in their talk as he did 
 this, Lauriston heard a sound upon the stairs, 
 and looked up suddenly, convinced that some 
 one had been listeniog. 
 
 " What is it ? " asked Nouna. 
 
 " Somebody on the stairs," whispered he. 
 
 L 2
 
 148 SCHEHEEAZADE : 
 
 As he spoke, tliey both heard another light 
 sound lower down ; but when they looked 
 into the dimly-lighted hall the eavesdropper 
 had disappeared. 
 
 " It was not Rahas ; he treads so that you 
 can hear him," said Nouna. 
 
 " It was a woman, I am sure," said 
 Lauriston. 
 
 " A woman," repeated Nouna. *' And it 
 was the end of a woman's dress, a long black 
 dress, I saw in Fanah's room. I thought it 
 must be a fancy, for when Eahas sent me to 
 sleep to-day and made me see mamma she 
 wore a Ion 2; black dress." 
 
 *' Eahas sent you to sleep ! Why didn't 
 you tell me ? " asked I.auriston rather sharjoly. 
 
 '^ I had no time ; I forgot about it." 
 
 *' Tell me now all about it — at least, not 
 here ; come into the room." 
 
 Nouna stopped him, requiring to be kissed 
 first. Then she let him open the sitting-room 
 door, and the reason wdiy Mrs. Ellis had not 
 been disturbed by the proceedings outside was 
 made manifest : the good lady was dozing in 
 an arm-chair. She looked up with a start
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 149 
 
 when they entered, and listened to Lauris- 
 ton's explanations and apologies for apj^earing 
 so late in a rather apathetic and somnolent 
 manner. She awoke, however, into the fullest 
 life of which her vegetable nature was capable, 
 when Nouna beo^an to describe to her visitor 
 the adventure of the afternoon. 
 
 " You know," she said, " that Kahas has 
 been teasing me to marry him. He wanted 
 me to keep all the bracelets out of his ware- 
 house that he lent me to wear, and I told 
 him I could buy some for myself if I wanted 
 them. And at last yesterday I told him I 
 would stay no longer in the same house with 
 him, and I went out with Mrs. Ellis and we 
 engaged new apartments." 
 
 *' I'm sure I had no wish to go away," 
 broke in the elder lady plaintively. " The 
 people here are most obliging, the rooms are 
 clean, and nobody could be more civil or more 
 respectful than Mr. Rahas and his uncle, Mon- 
 sieur Fanah." As the elder merchant spoke 
 with a strong foreign accent, Mrs. Ellis thought 
 him entitled to a French prefix to his name. 
 " But there's no doing anything with Nouna
 
 150 SCIIEHEEAZADE I 
 
 when she's made up her mind, I regret to 
 
 sav." 
 
 At this point Nouna put her hand over 
 her governess's mouth, and went on with her 
 story. 
 
 " When Kahas learnt last night that I had 
 taken this decisive stop," she said with pom- 
 pous, old-fashioned deliberateness, " he en- 
 treated me to change my determination. I 
 said no, I would not be persecuted, and I 
 should leave this house to-day. He declared 
 that my mother would be much annoyed, to 
 which I replied that he could not tell, as he 
 did not know her. He then asked if I would 
 stay if I could receive some sign from my 
 mother that she washed to remain. I 
 answered that my mother's will was law 
 to me, but that what he spoke of was im- 
 possible. And he smiled, and asked me if 
 I would wait until this eveninor before leavino^ 
 the house. I consented, and at eight o'clock 
 he asked me to go down into his sitting-room, 
 where I found you just now." 
 
 "You ought not to have gone," broke in 
 Lauriston, in great excitement and irritation.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 151 
 
 *' I did not want to. I made Mammy Ellis 
 go too. Didn't I, Mammy ? " 
 
 " Mr. Lauriston must think me a very im- 
 perfect guardian for a young girl, if lie 
 imagines I would allow my charge to visit a 
 gentleman's rooms alone," said Mrs. Ellis, 
 drawing out the creases of her plump figure 
 in a slow and impressive manner. 
 
 " Certainly, of course, I did not for a 
 
 moment doubt " murmured Lauriston, 
 
 much relieved. 
 
 " Well," continued Nouna, " we went in, 
 and the room was dark, with only one light, 
 just as you saw it, and the screen was there, 
 as it was just now. As Eahas talked to me, 
 very slow and faint his voice seemed to grow, 
 and then his eyes to grow very large and 
 bright, so that they seemed like two great 
 lamps, and I could see nothing else. And I 
 got drowsy, and tried to put up my hands 
 and to cry out that I was stifling — dying. 
 But I could not ; my hands were heavy and 
 my voice would not come." 
 
 ''And as for me," chimed in poor Mrs. 
 Ellis, whose grey eyes grew round at the
 
 152 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 ghastly recollection, " when I turned round 
 — for I was talking to Monsieur Fanah, little 
 thinking of the heathenish doings which were 
 taking place in my very presence — and heard 
 the child cry ' Oh 1' and saw her fall back on 
 the cushions of the ottoman, I was so thunder- 
 struck that for the first moment I couldn't 
 have uttered one word if you had paid me 
 for it. I was going to throw some water 
 over her when that man Eahas said : 'She 
 is not fainting; I have cast her down into 
 a land of dreams/ And I said : * Then, Mr. 
 Rahas, will you please to cast her up again.' 
 And when he looked at me, and saw the ex- 
 pression of my face," finished Mrs. Ellis 
 triumphantly, "why he did so." 
 
 ''And what did you dream?" Lauriston 
 asked the girl. 
 
 " When the eyes of Rahas grew larger and 
 larger they seemed to fade away and to leave 
 a great light. And standing up against the 
 light was my mother, with her own sweet 
 smile upon her face and her grand bearing. 
 (My mother is like an empress in her walk, 
 in her movements, Mr. Lauriston.) And she
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 153 
 
 put out lier hand towards me and I tliouglit 
 she said ' Stay.' And then, before I could 
 speak to her she faded away, and I felt a 
 weight at my heart, and tried to sigh, and 
 could not. And then a blank came, and 
 next I heard the voice of Mammy Ellis, and 
 I opened my eyes and saw her and Eahas." 
 
 " Perhaps,'* suggested Lauriston, who was 
 by no means ready to acknowledge that 
 another man had an influence, mesmeric or 
 otherwise, over the girl he loved, " perhaps 
 you really did see a figure that you took for 
 that of your mother." 
 
 Nouna laughed scornfully at the notion. 
 *'As if I could mistake her! I heard her 
 voice, I saw her smile. It was my mother." 
 
 Lauriston turned to Mrs. Ellis. " "Was 
 there no possibility of any one entering the 
 room and leaving it quickly without your 
 seeino; her ? " 
 
 " Oh no," said she at once. " Besides, 
 Nouna fell with her head buried among the 
 cushions, and her eyes were closed the whole 
 time." 
 
 *' Nouna," said Lauriston abruptly, after a
 
 154 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 pause, '^ you must not speak to that man 
 again. The whole proceeding was a most 
 disgraceful piece of trickery, such as no girl 
 ought to be subjected to. Mrs. Ellis, I am 
 writino; to-nig;ht to the Countess di Yalde- 
 stillas, to ask her to permit my engagement 
 with her daughter. Now that you know the 
 interest I take in her, you will forgive my 
 urging you to be careful that she obeys my 
 earnest wish in this. I shall not wait for a 
 letter to inform her that her daughter is not 
 in a safe home : I shall go to-morrow to the 
 Countess's solicitors, learn her address, and 
 telegraph. And now I will say good night, 
 and I hope, Mrs. Ellis, you will forgive me 
 this second nocturnal visit." 
 
 He shook hands with both ladies, and 
 disregarding Nouna's undisguised anxiety to 
 accompany him to the door, asked the elder 
 lady if he could speak with her a few moments 
 alone. With as much jealous indignation as 
 if Mrs. Ellis had been eighteen and beautiful, 
 Nouna flung herself into her American chair 
 in a passion of tears as they left the room. 
 
 Lauriston opened his subject in a very low
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 155 
 
 voice as soon as be and tlie governess were 
 outside the door. 
 
 " You will need no assurance from me, 
 madam," he began, " of the perfect loyalty of 
 my motives, now you know that I intend to 
 marry Nouna. But you will not be surprised 
 at my anxiety to know something more about 
 the family to which she belongs. As a matter 
 of fact I have not even heard her surname. 
 Have you any objection to tell me what you 
 know ? " 
 
 '' Not the least," answered Mrs. Ellis, with 
 perfect openness. ''Her name is Nouna 
 Weston. Her father I never knew, as he died 
 when she was a little child. Her mother, 
 now the Condesa di Valdestillas, is my ideal 
 of a perfect gentlewoman. She is religious, 
 perhaps a little bigoted even, very beautiful, 
 and she has that distinction of manner which 
 is more uncommon than beauty, to my idea. 
 She is very generous and impulsive, and dotes 
 upon her daughter. The Count, to whom she 
 is devoted, I have only seen once ; he accom- 
 panied his wife on a visit to the school. He 
 is a small, thin, rather sallow gentleman, with
 
 156 SCHEHEE AZADE. 
 
 very courteous manners, who gives one the 
 idea of being rather selfish and domineering. 
 The Countess dresses very quietly, almost 
 perhaps what some people would call dowdily, 
 as you know our Englishwomen of high rank 
 so often do. But she must be well off, I 
 think, for I know the principal of the school 
 used to say she wished the parents of her 
 other pupils w^ere all as punctual in their 
 payments as the Countess ; and I must say, 
 though she doesn't allow much pocket-money 
 to Nouna, yet her treatment of me is most 
 generous. It is really good-natured of me to 
 wish the child happily married, for the income 
 of an officer's widow who has no friends at 
 court is by no means magnificent, as I dare 
 say you know." 
 
 Nothing could be more satisfactory than 
 this, as far as it went, and the authority was 
 unimpeachable ; Mrs. Ellis being one of those 
 simple, honest, unimaginative creatures w^ho 
 can neither invent a story nor tell an impro- 
 bable one so as to make it appear probable. 
 But of course the narrative offered no explan- 
 ation of the puzzling events of the evening.
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTEHTAINMENT. 157 
 
 '* And you believe the Countess to be still 
 abroad ? " he asked. 
 
 ** Oh yes, if she were in England she would 
 have been to see her daughter. She only 
 pays flying visits to this country for that 
 purpose." 
 
 " Oh yes." He could not get out of his 
 head the idea that the woman of whom he had 
 caught a glimpse at the window, whose dress 
 Nouna had seen in the inner room down-stairs, 
 and who had certainly listened to their con 
 versation on the landing, was Nouna's mother. 
 But what on earth, if Mrs. Ellis's account 
 were true, should she be doing paying secret 
 visits to the house where her daughter was 
 staying, and conspiring with a man of real or 
 pretended mesmeric powers to play tricks on 
 her ? 
 
 It was very puzzling, but no suggestion 
 Mrs. Ellis could offer was likely to throw light 
 on the subject. He however asked her one or 
 two more questions. 
 
 '' Are there any ladies in this house besides 
 yourselves ? Or have you noticed any lady- 
 visitors to the other inmates ? "
 
 158 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 *' There is an old Frenchwoman who gives 
 music lessons who has a room on the top- 
 floor ; but I have never seen any other ladies 
 go in or out," said Mrs. Ellis, rather surprised 
 by the questions. 
 
 '^ And the gentlemeu down-stairs, Eahas and 
 Fanah, are not married ? " 
 
 " I have never heard that they were, and 
 I'm sure I hope Mr. Eahas w^ould never have 
 the conscience to make up to Nouna if he 
 had another wdfe in his own country. I have 
 always set my face against that, and have kept 
 Madame di Yaldestillas informed of his preten- 
 sions. For I've heard of these Mahometan 
 gentlemen, that when they take a fancy to a 
 European wife, they send all their other wives 
 away, and have them back again within a 
 month. So that I really feel quite thankful 
 to you for appearing and sending all thoughts 
 of Eahas out of the girl's flighty head." 
 
 " She never appeared to care for this black 
 fellow, did she"?" asked Lauristou jeal- 
 ously. 
 
 " Well, no, not in that way. Though she's 
 a born coquette, Mr. Laurislon, I must vrarn
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 159 
 
 you, and the man who marries lier need have 
 Job's virtues as well as his own." 
 
 " But she has a good heart/' urged Lauris- 
 ton, who felt that there was a measure of 
 truth in the lady's warning. 
 
 " Oh yes, her heart's good enough. The 
 only thing is that it must be for ever shifting 
 its place. However, she may grow more 
 like her mother in time." 
 
 *' Good night, Mrs. Ellis, it is very good 
 of you to be so patient with me and my 
 questions/' said Lauriston, feeling that he 
 was in no present need of further discourage- 
 ment. 
 
 And he left her and ran down-stairs. At 
 the front door he was met by Eahas, who 
 came with bland, unprepossessing smiles and 
 courteous gestures, from his own apartments, 
 to bid his guest good night Lauriston, who 
 could scarcely treat him civilly since Nouna's 
 story of the trick he had played on her, was 
 suddenly struck with an idea. He turned to 
 the young merchant in a more conciliatory 
 manner. 
 
 " By the bye," he said, '' in your interesting
 
 160 SCHEHERAZADE I 
 
 account of your strange powers, which you 
 attribute to the planets and I vaguely call 
 mesmeric, you did not tell me one thing : can 
 you call up in the mind of a person over 
 whom you have that influence the image of 
 anything with which that person is ac- 
 quainted, or can you only raise the images 
 which are familiar to yourself? In other 
 words : is the picture you wish to present 
 so strongly present to your own mind that 
 by the mere force of will you can transfer it 
 to the mind of another ? or can you make 
 the other mind work independently of 
 yours « 
 
 '' I cannot do that," said Eahas, shaking 
 his head. " I think I can explain my effect 
 by saying that by the exercise of my will I 
 deaden the forces of the mind I am at work 
 upon, and leave it like the wet cloth before a 
 magic lantern ready to receive any picture I 
 may choose to throw upon it." 
 
 "That is very interesting. I understand 
 perfectly," said Lauriston heartily. 
 
 And after an exchange of lip-courtesies 
 concerning their enjoyment of each other's
 
 A LOXDOX night's ENTERTAINMENT. 161 
 
 society, Lauriston took his leave and started 
 on his way back to Hounslow. 
 
 One thing was quite clear to him now. 
 Rahas, on his own showing, had seen Noiina's 
 mother at some time or other, or he would 
 not have been able to call up her image 
 in her daughter's mind. Was there some 
 mysterious understanding between her and 
 Rahas, who had, however, come in Nouna's 
 path by the merest accident ? George Laaris- 
 ton's romantic love had certainly all the 
 stimulus of mystery, and this stimulus was 
 rendered considerably stronger by a discovery 
 he made, walking quickly through Hyde 
 Park, on his way to Victoria Station. He 
 had been followed by a woman. 
 
 Just before he reached the gates at Hyde 
 Park Corner he glanced back along the path 
 and noticed a figure he had seen once or 
 twice on his way. He made one quick step 
 back towards her ; but the woman, who was 
 not very near, disappeared at once among the 
 trees. 
 
 " I think I've had about adventures enough 
 for one evening," said he to himself as he 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 went throughi the gates instead of pursuing 
 her. " I can find out what I must know 
 through the lawyer to-morrow." 
 
 But when he left the train at Hounslow 
 Barracks, he was almost sure that, among the 
 alighting crowd of passengers, he saw the 
 woman again.
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 163 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Next day, in the cruel but wholesome light 
 of the morning, Lauriston took a grand review 
 of all the circumstances of his short acquaint- 
 ance with Nouna, and felt a growing con- 
 viction that he had made an astonishingly 
 complete fool of himself. He had been foolish 
 to visit the girl a second time, when he knew 
 the effect her picturesque beauty and way- 
 ward charm had had on a first interview. 
 He had been w^orse than foolish, he had been 
 selfish, wicked, to make that wild confession, 
 that abrupt offer of marriage to good little 
 Ella, when he felt himself too weak to struggle 
 unaided with the passion that possessed him. 
 He had crowned his folly last night, when 
 he pledged himself to marriage with a little 
 wild girl, of somewhat mysterious parentage, 
 passionate, capricious, in all probability madly 
 
 M 2
 
 164 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 extravagant, whom he hardly knew, whom he 
 scarcely trusted, and who was certainly as 
 deficient in every quality which goes to the 
 making of the typical wife for an English 
 gentleman as it is possible for a girl to be. 
 And yet, in spite of all this, Lauriston felt 
 no faintest pang of regret ; amazement, dis- 
 gust with himself undoubtedly, but of re- 
 pentance no trace. 
 
 For the tide of a first passionate love in 
 a young, vigorous nature is strong enough 
 to tear up scruples by the roots, to bear along 
 prejudices in its waters like straws, to wash 
 away the old landmarks in an onrush which 
 is all fierce triumph and tempestuous joy. 
 
 To Lauriston, who had been accustomed, 
 from a lofty standpoint of ambition and 
 devotion to duty, to look down upon love 
 as a gentle pastime which would amuse and 
 occupy him when the first pangs of his 
 hungry desire for distinction should be satis- 
 fied, the sudden revelation of some of its 
 keen delights was an experience full of novel 
 excitement and charm. True at least to one 
 principle while so much was suff'ered to go
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 165 
 
 by the board, he did not for one moment 
 waver in his resolution to marry Nouna. No 
 staid English girl, whose mild passions would 
 not develop until years after she had attained 
 a full measure of self-control and self-restraint, 
 would ever have for him the charm and the 
 fascination of this little barbarian. Who 
 pleased him best, and no other, he would 
 possess. 
 
 Having resolved therefore with open eyes 
 upon doing a rash and hazardous thing, he 
 gave a touch of heroism to his folly by setting 
 about it as promptly and thoroughly as if it 
 had been a wise one. As soon as parade was 
 over he started for Lincoln's Inn, determined 
 to find out what he could from the lawyers 
 concerning Nouna's relations, and to write at 
 once to her mother for the consent which he 
 guessed would be readily accorded. 
 
 Messrs. Smith and Angelo, solicitors, had 
 old-fashioned offices on a first floor, and there 
 was a reassuring air of steady-going respect- 
 ability about their whole surroundings, from 
 the grim bare orderliness of their outer office 
 to the cut of the coat of the middle ao^ed head
 
 166 SCHEHEE A Z ADE : 
 
 clerk who courteously asked Lauriston whicli 
 of the partners he wished to see. On learn- 
 ing that the visitor had no choice, the head 
 clerk's opinion of him seemed to go down a 
 little, and he said with the air of a man who 
 is not going to cast his pearls before swine — 
 
 " Then perhaps you had better see Mr. 
 Smith." 
 
 The visitor's name having been taken in 
 to Mr. Smith, Lauriston heard it repeated in 
 a happy, caressing voice, as if the announce- 
 ment had been that of an old friend ; and the 
 next moment he was bowed into the presence 
 of a tall, genial, jolly-looking man of about 
 five-and-thirty, with black eyes, curly black 
 hair, and a beautiful smile, who rose, came 
 forward a step, shook his hand, and pressed 
 him to take a chair with a warmth and 
 good -humour which seemed to cast quite a 
 radiance over the tiers of deed-boxes that 
 lined the walls, with their victims' names 
 inscribed on them in neat white letters. 
 
 " Well, I suppose it is nothing very serious 
 that you want us to do for you," said the 
 lawyer, glancing from the card to his visitor's
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 167 
 
 handsome face, and mentally deciding that 
 there was a woman in it. 
 
 " It is very serious," said Lauriston. " It 
 is about a lady." 
 
 The lawyers smile became broader than 
 ever, and his attitude a shade more con- 
 fidential. 
 
 '' Her name," continued Lauriston, *' is 
 Nouna Weston." 
 
 Mr. Smith's manner instantly changed ; he 
 drew himself up in his chair, and touched a 
 hand-bell. 
 
 " I think, Mr. Lauriston," he said, with the 
 smile very much reduced, " that you had 
 better see Mr. Angelo." He told the boy who 
 entered at this point to request Mr. Angelo 
 to spare him a few minutes, and turned 
 again to his visitor. " You see," he said, 
 ** Miss Weston's mother, the Countess di Vald- 
 estillas, is one of our oldest clients, so that to 
 any business connected with her we like to 
 give the entire collective wisdom of the firm." 
 
 At that moment a side-door, the upper part 
 of which was of ground glass, opened, and an 
 old gentleman, of rather impressive appear-
 
 168 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 ance and manner, came slowly in. He was 
 of the middle height, slight and spare, with 
 a face and head strikingly like those of the 
 great Duke of Wellington, a resemblance 
 which his old-fashioned built-up collar and 
 stock proved to be carefully cultivated. He 
 carried a gold-rimmed double eyeglass, which 
 he constantly rubbed, during which process 
 his grey short-sighted eyes would travel 
 steadily round, seeing nothing but the sub- 
 ject which occupied his mind, helping to put 
 the barrier of a stately reticence between him 
 and his client. He bowed to Lauriston, with 
 the air of a man who was entitled to be 
 offended by this intrusion, but who would 
 graciously consent to listen to a reasonable 
 excuse ; and Mr. Smith, with great deference, 
 placed a chair for the great man, waited till 
 he was seated, and explained the object of the 
 young officer s visit. 
 
 '' This gentleman, Mr. Angelo, has come to 
 speak to us on some matter concerning Miss 
 Nouna Weston." 
 
 The old lawyer stopped for a moment in the 
 action of rubbing his glasses, and then bowed
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 1G9 
 
 his head slowly. The younger partner glanced 
 at Lauriston as a sign for him to speak. 
 
 ** I am here, sir, to-day," began the young 
 officer, feeling his confidence rise in this 
 atmosphere of steady, reassuring, middle- 
 class respectability, " as a suitor for the hand 
 of Miss Nouna Weston. I have been referred 
 by her guardian, Mrs. Ellis, to you, as I am 
 told that it is only through you that I can 
 communicate with her mother. I am anxious 
 to make my wishes known to that lady with 
 as little delay as possible." 
 
 Mr. Angelo put on his glasses and gave the 
 young fellow a straight piercing look. Mr. 
 Smith, who seemed to be swallowed up, smile 
 and all, in the more imposing presence of his 
 partner, examined the features, not of his 
 visitor, but of Mr. Angelo. 
 
 *' You have not known the young lady long, 
 I understand ? " said the elder lawyer, in a 
 mellow though somewhat feeble voice. '' When 
 Mrs. Ellis was last here she made no mention 
 of you, as, we being partly guardians to the 
 young lady, she would certainly have done had 
 you already appeared in the capacity of suitor."
 
 170 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 " I have not known lier three weeks," said 
 the young man, blushing ; " but if you know 
 how she's living, in a lodging-house fall of 
 other people, where anybody can meet her on 
 the stairs, you can't wonder I want to have '^ 
 claim over her, so that I can get her into a 
 better home." 
 
 " Then I understand — you see, Mr. Lauris- 
 ton, I speak as a person of some authority in 
 this matter — you have a home for her to which 
 you wish to take her as quickly as possible." 
 
 *' I am sorry to say I have not, sir. I am 
 only a lieutenant now in the — th Hussars." 
 
 Mr. Angelo gave him a sudden, keen look. 
 " Lord Florencecourt's regiment ! " he said, as 
 if struck by the circumstance. 
 
 Lauriston scarcely noticed the interruption. 
 *•' Yes," continued he, " with scarcely any- 
 thing but my pay. But I hope to get my 
 step next year, or the year after at latest, 
 when I could marry at once." 
 
 '' Pray do not think me impertinent ; this 
 is to me a matter of business, and must be 
 discussed plainly. Miss Weston has some 
 extravagant notions, and may have given you
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 171 
 
 the idea that her mother would continue to 
 be indulgent should she marry. It is right 
 to inform you that this is not the case. The 
 Countess's income has suffered during the 
 recent depression in rents, and — " 
 
 " I should never marry unless I could keep 
 my wife," interrupted Lauriston abruptly. 
 " I have been offered work on two military 
 papers whenever I care to take it up, so that 
 I shall not only be able to save, but to pay 
 for Nouna's maintenance and education in 
 some o'ood school on the understandinor that 
 she is to marry me on leaving it. Anything 
 that you or the Countess can wish to know 
 about my family — " 
 
 The old lawyer raised his hand slowly. 
 " — is easily known. You are a relation, I 
 suppose, of the late Captain Lauriston of the 
 — Drao'oon Guards ? " 
 
 " I am his son." 
 
 " Ah ! Your great-uncle. Sir Gordon Lauris- 
 ton, was a client of my father's You wish, 
 I understand, to communicate with Madame 
 di Yaldestillas ? Any letter that you leave in 
 our care will be forwarded at once to her."
 
 172 SCHEHEKAZADE : 
 
 These words re-awoke Lauriston's remem- 
 brance of the mysterious lady who had 
 followed him to his quarters the night before. 
 
 *'As Madame di Valdestillas is now in 
 England," he said quietly, " why should I 
 not have her address ? " 
 
 The old lawyer remained as unmoved as a 
 mummy by this dashing stroke, but a sudden 
 movement on the part of the less sophisticated 
 Mr. Smith did not escape the young man's 
 notice. 
 
 ** If she is in England — which is very pos- 
 sible, as her movements are as uncertain as the 
 winds — she has only just arrived, as we have 
 not yet seen her. But if you will write to 
 her under cover to me, I can promise you the 
 letter will soon be delivered to her, as her first 
 visit on coming to England is always to us." 
 
 *' But she was at her daughter's house last 
 night ! " 
 
 " Indeed 1 Then why did you not speak to 
 her yourself ? " 
 
 Lauriston v/as disconcerted. The manner 
 and voice of the old lawyer expressed such 
 bland surprise, that he began to think he
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 173 
 
 had discovered a mare's nest, and answered 
 in a far less bold tone. 
 
 " I saw a lady wdiom I believed to be the 
 Countess. I may have been mistaken — " 
 
 " You must have been mistaken/' said 
 the lawyer imperturbably. " The Countess 
 di Valdestillas is not a person whose indi- 
 viduality admits of doubt. I will write to 
 her, inform her of your visit, tell her that 
 you w^ould prefer to communicate directly 
 wdth her, and ask her if she will authorise 
 us to give you her address. We are forced 
 to take this course, as, the Countess's business 
 affairs being all in our hands, we are em- 
 powered to sift all her correspondence from 
 England, that nothing but what is of real 
 importance should come to her hands. The 
 Countess has a dash of Eastern blood, like 
 her daughter, and is, well, shall I say — not 
 madly energetic." 
 
 There was nothing; for Lauriston to do but 
 to acquiesce in this arrangement and to take 
 his leave, scarcely yet knowing whether he 
 was satisfied or dissatisfied w^ith his interview. 
 As he passed out, however, condescended to
 
 174 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 by the senior, made much of by the junior 
 partner as before, a clerk took in a telegram 
 to the former. Lauriston had hardly gone 
 two steps from the door of the outer office, 
 when he heard the soft voice of the old 
 gentleman calling to him from the door of 
 his private room. He turned back, and with 
 some appearance of mystery, and a rather less 
 condescending tone than before, Mr. Angelo 
 ushered him in, and offered him a chair before 
 uttering a word. 
 
 ^' I thought I should like to say a few words 
 to you in my private capacity, Mr. Lauriston," 
 said he, when he had softly closed the door. 
 *' As a lawyer, speaking in the presence of my 
 partner, as a member of the firm, I may have 
 seemed to you somewhat dry and unsym- 
 pathetic ; as a man, believe me, I should be 
 glad to further an alliance between a member 
 of such an honourable family as yours, and 
 a young lady in whose welfare I take an 
 interest." 
 
 Lauriston bowed in acknowledgment, with 
 the conviction that it was the telegram he 
 had just received which had produced such
 
 A LONDON night's entehtainment. 175 
 
 a softening effect on Mr. Angelo. He 
 liastened to take advantage of it. 
 
 ''You are very kind, sir. I love Nouna 
 with all my heart, and my dearest wish is 
 to make her my wife. But I should be glad 
 if you would answer one question. The 
 answer you give will make no difference to 
 my course of action ; but it is right and 
 necessary that I should understand Nouna's 
 position. Am I right in supposing, as cir- 
 cumstances suggest, that Madame di Vald- 
 estillas had a secret in her past life, that — 
 Nouna s father was not her husband ? " 
 
 Mr. Angelo's eyes wandered round the 
 room in a reflective manner. 
 
 " May I ask what leads you to this sup- 
 position 1 " 
 
 " The strange way in which she has been 
 brought up, spoilt and yet neglected, the 
 daughter of a woman of rank allowed to 
 live in a lodging-house with a paid com- 
 panion ; it is not the usual education of a 
 lady, English or foreign." 
 
 " You are right. The circumstances are 
 strange. You are an officer, the son of a
 
 176 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 man of known honour. You will of course 
 regard any communication I make to you on 
 tliis subject as strictly and inviolably secret.'*' 
 
 " I hope you have no doubt of that." 
 
 " I have not. You understand that the 
 information I am about to give you, you are 
 bound in honour never to use, you are to 
 resrard as never havinsf been heard ? " 
 
 "I understand that perfectly.'' 
 
 " Well then, Nouna is the legitimately born 
 daughter of an English gentleman. That, I 
 think, is all you wish to know." 
 
 As his tone said very decidedly that this 
 was all he meant to tell, Lauriston professed 
 his entire contentment, and once more took 
 his leave. Upon the whole he was not dis- 
 satisfied with the result of his visit to the 
 lawyers. Nothing he had heard there was 
 inconsistent with what he had already been 
 told about the Condesa di Yaldestillas, and 
 he began to think that the romantic circum- 
 stances in which he had met Nouna had 
 perhaps inclined him to make mountains 
 of mystery out of molehills of eccentricity. 
 The only thing which now seemed to baffle
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 177 
 
 all attempts at explanation was the remark- 
 able way in which Mr. Angelo had made the 
 simple statement concerning Nouna's birth. 
 As, however, it was impossible to learn the 
 reason of this, Lauriston gave up trying to 
 guess it, and assured of the prosperity of his 
 suit, fell into a lover's dream, picturing to 
 himself the joys of moulding this passionate 
 pliable young creature, under the influence 
 of his love, into an ideal wife, good as an 
 English woman, fascinating as a French one, 
 free from the narrow-mindedness of the one 
 and the frivolity of the other, and with a 
 passionate warmth of feeling unknown to 
 either. But as he recalled the grace of her 
 movements, the delicate beauty of her face 
 and form, her cooing voice and caressing 
 gestures, the intoxication of his passion grew 
 stronger than his efforts of reason and im- 
 agination. Why should he not marry her 
 now, as she wished, as he longed to do ? 
 He could then educate her himself, guard 
 her, as no schoolmistress, or guardian other 
 than a husband, could do, from all influences 
 that were not noble, and pure, and good ; 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 whatever she might have done in imagination, 
 in reality she had not lived in anything more 
 like a palace than that one room, used for a 
 few weeks, avowedly fitted up as a show-room, 
 and furnished with treasures that were only 
 borrowed. True, if he married her now, she 
 would have to live in London lodgings still, 
 and without the alleviations afforded by 
 painted ceilings and silk-hung walls. But 
 he would find for her head a softer pillow 
 than any embroidered cushion, and soothe 
 her with a lullaby sweeter than the sound 
 of any fountain that ever flowed. 
 
 And then in the midst of this fine frenzy, 
 dull common sense put in a word, and showed 
 him the reverse side of the medal ; a young 
 husband with ambition checked, and study 
 made impossible by growing debt and prema- 
 ture responsibility ; a young wife ill-dressed, 
 ill-amused, with no companions of her own 
 sex, perhaps a mother before she had left oflf 
 being a child, her warm nature chilled by 
 poverty and disappointment, her love for her 
 husband changing into contempt or hatred. 
 No, it was not to be thought of. He must
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 179 
 
 find her a home where he could see her con- 
 stantly, and keep her under the influence of 
 his own thoughts, and of his own love, until 
 the day when he could bring her to a little 
 home such as an English lady of simple tastes 
 could be happy in. 
 
 With an inspiration born of these thoughts^ 
 he remembered with a shock that he might 
 have come westward third class on the under- 
 ground, instead of in the well-appointed 
 Forder hansom which he had chosen so care- 
 fully. He thrust up his umbrella, told the 
 driver to stop, jumped out, paid him, and 
 continued on foot from Chancery Lane, along 
 Fleet Street, till he came to the oflice of a 
 military paper the editor of whom, with the 
 friendliness of editors to such writers as are 
 not dependent upon writing, had asked him 
 to contribute certain articles on a subject in 
 which Lauriston was well-known to be pro- 
 ficient. He had sufficient acumen to let the 
 editor think, when he expressed his readiness 
 to undertake the work at once, that his object 
 was fame rather than coin ; and having settled 
 by what date the first instalment was to be 
 
 N 2
 
 180 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 ready, and ignored the matter of terms with 
 a handsome indifference he did not feel, 
 Lauriston left the office and returned to the 
 West End on foot. 
 
 He dined that evening at his club with a 
 couple of friends ; one of whom gave a rather 
 startling turn to his beatific thoughts by an 
 allusion to Clarence Massey's mad infatuation 
 for some girl whom he had " picked up in a 
 curiosity shop somewhere in the slums." 
 
 Lauriston made no comment, and did not 
 betray by a look that the remark had an 
 interest for him. The little Irishman had 
 taken care not to indulge in his ravings over 
 his unknown beauty in the presence of the 
 comrade wdiom he had tricked. But the 
 words of Eahas, on the preceding evening, 
 had given Lauriston a clue to his own visit 
 to 36 Mary Street, and this startling reference 
 to Massey's share in the matter strengthened 
 his resolution to give that amorous and artful 
 young gentleman a lesson. 
 
 Lauriston went home early, with the fixed 
 intention of settling up this matter with as 
 little delay as possible, and on arriving at his
 
 A LOXDOX NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 181 
 
 quarters he found his intention strengthened, 
 and the means of carrying it out provided in 
 a very unex23ected manner. 
 
 As he was going up the stairs to his rooms 
 he was met by his soldier-servant, who told 
 him that a lady had been waiting to see him 
 for the last two hours. Lauriston hurried on 
 in great excitement. Neither Nouna nor Mrs. 
 Ellis knew his address, his sisters were in 
 Scotland, and he had not, like some of his 
 comrades, a circle of lively and easy-mannered 
 feminine acquaintances. His thoughts flew 
 directly to the woman who had followed him 
 home the night before : perhaps the mystery 
 w^as going to be solved after all ; perhaps he 
 should indeed see Nouna's mother. 
 
 Before he reached his rooms he heard 
 voices ; a few steps more and he could dis- 
 tinguish that of Clarence Massey ; arrived at 
 the door of the sitting-room, the soft tones of 
 Nouna herself struck his ears. 
 
 " No," she was saying, *' I shall not kiss 
 you ; Mr. Lauriston would be very angry with 
 you for asking me." 
 
 " Bless you, you little beauty, no, he
 
 182 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 wouldn't. He'd be delighted to know you 
 were enjoying yourself," answered Massey 
 confidently. 
 
 Lauriston threw open the door just as 
 Massey, who had been sitting on a stool a 
 few paces from the sofa where Nouna half- 
 sat, half-reclined, sprang up and seized the 
 hand with which she was wearily supporting 
 her head. 
 
 Nouna jumped up, clapping her hands with 
 joy like a child, and ran towards Lauriston, 
 who, livid, wet, and trembling, did not even 
 look at her, but striding across to Massey 
 without a word, lifted him up in his arms 
 with the sullen fury of an enraged bear, and 
 carrying him to the door, which he opened 
 with a kick, flung him pell-mell, anyhow, like 
 a heap of soiled clothes against the wall, as 
 far along the corridor as he could throw him. 
 Then slamming the door to work off the re- 
 mains of his rao:e, he turned to the fricrhtened 
 girl, who had fallen on her knees and was 
 cling^insr about his feet.
 
 LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 183 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 When George Lauriston, having relieved 
 his feelings by his summary treatment of 
 Massey and closed the door upon the young 
 Irishman's groans and voluble remonstrances, 
 turned his attention to Nouna, he was seized 
 with remorse at having given such free rein 
 to his anger, when he saw what a strong effect 
 it had upon the girl. She persisted in crouch- 
 ing on the ground at his feet like a dog that 
 has been whipped, and when he stooped down 
 and laid his hands upon her, gently telling 
 her to get up and speak to him, she only 
 murmured, '' Don't hurt me. I haven't done 
 anything wrong," and tied herself up with 
 extraordinary suppleness into a sort of knot, 
 which George surveyed helplessly, not know- 
 ing well how to handle this extraordinary 
 phenomenon. At last it occurred to him that
 
 184 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 this exaggerated fear could be nothing but 
 one of her elfish tricks, and he began to laugh 
 uneasily in the hope that this would afi"ord a 
 key to the situation. 
 
 On hearing his puzzled " Ha, ha ! " Nouna 
 did indeed uncurl herself and look up at 
 him ; but it was with a timid and bewildered 
 expression. He, however, seizing his oppor- 
 tunity, swooped down, passed his arms under 
 her, and lifting her bodily from the floor, 
 carried her over to the sofa, placed her upon 
 it, and sat down beside her. 
 
 "And now, little one, tell me what is the 
 matter with you, and why and how you came 
 here." 
 
 Instead of answering, she looked at him 
 steadily, with a solemn and penetrating ex- 
 pression. Angry as he still felt, anxious as 
 he was to know the reason of her unexpected 
 coming, her appearance was so comical that 
 George could not help smiling as he looked at 
 her. She wore again the shot silk frock in 
 which he had seen her on his second visit to 
 Mary Street ; a deep, purple embroidered fez 
 made a Eomeo-like covering for her short and
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 185 
 
 curly dark hair ; while a sop thrown to con- 
 ventionality in the shape of a small black- 
 beaded mantle only brought into greater 
 prominence the eccentricity it was meant to 
 disguise. She had either forgotten or not 
 thought it necessary to exchange her open- 
 work pink silk stockings and embroidered 
 scarlet morocco slippers for foot-gear less 
 startling and picturesque ; her gloves, if she 
 had worn any, she had long ago thrown aside, 
 and George could not help acknowledging, as 
 he looked at her, that it would need an in- 
 telligence stronger than poor Massey's to 
 discover in this remarkable guise the care- 
 fully brought-up young English lady whom 
 alone his code taught him to respect. As 
 this thought came into his mind, George's 
 expression changed, and grew gloomy and 
 sad. The young girl was still watching him 
 narrowly. 
 
 " Are you often — so ? " she asked, with a 
 pause before the last word, and a mysterious 
 emphasis upon it. 
 
 *' What do you mean, Nouna ? " 
 
 " So full of anger that your face grows all
 
 186 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 white and grey, and your mouth like a 
 straight line, and you look as if you would 
 kill the person that offends you/' 
 
 And she shuddered and drew away from 
 him again. George took one of her hands 
 very gently in his. 
 
 '' No, Nouna, I am very seldom angry like 
 that. It is only when any one does some- 
 thing which seems to me very wrong." 
 
 " Oh." This explanation did not seem so 
 re-assuring to the young lady as it ought to 
 have been. " You were listenino^ at the door 
 all the time then ? " she said, after a pause, 
 not so much in fear as in timid respect. 
 
 " No," said he vehemently, growing hot at 
 the suggestion. " Gentlemen don't listen at 
 doors." 
 
 " Don't they ? " said she incredulously. 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 "It is mean, sneaking, bad form alto- 
 gether." 
 
 " Is it ? Then how do you find out things ? 
 Ah, you would pay a servant, perhaps, to do 
 all that for you ? " 
 
 George grew scarlet and drew his hands
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 187 
 
 away from hor, half in indignation, half in 
 horror. 
 
 " Nouna ! " he exclaimed, " where on earth 
 did you pick up these awful ideas ? To pay 
 a servant to play the spy is the most rascally 
 thing a man could do ! A man who did it 
 would deserve to be kicked." 
 
 " Would he ? Then what would he do if 
 he thouo-ht his wife deceived him ? Wouldn't 
 he mind ? " 
 
 George sprang up to his feet, and took a 
 few turns about the room. He was appalled 
 by this fearful perversion of mind, by this 
 terrible candour, and he thought with a 
 shudder of Eahas' statement that the women of 
 the East have no souls. How should he set 
 to work to make her see things with his eyes ? 
 He glanced at her, and saw that she had 
 changed her attitude ; curling her feet up 
 under her, and leaning her head on her hand, 
 she sat quite still, nothing moving but her 
 eyes, watching him. He came back, knelt 
 before her, and looked into her face. 
 
 " In England, Nouna," he said very gently, 
 " when a man wants a wife, he chooses a girl
 
 188 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 whom he believes to be so good, so true, so 
 noble that he couldn't possibly think she 
 would do anything that wasn't right. And 
 he loves her with all his heart, and never 
 thinks of anybody but her, and spends all his 
 time trying to make her happy. So he never 
 thinks about such a dreadful thins as her 
 deceiving him, because, you see, she couldn't, 
 unless she was very wicked, treat a man badly 
 when he was so good to her." 
 
 " Then what Sundran says is all wrong." 
 ^^ Who is Sundran ? " 
 
 '' My servant, my ayah. She says that Eng- 
 lishmen love other women besides their wife, 
 who is only like the chief wife in our country, 
 and that Englishwomen are not so good as 
 Indian ladies, because they are not shut up." 
 
 " Sundran must be sent away. She tells 
 you falsehoods," said George indignantly. 
 
 " She shall not be sent away," retorted 
 Nouna, flashing out at once into passion. *' She 
 loves me. It is she who tells me of the land 
 where I was born, who sings me my Indian 
 songs, and tells me the tales of my own 
 country. She shall not go."
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 189 
 
 George did not press the point, though 
 he made an inward vow to remove this most 
 noxious influence as soon as he had authority 
 over the wayward creature before him. 
 
 " And doesn t some one else love you, 
 Nouna ? '' he asked reproachfully, looking into 
 her flashing eyes ; " some one whom you are 
 treating very cruelly this evening ? " 
 
 The appeal melted her at once, or rather it 
 turned the passion of anger into a passion of 
 afl'ection. She threw her arms round his neck 
 and fervently kissed his mouth, nestling her red 
 lips under his moustache, and scratching his left 
 ear fearfully with the bead work on her mantle. 
 
 " I am not cruel, I love you," she said 
 earnestly. ** I came here to-night because 
 I could not live without seeing you again ; 
 only I will not marry you ; I have made up 
 my mind to that." 
 
 " But why, Nouna, why ? " asked poor 
 George in consternation. 
 
 " We are not of the same race ; we should 
 not be happy ; Rahas is right. If I made you 
 angry, you would look as you did to-night, 
 and you would kill me."
 
 190 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 " But, Nouna, I am not a savage ; I don't 
 get angry over little things. And I should 
 never be angry with you." 
 
 '' I don't know. You say you would not 
 have me watched, you would trust me. Well, 
 I would rather be watched, then I should 
 feel safe. But if I always did just as I felt, 
 I should some day make you angry, I know. 
 I am not like your English girls — the girls at 
 the school, who always know what they are 
 going to do. Something comes up here,'* 
 — and she put her hands over her heart — 
 " and then it mounts up there," — ^joining her 
 fingers over her head — " and says, ' Nouna, 
 love ; Nouna, hate ; Nouna, be sweet and 
 gentle ; ' or * Nouna, be proud and distant.' 
 And I go just as the little voice guides. 
 Well, that is not English!" 
 
 *' You are impulsive, darling, that's all. If 
 you love me truly, the little voice will always 
 tell you to do what I wish." 
 
 '' Will it ? But I am afraid. I tell you I 
 would rather kill myself than have you look 
 at me as you looked at the little curly-haired 
 man to-night. Why did you hate him so ? " .
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 191 
 
 " When I came in lie was trying to kiss 
 
 you." 
 
 " But I would not have let him." 
 
 " No, of course not. That is because you 
 are good and true to me, whom you love." 
 
 '' Is it ? I did not know it was that. I 
 only knew that he w^as small and ugly, and I 
 did not like him." 
 
 " No ; you must not like any man but 
 me." 
 
 " Ah, then you had better shut me up." 
 
 " Well, so I will, my darling. I will shut 
 you up in my heart so close that you shall 
 have no eyes for any one but me." 
 
 And with a great impulse of tenderness for 
 the little dark-eyed thing who was drinking 
 in new impressions of life and morals with so 
 much solemn perplexity, he flung his arm 
 round her and buried his head in the folds 
 of her dress. 
 
 ** You will scratch your beautiful face," 
 said she solicitously, removing the beaded 
 mantle, and ruffling up his hair with light 
 fingers. *' How can Rahas say you are not 
 handsome ? You are like Brahma himself
 
 192 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 when he rides in his sun-chariot ! " she said 
 with loyal intention if with confused lore. 
 
 The name of Eahas, used thus for the 
 second time, roused George from the intoxi- 
 cating oblivion of outside things into which 
 this unexpected interview with the girl he 
 loved had thrown him. 
 
 " Eahas ! " he repeated, raising his head 
 sharply. " You haven't seen him again 
 to-day ? " 
 
 " Now you are going to be angry," ex- 
 claimed the girl shrinking. 
 
 ^' No, my darling, I am not," said George 
 in a most gentle tone. " But if I am to 
 watch over and protect you, I must keep you 
 out of the way of men like Rahas. When did 
 you see him ? What did he say to you ? " 
 
 " Well, I saw him this evening, just before 
 I came here. Mrs. Ellis and I had just 
 finished dinner. I had been very quiet and 
 good all day, writing a long letter to mamma, 
 telling her how handsome you were, and 
 how I would never look with love on the face 
 of any other man, if only she would give me 
 her permission to love you. And I was tired
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 193 
 
 of sitting still, and the air was hot, and 
 Mammy Ellis was sleepy. So I opened the 
 door, and she said there was a draught, and 
 I must shut it. And I could not bear the 
 heat, so I did shut it, with myself outside. 
 And I went into the next room — the one 
 w^here I had pulled down the hangings ; and 
 I was so lonely and sad and weary that I 
 w^as sorry I had ]3ulled them down, and I 
 began to cry and tried to nail up the long 
 trails of silk to the wall again ; and when I 
 found I could not, 1 sat down and cried 
 again ; and then I looked up and I saw 
 Rahas in the room watchinor me like a tiger. 
 And I sprang up ; but he came to me with his 
 eyes shining, and fell at my feet and told me 
 a lot of strano;e thino^s that I for^^et." 
 
 '^What things? What did he tell you?" 
 asked George, trying to keep calm. 
 
 " Must I remember them ? He frightened 
 me ; I do not want to remember them." 
 
 "Try, my darling." 
 
 " He said he loved me, and that I must 
 love him, for the planets said so, and had 
 given him an influence over me which I could 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 not resist. He said he had tried to conquer 
 himself, and had consented to give me up ; 
 but his love was too strong, and I must 
 forget you — that you were hard and cold. 
 When he said that I flew into a passion, and 
 told him I hated him and should marry 
 you. And I threw open the window and told 
 him if he came near me I would shriek with 
 all my strength. And so he had to grow 
 quieter ; and then he said he knew strange 
 things about me I myself did not know, and 
 that you never meant to marry me, that you 
 looked upon me as a little girl to play with, 
 and would marry a staid English lady. And 
 1 burst out crying again, and said that would 
 make no difl'erence to him, for I should go 
 away and perhaps drown myself. Then he 
 was very quiet for a long time, and he pre- 
 sently spoke in, oh ! such a low voice, with 
 a smile on his face that was not sweet and 
 kind, but horrible. He told me if I wanted 
 you to marry me I had better go to your 
 rooms at once and tell you not to forget I 
 loved you, or else that you would see some 
 other lady and perhaps marry her before I
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 195 
 
 could see you again. So I sprang up at 
 once, and lie told me where you lived, and I 
 slipped into my own room and put on my 
 mantle, and told Sundran not to say where I 
 was gone, and I would be back soon. Then 
 Rahas put me into a cab, and told me at the 
 last to be sure and wait till I saw you. And 
 I thanked him and said, ' Be sure I will.' And 
 so I came ; and it was a long way, and I am 
 tired. Why do you look like that ? Why 
 are you angry ? Did you not want me to 
 come ? Eahas said you would be glad." 
 
 '* 'i'he infernal scoundrel!" burst out 
 Georg-e, who had been listeninoj to this recital 
 in almost incredulous horror. 
 
 Nouna got on to her feet, and looked at 
 him with a puzzled inquiring face. 
 
 '* Did he know you would be angry then ! " 
 she asked in a low voice. *' I remember he 
 said I should be less proud when I came 
 back." 
 
 With a strong effort George controlled 
 himself, lest an incautious word should give 
 any inkling of the rascal's meaning to the 
 girl's mind. He drew forward an arm-chair 
 
 o 2
 
 196 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 and invited her to take it with the manner 
 he would have used to a princess. In seating 
 herself she held up her arms towards him, 
 but he would not touch her. He sat down 
 gravely a little way off as he said : 
 
 " You will not go back to Mary Street at 
 all, Nouna.'' 
 
 " No ! Shall I stay here with you ? " 
 
 " Not here, dear. These are bachelor s 
 quarters. But you will stay after Friday in 
 apartments that I shall take for you." 
 
 '* Why after Friday ? " 
 
 ''Because I cannot marry you before then." 
 
 " Marry me ! You said you were not 
 going to marry me for two years ! " 
 
 " You see Fve changed my mind." 
 
 '' Since last night ? " 
 
 *' Since an hour ago, since I found you here." 
 
 She sprang up and flung her arms about 
 him, with kisses, and caresses, and incoherent 
 words. 
 
 " Then you are not angry with me for 
 coming. Oh, Fm so glad, I m so glad 1 came. 
 I don't know what to do, Fm so happy. It 
 seemed so dreadful to have to wait two years,
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 197 
 
 tv\'o years always away from you. For I 
 never felt like this before, as if my heart 
 would break, or would burn my breast if I 
 was away from you. That is love, isn't it ? 
 Kiss me, kiss me, don't be so cold. Don't 
 you love me ? AVby are you going to marry 
 me if you do not love me ? " 
 
 She pushed herself suddenly away from 
 him, keeping her hands on his shoulders and 
 devouring his face with an eager scrutiny. 
 His dark eyes were very bright, and his skin, 
 burnt red and brown like that of most young 
 Englishmen in summer time, was a deeper 
 colour than ever with excitement. But his 
 forehead was puckered into lines and wrinkles, 
 and his mouth was closed in a firm straight 
 line, a fact which Nouna discovered for her- 
 self by brushing up his moustache with a 
 quick and unexpected movement. 
 
 " You are thinking ! " she cried indignantly. 
 " When I tell you of my love you are full 
 of nothing but your thoughts. When I am 
 your wife I will not let you think." 
 
 This last passionate sentence struck George 
 with the ominous force of a prophecy. He
 
 198 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 got up and lifted the girl playfully right 
 above his head, however, while he spoke in 
 grave tones, the tenderness of which was 
 ■unmistakable. " When two people love each 
 other, little one, one of the two at least 
 always has to think. And when you are 
 my wife you will have to let me do as I 
 please, just as now you have to let me hold 
 you in the air until it is my good pleasure to 
 put you down." 
 
 But as he spoke the little creature, who had 
 been trying in vain with her weak fingers to 
 undo the clasp of his strong ones on her waist, 
 suddenly ceased to struggle and lay limp and 
 heavy on his hands, her head and limbs hang- 
 ing loose, and her cap falling to the ground. 
 George let her down and placed her on the 
 sofa in consternation, blaming himself for 
 ignoring the fragility of the tiny thing. There 
 she lay just as he placed her, as still as the 
 dead. No sooner, however, had he rushed 
 into his bedroom, returning with a glass of 
 water which he began nervously to sprinkle 
 on her still face, than she opened her eyes 
 with a sly and elfish delight, and began to
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 199 
 
 curl up with mischievous laughter. George 
 fell back with a sick feeling w^liich was not 
 all relief at findino- she was less frao;ile than 
 he had supposed. He had challenged her to 
 take his playful action as an allegory, and she 
 had had the wit to accept and continue it. 
 When their two wills should clash she would 
 obtain by fraud what she could not get by 
 force. It was at least a fair w^arning:. He 
 was angry with her and he got up from his 
 knees without speaking, without looking at 
 the laug^hino; orirl. Nouna understood, and 
 in a moment all merriment had died from her 
 face; she was cling;in<x to his arm, entreatimx 
 him passionately to forgive her ; she was a 
 wicked, ungrateful girl ; she had only meant 
 to tease him, to see if he would mind if she 
 were ill ; she would obey him, she would do 
 whatever he washed her to do ; she would 
 throw herself out of the window if he would 
 not turn and kiss her. 
 
 So he turned, of course, and the kiss of 
 peace was given ; but George had had a chill 
 in the height of his passion, and even while 
 he passed his hand over her soft hair and
 
 200 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 made her pretty, low-voiced love-speeches, his 
 mind was full of practical matters concerning 
 her lodging for the three nights to be passed 
 before he could possibly marry her, and other 
 details connected with this step. 
 
 " Where was this school you lived at before 
 you came to London with Mrs. Ellis, Nouna?" 
 he asked suddenly. 
 
 " School ! It wasn't quite a school. There 
 was only six of us, and we all had rooms apart 
 and our ow^n servants," said Nouna. 
 
 "AYell, but where was it ? " 
 
 " It was at Clifton. But why— " 
 
 " Clifton ! That's no use," said George to 
 himself. Then he continued aloud, " Now, 
 Nouna, wall you be a good child and stay 
 quietly where I take you to-night ? " 
 
 " Yes," said she, nodding like a child, " if 
 you come too." 
 
 " I'll take you there to-night, and I'll come 
 and see you quite early in the morning. It 
 is to the house of an old servant in our 
 family who now lets part of her house in 
 apartments. She will be very kind to you, I 
 know."
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 201 
 
 " But you won't leave me there all alone — 
 without Sundran or anybody ? " 
 
 " I won't leave you until I see you are quite 
 happy and comfortable there, and if you don't 
 like the place and the people I won't leave 
 you there at all." 
 
 AVithout giving her time for further objec- 
 tions, Georo;e brouo;ht her a comb, which she 
 kissed because it was his and proceeded to 
 pass through her short, thick hair in a very 
 helpless and unaccustomed fashion ; at last, 
 coming to a decided knot, she stamped her 
 foot and, leaving the comb in her hair, pre- 
 sented her head to George, who placed her 
 again in the arm-chair and reverently and 
 laboriously set to work on the soft curly 
 tangle. He grew very hot over the occu- 
 pation, which was new to him, and began 
 to understand why hairdressers are generally 
 of the abler sex. By the time he had reduced 
 the pretty wavy hair to order, and admired 
 its soft silkiness by the light of the candle 
 he had set burning, Nouna had added to his 
 difficulties by falling, like a tired kitten, fast 
 asleep. He called to her gently two or three
 
 202 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 times, and was at last forced to come to the 
 conclusion that she did not mean to wake up. 
 After a moment's reflection he resolved to 
 take advantage of the circumstance. It was 
 getting very late, and if he were to insist 
 on rousing her, she might have another little 
 scene in store for him before she would 
 consent to go. So he put on her cap, picked 
 up her gloves and put them in his pocket, and 
 lifting her in his arms, wrapped the beaded 
 mantle about her and carried her down-stairs, 
 during which proceeding she patted his cheek 
 sleepily but really seemed only half awake. 
 He passed nobody but the sentry, who could 
 scarcely conceal his surprise on finding which 
 of the young officers it was who was engaged 
 in such an evident 'lark.' He was just in 
 time to catch a train to Victoria, and until 
 they arrived there Nouna declined to wake up. 
 Outside the station, George got with his sleepy 
 charge into a hansom and, after giving the 
 driver an address in a street at Brompton, 
 occupied himself, as his companion remained 
 motionless except that as he propped her in 
 the corner she promptly fell back against him,
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 203 
 
 in getting her little hands into her gloves. He 
 was very tenderly busy with the first, when 
 a voice from the depths of his shoulders 
 surprised him. 
 
 " Wrong hand ! " 
 
 " Hallo ! So you're awake, are you, little 
 one ? Come, lift up your head ; I want to 
 put you to rights before \yq get there." 
 
 "No, no, I don't want to get there," said 
 she, stretching up her arm across his breast, 
 *' I want to drive about like this all night 
 with you." 
 
 " But we can't do that, Nouna." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Well, you'd catch cold—" 
 
 " No, I shouldn't ; I'm quite warm ; feel 
 me." 
 
 "And — and it wouldn't be considered 
 riaht." 
 
 o 
 
 "Now you're not going to talk as Mrs. 
 Somers used to talk, are you ? " asked Nouna 
 w-arningly. " Because if you do I shall hate 
 you just as I used to hate her, and I shall 
 want to get away from you just as I used 
 from her."
 
 204 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 " But, Nouna, some one must tell you what's 
 right and what's wrong, and who is to do it 
 if you won't let me whom you say you love ? " 
 
 •'' Don't say I only say it," cried she, nestling 
 up to him with pleading reproach. " Go on, 
 go on lecturing me ; but keep your hand so 
 on my shoulder all the time.'' 
 
 And his lecture had to die away into 
 endearing words, and when the hansom 
 stopped, George found it difficult to resist the 
 temptation, urged upon him in a soft whisper 
 by his companion, to tell the cabman to " drive 
 on." But he nerved himself to a sense of 
 duty and propriety, jumped out and rang the 
 bell of a well-kept house, at the door of which 
 appeared a neat servant who informed him 
 that Miss Glass was at home. 
 
 Miss Glass was a woman of five and forty, 
 with an honest fresh-coloured face, who insisted 
 on kissino; Georo;e because she had nursed him 
 when he was a baby, and who willingly con- 
 sented to do all she could for his bride- elect. 
 The eccentric appearance of that lady when 
 she was brought inside the house seemed 
 somewhat to shock her ideas of propriety ;
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 205 
 
 but when, after George had bidden her good 
 night and gone to the door, the poor ehikl ran 
 out after him and entreated him not to leave 
 her — she was so lonely — she had never been 
 all by herself among strangers before — Miss 
 Glass put her arms round the girl in very 
 kindly fashion, and soothed her into some sort 
 of despondent and melancholy resignation. 
 
 ''You'll come early, won't you?" Nouna 
 cried from the doorstep in heart-broken tones. 
 " If you don't come before ten I shall come 
 to the barracks after you." 
 
 George assured her that he would come 
 before breakfast, and drove off, excited by 
 the rapidity with which this im23ortant step 
 of marriage was forcing itself upon him. He 
 had surprised himself lately by developing an 
 infinite capacity for doing rash things, but 
 he was saved by his native obstinacy from 
 the weakness of regretting them ; therefore, 
 although he acknowledged to himself that 
 this headlong plunge into matrimony was 
 the rashest act of all, and that his chances of 
 domestic happiness were about the same as 
 if he had decided to unite himself for life to
 
 206 SCflEHEEAZADE : 
 
 a Cherokee squaw, he was resolved in dare- 
 devil fashion to stick to his colours and make 
 the best of it ; and this state of mind left him 
 calm enough to think of a little act of kind 
 consideration towards poor Mrs. Ellis, who, he 
 knew, must by this time be half crazy with 
 anxiety about her charge. So he drove to 
 Mary Street, and after satisfying the governess 
 that Nouna was safe, though he declined, for 
 fear of Eahas, to give her address, he went 
 clown-stairs and knocked at the door of the 
 Oriental merchant's apartments. The grey- 
 haired Fanah opened it, however, and with a 
 real or affected ignorance of English, explained, 
 chiefly by gestures and incoherent noises, that 
 his nephew was ''gone away." So that George, 
 who was burning for some short and sharp 
 vengeance, he hardly knew what, u23on Eahas 
 for his infamous advice to Nouna, was forced to 
 retire with that praiseworthy wish unsatisfied. 
 Scarcely, however, had the old merchant, 
 with a low bow, closed the door of his apart- 
 ments, when a little lamp, borne by a figure 
 in white, cast a feeble light upon the walls 
 above, which shifted rapidly downwards until
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 207 
 
 it was flashed in George's eyes by the bearer, 
 who proved to be no other than Nouna's 
 Indian servant Sundran. The young man 
 started wdien he saw the bronze-coloured face 
 peering up into his. It w^as a most unpre- 
 possessing countenance, bearing the impress 
 of mean passions and low cunning, which not 
 even the brown dog's eyes, full of affection 
 and a certain sagacity, could redeem. The 
 woman might have been of any age between 
 thirty-five and fifty, though the subtle agility 
 of her movements seemed to prove that the 
 wrinkles and lines in her dark face were pre- 
 mature. She looked up into Lauriston's face 
 with eager anxiety. 
 
 " Missee, little missee, my mistress, where 
 is she ? " she asked in a whisj)er. 
 
 " She's all right, quite safe ; I came to tell 
 Mrs. Ellis so." 
 
 ^' But me want to see her, she not sleep till 
 I come to her and sing and tell her the old 
 stories. Take me to her, sahib, take me, and 
 Sundran love you very dear." 
 
 " I can't do that, Sundran ; she is a long 
 way from here. But she is quite safe. I am
 
 208 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 going to marry her, so you may be quite sure 
 she is safe. Mrs. Ellis trusts me, so you can." 
 
 '' But, sahib, Missee Ellis not know her so 
 long as me. I come with her from her 
 country with the Mammee Countess, her 
 mother. She always have me, she love her 
 old nurse. Sahib, take me to her." 
 
 But George was looking upon the woman 
 with more and more distaste. Hers was the 
 pernicious influence which, working by the 
 spells of early association, of wild fable, of 
 romantic devotion, had filled Nouna's young 
 mind with its prejudices, had excited her 
 imagination by its dangerous pictures, and 
 had made her blind and deaf to all the better 
 influences around her. 
 
 " I cannot indeed," he said gravely. " I 
 am going straight back to my own rooms now. 
 It would take me another hour to drive you 
 first to the house where she is staying, and 
 by that time your mistress w^ould be fast 
 asleep." 
 
 The woman noticed the increased coldness 
 of his tone, and recognised the uselessness of 
 further entreaty. She tried another tack.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 209 
 
 ** Sahib," slie whispered lower than ever, in 
 a wheedling tone, with a glance all round the 
 hall and a particularly careful scrutiny, by the 
 light of the lamp, of the chinks of the doors, 
 " if you take me to Missee Nuna, if you tell 
 me where she is, I take you to Sahib Rahas, I 
 tell you where he is." 
 
 George started, and the offer confirmed him 
 in his resolution to have nothing to do with 
 this woman. He thought it proved conclu- 
 sively that she had been bought by Rahas, 
 but that she was willing to betray him if she 
 could get her price ; and though he did her 
 the justice to believe in the sincerity of her 
 devotion to her young mistress, he knew how 
 much more harm than good it was likely to 
 do his poor little fa7icee. As he repeated that 
 it was impossible for him to comj)ly with her 
 request, the dark face of the Indian woman 
 grew hideous with baffled passion. She re- 
 treated a few paces and showed her teeth 
 at him like an angry ape ; then twirling 
 her lamp twice round her head with some 
 muttered, inarticulate words, as if she were 
 repeating an incantation, she turned her back 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 upon liim and slunk stealthily up-stairs like 
 a wild animal thwarted in a search for its 
 young, 
 
 George left the house with shuddering 
 thankfulness that Nouna had escaped from 
 her perilous associations. " Marriage, thank 
 heaven," thought he, " w^orks such changes 
 in a woman that it will drive them all out 
 of her head, and fill her heart and mind with 
 new thoughts and feelings." 
 
 And of course he forgot that marriage can 
 work changes in a man too.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 211 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The next morning, before he was up, 
 George Lauriston was surprised by an ap- 
 parition in a dressing-gown, with a black eye 
 and a strip of sticking-plaster across its upper 
 lip. It proved to be Clarence Massey, who 
 came up to his bed-side to offer to smoke the 
 pipe of peace while yet the soft influence of 
 slumber might be supposed to mollify any 
 desire for vengeance, which might haply be 
 still burning in his comrade's breast. As a 
 matter of fact, George had, before retiring to 
 rest the night before, regretted his violence 
 to the little Irish lad, and was ready to meet 
 him more than half way. So that when 
 Massey humbly made a clean breast of the 
 trick he had played, valiantly omitting all 
 mention of Dicky "Wood's share in it, and 
 apologised for his intrusion into Lauriston's 
 
 r 2
 
 212 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 quarters the evening before, the latter held 
 out his hand from the bed and told him not 
 to think any more about it. 
 
 " I'm awfully sorry I was so rough wdth 
 you, old chap," said he. " It was all a mis- 
 understandiog from beginning to end. Nouna 
 is so young, and knoTvs so little of the world, 
 that she hasn't dignity enough yet to awe 
 an Irishman. She'll know better when she's 
 married ; and if you don't come to our 
 wedding, at least you must be the first to 
 congratulate us afterwards, Massey, since it 
 was you w^ho brought about our first meeting." 
 
 But Massey 's jaw had dropped. 
 
 " Wedding ! You don't really mean you're 
 going to marry her, Lauriston ? " he cried in 
 too evident consternation. 
 
 *' Certainly I mean it; w^hy not?" said 
 George very quietly, though he had suddenly 
 grown thoroughly awake. 
 
 " Oh, no reason, of course. I beg your 
 pardon. I was only surprised because we 
 hadn't heard anything about it, you know." 
 
 " There is no reason why the whole regiment 
 should know all one's affairs," said George
 
 A LOXDOX night's ENTERTAINMENT. 213 
 
 quickly. " And look here, Massey, don't go 
 and talk about it, there's a good fellow. You 
 know very well how they all begin to croak if 
 a man marries young, and as I don't want my 
 wife to meet any of them before it's necessary, 
 I'd rather they didn't even hear of it till we've 
 had time to look about us," ended George, 
 who had a nervous dread of the effect the 
 neighbourhood of a pretty woman who was 
 somebody else's wife had upon several of his 
 fellow-officers. 
 
 Massey nodded intelligently two or three 
 times in the course of this speech, but at the 
 end of it he hum'd and ha d rather dubiously 
 and at last spoke out. 
 
 " Well, you see, Lauriston, of course I won't 
 say a word ; but the fact is something about 
 it has got to the Colonel's ears already." 
 
 " What ! " cried George, jumping up. 
 
 "Yes. You see, when you deposited me 
 on the floor of the corridor outside here last 
 night, neither you nor I took the matter in 
 the quiet and gentlemanly manner we ought 
 to have done. In fact, we made such a row 
 that rumours of it came to the Colonel's ears,
 
 214 SCHEHEEAZADE : 
 
 and hearing your name and mine mixed up 
 in it, he sent for me and asked me about 
 it. And — and you see, Laurie, old chap, I 
 didn't know all you have just told me, and — " 
 
 '^ By Heaven ! " said George in a low voice, 
 " you made him think — " 
 
 " I give you my word, old man, I didn't 
 mal-e him think anything. But I couldn't 
 help what he did think. AYhen he heard 
 there was a girl mixed up in it — a sort of 
 Creole, I think I said — he went off like soda- 
 water in hot weather, and there was no get- 
 ting a word in edgeways after that. He asked 
 me finally what the d — I was standing there 
 for like a moonstruck idiot, or a stuck pig, or 
 a something I didn't exactly catch. For as 
 soon as he showed by his first words that my 
 presence was no longer soothing, I saluted and 
 scuttled away, as one express journey through 
 the air in the course of an eveniDg is enough 
 for anybody. I believe he sent up to your 
 rooms, but you had gone out by that time." 
 
 George listened to this account very gloom- 
 ily, as the Colonel was the very last person he 
 wished to know anything about his marriage
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 215 
 
 until it was an accomplislied fact. He dreaded 
 a summons from Lord Florencecourt ; for tlie 
 next three days he felt a nervous quaking of 
 the heart whenever he was in the neighbour- 
 hood of the autocratic little officer. But for 
 some unexplained reason he was not called 
 upon to give an account of himself, and 
 instead, the Colonel seemed to mark his 
 displeasure by the much more welcome means 
 of cold reserve towards him. 
 
 In the mean time George had a busy day 
 of it. He dismissed Massey pledged to secrecy 
 on the subject of the marriage and likewise 
 to eternal friendship with himself, called on 
 Nouna, w^hom he found reconciled to her new 
 abode by means of a kitten and a preliminary 
 lesson in the art of shelling peas. He then 
 went up to the City, saw Mr. Angelo, told 
 him enough of the occurrences of the pre- 
 ceding evening to show him how needful it 
 was that the young girl should find immedi- 
 ately some more efficient protector than the 
 somnolent and stolid Mrs. Ellis, and declared 
 his wish to marry her at once. Mr. Angelo 
 concurred . perfectly in all that he said, and
 
 216 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 only made one stipulation, namely, that 
 George should wait until Madame di Yaldes- 
 tillas's consent could be got to this decisive 
 step. 
 
 *' I have not the least doubt of her consent, 
 Mr. Lauriston," said he. "And as I learnt 
 yesterday, by telegraphing to her last address, 
 that she and her husband are now in Paris, 
 on their way to Spa, you will not have long 
 to wait for her answer. She is accustomed 
 to act a good deal by my advice, and I will 
 say about you enough to turn the scale. She 
 has great faith in my judgment, as she may 
 well have where she is concerned, for, although 
 some of her actions may seem eccentric to us 
 methodical Europeans, she has a most generous 
 and noble nature, and she can always com- 
 mand whatever knowledge and service my 
 partner and I can put at her disposal. But 
 I could not allow this hasty marriage to take 
 place without her full consent. To begin with, 
 it would not be legal, as her daughter is not 
 yet sixteen." 
 
 There was nothing for George Lauriston 
 to do therefore, but to wait, and in the mean
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 217 
 
 time to write a long and earnest letter to the 
 Countess, which he entrusted to her lawyers, 
 without troubling further for her address. 
 During the next two days he spent a great 
 deal of his time with Nouna, whom he took 
 to the South Kensington Museum and to the 
 Zoological Gardens, first stopping with her at 
 different shops in Eegent Street, where he 
 provided her with boots, gloves, and a hat. 
 She gave a great deal of trouble in all the 
 shops, being quite unable to fix her attention 
 on the subject in hand in her delight at being 
 able to run about and examine all the pretty 
 things ; but she charmed the attendants, both 
 men and girls, who allowed her to try on every 
 scarf and bonnet and wrap that suited her 
 fancy, and brought her a cup of tea, when, 
 on hearing two of the girls speak about going 
 to tea, she made a request for one. When, 
 however, her exuberance of spirits had calmed 
 down a little, she chose without an instant's 
 hesitation the bonnet which suited her best, 
 a puckered ivory-silk hood-like headgear, 
 meant for a child, a pair of long silk gloves 
 of the same shade, which she gathered up
 
 218 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 in wrinkles on her arms, and a china crape 
 shawl that matched exactly with them, which 
 she arranged most picturesquely about her 
 shoulders, after flinging down on the ground 
 the beaded mantle she had previously worn. 
 
 This proceeding, which caused George some 
 consternation, she accomplished with a series 
 of delighted chuckles. 
 
 ^'Ah, ah! That's the thing Mammy Ellis 
 got for me ! I wish she could see it now," 
 she murmured, casting a look of scorn and 
 hatred at the rejected garment, which was of 
 the kind middle-aged ladies call ' handsome ' 
 and ' lady-like.' And when one of the 
 smiling assistants picked it up and asked 
 for her address that she might send it home, 
 she shook her head disdainfully and said they 
 could keep it, she did not want it sent home. 
 But George, with a serious face, mindful of 
 the expense of ladies' dress, which began to 
 seem unsuspectedly appalling, said she might 
 be cold presently, and insisted on carrying 
 the prickly bristling mantle, which he re- 
 garded with all reverence as having been worn 
 by her, over his arm.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 219 
 
 It seemed to liim monstrous that the bill 
 for these few trifling things should have come 
 to three pounds fifteen shillings and eleven- 
 pence half-penny — a sum which, when paid, 
 left him scarcely enough for her boots and 
 the cabs to and from the Zoo. For she 
 chose her foot-gear in the same half-royal, 
 half-mad way, turning over a pile of boots 
 and shoes with quick fingers, and running 
 round to inspect the contents of the show- 
 cases until she discovered a pair of tiny, thin 
 walking-shoes with slender, tapering heels, 
 which stood all by themselves under glass 
 in the middle of the shop. She was told 
 they were only for show, and too small for 
 wear. 
 
 "But they are large enough for me," she 
 said, thrusting forward a small, velvet-shod 
 foot imperiously. "I will not wear ugly 
 shoes because your Englishwomen have ugly 
 feet." 
 
 And nothing would satisfy her but to try 
 them on, when, to the surprise of the shop- 
 keeper and the consternation of the unhappy 
 purse-bearer, they proved to fit her perfectly
 
 220 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 and in every respect to suit her taste. She 
 performed a little fancy dance before the 
 glass to demonstrate their beauty and the 
 fact that they were easy, and George brought 
 down his fortune to a couple of half-crowns 
 and some coppers by the act of paying for 
 them. 
 
 '' Weren't there any boots then among the 
 things I brought from Mary Street this morn- 
 ing, Nouna ? " he asked diffidently. 
 
 " Oh yes, a few old ploughmen's things — • 
 ' stronof walkino^- boots,' as Mrs. Ellis calls 
 them," said she carelessly; "but of course 
 I could not come out Avith ?/gi6 in t/iose. You 
 know Mrs. Ellis never will take ,me with her 
 to buy my things. This is the very first time 
 I have ever bought anything for myself, and 
 oh ! I do like it." 
 
 George had no doubt of that : she was 
 absolutely trembling with joyous excitement. 
 But Mrs. Ellis's judgment seemed to him a 
 less mean thing than it had seemed before. 
 The girl was so happy, however, that it was 
 impossible not to sympathise a little with her 
 pleasure ; and when they left the shop and got
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 221 
 
 again into the hansom, and she said, with an 
 ardent squeeze of his hand, " Oh, I do like 
 shopping with you ! I'll go shopping with 
 you whenever you like ! " he felt a passionate 
 longing to gather the little butterfly thing up 
 into his arms ; and instead of telling her that 
 about a week of this indulgence would land 
 him in the Bankruptcy Court, he told her in 
 a husky whisper that he would have some 
 work in a few days, and when the money for 
 it came she should have it to do what she 
 liked with, " and every penny I can ever earn 
 in all my life, my darling," he added close to 
 her ear. AVhereupon she was with difficulty 
 restrained from embracing him opposite Peter 
 Eobinson's. 
 
 This was the day they went to the Zoo, 
 where Nouna, looking quaintly lovely in her 
 hastily- chosen toilette, skipped and frolicked 
 about so that George felt like her grandfather, 
 fed the big bear with buns until even he 
 refused to climb up his pole for them any 
 longer, and excited a mild ' sensation ' in 
 the school-children and quiet visitors. Not 
 one cage, not one path among the Gardens,
 
 222 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 would she leave unvisited. George might go 
 home if he pleased — she could find her way- 
 back ; but she would drink her pleasure to 
 the dregs, ride the elephant and the camels, 
 lunch frugally and hastily at the little restau- 
 rant, give nuts to the monkeys and biscuits to 
 the Wapiti deer, pat the seals and shudder at 
 the serpents, till the sun went down and it 
 was time for the closing of the Gardens. By 
 that time the new shoes had begun to feel a 
 little stiflf, the white gloves to look more than 
 a little soiled, and at last poor tired Nouna 
 burst into tears on discovering a long rent in 
 the pretty crape shawl. 
 
 '' It was that nasty monkey, the one with 
 the long ta-a-il," she sobbed. '' Oh, George, 
 isn't there time to go back and beat him ? " 
 
 *' No, I'm afraid not, darling," said George, 
 rearranging the shawl as best he could to 
 hide the slit. "And he didn't know any 
 better, poor thing." 
 
 " But I ougrht to know better than to be 
 such a baby," said she suddenly, with great 
 solemnity, stopping her tears. " I shall be 
 difierent when I'm married," she went on,
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 223 
 
 very earnestly, *' for married women never 
 cry, do they ? Tliey have something else to 
 do. I'm afraid I shall not make a very good 
 wife at first, George," she said, giving herself 
 np to the subject with as much intensity as 
 she had just devoted to the animals, though 
 her voice was tired now and her footsteps 
 very slow. " I was talking it over with Miss 
 Glass this morning, and she told me many 
 things which I meant to write down, only I 
 forgot : how I must find out what you like 
 and what you dislike ; she says many a 
 husband's love is lost by little things such 
 as forgetting pickles, and giving him hare 
 without — without — I don't remember what. 
 But I'll ask her again. I mean to be a 
 good wife, much better than people think, 
 and jDlease mamma^— and — let me rest a 
 little." 
 
 It was a long way across the park to the 
 nearest point where they could get a cab, 
 and although George half carried her for the 
 greater part of the distance, she fell into his 
 arms with a little exhausted, sobbing cry 
 when at last they got into a hansom, and
 
 224 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 before they had driven half a mile she was 
 fast asleep. He sat looking down at the 
 red, parted lips, the soft young cheeks, the 
 sweeping eyelashes that defined the volup- 
 tuous curve of 4ier long eyelids, with the 
 thoughtfulness of the guardian mingling with 
 the yearning tenderness of the lover. During 
 the long, bright day he had just spent with 
 her it had begun to dawn upon him that 
 some of his dreams of an ideal marriag-e with 
 this fascinating, tiresome, irresponsible child- 
 woman were very unsubstantial things. If 
 her frivolity were to be improved away, it 
 would take with it a great deal of her charm, 
 if not of her l)eauty ; while underneath all 
 her light-hearted caprice and infectious gaiety, 
 the strongest, stormiest passions would peep 
 out sometimes for a moment and give strange 
 warnings of the tyranny she might exercise 
 over a nature that had not strength and 
 suppleness enough to control hers. Yet for 
 all this, he loved her more than before, while 
 he dreaded the empire she would make a hard 
 struggle to get over him. All the passion of 
 his nature he was holding in leash, feeling that
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 225 
 
 he scarcely yet knew its force, that it was 
 gathering strength with every moment of 
 restraint. Would he be this woman's ruler 
 and husband, or would he marry her only 
 to be her slave ? 
 
 He tried to shake off these morbid thoughts, 
 and to reassure himself by looking steadfastly 
 on the beautiful little face that in a few days 
 was to be his own : but he found no comfort 
 there. Caj^acity for emotion, for passion, he 
 read clearly enough, but of thought or higher 
 feeling no trace. He grew hot, began to be 
 haunted by Rahas's horrible words — " The 
 women of the East have no souls," until in 
 a passion of indignation with himself and 
 almost with her he woke her up by a hastily 
 snatched kiss, which, tired as she was, she 
 received with her usual demonstrative re- 
 sponsiveness : and then she insisted on en- 
 tertaining him with Indian love-songs in a 
 native jjcitois, taught her by Sundran, which 
 she crooned in a low, unequal, but rather sweet 
 voice close to his ear for the rest of the way to 
 Miss Glass's house, where he left her scarcely 
 wide awake enough to bid him good night. 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 This was liis last clay of suspense, for on 
 the following morning George received a long 
 letter forwarded by Messrs. Smith and Angelo, 
 and dated simply from " Paris," in the thin, 
 pointed feminine handwriting of the last 
 generation. This was the letter : — 
 
 " My dear Mr. Lauriston, 
 
 " I begin in this way without the 
 formal ' Dear Sir ' because, although I do not 
 know you personally, those things which I 
 have heard about you, the simple and manly 
 letter I have received from you, have touched 
 my heart and made me feel as I should feel 
 towards the man who asks to become the 
 husband of my daughter. I am, in a strange 
 case, Mr. Lauriston — a passionately loving 
 mother kept apart from her child by a para- 
 mount duty. I love Nouna as the plant loves 
 the sun ; ask her to show you my letters, ask 
 her what she remembers of me, and you will 
 find that no woman among your English 
 friends loves her children as I love my child, 
 nor fulfils every wish of her daughter's as 
 I do Nouna's. When you are her husband
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 227 
 
 — for I wish you to become her husband, 
 you are noble-hearted and honourable, and 
 you will take care of her — you will find that 
 her absent mother has a share in all her 
 memories. Her girl's treasures are all presents 
 sent by me, her prayer-book is marked by my 
 hand, the very clothes in which she will be 
 married to you were partly made by me. 
 Don't forget this, don't forget that the in- 
 nocence and purity you reverence in her are 
 the result of my care. I could not have kept 
 her mind so child-like if she had been always 
 travelling about from country to country as I 
 must do with my husband, who is an invalid. 
 I think she has suffered no harm since she 
 left school. ]Mrs. Ellis is a good and pious 
 woman who respects me and loves Nouna. 
 As for the Eastern gentleman Rahas, of whom 
 you speak harshly, Nouna and Mrs. Ellis have 
 written to me very openly about him, and I 
 have also received a very respectful explanatory 
 letter from the gentleman himself, and I have 
 come to the conclusion that your dislike to 
 him is probably the result of misunder- 
 standing. I hope and believe this. I am 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 writing fully to you because I wish you to 
 understand and respect the motives of my 
 conduct, that you may look upon me as a 
 mother to you as well as to Nouna, who will 
 pray for the one as for the other, and who 
 hopes at some not far distant time to see 
 you both together. I yearn for that time 
 to come ; I am lonely without my child — 
 without my children. I entreat you to look 
 upon Mr. Angelo as my representative in all 
 thinors ! what he wishes I wish, what he 
 sanctions I sanction. I beg that you will 
 leave all matters connected with your mar- 
 riage in his hands ; I have also written to 
 this effect to Nouna. Whatever he tells you 
 to do, do, in the fullest assurance that it is 
 what I wish. He is an old and trusted 
 friend. It is the manner in which he has 
 written of you that makes me write to you 
 like this. He knows that the dearest wish 
 of my heart for many years has been to 
 marry my daughter to an honourable gentle- 
 man of good family and position, able to 
 introduce her into the very best society, as 
 I should have done mvself if it had not been
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 229 
 
 for the unfortunate delicacy of my husband 
 the Count. May God bless you both is the 
 earnest desire and prayer of 
 
 *' Your loving mother {per avance), 
 
 " Lakshmi di Valdestillas. 
 
 " P.S. — I particularly wish that my daughter 
 may be presented at Court as early as possible 
 next season. I regret very much that it is 
 too late for the last drawing-room this year. 
 I will try to be in London for the occasion, 
 but my movements are altogether dependent 
 on the Count's state of health." 
 
 George Lauriston put this letter down, after 
 readinof it throuo^h to the end, in a state of 
 paralysing bewilderment. " Position ! " " Very 
 best society ! " " Presented at Court ! " What 
 on earth had he said in his letter to her to 
 cause her to make such a ghastly mistake ? 
 For some moments lie was too much absorbed 
 by his dismay to notice that an enclosure 
 from Mr. Angelo lay in the envelope that 
 had contained Madame di Valdestillas' letter. 
 This was the note : —
 
 230 scheherazade : 
 
 " George Lauriston, Esq., 
 "Dear Sir, 
 " We sliall be glad if you can make it 
 convenient to come with Miss Nouna Weston 
 to our office as quickly as possible on receipt of 
 this. 
 
 " We are, dear sir, yours faithfully, 
 '' Smith and Angelo." 
 
 An hour and a half later George and Nouna 
 were in a hansom, driving towards the City as 
 fast as a good horse could take them.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 231 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 NouNA was in a state of the highest excite- 
 ment all the way to the City. She had 
 received a letter from her mother, which she 
 showed to George, after kissing it fervently 
 before she let it g;o out of her hand. The 
 Countess, after many pious exhortations and 
 affectionate congratulations to her daughter, 
 exhorted her in the most emphatic manner to 
 consult Mr. Angelo in all details connected 
 with her marriage, and yield to him the most 
 explicit obedience, as she would do to herself. 
 
 George was struck with this portion of the 
 letter, agreeing so entirely with what the 
 Countess had said to him. The suspicion 
 even flashed across his mind that there might 
 once have been a closer tie between the 
 Countess and Mr. Angelo than that of lawyer 
 and client. When he arrived with his fiancee
 
 232 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 at the solicitors' office the young man was so 
 nervous and excited that Mr. Smith remarked 
 in his genial and jocular manner that he was 
 anticipating the suffering of the ordeal. Nouna, 
 on the other hand, to whom marriage meant 
 the beginning of an era of eternal kisses 
 and shopping, varied by visits to the Zoo, 
 and unknown delights even more intoxicat- 
 ing, beamed with happiness, smiled shyly and 
 coquettishly upon the young clerks in the 
 office, and invaded Mr. Angelo in his sanctum 
 without even knocking at the door. The old 
 gentleman bore this intrusion well, and 
 beckoned Lauriston in with an unusually bland 
 expression. 
 
 "I suppose, Mr. Lauriston," he began, after 
 waiting for both his visitors to seat themselves, 
 " that you are anxious for your marriage to 
 take place without delay." 
 
 ''Yes, yes, he is, we are," answered Nouna 
 for him readily, tapping on the floor with her 
 little feet. 
 
 " Certainly," said George, with much more 
 deliberation. "But — " Nouna turned sharply 
 round and looked at him with aggrieved as-
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 233 
 
 tonishment. " But there is one passage in 
 the letter from the Countess which you for- 
 warded to me this morning that I should like 
 to point out to you before we go on to other 
 things, as it seems to argue that there has 
 been some misunderstanding on her part which 
 I can't account for." 
 
 George got up, and bending down beside 
 Mr. Angelo's writing-table, pointed out the 
 passages in the Countess's letter which referred 
 to ''position" and ^' presentation at Court." 
 
 "You see, sir, that Madame di Yaldestillas 
 seems to think my pecuniary position is much 
 better than it is, or than it is likely to be," 
 he said. '*And yet you know how plainly I 
 have stated it." 
 
 ^'But I don't want to be presented at 
 Court," chimed in Nouna, who had hopped off 
 her chair to read over Mr. Angelo's shoulder 
 the passages referred to, and who was evi- 
 dently in great anxiety, lest the much-coveted 
 prize, a real live husband, should slip through 
 her fingers. " One of my school-fellows had 
 a sister who was presented, and she had her 
 dress torn and cauoht a cold. I would much
 
 234 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 rather wear my nice dresses at home, where 
 one can keep warm and not have them spoilt. 
 Tell mamma, Mr. Angelo, please, that I don't 
 want to go to Court." 
 
 The lawyer gave a pale but indulgent little 
 smile. 
 
 " I think, Mr. Lauriston, that this little 
 matter will j^i'ove no serious obstacle. The 
 wife of an officer with a career before him, 
 such as I am sure you have, will certainly be 
 presented in due course ; and if when that 
 time comes, this young lady should wish to 
 indulge in any special extravagance for the 
 occasion, I feel sure the Countess would help 
 her daughter to make a becomingly splendid 
 appearance." 
 
 George listened in perplexity, while Nouna 
 swept across the room, curtseyed low to the 
 iron safe in the corner, and kissed an ima- 
 ginary royal hand with graceful and fervent 
 loyalty. Then, attracted by the sight of a 
 couple of birds perched on a housetop, she 
 stood on tiptoe to look out of the window, 
 and for a moment left the gentlemen a chance 
 to converse without her assistance.
 
 A LOXDOX night's ENTERTAINMENT. 235 
 
 ''You will, I suppose, be married by licence, 
 as that admits of the least delay. By taking 
 out a licence at the Vicar- General's office 
 to-day, you can be married at your own 
 church on Monday." 
 
 "Yes, I know that," said George, rather 
 surprised that the lawyer's eagerness to get 
 the matter settled should keep pace with his 
 own. " I was going this morning to a bank 
 in Lombard Street where I keep a particularly 
 modest account, to get the necessary funds." 
 
 " Ah, very well. As it is Saturday, you 
 will have to make haste to o-et there before 
 the banks close. One of my clerks shall go 
 with you, if you don't know your way. And 
 in the mean time I think I had better take 
 this young lady to Doctors' Commons, where 
 she can make the necessary statement to get 
 the licence as well as you could yourself. 
 But, my dear young lady," he continued, 
 turning to Nouna, who had sprung back from 
 the window in great excitement at this sug- 
 gestion, " you must really control your high 
 spirits a little and carry yourself with more 
 gravity, or you will certainly be refused the
 
 236 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 licence on the ground that you are too 
 young." 
 
 In an instant she had flown to a small 
 square looking-glass that was hanging against 
 the w^all in a corner of the room, and had 
 parted the curly bush of soft hair that shaded 
 her forehead, and flattened it down into prim 
 unbecoming bands that made her look a 
 couple of years older. 
 
 *' That's what we used to do at school, 
 when we wanted to mimic Mrs. Somers," said 
 she grimly. 
 
 And she threw open the door to intimate 
 that she was ready to start. 
 
 As the old lawyer slowly rose and prepared 
 for the excursion, he said to George, as he 
 shook his head with would-be pleasantry : 
 
 " He need be twice a man, Mr. Lauriston, 
 who weds a child." 
 
 The warning was not needed ; George had 
 already begun to be of that opinion. 
 
 When he returned from the bank, George 
 found that Nouna and the lawyer had come 
 back, and before he could ask any questions 
 about their expedition, Mr. Smith was beg-
 
 A LOXDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 237 
 
 ging the young people to come to luncheon 
 with him, and they were hurried off from the 
 office so quickly that George had scarcely 
 time to notice a sudden and most unusual 
 gravity in Nouna, who did not recover her 
 usual high spirits until she found herself among 
 the garish glories of the Holborn Restaurant. 
 
 When they had finished luncheon, and 
 Mr. Smith, with many congratulations and 
 pretty speeches, had left them, to seek the 
 domestic delights of his semi-detached villa 
 at Anerley, George remembered that he had 
 forgotten to ask Mr. Angelo for the licence. 
 Nouna answered with a sudden womanly 
 gravity which made him laugh — 
 
 "Mr. Angelo has it. And he is going to 
 give notice at the church and everything, so 
 that we shall have nothing to do but to walk 
 in and get married. I've chosen a church 
 Miss Glass told me of, at Kensington." 
 
 George was half amused, half offended, by 
 the scrupulous officiousness with which the 
 old lawyer carried out his instructions of 
 "seeing to everything," but he thought no 
 more seriously about the matter.
 
 238 SCHEHERAZADE I 
 
 The next day lie spent with a very vague 
 consciousness of what went on around him. 
 For he was bound, by a long-standing invita- 
 tion, to pass this particular Sunday on the 
 river with Massey, Dicky Wood, and a fast 
 Guardsman, one Captain Pascoe, who was a 
 far too intimate friend of the gentle Dicky's. 
 They would not let him off, as he had wished, 
 because he was by far the best oarsman among 
 them, and the only one who could be depended 
 upon to resist the temptations of 'the cham- 
 pagne-cup sufficiently to keep up the credit of 
 the crew when the sun had been beating 
 mercilessly down upon river and field for 
 half a dozen hours. 
 
 It was a beastly day altogether, as they 
 one and all described it afterwards. To begin 
 with, when they arrived by train at Maiden- 
 head, from which place it had been deter- 
 mined to row up to Pangbourne or Streatley 
 and back, they found that the boat, which 
 was the joint property of Massey and Wood, 
 had been left at Kingston some days before 
 by the former, whom the rest fell upon and 
 slanged for his dear little irresponsible ways.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 239 
 
 Then there was a o-eneral wrano-le as to what 
 they should do, some being for going down to 
 Kingston, some for hiring a boat, and George 
 being lustily and heartily for going back to 
 town. However, the matter was settled for 
 all of them by the discovery that there was 
 no train to anywhere for two hours, so they 
 got a bad old boat which was the only one 
 at liberty, and started in the worst of humours 
 all round. The numerous defects of the craft 
 supplied them with a subject for invective 
 for the first couple of miles, during wdiich 
 George and Dicky Wood pulled. Captain 
 Pascoe steered, and Massey baled out the 
 water which they had had the pleasure of 
 discovering at the bottom of the boat. Long 
 before they reached Marlow George had had 
 enough of their society, and proposed to tow 
 them up in order that he might be able to 
 indulge his dreams of coming happiness 
 undisturbed. 
 
 Captain Pascoe was a fair-haired, pallid 
 man of thirty-nve, always w^ell-dressed, almost 
 always good-humoured, popular with women 
 of every rank and of every class, and liked
 
 240 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 by all men but a few who loathed him as 
 they would a noxious reptile. He was a man 
 of the world in the sense of taking the lowest 
 possible view of it,^ and was familiar with 
 every phase of fast life ; he had any amount 
 of easy philosophy and indubitable pluck, 
 but was selfish, hiase, and corrupt, pointed 
 out as the hero of half a dozen intrigues 
 with women whose position was loftier than 
 their virtue, and of whose favours, it was 
 said, he did not scruple to boast, and at 
 present the slave of one of the most notorious 
 women in London. 
 
 George Lauriston hated him, and would 
 have excused himself from this excursion if 
 he had known that Captain Pascoe was to 
 be of the party. On this, the eve of his 
 marriage, when to him the word woman 
 signified all things pure, all things holy, 
 every glance cast by this roue at the fair 
 girls in the boats that went by, every slow, 
 soft word with which he passed an opinion 
 on their looks, seemed to George like a sting 
 in a sensitive place. So he lighted his pipe 
 and toiled along bravely in the sun on the
 
 A LOXDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 241 
 
 towing-path, watching the green trees as they 
 seemed to quiver in the hot air, the velvet 
 bees and the slender dragon-flies that flew 
 across his path, the dry cracking earth at his 
 feet, seeing nothing all the time but a small, 
 ever-changing face, hearing in the hum of 
 the bees only a young girl's voice. When they 
 came to Temple Lock, and he got back into 
 the boat with the rest, their talk jarred on 
 him more than ever ; they were discussing 
 the attraction of a certain Chloris White, a 
 great star of the demi-monde, to whom Captain 
 Pascoe had introduced the two lads the 
 evening before. 
 
 Massey was, of course, raving about the 
 exquisite taste of her dress, the charming 
 chic of her manners, the sheen of her golden 
 hair, the languid glances of her eyes, and a 
 great deal more of the same sort, giving off 
 as usual in effusive praises the admiration 
 which, if it had been more contained, might 
 have proved dangerous. But Dicky Wood 
 said so little and Ijlushed so much, that 
 George, who knew that he was rich, hnd 
 heard sensational stories about this woman's 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 SCHEHERAZADE I 
 
 bloodsucking propensities, and knew fcliat slie 
 had helped Pascoe himself to gobble up his 
 patrimony, had a burst of rage against the 
 latter for introducing the lads to her. He 
 remained silently and stolidly smoking there- 
 fore, while the others talked. Massey, how- 
 ever, insisted on dragging him into the 
 conversation. 
 
 "Here, I say, Lauriston, haven't you got 
 anything to say on the subject ? Haven't 
 you seen Chloris White?" he said, with a 
 gentle kick at his companion from where he 
 lay stretched at full length in the bows. 
 
 "Not that I know of," answered George 
 indifferently. 
 
 "Lauriston always looks the other way 
 when he sees one of those ladies coming," 
 said Captain Pascoe in his soft voice. 
 
 " No, I don't," said George rather aggres- 
 sively. " Why should I ? " 
 
 '' Well, I'm sure I don't know why you 
 should," said the other, in the lazy but 
 effective manner habitual to him, as if he 
 really wished they wouldn't give him the 
 trouble of talking, but if they insisted on
 
 A LONDON night's e^:tertainment. 243 
 
 bringing it upon themselves, why there it 
 was, you know. " Only I'd heard you liked 
 something of a milder flavour." 
 
 " You were quite mistaken then," said 
 George, quietly but with sledge-hammer sin- 
 cerity, " I admire them and approve of 
 them just as the Dutch do of storks. 
 They are a charming feature of the landscape 
 — what would the park be to look at with- 
 out them and their turn-outs ? — and they 
 live upon the noxious slimy creatures that 
 would otherwise become a pest to decent 
 people." 
 
 And he puffed away again at his pipe. 
 
 The two younger men lauglied awkwardly, 
 rather ashamed of their late extravagance of 
 adulation, and afraid of Lauriston's contempt. 
 But Captain Pascoe, who felt venomously 
 angry, said it was very smart, if it hadn't 
 been said before, as he rather fancied. And 
 from that moment the want of harmony 
 between the elements of the party became 
 more and more apparent, until it is a question 
 whether all did not feel when they got back 
 to town that it was worth while to have 
 
 K 2
 
 244 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 gone through the day together for the sake 
 of the relief and delight of parting. 
 
 George hurried to the street where Nouna 
 was staying, only for the rapture of gazing 
 upon the dead eyes of the windows behind 
 which she was sleeping. He walked up and 
 down on the opposite side of the way for 
 hours, in that irrational ecstasy of anticipation 
 trembling on the borders of fulfilment which 
 the devotees of long engagements — whatever 
 their compensating advantages of better know- 
 ledge and calmer reason may be — never know. 
 It was to be a perfect life, this new life of 
 his and hers, humanised, not vulgarised, by 
 comparative poverty, with no trials, less en- 
 nobling than the struggles of his just ambi- 
 tion, and his endeavours to bring his young 
 wife's extravagant views into conformity with 
 the smallness of their fortune. At that 
 moment the prospect seemed almost too 
 radiant, and George at last went reluctantly 
 away with a superstitious fear that something 
 must happen on the morrow to dash down 
 the fabric of so much supernatural happiness. 
 
 However, when, on the following morning,
 
 A LONDON NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. 245 
 
 after a sleepless night of feverish imaginings, 
 Georg;e fell at last into a doze, and wakino- 
 sprang out of bed in crazy terror lest he 
 should have overslept himself, everything went 
 as smoothly as possible. He was in plenty of 
 time to go to the apartments he had taken, to 
 see that all was ready for his bride's reception, 
 then to be at the church at eight o'clock, as 
 they had arranged ; even as he drove up to the 
 door he saw another hansom approaching with 
 Nouna and Mr. Angelo, who was to give the 
 bride away ; and, lastly, he had not forgotten 
 the ring. He waited at the door for them, 
 and helped Nouna to descend with a tremor 
 in his limbs and a tumultuous upheaval of 
 all the forces of his nature as she laid her 
 small hand lightly on his arm and sprang 
 to the ground with indecorous haste, and 
 a face beaming with happy, light-hearted 
 excitement. 
 
 She was most oddly dressed in white mull 
 rauslm draperies that appeared to be kept 
 together only by a broad sash of soft white 
 silk that was swathed several times round her 
 body, and the wide ends of which hung on
 
 24 6 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 the left side nearly to her feet. Long white 
 silk gloves covered her arms and met the 
 hanging draperies, while her head was crowned, 
 not covered, by a white silk fez. Her dark 
 skin glowed with an unusual and beautiful 
 tinge of pink, her black eyes danced with 
 excitement, and between her vividly crimson 
 lips two straight rows of strong ivory teeth 
 gleamed as she laughed. A handsome, grace- 
 ful, untamed creature, with all the instincts 
 and scarcely more than the capacity for thought 
 of a healthy young animal, skipping into a 
 Christian church to bind herself with lifelong 
 vows in exactly the same spirit with which 
 she had entered the draper's shop the week 
 before to enjoy the delicious excitement of 
 buying a new bonnet. 
 
 A baker's boy, who happened to be pass- 
 ing, put down his basket to watch her in 
 open-mouthed admiration and astonishment. 
 George himself, intoxicated as he was by his 
 passion, felt a sudden misgiving, not as to 
 the wisdom, but as to the generosity, of 
 entering with this eager child into a com- 
 pact, the nature and terms of which, it now
 
 A LOXDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 247 
 
 occurred to him for the first time, she did not 
 in the least understand. Instead of sober- 
 ing her by its solemn significance, marriage 
 seemed to be turning her head, and to have 
 by anticipation dispersed even those pretty 
 little moods of dignity and of languid silence 
 with which she had formerly varied the 
 monotony of her childish gaiety. Her very 
 greeting was sufticiently suggestive of her 
 views of the impending ceremony. 
 
 " You see I'm all in white," she began as 
 she sprang down upon the pavement. " I 
 thought you would like me to be dressed in 
 white, so I made this dress myself last night, 
 and sat up so late making the cap — for I 
 made it all myself, fancy that ! — that I over- 
 slept myself this morning and was nearly late. 
 What would you have done if I hadn't come 
 at all ^ " 
 
 " I should have come and fetched you," 
 said George, as he shook hands Avith Mr. 
 Angelo, and then drew the little bride's hand 
 through his arm to lead her into the church. 
 
 " Isn't this a queer wedding ? " she chattered 
 on as they Avent through the great outer door
 
 248 SCHEHEEAZADE : 
 
 wliicli the pew-opener had just thrown open, 
 and by which she now stood curtseying. 
 " I've been thinking how hard it seems that 
 I should be married without any cake or any 
 bridesmaids, and mamma not here, nor any- 
 body I know. But I'm not going to cry, no, 
 I'm not going to cry." As they got inside 
 the church she looked up from George's arm 
 to his face and saw that his eyes were moist. 
 " Why, it's you who are crying, and you are 
 tremblinof too ! What's the matter ? " she 
 whispered anxiously. 
 
 " Nothing, my darling," he whispered back, 
 as he pressed her hand against his side, " I 
 was only thinking how good I must be to 
 you, to make up for your haviug neither 
 mother, nor cake, nor bridesmaids." 
 
 They were walking up the middle aisle by 
 this time and, perhaps for a moment a little 
 awed by Lauriston's solemn manner, or by 
 the cold hollow bareness of the large, almost 
 empty church, Nouna made no further remark 
 until they reached the altar-rails, when she 
 took an exhaustive look round, and observed 
 that there was '' a very funny window." The
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 249 
 
 pew-opener, who had followed them up the 
 aisle as quickly as decency permitted, now 
 suo^srested to the brideojroom that he and the 
 lady should seat themselves in one of the 
 front pews until the vicar, who had not yet 
 arrived, should be ready. But the bride 
 dismissed her with dignity, saying, " No, we 
 will wait, so tell him to make haste " ; and 
 George, who felt that Nouna would look 
 upon any inclination to take advantage of 
 the suggestion as a desire to retract, stood 
 up manfully with his back to the few spec- 
 tators who at this early hour had trickled in 
 to see the wedding, and began in the midst 
 of his nervous excitement to be tormented by 
 a fear of being late for parade. Mr. Angelo, 
 who had, according to his own and the 
 Countess's express wish, arranged all the 
 details of the marriage, now appeared from 
 the vestry with the clergyman, who looked 
 blue about the chin and rather cross, as if he 
 had come out in a hurry, without having had 
 time to shave or breakfast. 
 
 Just as George turned at the sound of their 
 footsteps, he caught sight of a figure among
 
 250 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 the scanty congregation which made him start 
 forward, forgetful of everything else. A low 
 but indignant " St, st, what is the matter with 
 you, sir "? " from the clergyman, who glared 
 at him in a manner which seemed to say that 
 if they couldn't keep their minds on what 
 they were about he wouldn't marry them at 
 all, recalled him to himself and the service 
 began. 
 
 To do them justice, they gave him no 
 further trouble. Nouna had studied her part 
 in the service, had not only taken off her left 
 glove without being told, but had tucked up 
 the draperies that formed her sleeve, and left 
 her arm bare to the shoulder as if ready to be 
 vaccinated. She tripped off her part of the 
 service glibly, in a clear, bright voice, without 
 waiting for the clergyman, and then looked 
 up at George with a tiny movement of the 
 head that was almost a nod, as much as to 
 say : " You see I'm determined to do 3^ou 
 credit." The only thing that puzzled her was 
 the difficulty of knowing when to kneel down 
 and when to stand up ; in this, and in this 
 alone, she was obliged to accept the clergy-
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 251 
 
 man's guidance, and for this she kept her 
 eyes fixed carefully upon him all the time. 
 
 Lauriston's nervousness, increased by the 
 sisfht of the fiojure he felt sure he recoo;nised 
 as that of Rahas, was so great that he became 
 the victim of what he believed to be a most 
 strano'e delusion of the ear. It seemed to him 
 that every word of the prayers of the service 
 was repeated, as the clergyman uttered it, in a 
 soft, distinct tone, away in the body of the 
 church behind them. As soon as the service 
 was over, the bridegroom turned round with 
 machine-like rapidity, and was just in time to 
 see the figure he had noticed go down the 
 further end of the south aisle and out at the 
 door. Although the man wore a European 
 overcoat and carried in his hand an English 
 hat, Georo-e felt more than ever convinced that 
 it was Eahas. He was accompanied by a 
 woman, of whose appearance Lauriston could 
 only note two details : she wore dark clothing 
 and was small of stature. It was not Mrs. 
 Ellis, certainly. Sundran ? He thought not. 
 While the young man stood, as if transfixed, 
 staring after these two disappearing figures
 
 252 SCHEHERAZADE : 
 
 with straining eyes, unmindful of the touch of 
 his newly-made wife on his arm, Mr. Angelo's 
 precise tones, close at his ear, roused him from 
 his stupefaction. 
 
 " Come, Mr. LauristoD," he said in a low 
 but rather peremptory tone, " we have to go 
 into the vestry." 
 
 The old lawyer's face was, as usual, im- 
 passive ; but it occurred to Lauriston, a man 
 rendered by his profession observant of details, 
 that the steadiness with which Mr. Ano^elo 
 ignored his persistent stare at the side-door 
 argued that he was himself aware of the 
 objects of interest there. He said nothing, 
 however, but followed the clergyman into 
 the vestry, and signed his name in the 
 register. 
 
 " Come, now it's your turn, little one," he 
 said tenderly to Nouna, who had slipped from 
 his arm and was standing very quietly beside 
 Mr. Angrelo. 
 
 She glanced up at the old lawyer, who gave 
 her his arm with great ceremony, led her to 
 the desk, and turned immediately to the 
 bridegroom.
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 253 
 
 " You saw, or thought you saw some one 
 you knew among the congregation, I fancy,'' 
 said he in his quiet dry manner. 
 
 Lauriston lool^ed up quickly from the page 
 over which he was bending. 
 
 *' Yes, I certainly did think so, in fact I am 
 almost sure of it," he said, turning to notice 
 the old man's expression. 
 
 " I imagined that to be the case from your 
 expression as we left the altar," said the 
 lawyer, keeping Lauriston's eyes fixed by the 
 steady gaze of his own. " Who do you think 
 it was ? " 
 
 '•' I feel sure it was Kahas," said George in a 
 low voice, still watching the face of the lawyer, 
 who now took Nouna's place to sign the 
 register as a witness to the marriage. " Did 
 you see him too ? " 
 
 The old gentleman did not answer at once ; 
 he was bending low over the open page before 
 him to finish his signature with a careful 
 fiourish. When he had done this, he placed 
 the blottiijg paper over it, put his arm through 
 that of the bridegroom, and moved away with 
 him.
 
 254 SCHEHERAZADE: 
 
 *'My eyes are not as good as yours, Mr. 
 Lauriston/' he said ; " I should not know my 
 own son at that distance." 
 
 " There was a lady — a woman with him/' 
 said George. 
 
 " A woman whom you know ? " asked the 
 lawyer, whose interest in the matter, however, 
 seemed to have diminished. 
 
 " I think not." 
 
 ''Then there is notliing extraordinary in 
 the circumstance." 
 
 " What does the man want at my wedding? " 
 
 " All friends of the parties find weddings 
 interesting. Perhaps you misjudge this East- 
 ern gentleman. He has called at my office to 
 mve me a letter for the Countess, and he 
 expressed the most kindly sentiments towards 
 you. See, Mrs. Lauriston seems impatient." 
 
 The two gentlemen were conversing in a 
 low voice just within the vestry door. Nouna 
 had slipped past them into the body of the 
 church, and stood in an unusually quiet and 
 pensive mood gazing at the altar where she 
 had lately knelt. George shook himself free 
 from a crowd of bewildering questions that
 
 A LONDON night's ENTERTAINMENT. 255 
 
 were forcing themselves into his mind, and 
 called to her. 
 
 " Nouna, come and sign the register." 
 
 " I've done it," "She has done so," answered 
 she and the lawyer together. 
 
 " 1 didn't see you." 
 
 " I did it while you were talking," said 
 she, quickly. 
 
 " Yes, yes, it's all right ; the lady signed her 
 name," broke in the vicar, who thought he was 
 never going to get rid of them. 
 
 So George, hurried away by wife, lawyer, 
 and vicar, did not see Nouna's first and last 
 signature of her maiden name. 
 
 END OF VOL. L
 
 / 
 
 /I 1.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 3 0112 064427351