What pretty ear-rings, he said. Where did I get them? They were just like a pair he had bought intending to give me; but he had remembered in time that turquoises meant unhappy memories for me, so he had kept them, and by Jove, yes! when he had found his things all over the place in his rooms he had come upon the box, too, but with only one ear-ring in it, and had thought that brute Makupi had taken it (he forgot he had told me the boy had stolen nothing). Perhaps he had the thing in his pocket now. (He, in fact, affected to make a search, feeling in all his pockets, then looked more closely at the box on the table.) Why! this was the very box—but of course I must have picked it up in the cart—then the ear-ring had not been lost after all! At first he had thought it was a pair of my own I was showing him—a pair just like those he had bought,—for that class of screw ear-ring was all made alike—a jeweller had told him so. They were all made exactly in the same way—you couldn’t tell one pair from another.
Fascinated, I stood watching him weave his tangle of lies and uttering them between little puffs of smoke. If it had not been so horrible it would have been an interesting study in soul pathology. I had never met any one with an idiosyncrasy like this; never known a man who thought it worth while to lie at all, certainly not in this idle yet curiously intent way. Could he be mad, I wondered. With each new lie or portion of one his confidence increased. The last part of his statement, made with the utmost aplomb, was an inspiration. I saw the gleam of the creator in his eye as he propounded it. And when I still gazed at him in stony-eyed fascination he repeated it with an assurance almost childish.
“All blue ear-rings are alike. Yes: that fellow in Durban told me so when we were talking about earrings once long ago. Perhaps that is why you are upset—old memories, I suppose. You are thinking of that chap Kinsella. Still, I don’t see why you should treat me like a dog on that account.”
His tone became injured and indignant once more. There were to be no more propitiatory inventions. He had explained the whole thing satisfactorily as far as he was concerned, and the subject was now closed. He swept it away with his tobacco smoke, and returned to his grievance against me.
“On a man’s wedding night! To drive him into getting beastly drunk out of sheer misery and loneliness! I have told you before that I never drink anything, but last night,”—he waved at the empty champagne bottles—“upon my soul I think this lapse should be forgiven me.”
Half unconsciously my eyes sought the wall where the packing cases stood; the case of whiskey was gone. It had been spirited away in the night to some other hut. I remembered now the shuffling sounds of some one lifting and carrying away a heavy weight.
“But I am willing to kiss and make friends if you are.”
He rose to his feet and put out a hand with the frank manly air he could so easily assume while the half-modest, half-chivalrous smile that had always attracted me flitted across his face. It was an elusive expression and never stayed to be examined; but for a moment it bred in me the hope that at the bottom of this dark soul there was some spark of nobility, covered heavily with great weights, perhaps, but smouldering still. I must appeal to it if there was to be any way for either of us out of this tangled wild.
“Maurice,” I said almost gently, “there can be no kisses between you and me. I know now that you have lied to me and deceived me, and the knowledge is so terrible that I can hardly bear it. There was a time during the past night when I could have killed you for what you have done. I can never forget it—it is no use saying that. But because you and I are irrevocably bound together by the laws of my religion I will try to forgive you if you will give me time. I will try only to remember the promises I made to you at the altar a few hours ago. By the help of God I will keep compact with you: if you on your part will not lie to me any more, and will strive to be the honourable man I believed you when I married you.”
He gazed at me with a sneering mouth.