Burning Sands

The music ceased. For a full minute the many dancers stood as the dance had left them, stranded, so to speak, upon the polished floor of the ballroom, clapping their white-gloved hands in what seemed to be an appeal to the tired musicians to release them from their awkward situation. The chef d'orchestre rose from his chair and shook his head, pointing to the beads of moisture upon his sallow forehead. Two or three couples, more merciful than their companions, turned and walked away; and therewith the whole company ceased their vain clapping, and, as though awakened from an hypnotic seizure, hastened to jam themselves into the heated, chattering mass which moved out of the brilliantly lighted room and dispersed into the shadows of the halls and passages beyond.

Lady Muriel Blair, to all appearances the only cool young person in the throng, led her perspiring partner towards a group of elderly women who sat fanning themselves near an open window, beyond which the palms could be seen redundant in the light of the moon. An enormous-bosomed matron, wearing a diamond tiara upon her dyed brown hair, and a rope of pearls about her naked pink shoulders, turned to her as she approached, and smiled upon her in a patronizing manner. She was the wife of Sir Henry Smith-Evered, Commander-in-chief of the British Forces in Egypt; and her smile was highly valued in Cairo society.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself, my dear," she said, taking hold of the girl's hand. "But you mustn't get overtired in this heat. Wait another month, until the weather is cool, and then you can dance all night."

"Oh, but I don't feel it at all," Lady Muriel replied, looking with mild disdain at her partner's somewhat limp collar. "Father warned me that October in Cairo would be an ordeal, but so far I've simply loved it."

Her voice had that very slight suggestion of husky tiredness in it which has a certain fascination. With her it was habitual.

"You've only been in Egypt twenty-four hours," Lady Smith-Evered reminded her. "You must be careful."

"Careful!" the girl muttered, with laughing scorn. "I hate the word."

Her good-looking little partner, Rupert Helsingham, ran his finger around the inside of his collar, and adjusted his eyeglass. "Let's go and sit on the veranda," he suggested.

Lady Muriel turned an eye of mocking enquiry upon the General's lady, who was her official chaperone (though the office had little, if any, meaning); for, in a strange country and in a diplomatic atmosphere, it was as well, she thought, to ascertain the proprieties. Lady Smith-Evered, aware of dear little Rupert's strict regard on all occasions for his own reputation, nodded acquiescence; and therewith the young couple sauntered out of the room.

"A charming girl!" remarked the stout chaperone, turning her heavily powdered face to her companions.

"She is beautiful," said Madam Pappadoulopolos, an expansive, black-eyed, black-haired, black-moustached, black-robed figure, wife of the Greek Consul-General.

"She has the sort of monkey-beauty of all the Blairs," declared Mrs. Froscombe, the gaunt but romantic wife of the British Adviser to the Ministry of Irrigation. She spoke authoritatively. She had recently purchased a richly illustrated volume dealing with the history of that eminent family.

"It is a great responsibility for Lord Blair," said Lady Smith-Evered. "Now that poor Lady Blair has been dead for over a year, he felt that he ought not to leave his only daughter, his only child, with her relations in England any longer; and, of course, it is very right that she should take her place as mistress here at the Residency, though I could really have acted as hostess for him perfectly well."

"Indeed yes," Madam Pappadoulopolos assented, warmly.

"You have a genius for that sort of thing," murmured Mrs. Froscombe, staring out of the window at the moonlit garden.