The Lighted Match
Page 126* * * * *
If the panorama of Constantinople fades from a lurid silhouette to a
sooty monotone by night, it at least makes amends by day. Then the sun,
shining out of a sky of intense blue, on water vividly green, catches
the tiled color-chips of the sprawling town; glints on dome and
minaret, and makes such a city as might be seen in a kaleidoscope.
Her insatiable appetite for beauty had brought Cara on deck early. The
early shore-wind tossed unruly brown curls into her eyes and across the
delicate pink of her cheeks.
When the yachtsman joined her, she read in his eyes that he had been
stopped him with a light touch on his arm.
"Now tell me," she demanded, "what is the matter?"
His voice was quiet. "There is nothing in my thoughts that you cannot
read--so--" He lifted the eyes in question, half-despairing despite the
smile he had schooled into them. "Why rehearse it all again?"
Her face clouded.
He turned his gaze on the single dome and four minarets of the Mosque of
Suleyman.
"Besides," he added at length, speaking in a steady monotone, "I
When she spoke the dominant note in her voice was weariness.
"My life," she said, "is a miserable serial of calling on you and
sending you away. Back there"--she waved her hand to the vague west--"it
is summer--wonderful American summer! The woods are thick and green....
The big rocks by the creek are splotched yellow with the sun, and green
with the moss.... I wonder who rides Spartan now, when the hounds are
out!" She broke off suddenly, with a sobbing catch in her throat, then
she shook her head sadly. "You see, you must go!" she added. "You will
take my heart with you--but that is better than this."
walked at her side in silence.
As they halted he demanded, very low; "And you--?"
Her answering smile was pallid as she quoted, "'More than a little
lonely'--" then, reverting to her old name for him, she laughed with
counterfeited gayety--"as, Sir Gray Eyes, people must be--who try to be
good."