"You haven't told me why you were so late," he said.
"Oh, George, how you do bother! I don't know, except that I suppose we forgot the time, and then, driving home through the bazaar, we got into a sort of block--a native procession, a wedding, or a festival of some kind. There was a tremendous crowd and such a noise--tom-toms and horns and torches. We were delayed, I should think, for quite ten minutes, drawn up at the side of the street while it passed. Guy got so impatient, and wanted to barge through the middle of it, but, of course, I wouldn't let him. We should have knocked down dozens of people. And, besides, I was awfully interested and amused. I didn't want to go on. It never struck me that you might be anxious."
She ran into her room to dress for dinner, and he could hear her singing softly as she moved about. He resolved to say no more about her staying out so late to-night alone with young Greaves. If it happened again he would put down his foot once and for all. Meanwhile, he would drop a hint to the boy that his behaviour towards Mrs. Coventry should be rather more circumspect; and as to the moonlight expedition that Trixie seemed to contemplate, it would be time enough to deal with that if she talked of such a senseless prank again. Probably she would forget all about it.
He made every effort during dinner to be amiable and entertaining, to avoid any subject that might lead to disagreement, and Trixie responded in her happiest mood. Afterwards they sat outside in the veranda, lazing in their long cane chairs, talking little, quietly content, until suddenly, from the warm darkness of the compound, there came a harsh and piercing cry that rose to an excruciating pitch, then, note by note, sank back once more to silence.
"Oh! what was that?" she asked, startled.
But it was nothing more alarming than the trial song of India's cuckoo, the bird that is no harbinger of hope and life and all the joys of spring, as is his Western cousin, but the token of a time of stress and strain and trial only to be realised by those who have endured it.
"A brain-fever bird," he told her. "If I can see the beggar to-morrow I'll shoot him."
They listened as the sound rose and fell again, this time farther off.
"India rather frightens me," said Trixie, "and yet I get fits of fascination that make me feel as if the country had bewitched me. It all seems so old and so cruel, and yet so alluring. I felt the spell of it this evening on the river, and still more strongly when we were waiting in the bazaar for the procession to pass. That big city, full of people we really know nothing about, with all sorts of weird things happening in it that we never hear of. I think the bazaar is quite wonderful, but Guy Greaves said the smell of it was all that affected him, and his one idea was to get out of it." "The young fool had no business to take you through the bazaar at all!" said Coventry, with suppressed irritation.
Disapproval invariably spurred Trixie to truculence. "It was the shortest way," she retorted with spirit, "and we were late as it was. How were we to know that we should be delayed by a procession?"