“Oh, then he’ll knock around a bit and make things generally unpleasant. Do a little dacoity from time to time. But we are bound to bone him in the long run.”
“There’s an uncommonly queer closeness in the air this evening,” said the Colonel as they were sitting out under the verandah a little later. “As if there was a storm of sorts working up. Yet there’s no sign of thundercloud anywhere. Don’t you notice it, Vivien?”
“I think so. It has a dispiriting effect on one, as if something was going to happen.”
The sun had gone down in a lurid haze, which was not cloud, and the jagged peaks of the opposite range were suffused in a hot, vaporous afterglow, while the dark depth of juniper forest in the deep, narrow valley seemed very far down indeed. What little air there was came in warm puffs.
“We all seem rather chûp this evening,” said the Colonel. “Viv, how would it be to play us something lively to wake us up?”
She rose and went inside. Campian could still see her as she sat at the piano, rattling off Gilbert and Sullivan at their liveliest. He could continue the very favourite occupation in which he had been indulging—that of simply watching her—noting every movement, the turn of the head, the droop of the eyelids, the sweet and perfect grace which characterised her most trivial act. This woman was simply perfect in his sight—his ideal. Yet to all outward intent they were on the easy, friendly terms of two people who merely liked each other and no more.
“Come and have a ‘peg,’ Campian,” said the Colonel presently.
“No thanks—not just now.”
“Well, I’m going to,” and away he went to the dining room.
Then Campian, sitting there, was conscious of a very strange and startling phenomenon. There was a feeling as though the world were falling away from beneath his feet, together with a dull rumble. There was a clatter of glass and table ornaments in the drawing room, and he could see Vivien sway and nearly fall from the music-stool. He sprang to his feet to rush to her aid, and seemed hardly able to preserve his own balance. Both staggering they met in the doorway.