His Hour

[Illustration: A miniature of Prince MilaslÁvski in the uniform of one of his ancestors, in which he appeared at the famous fancy ball at the Winter Palace some years ago. He was about twenty-three at the time. I have selected this likeness of him in preference to a later photograph, as the artist has happily caught him in one of his rarely soft moods, and also, the face being clean shaven, the characteristic chiselling of the lips can be seen. THE AUTHOR.]

"His Hour" is called in England and Russia "When the Hour Came."

With grateful homage and devotion I dedicate this book to

Her Imperial Highness The Grand Duchess Vladimir Of Russia

In memory of the happy evenings spent in her gracious presence when reading to her these pages, which her sympathetic aid, in facilitating my opportunities for studying the Russian character, enabled me to write. Her kind appreciation of the finished work is a source of the deepest gratification to me.

Elinor Glyn

St. Petersburg, May, 1910

CHAPTER I

The Sphinx was smiling its eternal smile. It was two o'clock in the morning. The tourists had returned to Cairo, and only an Arab or two lingered near the boy who held Tamara's camel, and then gradually slunk away; thus, but for Hafis, she was alone—alone with her thoughts and the Sphinx.

The strange, mystical face looked straight at her from the elevation where she sat. Its sensual mocking calm penetrated her brain. The creature seemed to be laughing at all humanity—and saying—"There is no beyond—live and enjoy the things of the present—Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you die, and I—I who sit here and know, tell you there is no beyond. The things you can touch and hold to your bodies are the only ones worth grasping."

"No, no!" said Tamara, half aloud, "I will not—I will not believe it."

"Fool," said the Sphinx. "What is your soul? And if you have one, what have you done with it hitherto? Are you any light in the world?—No, you have lived upon the orders of others, you have let your individuality be crushed these twenty-four years—since the day you could speak. Just an echo it is—that fine thing, your soul! Show it then, if you have one! Do you possess an opinion? Not a bit of it. You simply announce platitudes that you have been taught were the right answers to all questions! Believe me, you have no soul. So take what you can—a body! You certainly have that, one can see it—well, snatch what it can bring you, since you have not enough will to try for higher things. Grasp what you may, poor weakling. That is the wisdom sitting here for eternity has taught me."

Tamara stirred her hands in protest—but she knew the indictment was true. Yes, her life had been one long commonplace vista of following leads—like a sheep.

But was it too late to change? Had she the courage? Dared she think for herself? If not, the mystic message of the Sphinx's smile were better followed: "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you die."

The blue of the sky seemed to soothe her, and speak of hope. Could any other country produce a sky of so deep a sapphire as the night sky of Egypt? All around was intense sensuous warmth and stillness almost as light as day.

How wise she had been to break through the conventionality which surrounded her—and it had required some nerve—so as to be able to come here alone, on this one of her last nights in Egypt.

She half smiled when she thought of Millicent Hardcastle's face when she had first suggested it.

"My dear Tamara, what—what an extraordinary thing for a woman to do! Go to the Sphinx all alone at two o'clock in the morning. Would not people think it very strange?"

Tamara felt a qualm for a second, but was rebellious.

"Well, perhaps—but do you know, Millicent, I believe I don't care. That carven block of stone has had a curious effect upon me. It has made me think as I have never done before. I want to take the clearest picture away with me—I must go."

And even Mrs. Hardcastle's mild assertion that it could equally well be viewed and studied at a more reasonable hour did not move Tamara, and while her friend slumbered comfortably in her bed at Mena House, she had set off, a self-conscious feeling of a truant schoolboy exalting and yet frightening her.

Tamara was a widow. James Loraine had been everything that a thoroughly respectable English husband ought to be. He had treated her with kindness, he had given her a comfortable home—he had only asked her to spend ten months of the year in the country, and he had never caused her a moment's jealousy.

She could not remember her heart having beaten an atom faster—or slower—for his coming or going. She had loved him, and her sisters and brother, and father, all in the same devoted way, and when pneumonia had carried him off nearly two years before, she had grieved with the measure the loss of any one of them would have caused her—that was sincerely and tenderly.

They were such a nice family, Tamara's!

For hundreds of years they had lived on the same land, doing their duty to their neighbors and helping to form that backbone of England of which we hear so much nowadays, in its passing away.

They had been members of Parliament, of solid Whig, and later of
Unionist, views. They had been staunch Generals, Chairmen of
Quarter-Sessions, riders to hounds, subscribers to charities, rigid
church-goers, disciplined, orthodox, worthy members of society.

Underdown was their name, and Underwood their home.

That Tamara should have been given that Russian appellation, in a group of Gladys, Mabels and Dorothys, must have surely indicated that fate meant her to follow a line not quite so mapped out as that of her sisters'. The very manner of her entry into the world was not in accordance with the Underdown plan.

Her mother, Lady Gertrude Underdown, had contracted a friendship with the wife of the First Secretary of the Russian Embassy.

Foreigners were not looked upon with favor in the home circle, and instead of staying only the two months of May and June, as she was fully entitled to, in London, she had insisted upon remaining for July as well that year—to be near her friend Vera and enjoy the gay world.

The Squire had grumbled, but acquiesced, though when afterward a fourth daughter was presented to him with a request that she might have Princess Vera for a godmother and a Russian name to be called by, he felt himself justified in carping at fate.

"Foreign fandangoes," he designated such ideas. However, Lady Gertrude was very ill, and had to be humored, so the affair took place, and Tamara the baby was christened, with due state.

There were no more Russian suggestions in the family; the son and heir
who arrived a year later became plain Tom, and then Lady Gertrude
Underdown made her bow to the world and retired to the family vault in
Underwood Church.

They were all estimably brought up by an aunt, and hardly ever left the country until each one came up in turn to be presented at Court, and go through a fairly dull season among country neighbors on the same bent.

Two of them, including Tamara, had secured suitable husbands, and at the age of twenty-three years the latter had been left a well-dowered widow.

She had worn mourning for just the right period, had looked after her affairs—handed James' place over with a good grace to James' brother and an unliked sister-in-law, and finally, when she was wearing grays and mauves, two years almost after her loss, she had allowed herself to be persuaded into taking a trip to Egypt with her friend, Millicent Hardcastle, who was recovering from influenza.

It had caused the greatest flutter at Underwood, this journey abroad!
None of them had been further than Dresden, where each girl had learned
German for a year or so before her presentation.

And what had Egypt done for Tamara? Lifted just one pretty white eyelid, perhaps. Stirred something which only once or twice in her life she had been dimly conscious of. Everything had been a kind of shock to her. A shock of an agreeable description. And once driving at night in the orange groves of Ghezireh, after some open-air fÊte, the heavy scent and intoxicating atmosphere had made her blood tingle. She felt it was almost wrong that things should so appeal to her senses. Anything which appealed deliberately to the senses had always been considered as more than almost wrong at Underwood Chase.

The senses were improper things which Aunt Clara for her part never quite understood why the Almighty should have had the bad taste to permit in human beings.

But the Sphinx was again talking to Tamara—only this time in the voice of a young man—who without a word of warning had risen from a bank of sand where he had been stretched motionless and unperceived.

"A fine goddess, is she not, Madame," he said. And to add to the impertinence of a stranger's addressing her at all, Tamara was further incensed by the voice being that of a foreigner!

But it was an extraordinarily pleasant voice, deep and tuneful, and the "Insolent" stood over six feet high and was as slender as Tamara herself almost—in spite of his shoulders and air of strength.

She hardly knew what to answer, he had spoken with such ease and assurance, almost with the tone of one who hails a fellow worshiper and has a right to exchange sympathy.

Tamara had been startled, too, by the sudden rising of the man when she thought she was alone, but at last she answered slowly, "Yes."

"I often come here at night," he went on, "when those devils of tourists have gone back in their devil of a tramway. Then you get her alone—and she says things to you. You think so, too, isn't it?"

"Yes," again said Tamara, convulsed with wonder at herself for speaking at all.

"At first I was angry when I saw your camel against the sky and saw you come and dismount and sit and look, I like to have her all to myself. But afterwards when I watched you I saw you meant no harm—you aren't a tourist, and so you did not matter."

"Indeed," said Tamara, the fine in her grasping the situation, the
Underdown training resenting its unconventionality.

"Yes," he continued, unconcerned. "You can't look at that face and feel we any of us matter much—can you?"

"No," said Tamara.

"How many thousand years has she been telling people that? But it drives me mad, angry, furious, to see the tourists! I want to strangle them all!"

He clenched his hand and his eyes flashed.

Tamara peeped up at him—he was not looking at her—but at the Sphinx. She saw that he was extremely attractive in spite of having un-English clothes, which were not worn with ease. Gray flannel of unspeakable cut, and boots which would have made her brother Tom shriek with laughter. The Underdown part of her whispered, could he be quite a gentleman? But when he turned his face full upon her in the moonlight, that doubt vanished completely. He might even be a very great gentleman, she thought.

"Would you like to see a bit of the Arabian Nights?" he asked her.

Tamara rose. This really ought not to go on, this conversation—and yet—

"Yes, I would," she said.

"Well, the spell is broken of the Sphinx," he continued. "She can't talk to me with you there, and she can't talk to you with me near, so let us go and see something else that is interesting together."

"What?" asked Tamara.

"The Sheikh's village down below. Half the people who come don't realize it is there, and the other half would be afraid to ride through it at night—but they know me and I will take care of you."

Without the least further hesitation he called Hafis and the camel, spoke to them in Arabic, and then stood ready to help Tamara up. She seemed hypnotized, when she was settled in the high saddle. She began to realize that she was going into the unknown with a perfect stranger, but she did not think of turning back.

"What do you ride?" she asked.

"See," he said, and he made a strange low whistle, which was instantly answered by an equally strange low whinny of a horse, and a beautiful Arab appeared from the foot of the rocks—where all things were in shadow—led by a little brown boy.

"I am taking him back with me," he said, "Isn't he a beauty. I only bought him a week ago, and he already knows me."

Then he was in the saddle with the lightest bound, and Tamara, who had always admired Tom on a horse, knew that she had never seen anyone who seemed so much a part of his mount as this quaint foreigner. "I suppose he is an Austrian," she said to herself, and then added with English insular arrogance, "Only Austrians are like us."

The young man appeared quite indifferent to anything she thought. He prepared to lead the way down beyond the Sphinx, apparently into the desert.

Now that he was in front of her, Tamara could not help admiring the lines of his figure. He was certainly a very decent shape, and certainly knew how to ride.

Then it came to her that this was a most singular adventure, and the faint pink mounted to her clear cheeks when she remembered how dreadfully shocked Millicent would be—or any of the family! But it was her night of rebellion, so things must take their course.

The young man rode in front until they were on the flat desert, then he drew rein and waited for her.

"You see," he said, "we skirt these rocks and then we shall ride through the village. One can very well imagine it has been the same always."

They entered the little town. The streets were extremely narrow and the dark houses gave an air of mystery—a speculation—what could be going on behind those closed shutters? Here and there a straight blue-clad figure slunk away round a corner. There was a deep silence and the moonlight made the shadows sharp as a knife. Then a shaft of red light would shoot from some strange low hovel as they passed, and they could see inside a circle of Arab Bedouins crouching over a fire. There seemed no hilarity, their faces were solemn as the grave.

Presently, in the narrowest and darkest street, there was a sound of tom-toms, strains of weird music and voices, and through the chinks of the half-opened shutters light streamed across the road—while a small crowd of Arabs were grouped about the gate in the wall holding donkeys and a camel.

"A wedding," said the young man. "They have escorted the bride. What pleasure to raise a veil and see a black face! But each one to his taste."

Tamara looked up at the window. She wondered what could be happening within—were the other wives there as well? She would have liked to have asked.

The young man saw her hesitation and said laconically—

"Well?"

"They are having a party," Tamara replied, with lame obviousness.

"Of course," said the young man. "Weddings and funerals—equally good occasions for company. They are so wise they leave all to fate; they do not tear their eyes out for something they cannot have—and fight after disappointment. They are philosophers, these Arabs."

The little crowd round the gate now barred the road, half good humoredly, half with menace.

"So, so," said the young man, riding in front. Then he laughed, and putting his hand in his pocket, brought out a quantity of silver and flung it among them with merry words in Arabic, while he pointed to the windows of the house.

Then he seized the bridle of Tamara's camel and started his horse forward. The crowd smiled now and began scrambling for the baksheesh, and so they got through in peace.

Neither spoke until they were in a silent lane again.

"Sometimes they can be quite disagreeable," he said, "but it is amusing to see it all. The Sheikh lives here—he fancies the pyramids belong to him, just as the Khedive fancies all Egypt is his—life is mostly imagination."

Now Tamara could see his face better as he looked up to her superior height on the camel. He had a little moustache and peculiarly chiseled lips—too chiseled for a man, she thought for a moment, until she noticed the firm jaw. His eyes were sleepy—slightly Oriental in their setting, and looked very dark, and yet something made her think that in daylight they might be blue or gray.

He did not smile at all; as he spoke his face was grave, but when something made him laugh as they turned the next corner, it transformed him. It was the rippling spontaneous gaiety of a child.

Two goats had got loose from opposite hovels and were butting at one another in the middle of the road.

He pulled up his horse and watched.

"I like any fight," he said.

But the goats fled in fear of him, so they went on.

Tamara was wondering why she felt so stupid. She wanted to ask her strange companion a number of questions. Who he was? What he was doing at the Sphinx?—and indeed in Egypt. Why he had spoken to her at all?—and yet appeared absolutely indifferent as they rode along! He had not asked her a single question or expressed the least curiosity. For some reason she felt piqued.

Presently they emerged at the end of the village where there was a small lake left by the retirement of the Nile. The moon, almost full, was mirrored in it. The scene was one of extreme beauty. The pyramids appeared an old rose pink, and everything else in tones of sapphire—not the green-blue of moonlight in other countries. All was breathlessly still and lifeless. Only they two, and the camel boys, alone in the night.

The dark line of trees which border the road faced them, and they rode slowly in that direction.

"You are going to the hotel, I suppose?" he said. "I will see you safely to it."

And they climbed the bank on to the avenue from Cairo.

"And you?" Tamara could not prevent herself from asking. "Where do you go?"

"To hell, sometimes," he answered, and his eyes were full of mist, "but tonight I shall go to bed for a change."

Tamara was nonplussed. She felt intensely commonplace. She was even a little cross with herself. Why had she asked a question?

The Arab horse now took it into his head to curvet and bound in the air for no apparent reason, but the young man did not stir an inch—he laughed.

"Go on, my beauty," he said. "I like you to be so. It shows you are alive."

As they approached the hotel, Tamara began to hope no one would see them. No one who could tell Millicent that she had a companion. She bent down and said rather primly to the young man who was again at her side:

"I am quite safe now, thank you. I need not trouble you any further.
Good-bye! and I am so obliged to you for showing me a new way home."

He looked up at her, and his whole face was lit with a whimsical smile.

"Yes, at the gate," he said. "Don't be nervous. I will go at the gate."

Tamara did not speak, and presently they came to the turning into the hotel. Then he stopped.

"I suppose we shall meet again some day," he said. "They have a proverb here, 'Meet before dawn—part not till dawn.' They see into the future in a few drops of water in any hollow thing. Well, good-night"—and before she could answer he was off beyond the hotel up the road and then turning to the right on a sand-path, galloped out of sight into what must be the vast desert.

Where on earth could he be going to?—possibly the devil—if one knew.

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