"I hope," he said, with injudicious haste, "that, if I do go on this shoot, you won't let that boy hang round the bungalow and follow you about all over the place while I am away." Trixie flushed. "So that is why you hesitated about going?" she asked him ominously. "Perhaps you would like me to say 'Not at home' to visitors and refuse every invitation while you are not here?"
"Trixie, don't be foolish!" He regretted having voiced his feelings. It had put him in a false position. Now he must either accept the invitation, or refuse it and remain under the suspicion that he would not leave his wife because he feared he could not trust her to behave becomingly. "Of course, I know you would not do anything really wrong, but you are so careless about appearances, and people don't take circumstances into consideration. Why should they? They wouldn't know or remember that you have known Greaves nearly all your life. They would only say that he was in love with you, and that you were encouraging him. You can't be too careful in India, where we all know each other, and live, so to speak, on the house-tops."
"Then you wouldn't mind how much I went about with Guy so long as nobody was any the wiser?"
"Yes, of course I should; but I naturally should not put the same construction on it that people would who did not know you."
"Perhaps you had better not go, then," said Trixie sweetly; and she began to play with the monkey and pet the kittens, and throw scraps to the dogs. Then she rose, flourishing a bunch of keys. "I must go and fight with the cook," she announced. "His bill for charcoal is preposterous. The other women tell me we use four times what we ought--or pay for it, at any rate--and, of course, that won't do, will it, George?"
He ignored the appeal, and with ostentatious indifference she strolled into the house, jingling her keys. The dogs followed her, and Coventry sat in moody perplexity, remorseful, heavy hearted. The kittens began to clamber all over the table, the monkey helped himself from the sugar-basin, and the parrot rent the air with jealous abuse in Hindustani. Oblivious to it all, Coventry lit a cigarette and stared out at the dry compound. He was reflecting that he ought not to have married again at his age and with his temperament--or that at least he should have chosen a sedate and serious spinster, if not some gentle widow, who would have caused him no anxiety, no heart disturbance, as did Trixie--one whom he could have left without a qualm for any call of pleasure or of duty. And Trixie was to be pitied. She might have been far happier with a young husband as gay and heedless, and as irresponsible, as herself. They would have gained their experiences, have "worried through" together, come out none the worse for ups and downs and disagreements, having the same outlook on life, and with youth and tastes in common. He wondered if she repented her marriage, if he bored her, if perchance she really preferred the company, say, of young Greaves, to his own? The thought tortured him. He felt he could not go away and leave her. He would only be miserable, unable to enjoy himself, thinking of her all the time, picturing her riding, driving, laughing with that idiotic boy, while the station smiled and whispered, amused, yet commiserating the absent husband.
Markham's letter had fallen from the table and lay open at his feet. He picked it up and read it through again, and the call of the jungle stirred his blood with unwelcome temptation. It was such years since he had heard the whisper of an Indian forest and the hot, dry crackle of tall grass, since he had swayed on the back of an elephant, alert and ready for the sight of a great striped beast, and known the fierce excitement of "sitting up" over a "kill," waiting breathless, motionless, for the first faint sound of a stealthy tread.
Trixie came back. She slapped the kittens and scolded the monkey, and then looked over George's shoulder.
"Well," she said cheerfully, "have you made up your mind? If you're going, you ought to overhaul your guns and rifles without any delay. You'd have to start in a day or two. You see, he says the 15th at the latest." She pointed with a pink, tapering finger to a paragraph in the letter.
He moved restlessly. "I must think it over," he said, with some irritation.