“I wonder,” he mused. It was as though he had been chastised.
She did not continue the argument. That was, to Daniel, the baffling thing about her: she was growing so quiet now that she was in his power. She performed the tasks he set her almost in silence, and he could never tell whether she were learning her lesson or whether she were treating him with contempt as a man who lacked sympathetic understanding.
In her silence he seemed to find the quiet suggestion that she knew already all he wished to teach her; and there were moments when he felt that he had estranged himself needlessly from her. At such times he was obliged to remind himself that she had deliberately treated his love as a romantic adventure, and such treatment had had to be dealt with drastically. It was better that it should die outright than live to bring misery to them both; and with this thought he steeled his heart.
Thus the days passed by—days of brilliant sunshine and warm, mysterious nights, of active toil and healthy sleep; days meant for love and companionship, but turned down, one after the other, in cold antagonism and frigid reticence. Sometimes in the evening, after she had gone to her room, he would sit with his head buried in his hands, calling himself a fool and loathing his rôle of schoolmaster; and more than once there was a black hour of despair when, had she come to him, she would have been astonished to see his huge arms spread out across the table and his head sunk upon his mighty breast.
[CHAPTER XXIX—IN THE PRESENCE OF DEATH]
By the middle of March Muriel’s enforced residence at El Hamrân was drawing to a close. Already she had been with Daniel for eleven or twelve days, and he had kept her so busy that the time had passed rapidly. These days had been like a fantastic dream to her, and she could hardly believe in the reality of her actions. The whole situation was absurd; and yet, notwithstanding her artificial outward stiffness and her actual inward rebellion, she was conscious that her experience had not been unprofitable.
In spite of Daniel’s hectoring and churlish manners—for so she thought them—she felt that she had seen something of life as it is lived under primitive conditions which otherwise she would never have known. She had even experienced, latterly, a pleasant sense of calm while she had been carrying out her duties: it was almost as though being under orders were a satisfactory condition—now and then. And as to her physical health, she was obliged to admit that she had never before felt so thoroughly fit.
Her attitude to her monitor was one of unbending hostility, but now no longer of furious anger. She was not afraid of him, but very decidedly she did not feel the contempt for him which she endeavoured to show. She regarded him as a man of difficult and contrary character, but she now realized that she had greatly misjudged his outlook upon life. She had thought that in regard to women he was a prurient savage: she now knew that he was a high-principled and rather fastidious celibate.
Undoubtedly he had taught her the lesson of her life, but she was certainly not going to grasp his hand and thank him kindly on that account. He had built up a barrier between them which would remain a fixture for all time, and, though her heart often ached, she was far too estranged from him to think of any future intimacy whatsoever between them.
Only in one respect, in these days of their life together, did she feel drawn towards him. He had an indefinably benevolent and humorous attitude towards life, of which she was daily more conscious. It was something which could not be described, but on more than one occasion it nearly served to break down the wall of ice within in which she had enclosed herself. Sometimes it would be merely that he stopped in his walk to make an absurd remark to a passing cow or to a wandering goat; sometimes it would be the way in which he played with his dogs; or sometimes it was his manner to the native children which would cause her to unbend towards him. It was as though he had a private joke with every living creature. It was too quiet to be termed joviality: it was in no wise rollicking. It was a subtle droll and whimsical good-nature; it seemed almost as if, conscious of his own great strength, he were saying “Bless your little heart!” to all things weaker than he.