He turned from her, and fetched the horses. “Fool, fool!” said his body to his mind. “Again, misunderstanding the meaning of life, you have robbed me.” “Be silent, rebel,” said his mind to his body. “Give me time to see if her passion be love.” “Is there any difference?” sneered his body; and his mind replied, “Had I not thought so, you should have had your way.”
[CHAPTER XIX—THE SEEDS OF SORROW]
During the ensuing fortnight circumstances were not favourable to the development of their romance. Daniel was closely occupied with the settling of certain political difficulties which had cropped up; and Muriel, on her part, found herself much occupied with the social functions of the Residency which, in the month of January, are always very exacting.
But if there were few opportunities for the tender intimacy of love, there was now the compensation of a very sweet understanding between them. There was no need, so it seemed, for a formal betrothal: the engagement was mutually assumed, and, though no binding words had been spoken, Lord Blair did not have to ask again what were their intentions.
Muriel was, of course, a little disturbed at Daniel’s refusal to allow a definite announcement to be made, or even an irrevocable word to be spoken between them; but actually his attitude was quite understandable. He was keenly aware that his method of life was somewhat peculiar, and he was modest enough to regard himself as a thoroughly undesirable husband.
Muriel had told him all about the Rupert Helsingham affair, and, with some degree of correctness, he had attributed it to the enchantment of the Nile. He had realized, too, that in his own case his most intimate moments with her had occurred under exceptionally romantic circumstances; and though he was too deeply in love thus to explain away her emotions, he could not blind himself to the possibility that their origin was less profound than their intensity suggested.
He was determined not to bind her yet awhile; for, he argued to himself, if the miracle had happened, if really she had found in him her eternal partner, time would prove the fact to them; but if she had been building her love on the deceptive foundations of romantic passion, nothing but ultimate misery would come of the immediate exchange of mutual vows.
Being a philosopher, he did not judge love’s day by the tempest of its passion: indeed, he mistrusted such storms as a frequent cause of disastrous miscalculation. But Muriel, being woman pure and simple—if ever there could be a woman of her upbringing either pure or simple—did not analyse her feelings nor mistrust them. She knew only that Daniel hung like a thunderstorm over the meadows of her heart, and she waited in breathless, headaching silence for his lightnings and his torrents to descend upon her.
There was one aspect of the matter, however, which troubled him. Muriel, he recognized, belonged to a section of English society which was very lax in its morals; and he knew quite well that, in the darkness of the desert on the memorable night of their return from Sakkâra, she had been entirely carried away by her love. The fact did not disturb him in itself, for he was a believer in instinct, and his judgment was not influenced by the conventions. If she really loved him, and if they had mutually taken one another for a life-partnership, no marriage ceremony would make the compact in his eyes more binding, and her desire at once to identify her life irrevocably with that of the chosen one would be comprehended and condoned by him.
But there was the fear at the back of his mind lest she had entered upon the adventure lightly. He knew too much about the ways of Mayfair: perhaps, indeed, his abhorrence of all that that name stood for was exaggerated. Her upbringing, therefore, caused him anxiety: not, be it understood, because of her possible willingness to break the traditional law, but because she might be willing to break it lightly. He hated himself for doubting her; but she was a child of Society, a daughter of the Old Harlot, and no member of her particular branch of that family was above suspicion.