When she refused to answer, he made his inquiry more intrusive.
“My life, perhaps? No obligation of loyalty or gratitude would hinder you? Be honest.”
He recognized the struggle which his words had occasioned. Her sleepy look had vanished. She believed he was preparing to desert her. She was mustering the courage to invent a falsehood. Already her hands were lying. They were wandering over him, patting and caressing. He clasped them in his own, holding her at arm's length. Her eyes met his; they grew steady and absorbed him.
“Even though you were all I had, if your life caused suffering to children, I would kill you.”
He laughed at her solemnity over having told the truth.
“With you it's children; with the Major it's patriotism; with Varensky it's freedom. With me it's nothing. I follow no will-o'-the-wisp—which is lucky for you. You're terribly tired; get some rest while you can. I'll watch. I'm no idealist; you can trust me.”
VI
She had wrapped herself in her sable cloak and curled herself on the floor in the corner remotest from the window. When he judged she was sleeping, he stole to her side and stood gazing down. Her rags were hidden. Except for the weary disorder of her hair, she was almost the fashionable beauty of his Atlantic voyage.
He looked closer. Fatigue had uncovered something hidden in her countenance, traces of lost girlhood. Her body seemed smaller, her features less decided. The mask of intrigue had fallen. He caught a glimpse of the slim, pathetic child whom the Major had discovered, swaying like lilac-bloom in the perfumed dusk of the Hindoo temple.
Her feet peeped out from beneath the costly fur. Such doll's feet—so little to have come so long a journey! Her ankles were cut by the climb up the cliff. Her shoes were broken. As though the curtain had gone up in the theater of his brain, her feet began to act their story. He saw them tiny and brown, pattering about the shaded bungalow where the English tea-planter had lived with her Burmese mother. He saw them lost and wandering along the roads of India. He saw them in the temple, flashing like a swallow's flight across mosaic pavements. He followed all their progress, as they carried her through triumphs and bereavements to this moment.