Part 33 (1/2)

”Oh, Paul! that is splendid!” cried Hermione. ”I knew you would. You must tell me all about it.”

There was a sound of footsteps in one of the rooms. Hermione slipped quickly away, and throwing a kiss towards Paul with her fingers, disappeared through the door by which she had entered, leaving him once more alone. The moments of their meeting had been few and short, but they had more than sufficed to show that these two loved each other as much as ever. Some time afterwards Paul had been alone with his mother for half an hour and had frankly asked her whether she was able to hear him speak of Alexander or not. Her face twitched nervously, but she answered calmly enough that she wished to hear all he had to tell. But when he had finished she shook her head sadly.

”You may find out how he died, but you will never find him,” she said.

Then, with a sudden energy which startled Paul, she gazed straight into his eyes. ”You know that you cannot,” she added, almost savagely.

”I do not know, mother,” he answered, calmly. ”I still have hope.”

Madame Patoff looked down, and seemed to regain her self-control almost immediately. The long habit of concealing her feelings, which she had acquired when deceiving Professor Cutter, stood her in good stead, and she had not forgotten what she had studied so carefully. But Paul had seen the angry glance of her eyes, and the excited tone of her voice still rang in his ears. He guessed that, although she had come to Constantinople with the full intention of forgetting the accusations she had once uttered, the mere sight of him was enough to bring back all her virulent hatred. She still believed that he had killed his brother. That was clear from her words, and from the tone in which they were spoken.

Whether the thought was a delusion, or whether she sanely believed Paul to be a murderer, made little difference. Her mind was evidently still under the influence of the idea. But Paul determined that he would hold his peace, and it was not until later, when all necessity for concealment was removed, that I learned what had pa.s.sed. Paul believed that in a few days he should certainly solve the mystery of Alexander's disappearance, and thus effectually root out his mother's suspicions.

All this had occurred before dinner, and without my knowledge. Madame Patoff seemed determined to be agreeable and to make everything go smoothly. Even Chrysophrasia relaxed a little, as we talked of the city and of what the party must see.

”I am afraid,” said I, ”that you do not find all this as Oriental as you expected, Miss Dabstreak.”

”Ah, no!” she sighed. ”If by 'this' you mean the hotel, it is European, and unpleasantly so at that.”

”I think it is a very good hotel; and this rice--what do you call it?--is very good, too,” said John Carvel, who was tasting pilaff for the first time.

”Your carnal love of food always shocks me, John,” murmured Chrysophrasia. ”But I dare say there is a good deal that is Oriental on the other side. There, I am sure, we should be sitting on very precious carpets, and eating sweetmeats with golden spoons, while some fair young Circa.s.sian slave sang wild melodies and played upon a rare old inlaid lute.”

”Yes,” I answered. ”I have dined with Turks in Stamboul.”

”Oh, do describe it!” exclaimed Miss Dabstreak.

”We squatted on the floor around a tiny table, and we devoured ragouts of mutton and onions with our fingers,” I said.

”How very disgusting!” Miss Dabstreak made an unaesthetic grimace, and looked at me with profound contempt.

”But I suppose they eat other things, Griggs?” asked John, laughing.

”Yes. But mutton and onions and pilaff are the staple of their consumption. They eat jams of all sorts. Sometimes soup is brought in in a huge bowl, and put down in the middle of the table. Then each one dips in his spoon in the order of precedence, and eats as much as he can.

They will give you a dozen courses in half an hour, and they never speak at their meals if they can help it.”

”Pigs!” exclaimed Chrysophrasia, whose delicacy did not always a.s.sert itself in her selection of epithets.

”No; I a.s.sure you,” I objected, ”they are nothing of the kind. They consider it cleaner to eat with their fingers, which they can wash themselves, than with forks, which are washed in a common bath of soapsuds by the grimy hands of a scullery maid. It is not so unreasonable.”

”You have such a terrible way of putting things, Mr. Griggs!” exclaimed Mrs. Carvel in a tone of gentle protest. ”But I dare say,” she added, as though fearing lest her mild rebuke should have hurt my feelings,--”I dare say you are quite right.”

”To tell the truth,” I answered, ”I am rather fond of the Turks.”

”I have always noticed,” remarked Madame Patoff, ”that you Americans generally admire people who live under a despotic government. Americans all like Russia and Russians.”

”Our government is not quite despotic,” observed Paul, who felt bound to defend his country. ”We have laws, and the laws are respected. The Czar would not think of acting against the established law, even though in theory he might.”

”The Turks must have laws, too,” objected Madame Patoff.

”I don't know,” said Chrysophrasia. ”I already feel a delicious sensation, as though I might be strangled with a bow-string at any moment and dropped into the Bosphorus.”