She had looked at him with a smile as the door of the car was opened by a liveried servant. “I wonder,” she mused, “why you play at being a hermit. You are not a hermit at heart.” She made a gesture with her arms which was full of enticement. “Don’t you ever hear the world calling you?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered, gravely, “I hear it calling now; and I am shutting my ears, because I know that it has nothing worth having to offer me.”
“If you happen to be here at midnight,” she said, “I dare say I shall be wanting a breath of air.”
The words had thrilled in his ears, and as she disappeared into the lighted hall of the hotel he had stood for a moment irresolute. If he were to ride down from the desert at midnight, she would stroll with him for a few moments amongst the palms, and who could say what advancement in their relationship would take place? But in so doing would he not be but offering her material for new amusement?
He had ridden, then, in silence to his camp; and at his usual hour he had gone to his bed beneath the stars; and though he was awake at midnight he had not stirred from beneath his blankets.
That was three days ago; and now Christmas was passed, with its church-service which he had attended together with the whole diplomatic staff, and its heavy luncheon thereafter, at which he had been one of twenty guests. Already, today, he had resumed the routine of his work; but the short interruption had given him time to look about him, and his bearings troubled him with their threat of dangers ahead.
Muriel, on her part, had felt herself snubbed that night when he failed to take advantage of the midnight hour. She had slipped out on to the veranda of the hotel and had waited for him, thereby missing a dance and inconveniencing at least one partner. She had suggested the meeting experimentally, to see what might be his attitude towards her; for she could not decide whether he were fond of her or merely interested in her as a case of needing reformation. And when he failed to turn up at the trysting-hour, her foot tapped angrily upon the tiles of the veranda; and at length she had gone indoors again with her head in the air but her heart in the depths.
She was undoubtedly attracted to him, but she was also very decidedly afraid of him. Sometimes it was as though he were suggesting to her that she should abandon the luxuries and the little frivolities which she so much enjoyed, and should trail after him into the desert, the Lord knows where, and cook his food for him, and dress in a sheepskin, and sleep on the hard sand with a rock for a pillow.
One of the most serious aspects of the matter was that her father was very obviously attempting to throw her and Daniel Lane together. At first she had supposed that Lord Blair desired her to come under his influence for its philosophical value; but during the last few days certain things that had been said led her to the amazing conclusion that her father regarded him in the light of a possible son-in-law.
She utterly failed to picture this man in the rôle of husband: she could imagine him as a companion or even as a lover, but as a husband never! Husbands were people in top-hats, black coats, and stripey trousers, with whom one went to St. Margaret’s, Westminster, and then to somebody’s villa on the Riviera, “kindly lent,” etc.; they had a lot of old family servants who sniffed at you and said that such-and-such wasn’t his lordship’s custom; they wanted sons and heirs, and, if you failed to provide them, they cynically made you try again; they developed money troubles sooner or later, and cut down your expenses at the moment when you wanted to rebuild the ballroom; as the years passed they became coldly courteous or hotly ill-tempered; and finally you were either divorced or else laid by their crumbling side in the family vault, in the sure and certain hope—thank God—that there were no marriages in heaven.