One day, yearning for an hour alone with her, he asked her to come out to his camp on the following evening. She was to dine with the Bindanes at Mena House, and he suggested that he should call for her after dinner, when the young moon would be low in the heavens, and that they should ride out to his tents and talk for a little while.
Muriel fell in with the scheme readily enough; but there was something in her manner and in the expression of her face which indicated that she took the step with deliberation, fully conscious of all that it might involve. And, in actual fact, she did not care what happened. She only wanted to belong to him, to feel that she was in his power and he in hers.
But on the next morning she awoke with a bad cold in her head, and she was obliged to take to her bed. One cannot be really romantic with one’s nose running, and any of love’s most wonderful situations may be ruined by a sneeze.
A few days later, when she was more or less recovered, Daniel told her how disappointed he had been that the arrangement had fallen through.
“I expect it was my guardian angel,” she whispered, with a laugh. “I had made up my mind to come; and I suppose the angel read my thoughts, and said ‘You’d better not,’ and sprinkled a handful of germs over me.”
Daniel was startled. “Why, you don’t think that I...?” He paused. Men are seldom so plain-spoken as women, and seldom face facts so deliberately.
On the following afternoon he was obliged to go to the railway station to pay his farewell respects to a native dignitary on his departure for England upon a commercial mission; and, while walking back through the Levantine shopping quarter, he came upon Lizette who, as he now recollected, lived in this part of the city.
He had not seen her since that night, three and a half months ago, when he had taken her out to supper at Berto’s; and he was distressed to observe the change that had taken place in her. She was looking thin and haggard, and her eyes were like the melancholy eyes of a sick dog.
She glanced at him as she approached and a quick smile of pleasure came into her face; but the etiquette which is always observed in the best circles on such occasions prevented her from showing recognition of a client in a public place. (Money-lenders and dentists follow much the same code.)
Daniel, however, knew nothing about such rules of polite conduct. If Lizette were good enough to talk to in a restaurant she ought to be good enough to salute in the street. He therefore pulled off his hat as she passed, and, pausing, bid her good day.