Constantinople; the month of August; the early days of the century. Itwas the hour of the city's most perfect beauty. The sun was setting,and flung a mellowing glow over the great golden domes and minaretsof the mosques, the bazaars glittering with trifles and precious withelements of Oriental luxury, the tortuous thoroughfares with theirmotley throng, the quiet streets with their latticed windows, andtheir atmosphere heavy with silence and mystery, the palaces whosecupolas and towers had watched over so many centuries of luxury andintrigue, pleasure and crime, the pavilions, groves, gardens, kioskswhich swarmed with the luxuriance of tropical growth over the hillsand valleys of a city so vast and so beautiful that it tired the brainand fatigued the senses. Scutari, purple and green and gold, blendedin the dying light into exquisite harmony of color; Stamboul gathereddeeper gloom under her overhanging balconies, behind which lay hiddenthe loveliest of her women; and in the deserted gardens of the OldSeraglio, beneath the heavy pall of the cypresses, memories of agrand, terrible, barbarous, but most romantic Past crept forth andwhispered ruin and decay.
High up in Pera the gray walls of the English Embassy stood outsharply defined against the gold-wrought sky. The windows were thrownwide to invite the faint, capricious breeze which wandered throughthe hot city; but the silken curtains were drawn in one of the smallerreception-rooms. The room itself was a soft blaze of wax candlesagainst the dull richness of crimson and gold. Men and women wereidling about in that uneasy atmosphere which precedes the announcementof dinner. Many of the men wore orders on their breasts, and theuniforms of the countries they represented, and a number of Turksgave a picturesque touch to the scene, with their jewelled turbans andflowing robes. The women were as typical as their husbands; the wifeof the Russian Ambassador, with her pale hair and moonlight eyes, herdelicate shoulders and jewel-sewn robe; the Italian, with her lithegrace and heavy brows, the Spanish beauty, with her almond,dreamy eyes, her chiselled features and mantilla-draped head; theFrenchwoman, with her bright, sallow, charming, unrestful face; theAustrian, with her cold repose and latent devil. In addition were theSecretaries of Legation, with their gaily-gowned young wives, andone or two English residents; all assembled at the bidding of SirDafyd-ap-Penrhyn, the famous diplomatist who represented England atthe court of the Sultan.
Sir Dafyd was standing between the windows and underneath one of theheavy candelabra. He was a small but striking-looking man, with agreat deal of head above the ears, light blue eyes deeply set and farapart, a delicate arched nose, and a certain expression of brutalityabout the thin lips, so faint as to be little more than a shadow. Hewas blandly apologizing for the absence of his wife. She had dressedto meet her guests, but had been taken suddenly ill and obliged toretire.
As he finished speaking he turned to a woman who sat on a low chairat his right. She was young and very handsome. Her eyes were blackand brilliant, her mouth was pouting and petulant, her chin curvedslightly outward. Her features were very regular, but there wasneither softness nor repose in her face. She looked like a statue thathad been taken possession of by the Spirit of Discontent.
"I am sorry not to see Dartmouth," said the great minister, affably."Is he ill again? He must be careful; the fever is dangerous."
Mrs. Dartmouth drew her curved brows together with a frown which didnot soften her face. "He is writing," she said, shortly. "He is alwayswriting."
"O, but you know that is a Dartmouth failing--ambition," said SirDafyd, with a smile. "They must be either in the study or dictating tothe King."
"Well, I wish my Fate had been a political Dartmouth. Lionel sits inhis study all day and writes poetry--which I detest. I shall bring upmy son to be a statesman."
"So that his wife may see more of him?" said Sir Dafyd, laughing. "Youare quite capable of making whatever you like of him, however, for youare a clever woman--if you are not poetical. But it is hard that youshould be so much alone, Catherine. Why are not you and Sioned moretogether? There are so few of you here, you should try and amuseeach other. Diplomatists, like poets, see little of their wives, andSioned, I have no doubt, is bored very often."
Dinner was announced at the moment, and Mrs. Dartmouth stood up andlooked her companion full in the eyes. "I do not like Sioned," shesaid, harshly. "She, too, is poetical."
For a moment there was a suspicion of color in Sir Dafyd's pale face,and the shadow on his mouth seemed to take shape and form. Then hebowed slightly, and crossing the room offered his arm to the wife ofthe Russian Ambassador.
* * * * *
The sun sank lower, Constantinople's richer tints faded into soft opalhues, and the muezzin called the people to prayer. From a window in awing of the Embassy furthest from the banqueting hall, and overlookingthe city, a woman watched the shifting panorama below. She was morebeautiful than any of her neglected guests, although her eyes wereheavy and her face was pale. Her hair was a rich, burnished brown, anddrawn up to the crown of her head in a loose mass of short curls, heldin place by a half-coronet of diamonds. In front the hair was partedand curled, and the entire head was encircled by a band of diamondstars which pressed the bronze ringlets low over the forehead. Thefeatures were slightly aquiline; the head was oval and admirablypoised. But it was the individuality of the woman that made herbeauty, not features or coloring. The keen, intelligent eyes, withtheir unmistakable power to soften, the spiritual brow, the strong,sensuous chin, the tender mouth, the spirited head, each a poet'sdelight, each an artist's study, all blended, a strange, strong,passionate story in flesh and blood--a remarkable face. Her neck andarms were bare, and she wore a short-waisted gown of yellow satin,which fell in shining lines from belt to hem.
Pale as she was she assuredly did not look ill enough to justify herdesertion of her guests. As a matter of fact she had forgotten bothguests and excuse. When a woman has taken a resolution which flingsher suddenly up to the crisis of her destiny she is apt to forgetstate dinners and whispered comment. To-morrow state dinners wouldpass out of her life, and they would go unregretted. She turnedsuddenly and picked up some loose sheets of manuscript which lay on atable beside her--a poem which would immortalize the city her windowoverlooked. A proud smile curved her mouth, then faded swiftly as shepressed the pages passionately to her lips. She put them back onthe table and turning her head looked down the room with much of theaffection one gives a living thing. The room was as Oriental as anycarefully secluded chamber in the city below. The walls were hungwith heavy, soft Eastern stuffs, dusky and rich, which shut out allsuggestion of doors. The black marble floor was covered with a strangeassortment of wild beasts' skins, pale, tawny, sombre, ferocious.There were deep, soft couches and great piles of cushions, a few rarepaintings stood on easels, and the air was heavy with jasmine. Thewoman's lids fell over her eyes, and the blood mounted slowly, makingher temples throb. Then she threw back her head, a triumphant lightflashing in her eyes, and brought her open palm down sharply on thetable. "If I fall," she said, "I fall through strength, notthrough weakness. If I sin, I do so wittingly, not in a moment ofovermastering passion."
She bent suddenly forward, her breath coming quickly. There werefootsteps at the end of the marble corridor without. For a moment shetrembled from head to foot. Remorse, regret, horror, fear, chased eachother across her face, her convulsed features reflecting the emotionswhich for weeks past had oppressed heart and brain. Then, before thefootsteps reached the door, she was calm again and her head erect.The glory of the sunset had faded, and behind her was the short greytwilight of the Southern night; but in her face was that magic lightthat never was on sea or land.
The heavy portiere at the end of the room was thrust aside and a manentered. He closed the door and pushed the hanging back into place,then went swiftly forward and stood before her. She held out her handand he took it and drew her further within the room. The twilight hadgone from the window, the shadows had deepened, and the darkness ofnight was about them.
* * * * *
In the great banqueting-hall the stout mahogany table upheld itsweight of flashing gold and silver and sparkling crystal without agroan, and solemn, turbaned Turks passed wine and viand. Aroundthe board the diplomatic colony forgot their exile in remoteConstantinople, and wit and anecdote, spicy but good-humored politicaldiscussion, repartee and flirtation made a charming accompanimentto the wonderful variety displayed in the faces and accents of theguests. The stately, dignified ministers of the Sultan gazed at thefair faces and jewel-laden shoulders of the women of the North, andsighed as they thought of their dusky wives; and the women of theNorth threw blue, smiling glances to the Turks and wondered if it wereromantic to live in a harem.
At the end of the second course Sir Dafyd raised a glass of wine tohis lips, and, as he glanced about the table, conversation ceased fora moment.
"Will you drink to my wife's health?" he said. "It has caused me muchanxiety of late."
Every glass was simultaneously raised, and then Sir Dafyd pushed backhis chair and rose to his feet. "If you will pardon me," he said, "Iwill go and see how she is."
He left the room, and the wife of the Spanish Ambassador turned toher companion with a sigh. "So devot he is, no?" she murmured. "YouEenglish, you have the fire undere the ice. He lover his wife verymoocho when he leaver the dinner. And she lover him too, no?"
"I don't know," said the Englishman to whom she spoke. "It neverstruck me that Penrhyn was a particularly lovable fellow. He's sodeuced haughty; the Welsh are worse for that than we English. He's asunapproachable as a stone. I don't fancy the Lady Sioned worships theground he treads upon. But then, he's the biggest diplomate in GreatBritain; one can't have everything."
"I no liker all the Eenglish, though," pursued the pretty Spaniard."The Senora Dar-muth, I no care for her. She looker like she have thetempere--how you call him?--the dev-vil, no? And she looker like shehave the fire ouside and the ice in."
"Oh, she's not so bad," said the Englishman, loyally. "She hassome admirable traits, and she's deuced clever, but she has anill-regulated sort of a nature, and is awfully obstinate andprejudiced. It's a sort of vanity. She worries Dartmouth a good deal.He's a born poet, if ever a man was, and she wants him to go intopolitics. Wants a salon and all that sort of thing. She ought tohave it, too. Political intrigue would just suit her; she's diplomaticand secretive. But Dartmouth prefers his study."
The lady from Spain raised her sympathetic, pensive eyes to theEnglishman's. "And the Senor Dar-muth? How he is? He is nice fellow? Ino meeting hime?"
"The best fellow that ever lived, God bless him!" exclaimed the youngman, enthusiastically. "He has the temperament of genius, and he isn'talways there when you want him--I mean, he isn't always in the rightmood; but he's a splendid specimen of a man, and the most likeablefellow I ever knew--poor fellow!"
"Why you say 'poor fel-low'? He is no happy, no?"
"Well, you see," said the young man, succumbing to those lovely,pitying eyes, and not observing that they gazed with equal tendernessat the crimson wine in the cup beside her plate--"you see, he and hiswife are none too congenial, as I said. It makes her wild to have himwrite, not only because she wants to cut a figure in London, and hewill always live in some romantic place like this, but she's in lovewith him, in her way, and she's jealous of his very desk. That makesthings unpleasant about the domestic hearthstone. And then she doesn'tbelieve a bit in his talent, and takes good care to let him know it.So, you see, he's not the most enviable of mortals."
"Much better she have be careful," said the Spanish woman; "some dayhe feel tire out and go to lover someone else. Please you geeve mesome more clarette?"
"Here comes Sir Dafyd," said the Englishman, as he filled her glass."It has taken him a long time to find out how she is."
The shadow had wholly disappeared from Sir Dafyd's mouth, a faintsmile hovering there instead. As he took his seat the AustrianAmbassador leaned forward and inquired politely about the state ofLady Sioned's health.
"She is sleeping quietly," said Sir Dafyd.