FOOTNOTES:
[24] Marquee tent.
[25] Criminal Investigation Department.
[26] Well done.
[27] Victory to Desmond Sahib.
CHAPTER VI.
| "Blood and brain and spirit, three— |
| Join for true felicity. |
| Are they parted, then expect |
| Someone sailing will be wrecked." |
| —George Meredith. |
On the night after the Gymkhana the great little world of Lahore was again disporting itself, with unabated vigour, in the pillared ballroom of the Lawrence Hall. They could tell tales worth inditing, those pillars and galleries that have witnessed all the major festivities of Punjab Anglo-India—its loves and jealousies and high-hearted courage—from the day of crinolines and whiskers, to this day of the tooth-brush moustache, the retiring skirts and still more retiring bodices of after-war economy. And there are those who believe they will witness the revelry of Anglo-Indian generations yet to be.
Had Lance Desmond shared Roy's gift for visions, he might have seen, in spirit, the ghosts of his mother and father, in the pride of their youth, and that first legendary girl-wife, of whom Thea had once told him all she knew, and whose grave he had seen in Kohat cemetery with a queer mingling of pity and resentment in his heart. There should have been no one except his own splendid mother—first, last, and all the time.
But Lance, though no scoffer, had small intimacy with ghosts; and Roy's frequented other regions; nor was he in the frame of mind to induce spiritual visitations. Soul and body were enmeshed, as in a network of sunbeams, holding him close to earth.
For weeks part of him had been fighting, subconsciously, against the compelling power that is woman; now, consciously, he was alive to it, swept along by it, as by a tidal wave. Since that amazing moment at the prize-giving, all his repressed ferment had welled up and overflowed; and when an imaginative, emotional nature loses grip on the reins, the pace is apt to be headlong, the course perilous....
He had dined at the Eltons'—a lively party; chaff and laughter and champagne; and Miss Arden—after yesterday's graciousness—in a tantalising, elusive mood. But he had his dances secure—six out of twenty, not to mention the cotillon, after supper, which they were to lead. She was wearing what he called her 'Undine frock'—a clinging affair, fringed profusely with silver and palest green, that suggested to his fancy Undine emerging from the stream in a dripping garment of water-weeds. Her arms and shoulders emerged from it a little too noticeably for his taste; but to-night his critical brain was in abeyance.
Look where he would, talk to whom he would, he was persistently, distractingly aware of her; and she could not elude him the whole evening long....
Supper was over. The cotillon itself was almost over; the maypole figure adding a flutter of bright ribbons to the array of flags and bunting, evening dresses, and uniforms. Twice, in the earlier figures, she had chosen him; but this time, the chance issue of pairing by colours gave her to Desmond. Roy saw a curious look pass between them. Then Lance put his arm round her, and they danced without a break.
When it was over, Roy went in search of iced coffee. In a few seconds those two appeared on the same errand, and merged themselves in a lively group. Roy, irresistibly, followed suit; and when the music struck up, Lance handed her over with a formal bow.
"Your partner, I think, old man. Thanks for the loan," he said; and his smile was for Roy as he turned and walked leisurely away.
Roy looked after him, feeling pained and puzzled; the more so, because Lance clearly had the whip-hand. It was she who seemed the less assured of the two; and he caught himself wishing he possessed the power so to upset her equanimity. Was it even remotely possible that—she cared seriously, and Lance would not...?
"Brown studies aren't permitted in ballrooms, Mr Sinclair!" she rallied him in her gentlest voice—and Lance was forgotten. "Come and tie an extra big choc. on to my fishing-rod."
Roy disapproved of the chocolate figure, as derogatory to masculine dignity. Six brief-skirted, briefer-bodiced girls stood on chairs, each dangling a chocolate cream from a fishing-rod of bamboo and coloured ribbon. Before them, on six cushions, knelt six men; heads tilted back, bobbing this way and that, at the caprice of the angler; occasionally losing balance, and half toppling over amid shouts and cheers.
How did that kind of fooling strike the 'kits' and the Indian bandsman up aloft, wondered Roy. A pity they never gave a thought to that side of the picture. He determined not to be drawn in. Lance, he noticed, studiously refrained. Miss Arden—having tantalised three aspirants—was looking round for a fourth victim. Their eyes met—and he was done for....
Directly his knee touched the cushion, the recoil came sharply—too late. And she—as if aware of his reluctance—played him mercilessly, smiling down on him with her astonishing hazel eyes....
Roy's patience and temper gave out. Tingling with mortification, he rose and walked away, to be greeted with a volley of good-natured chaff.
He was followed by Lister, 'the R.E. boy,' who at once secured the elusive bait, clearly by favour rather than skill. The rest had already paired. The band struck up; and Roy, partnerless, stood looking on, the film of the East over his face masking the clash of forces within. The fool he was to have given way! And this—before them all—after yesterday...!
His essential masculinity stood confounded; blind to the instinct of the essential coquette—allurement by flight. He resolved to take no part in the final figure—the mirror and handkerchief; would not even look at her, lest she catch his eye.
Her choice fell on Hayes; and Roy—elaborately indifferent—carried Lance off to the buffet for champagne cup. It was a thirsty evening; a relief to be quit of the ballroom and get a breath of masculine fresh air. The fencing-bout and its aftermath had consciously quickened his feeling for Lance. In the fury of that fight they seemed to have worked off the hidden friction of the past few weeks that had dimmed the steady radiance of their friendship. It was as if a storm-cloud had burst and the sun shone out again.
They said nothing intimate, nothing worthy of note. They were simply content.
Yet, when music struck up, Roy was in a fever to be with her again.
Her welcoming smile revived his reckless mood. "Ours—this time, anyway," he said, in an odd repressed voice.
"Yes—ours."
Her answering look vanquished him utterly. As his arm encircled her, he fancied she leaned ever so little towards him, as if admitting that she too felt the thrill of coming together again. Fancy or no, it was like a lighted match dropped in a powder magazine....
For Roy that single valse, out of scores they had danced together, was an experience by itself.
While the music plays, a man encircles one woman and another, from habit, without a flicker of emotion. But to-night volcanic forces in Roy were rising like champagne when the cork begins to move. Never had he been so disturbingly aware that he was holding her in his arms; that he wanted tremendously to go on holding her when the music stopped. To this danger-point he had been brought by the unconscious effect of delicate approaches and strategic retreats. And the man who has most firmly kept the cork on his emotions is often the most unaccountable when it flies off....
The music ceased. They were merely partners again. He led her out into starry darkness, velvet soft; very quiet and contained to the outer eye; inwardly, of a sudden, afraid of himself, still more afraid of the serenely beautiful girl at his side.
He knew perfectly well what he wanted to do; but not at all what he wanted to say. For him, as his mother's son, marriage had a sacredness, an apartness from random emotions, however overwhelming; and it went against the grain to approach that supreme subject in his present fine confusion of heart and body and brain.
They wandered on a little. Like himself, she seemed smitten dumb; and with every moment of silence, he became more acutely aware of her. He had discovered that this was one of her most potent spells. Never for long could a man be unaware of her, of the fact that she was before everything—a woman.
In a sense—how different!—it had been the same with Arúna. But with Arúna it was primitive, instinctive. This exotic flower of Western girlhood wielded her power with conscious, consummate skill....
Near a seat well away from the Hall she stopped. "We don't want any more exercise, do we?" she said softly.
"I've had enough for the present," he answered. And they sat down.
Silence again. He didn't know what to say to her. He only craved overwhelmingly to take her in his arms. Had she a glimmering idea—sitting there, so close ... so alluring...?
And suddenly, to his immense relief, she spoke.
"It was splendid. A pity it's over. That's the litany of Anglo-India. It's over. Change the scene. Shuffle the puppets—and begin again. I've been doing it for six years——"
"And—it doesn't pall?" His voice sounded quite natural, quite composed, which was also a relief.
"Pall?—You try it!" For the first time he detected a faint note of bitterness. "But still—a cotillon's a cotillon!"—She seemed to pull herself together.—"There's an exciting element in it that keeps its freshness. And I flatter myself we carried it through brilliantly—you and I." The pause before the linked pronouns gave him an odd little thrill. "But—what put you off ... at the end?"
Her amazing directness took him aback. "I—oh, well—I thought ... one way and another, you'd been having enough of me."
"That's not true!" She glanced at him sidelong. "You were vexed because I chose the Lister boy. And he was all over himself, poor dear! As a matter of fact, I'd meant to have you. If you'd only looked at me ...! But you stared fiercely the other way. However, perhaps we've been flagrant enough for to-night——"
"Flagrant—have we?"
Daring, passionate words thronged his brain; and through his inner turmoil, he heard her answer lightly: "Don't ask me! Ask the Banter-Wrangle. She knows to an inch the degrees of flagrance officially permitted to the attached and the unattached! You see, in India, we're allowed ... a certain latitude."
"Yes—I've noticed. It's a pity...." Words simply would not come, on this theme of all others. Was she indirectly ... telling him ...?
"And you disapprove—tooth and nail?" she queried gently. "I hoped you were different. You don't know how tired we are of eternal disapproval from people who simply know nothing—nothing——"
"But I don't disapprove," he blurted out vehemently. "It always strikes me as a rather middle-class, puritanical attitude. I only think—it's a thousand pities to take the bloom off ... the big thing—the real thing, by playing at it (you can see they do) like lawn tennis, just to pass the time——"
"Well, Heaven knows, we've got to pass the time out here—somehow!" she retorted, with a sudden warmth that startled him: it was so unlike her. "All very fine for people at home to turn up superior noses at us; to say we live in blinkers, that we've no intellectual pursuits, no interest in 'this wonderful country.' I confess, to some of us, India and its people are holy terrors. As for art and music and theatres—where are they, except what we make for ourselves, in our indefatigable, amateurish way. Can't you see—you, with your imaginative insight—that we have virtually nothing but each other? If we spent our days bowing and scraping and dining and dancing with due decorum, there'd be a boom in suicides and the people in clover at Home would placidly wonder why——?"
"But do listen. I'm not blaming—any of you," he exclaimed, distracted by her complete misreading of his mood.
"Well, you're criticising—in your heart. And your opinion's worth something—to some of us. Even if we do occasionally—play at being in love, there's always the offchance it may turn out to be ... the real thing." She drew an audible breath and added, in her lighter vein: "You know, you're a very fair hand at it yourself—in your restrained, fakirish fashion——"
"But I don't—I'm not——" he stammered desperately. "And why d'you call me a fakir? It's not the first time. And it's not true. I believe in life—and the fulness of life."
"I'm glad. I'm not keen on fakirs. But I only meant—one can't picture you playing round, the way heaps of men do with girls ... who allow them ..."
"No. That's true. I never——"
"What—never? Or is it 'hardly ever'?"
She leaned a shade nearer, her beautiful pale face etherealised by starshine. And that infinitesimal movement, her low tone, the sheer magnetism of her, swept him from his moorings. Words low and passionate came all in a rush.
"What are, you doing with me? Why d'you tantalise me. Whether you're there or not there, your face haunts me—your voice. It may be play for you—it isn't for me——"
"I've never said—I've never implied—it was play ... for me——"
This time perceptibly she leaned nearer, mute confession in her look, her tone; and delicate fire ran in his veins....
Next moment his arms were round her; trembling, yet vehement; crushing her against him almost roughly. No mistaking the response of her lips; yet she never stirred; only the fingers of her right hand closed sharply on his arm. Having hold of her at last, after all that inner tumult and resistance, he could hardly let her go. Yet—strangely—even in the white heat of fervour, some detached fragment, at the core of him, seemed to be hating the whole thing, hating himself—and her——
Instantly he released her ... looked at her ... realised.... In those few tempestuous moments he had burnt his boats indeed ...
She met his eyes now, found them too eloquent, and veiled her own.
"No. You are not altogether—a fakir," she said softly.
"I'd no business. I'm sorry ..." he began, answering his own swift compunction, not her remark.
"I'm not—unless you really mean—you are?" Faint raillery gleamed in her eyes. "You did rather overwhelmingly take things for granted. But still ... after that...."
"Yes—after that ... if you really mean it?"
"Well ... what do you think?"
"I simply can't think," he confessed, with transparent honesty. "I hardly know if I'm on my head or my heels. I only know you've bewitched me. I'm infatuated—intoxicated with you. But ... if you do care enough ... to marry me——"
"My dear—Roy—can you doubt it?"
He had never heard her voice so charged with emotion. For all answer, he held her close—with less assurance now—and kissed her again....
In course of time they remembered that a pause only lasts five minutes; that there were other partners.
"If we're not to be too flagrant, even for India," she said, rising with unperturbed deliberation, "I suggest we go in. Goodness knows where they've got to by now!"
He stood up also. "It matters a good deal more ... where we've got to. I'll come over to-morrow and see ... your people...."
"No. You'll come over—and see me! We'll descend from the dream ... to the business; and have everything clear to our own satisfaction before we let in all the others. I always vowed I wouldn't accept a proposal after supper! If you're ... intoxicated, you might wake sober—disillusioned!"
"But I—I've kissed you," he stammered, suddenly overcome with shyness.
"So you have—a few times! I'm afraid we didn't keep count! I'm not really doubting either of us—Roy. But still.... Shall we say tea and a ride?"
He hesitated. "Sorry—I'm booked. I promised Lance——"
"Very well—dinner? Mother has some bridge people. Only one table. We can escape into the garden. Now—come along."
He drew a deep breath. More and more the detached part of him was realising....
They walked back rather briskly, not speaking; nor did he touch her again.
They found Lahore still dancing, sublimely unconcerned. Instinctively, Roy looked round for Lance. No sign of him in the ballroom or the card-room. And the crowded place seemed empty without him. It was queer.
Later on, he ran up against Barnard, who told him that Lance had gone home.
CHAPTER VII
"Of the unspoken word thou art master. The spoken word is master of thee."—Arab Proverb.
Roy drove home with Barnard in the small hours, still too overwrought for clear thinking, and too exhausted all through to lie awake for five minutes after his head touched the pillow. For the inner stress and combat had been sharper than he knew.
He woke late to find Terry curled up against his legs, and the bungalow empty of human sounds. The other three were up long since, and gone to early parade. His head was throbbing. He felt limp, as if all the vigour had been drained out of him. And suddenly ... he remembered....
Not in a lover's rush of exaltation, but with a sharp reaction almost amounting to fear, the truth dawned on him that he was no longer his own man. In a passionate impulse, he had virtually surrendered himself and his future into the hands of a girl whom he scarcely knew. He still saw the whole thing as mainly her doing—and it frightened him. Looking backward over the past weeks, reviewing the steps by which he had arrived at last night's involuntary culmination, he felt more frightened than ever.
And yet—there sprang a vision of her, pale and gracious in the starshine, when she leaned to him at parting....
She was wonderful and beautiful—and she was his. Any man worth his salt would feel proud. And he did feel proud—in the intervals of feeling horribly afraid of himself and her. Especially her. Girls were amazing things. You seized hold of one and spoke mad words, and nearly crushed the life out of her, and she took it almost as calmly as if you had asked for an extra dance. Was it a protective layer of insensibility—or super-normal self-control? Would she, Rose, have despised him had she guessed that even at the height of his exultation he had felt ashamed of having let himself go so completely; and that before there had been any word of marriage—any clear desire of it even in the deep of his heart?
That was really the root of his trouble. The passing recoil from an ardent avowal is no uncommon experience with the finer types of men. But, to Roy, it seemed peculiarly unfitting that the son of his mother should, as it were, stumble into marriage in a headlong impulse of passion, on a superficial six weeks' acquaintance; and the shy, spiritual side of him felt alarmed, restive, even a little repelled.
In a measure, Rose was right when she dubbed him fakir. Artist though he was, and all too human, there lurked in him a nascent streak of the ascetic, accentuated by his mother's bidding, and his own strong desire to keep in touch with her and with things not seen.
And there, on his writing-table, stood her picture mutely reproaching him. With a pang he realised how completely she had been crowded out of his thoughts during those weeks of ferment. What would she think of it all? The question—what would Rose think of her simply did not arise. She was still supreme, she who had once said, "So long as you are thinking first of me, you may be sure That Other has not yet arrived".
Was Rose Arden—for all her beauty and witchery—genuinely That Other?
Beguiled by her visible perfections, he had taken her spiritually for granted. And he knew well enough that it is not through the senses a man first approaches love—if he is capable of that high and complex emotion; but rather through imagination and admiration, sympathy and humour. As it was, he had not a glimmering idea how she would consort with his very individual inner self. Yet matters were virtually settled....
And suddenly, like a javelin, one word pierced his brain—Lance! Whatever there was between them, he felt sure his news would not please Lance, to say the least of it. And, as for their Kashmir plan...?
Why the devil was life such a confoundedly complex affair? By rights, he ought to be 'all over himself', having won such a wife. Was it something wrong with him? Or did all accepted lovers feel like this—the morning after? A greater number, perhaps, than poets or novelists or lovers themselves are ever likely to admit. Very certainly he would not admit his present sensations to any living soul.
Springing out of bed, he shouted for chota hazri[28] and shaving water; drank thirstily; ate hungrily; and had just cleared his face of lather when Lance came in, booted and spurred, bringing with him his magnetic atmosphere of vitality and vigour.
Standing behind Roy, he ran his left hand lightly up the back of his hair, gripped the extra thickness at the top, and gave it a distinct tug; friendly, but sharp enough to make Roy wince.
"Slacker! Waster! You ought to have been out riding off the effects. You were jolly well going it last night. And you jolly well look it this morning. Good thing I'm free on the fifteenth to haul you away from all this".
Perhaps because they had first met at an age when eighteen months seemed an immense gap between them, Lance had never quite dropped the elder-brotherly attitude of St Rupert days.
"Yes—a rare good thing——" Roy echoed, and stopped with a visible jerk.
"Well, what's the hitch? Hit out, man. Don't mind me."
There was a flash of impatience, an undernote of foreknowledge, in his tone, that made confession at once easier and harder for Roy.
"I suppose it was—pretty glaring", he admitted, twitching his head away from those strong friendly fingers. "The fact is—we're ... as good as engaged——"
Again he broke off, arrested by the mask-like stillness of Desmond's face.
"Congrats, old man", he said at last, in a level tone. "I got the impression ... a few weeks ago, you were not ready for the plunge. But you've done it—in record time." A pause. Roy sat there tongue-tied—unreasonably angry with himself and Rose. "Why 'as good as...?' Is it to be ... not official?"
"Only till to-morrow. You see, it all came ... rather in a rush. She thought ... we thought ... better talk things over first between ourselves. After all...."
"Yes—after all," Lance took him up. "You do know a precious lot about each other! How much ... does she know ... about you?"
"Oh, my dancing and riding, my temperament and the colour of my eyes—four very important items!" said Roy, affecting a lightness he was far from feeling.
Lance ignored his untimely flippancy. "Have you ever ... happened to mention ... your mother?"
"Not yet. Why——?" The question startled him.
"It occurred to me. I merely wondered——"
"Well, of course, I shall—to-night."
Lance nodded, pensively fingered his riding-crop, and remarked, "D'you imagine now she's going to let you bury yourself up Gilgit way—with me? Besides—you'll hardly care ... shall we call it 'off'?"
"Well you are——! Of course I'll care. I'm damned if we call it 'off.'"
At that the mask vanished from Desmond's face. His hand closed vigorously on Roy's shoulder. "Good man," he said in his normal voice. "I'll count on you. That's a bargain." Their eyes met in the glass, and a look of understanding passed between them. "Feeling a bit above yourself, are you?"
Roy drew a great breath. "It's amazing. I don't yet seem to take it in."
"Oh—you will." The hand closed again on his shoulder. "Now I'll clear out. Time you were clothed and in your right mind."
And they had not so much as mentioned her name!
But even when clothed, Roy did not feel altogether in his right mind. He was downright thankful to be helping Lance with some sports for the men, designed to counteract the infectious state of ferment prevailing in the city, on account of to-morrow's deferred hartal. For the voice of Mahatma Ghandi—saint, fanatic, revolutionary, which you will—had gone forth, proclaiming the sixth of April a day of universal mourning and non-co-operation, by way of protest against the Rowlatt Act. For that sane measure—framed to safeguard India from her wilder elements—had been twisted, by skilled weavers of words, into a plot against the liberty of the individual. And Ghandi must be obeyed.
Flamboyant posters in the city bewailed 'the mountain of calamity about to fall on the Motherland', and consigned their souls to hell who failed, that day, to close their business and keep a fast. To spiritual threats were added terrorism and coercion, that paralysis of the city might be complete.
It was understood that, so long there was no disorder, the authorities would make no move. But, by Saturday, all emergency plans were complete: the Fort garrison strengthened; cavalry and armoured cars told off to be available.
Roy had no notion of being a mere onlooker, if things happened; and he felt sure they would. Directly he was dressed he waited on the Colonel, and had the honour to offer his services in case of need; further—unofficially—to beg that he might be attached, as extra officer, to Lance's squadron. The Colonel—also unofficially—expressed his keen appreciation; and Roy might rest assured the matter would be arranged.
So he went off in high feather to report himself to Lance, and discuss the afternoon's programme.
Lance was full of a thorough good fellow he had stumbled on, a Sikh—and a sometime revolutionary—whose eyes had been opened by three years' polite detention in Germany. The man had been speaking all over the place, showing up the Home Rule crowd, with a courage none too common in these days of intimidation. After the sports, he would address the men; talk to them, encourage them to ask questions.
It occurred to Roy that he had heard something of the sort in a former life; and—arrived on the ground—he recognised the very same man who had been howled down at Delhi.
He greeted him warmly; spoke of the meeting; listened with unmoved countenance to lurid speculations about the disappearance of Chandranath; spoke, himself, to the men, who gave him an ovation; and, by the time it was over, had almost forgotten the astounding fact that he was virtually engaged to be married....
Driving out five miles to Lahore, he had leisure to remember, to realise how innately he shrank from speaking to Rose of his mother. Though in effect his promised wife, she was still almost a stranger; and the sacredness of the subject—the uncertainty of her attitude—intensified his shrinking to a painful degree.
She had asked him to come early, that they might have a few minutes to themselves; and for once he was not unpunctual. He found her alone; and, at first sight, painful shyness overwhelmed him.
She was wearing the cream-and-gold frock of the evening that had turned the scale; and she came forward a trifle eagerly, holding out her hands.
"Wonderful! It's not a dream?"
He took her hands and kissed her, almost awkwardly. "It still feels rather like a dream," was all he could find to say—and fancied he caught a flicker of amusement in her eyes. Was she thinking him an odd kind of lover? Even last night, he had not achieved a single term of endearment, or spoken her name.
With a graceful gesture, she indicated the sofa—and they sat down.
"Well, what have you been doing with yourself—Roy?" she asked, palpably to put him at ease. "It's a delightful name—Royal?"
"No—Le Roy. Some Norman ancestor."
"The King!" She saluted, sitting upright, laughter and tenderness in her eyes.
At that, he slipped an arm round her, and pressed her close. Then he plunged into fluent talk about the afternoon's events, and his accepted offer of service, till Mrs Elton, resplendent in flame-coloured brocade, surged into the room.
It was a purely civil dinner; not Hayes, to Roy's relief. Directly it was over the bridge players disappeared; Mr Elton was called away—an Indian gentleman to see him on urgent business; and they two, left alone again, wandered out into the verandah.
By now, her beauty and his possessive instinct had more or less righted things; and her nearness, in the rose-scented dark, rekindled his fervour of last night.
Without a word he turned and took her in his arms, kissing her again and again. "'Rose of all roses! Rose of all the world!'" he said in her ear.
Whereat, she kissed him of her own accord, at the same time lightly pressing him back.
"Have mercy—a little! If you crush roses too hard their petals drop off!"
"Darling—I'm sorry!" The great word was out at last; and he felt quaintly relieved.
"You needn't be! It's only—you're such a vehement lover. And vehemence is said—not to last!"
The words startled him. "You try me."
"How? An extra long engagement?"
"N-no. I wasn't thinking of that."
"Well, we've got to think, haven't we? To talk practical politics!"
"Rather not. I bar politics—practical or Utopian."
She laughed. There was happiness in her laugh, and tenderness and an undernote of triumph.
"You're delicious! So ardent, yet so absurdly detached from the dull plodding things that make up common life. Come—let's stroll. The verandah breathes heat like a benevolent dragon!"
They strolled in the cool darkness under drooping boughs, through which a star flickered here and there. He refrained from putting an arm round her, and was rewarded by her slipping a hand under his elbow.
"Shall it be—a Simla wedding?" she asked in her caressing voice. "About the middle of the season? June?"
"June? Yes. When I get back from Gilgit?"
"But—my dear! You're not going to disappear for two whole months?"
"I'm afraid so. I'm awfully sorry. But I can't go back on Lance."
"Oh—Lance!"
He heard her teeth click on the word. Perhaps she had merely echoed it.
"Yes; a very old engagement. And—frankly—I'm keen."
"Oh—very well". Her hand slipped from his arm. "And when you've fulfilled your prior engagement, you can perhaps find time—to marry me?"
"Darling—don't take it that way," he pleaded.
"Well, I did suppose I was going to be a shade more important to you than—your Lance. But we won't spoil things by squabbling."
Impulsively he drew her forward and kissed her; and this time he kept an arm round her as they moved on. He must speak—soon. But he wanted a natural opening, not to drag it in by the hair.
"And after the honeymoon—Home?" she asked, following up her all-absorbing train of thought.
"Yes—I think so. It's about time."
She let out a small sigh of satisfaction. "I'm glad it's not India. And yet—the life out here gets a hold, like dram-drinking. One feels as if perpetual, unadulterated England might be just a trifle—dull. But, of course, I know nothing about your home, Roy, except a vague rumour that your father is a Baronet with a lovely place in Sussex."
"No—Surrey," said Roy, and his throat contracted. Clearly the moment had come. "My father's not only a Baronet. He's a rather famous artist—Sir Nevil Sinclair. Perhaps you've heard the name?"
She wrinkled her brows. "N-no.—You see, we do live in blinkers! What's his line?"
"Mostly Indian subjects——"
"Oh, the Ramayána man? I remember—I did see a lovely thing of his before I came out here. But then——?" She stood still and drew away from him. "One heard he had married...."
"Yes. He married a beautiful high-caste Indian girl," said Roy, low and steadily. "My mother——"
"Your—mother——?"
He could scarcely see her face; but he felt all through him the shock of the disclosure; realised, with a sudden furious resentment, that she was seeing his adored mother simply as a stumbling-block....
It was as if a chasm had opened between them—a chasm as wide as the East is from the West.
Those few seconds of eloquent silence seemed interminable. It was she who spoke.
"Didn't it strike you that I had—the right to know this ... before...?"
The implied reproach smote him sharply; but how could he confess to her—standing there in her queenly assurance—the impromptu nature of last night's proceedings?
"Well I—I'm telling you now," he stammered. "Last night I simply—didn't think. And before ... the fact is ... I can't talk of her, except to those who knew her ... who understand...."
"You mean—is she—not alive?"
"No. The War killed her—instead of killing me."
Her hand closed on his with a mute assurance of sympathy. If they could only leave it so! But—her people...?
"You must try and talk of her—to me, Roy," she urged, gently but inexorably. "Was it—out here?"
"No. In France. They came out for a visit, when I was six. I've known nothing of India till now—except through her."
"But—since you came out ... hasn't it struck you that ... Anglo-Indians feel rather strongly...?"
"I don't know—and I didn't care a rap what they felt," he flung out with sudden warmth. "Now, of course—I do care. But ... to suppose she could ... stand in my way, seems an insult to her. If you're one of the people who feel strongly, of course ... there's an end of it. You're free."
"Free? Roy—don't you realise ... I care. You've made me care."
"I—made you?"
"Yes; simply by being what you are—so gifted, so detached ... so different from the others ... the service pattern...."
"Oh yes—in a way ... I'm different."—Strange, how little it moved him, just then, her frank avowal, her praise.—"And now you know—why. I'm sorry if it upsets you. But I can't have ... that side of me accepted ... on sufferance——"
To his greater amazement, she leaned forward and kissed him, deliberately, on the mouth.
"Will that stop you—saying such things?" There was repressed passion in her low tone, "I'm not accepting ... any of you on sufferance. And, really, you're not a bit like ... not the same...."
"No!" She smiled at the fierce monosyllable. "All that lot—the poor devils you despise—are mostly made from the wrong sort of both races—in point of breeding, I mean. And that's a supreme point, in spite of the twaddle that's talked about equality. Women of good family, East or West, don't intermarry much. And quite right too. I'm proud of my share of India. But I think, on principle, it's a great mistake...."
"Yes—yes. That's how I feel. I'm not rabid. It's not my way. But ... I suppose you know, Roy, that ... on this subject, many Anglo-Indians are."
"You mean—your people?"
"Well—I don't know about Pater. He's built on large lines, outside and in. But mother's only large to the naked eye; and she's Anglo-Indian to the bone."
"You think ... she'll raise objections?"
"She won't get the chance. It's my affair—not hers. There'd be arguments, at the very least. She tramples tactlessly. And it's plain you're abnormally sensitive; and rather fierce under your gentleness——!"
"But, Rose—I must speak. I refuse to treat—my mother as if she was—a family skeleton——"
"No—not that," she soothed him with voice and gesture. "Of course they shall know—later on. It's only ... I couldn't bear any jar at the start. You might, Roy—out of consideration for me. It would be quite simple. You need only say, just now, that your father is a widower. It isn't as if—she was alive——"
The words staggered him like a blow. With an incoherent exclamation, he swung round and walked quickly away from her towards the house, his blood tingling in a manner altogether different from last night. Had she not been a woman, he could have knocked her down.
Dismayed and startled, she hurried after him. "Roy, my dear—dearest," she called softly. But he did not heed.
She overtook him, however, and caught his arm with both hands, forcing him to stop.
"Darling—forgive me," she murmured, her face appealingly close to his. "I didn't mean—I was only trying to ease things for you, a little—you quiver-full of sensibilities."
He had been a fakir, past saving, could he have withstood her in that vein. Her nearness, her tenderness, revived the mood of sheer bewitchment, when he could think of nothing, desire nothing but her. She had a genius for inducing that mood in men; and Roy's virginal passion, once roused, was stronger than he knew. With his arms round her, his heart against hers, it was humanly impossible to wish her other than she was—other than his own.
Words failed. He simply clung to her, in a kind of dumb desperation to which she had not the key.
"To-morrow," he said at last, "I'll tell you more—show you her picture."
And, unlike Arúna, she had no inkling of all that those few words implied.