The Palace of Darkened Windows by Mary Hastings Bradley

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He had a favor to ask. The American girl of Kerissen's palace had
escaped unharmed and returned to her friends who were ignorant of
all. She was this moment in the ruins. It would be a great shock to
her to meet Fritzi, to have Fritzi recognize her. On the morning she
would be gone. Would Fritzi----"

"Fritzi must disappear--for the night?" said the little Viennese
smiling wisely, but with a trace of cynicism. "The little American
must not be reminded--h'm? We will go.... For you have done so much
for me, you big, strange, platonic Mr. Billy!" Dazzlingly she smiled
on him, her dark eyes quizzically provocative.

"You're not at the Grand?"

"No, not that." She named another. "You come see me, when that girl
goes--h'm?"

Billy caught the German's eyes upon him, in their depths a faint
trouble, a vague appeal. He comprehended that the infatuated young
man had engaged in the tortuous business of keeping sparks from
tinder.

"I'm gone to-morrow," he replied.

"Maybe in Vienna?" went on the dancer. "We go soon--another day or
so maybe--and then back over the water to that life I left! Oh, my
God, how happy I am to go back to it all--to dance, to sing--Oh, I
could kiss you, Mr. Billy, if it would not make you so shock!" she
added with a malicious little laugh. "You know the news--about
_him_--h'm?"

"Him?"

"Kerissen--that devil fellow. He is in Cairo with a fever--in the
hospital there. A man who come from that hospital just tells
us--just by accident he tell us. A _bad_ fever, too!" She laughed in
satisfaction. "I hope he burn good and hard up," she added, with
energetic spite, "and teach him not to act like a wild man. That man
say he got a bad hand," she added, with a shrewd glance at Billy.

The young man merely grunted. "I hope he has," he replied. "It
matches the rest of him. Good night."

"Good night--for the now--h'm, Mr. Billy?" and with a quick little
clasp of his big hand and a gay little backward look the girl was
gone into the shadows upon the arm of her jealous cavalier.

Three people were waiting at the statue foot where he had left the
English girl.

"They've come at last, Mr. Hill," Lady Claire's voice struck very
gaily upon him, "and Miss Falconer has just come to tell us we must
see the colored lights in the great court--and then go home. So
hurry!"

She turned as she spoke and put her arm suddenly through Falconer's
who was standing next her. "Come on," she lightly commanded, and
promptly led the way.

That was something like a fairy godmother! Into Billy's eyes flashed
a warm light of gladness. Some moments out of that wretched evening
should yet be his own, bitter-sweet as they were in their sharp
finality.

He turned to the blue-cloaked figure at his side. "Do you like
colored fire?" he demanded. "Won't you come and see something
else--something I've wanted to see and to have you see with me? It's
near the way out. We can meet them at the pylon."

Of course she acquiesced. That was part of the cursed restraint
between them, he was reminded, to have her accept so obediently any
point-blank request of his. But for the nonce he was glad. He wanted
those few minutes desperately.

"What is it?" she murmured.

"I'll show you," and then, as he turned from the way they had come
and followed a winding path that dipped lower and lower between the
dune-like piles of sand, "It's the Sacred Lake," he explained.
"Perhaps you've seen it in the daytime--but I've been wanting to see
it at night."

"I think I just caught the glint of it from the pylon," she
observed.

"You had time to," said Billy, trying to twinkle down at her in
friendly fashion.

She did not twinkle back. She looked as suddenly guilty as a kitten
in the cream, and Billy's heart smote him heavily. He did not speak
again till they had rounded a corner and their path had brought them
out upon the shore of the Sacred Lake.

Like a little horseshoe it circled about three sides of the ruined
temple of the goddess Mut, inky-black and motionless with the stars
looking up uncannily like drowned lights from its still waters, and
inky-black and motionless, like guardian spirits about it, sat a
hundred cat-headed women of grim granite. It was a spot of stark
loneliness and utter silence, of ancient terror and desolate
abandonment; the solitude and the blackness and the aching age smote
upon the imagination like a heavy hand upon harp strings.

"Who are--they?" Arlee spoke in a hushed voice, as if the cat-headed
women were straining their ears.

"They're mysteries," said Billy, speaking in the same low tone.
"Generally they're said to be statues of the Goddess Pasht or
Sehket--but it's a riddle why the Amen-hotep person who built this
temple to the goddess Mut should have put Sehket here. Sehket is in
the trinity of Memphis--and Mut in that of Thebes. And so some
people say that this is not Pasht at all, but Mut herself, who was
sometimes represented as lion-headed. Between a giant cat and a
lion, you know, there's not much of difference."

"I like Pasht better than Mut," said Arlee decidedly.

"There you agree with Baedecker."

"What did Pasht do?"

"She was goddess of girls," said Billy, "and young wives. She got
the girls husbands and the wives--er--their requests. Girls used to
come down here at night and make a prayer to her and cast an
offering into the waters."

"And then they had their prayer?"

"Infallibly."

"I'd like a guardian like that," said Arlee, with a sudden
mischievous wistfulness that played the dickens with Billy's forces
of reserve. "Do you think she'd grant _my_ prayer?"

"Have you one to make?" said Billy, staring very hard for safety at
the monstrous images.

"They look as if they were coming alive," he added.

The moon had come up over an obstructing roof and now flashed down
upon them; a ripple of light began to swim across the star-eyes in
the inky waters; a finger of quicksilver seemed to be playing over
the scarred faces of the granite goddesses.

"They never died," said Arlee positively. "They're just waiting
their time. Can't you see they know all about us?... They
particularly know that you are the most deceiving young man they
ever saw! Why didn't you tell me you were shot in the arm?" she
finished rapidly.

"What?... Where did you hear that?"

"Mr. Falconer enlightened me."

"I wish Falconer would keep his stories to himself," said Billy
ungratefully. "It's just a----"

"Scratch," said Arlee promptly. "That's always a hero's word for
it."

Billy turned scarlet. He felt hot back to his ears.

"And why did you tell me that you _happened_ to be painting outside
the palace?" went on the unsparing voice. "You let me think it was
all accident--and it was all you, just _you_!"

"Good Lord," groaned Billy, effecting merriment over his
discomfiture, "Is there anything else he told you?... Look here, you
shouldn't have been talking about it," he said with sudden anxiety.

Arlee smiled. "It's all over," she said. "I told him everything."

Billy's heart missed a beat, and then hurried painfully to make up
for it. He felt a curious constriction in his throat. He tried to
think of something congratulatory to say and was lamentably silent.

"Why did you deceive me so?" she continued mercilessly. "Because my
gratitude was so _obnoxious_ to you? Were you so afraid I would
insist upon flinging more upon you?"

"That's a horrid word, obnoxious," said Billy painfully.

"I thought so," thrust in a pointed voice.

"I only meant," he slowly made out, "that a sense of--of obligation
is a stupid burden--and I didn't want you to feel you had to be any
more friendly to me than your heart dictated. That is all. It was
enough for me to remember that I had once been privileged to help
you."

"You--funny--Billy B. Hill person," said the voice in a very serious
tone. Billy continued staring at the unwinking old goddess ahead of
him. "You take it all so for granted," laughed Arlee softly, "As if
it were part of any day's work! I go about like a girl in a
dream--or a girl _with_ a dream ... a dream of fear, of old palaces
and painted women and darkened windows. It comes over me at night
sometimes. And then I wake and could go down on my knees to you....
I suppose there isn't any more danger from him?" she broke off to
half-whisper quickly.

"He's sick in the Cairo hospital," Billy made haste to inform her.
"I found out by accident. I understand he has a bad fever. So I
think he'll be up to no more tricks--and I'm out the satisfaction
of a little heart-to-heart talk."

"Oh, I told you you couldn't," she cried quickly. "You would make
him too angry. He isn't just--sane."

"Then all I have to do in Egypt is to hunt up my little Imp," said
Billy. "I must see the little chap again--before I go."

He waited--uselessly as he had foretold. She said nothing, and if
the glance he felt upon him was of inquiry he did not look about to
meet it. He was still staring a saturnine Pasht out of countenance.
There was a pause.

Then, "However were you able to think of it all?" said Arlee in slow
wonder. "However were you able to think such an impossible thought
as my imprisonment?"

"Because I was thinking about you," said Billy. Suddenly his tongue
ran away with him. "Incessantly," he added.

She looked up at him. Unguardedly he looked down at her. No one but
a blind girl or a goose could have mistaken that look upon Billy B.
Hill's young face, the frustrate longing of it, the deep desire. The
heart beneath the sky-blue cloak cast off a most monstrous
accumulation of doubts and fears and began suddenly to beat like
mad.

Totally unexpectedly, startlingly amazing, she flung out at him,
"Then what made you stop?"

"Stop?" he echoed. "Stop? I've never stopped! There hasn't been a
moment----"

"There have been three days. Three--horrible--days!"

"Arlee!"

"Do you think I _like_ being snubbed and ignored
and--and--obliterated?" she brought indignantly out. "Do you think I
call that--being friends?"

"I--I wanted to leave you free--not to force your friendship----" he
stammered wildly.

"You couldn't force _mine_," said Arlee Beecher.

"But--but there was Falconer," he protested. "You had to be free
to--to have a choice----"

"A choice? Do you call that a _choice_?"

"I thought you were making it. That first night----"

"I stayed up to dance with _you_," she cried hotly. "You never came
back!"

"But the next day----"

"I _wanted_ to go. But I couldn't keep up any more. I _had_ to
rest.... And you went with Lady Claire!"

"Why, I had to! We'd planned. But when we came back, he was on deck
with you----"

"Yes, and I was waiting up--to see _you_. And you only took two
dances that night----"

"You didn't seem to want me to----"

"I never guessed you wanted them! _I_ had my pride, too. I wasn't
going to be in the way--because you'd rescued me. I thought you
didn't want me in the way!"

"Arlee--my girl--my precious girl----"

"No, I'm not. I'm not."

"Yes, you are," he said fiercely. "I don't care if you are engaged
to Falconer or not, I'm going to tell you so."

"I'm not engaged to Falconer," she protested.

He blurted in bewilderment. "Then what in the world were you doing
up there on that pylon?"

Her elfish laughter disconcerted him. "Do you think one has to get
engaged if she stays on a pylon?... We were getting _not_ engaged."

"I thought--I thought you liked him," he said bewilderedly.

"I did. I do, I mean--but not that way. He--he--Oh, I really _like_
him," she cried tremulously, "but not--we've had it all out and
everything's all over. I'm sorry--sorry--but he'll be really glad
bye and bye. For my story shocked him terribly.... And then there's
Lady Claire. He didn't like to have her down with you even when he
was up with me." She laughed softly. "Oh, I shouldn't have let him
be so friendly here but I did like him and you--you were so--so
hateful."

The moon and stars whirled giddily around him as he put his arms
about her. Like a man in a dream he drew her to him.

"I love you--love you," he said huskily over the bright maze of
hair.

"You don't!" came with muffled intensity from the hidden lips. "You
said to that man--when I was in that cave--'Nothing doing!'"

"It wasn't his affair--I hadn't a hope.... Oh, my dear, my dear,
I've been breaking my heart----"

"And I've had such a perfectly h-hateful three days," sobbed the
voice.

His arms closed tighter about her, incredible of their happiness.

"Oh, Arlee, I can't tell you--I haven't words----"

"I've had _deeds_!" she whispered.

Through his rocking mind darted a memory of her earlier speech to
him. "You said you didn't want words. Arlee--_will you_?"

She flung back her head and looked up at him, her face a flower, her
eyes like stars tangled in the bright mist of her hair.

"Billy, what's your middle name?"

"Bunker.... I can't help it, dear. They wished it on me and asked me
not to let it go. But _Bunker Hill_----!"

"It's a wonderful name, Billy! A perfectly irresistible name!" Her
eyes laughed up at him through a dazzle of tears, and prankishly
over her curving lips hovered a mischievous dimple. "It's a
name--that--I--simply--can't--do--without--Billy Bunker Hill!"

The dimple deepened then fled before its just deserts. For if ever a
dimple deserved to be caught and kissed that was the one.

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