“A letter, Baas!” The man drew it out of the rags that covered his breast, and shifted from one foot to the other in the dust, with an apologetic smile on his vacant face. He held the letter to Churton and nodded insistently.
“For me?” said the Major as he took it. It was too dark to see the inscription, but he held the cigar between his large white teeth and broke the seal, moving into the faint light from the stoep to decipher it.
“Yaas, Baas. Captain Lewin sent it—I give it to you yourself!”
The man had jumbled his orders, and in all good faith believed that the letter was to go to the owners of the bungalow direct—whether the Bimbashi or the Missus had it, did not enter his head as of importance, for he thought the point was that it should not pass through the hands of the servants. Having delivered his message he did not linger in the hope of a reward at this end of his journey, for Major Churton’s crisp manner was not encouraging; he hurried off to catch his employer still at the club and claim his fee, and with a brief “Efenin’, Baas!” his noiseless figure shambled into the darkness again, and departed down the hill.
But Major Churton did not answer the salutation. He was standing close against the railing of the stoep, but necessarily below it, as the bungalow was lifted a foot or so above the ground on account of snakes. The man’s shoulder reached the top of the rail, and he held the letter carefully so that the light beyond fell across it. It touched his own face, too, and showed two deep furrows between his brows, and the grey in his thick dark hair—such a slight sprinkling from the hand of time that it hardly showed unless in such a full light. Somewhere in that lighted house his wife was busy over feminine affairs of her own; she was not in this front room, however, otherwise by lifting his eyes he could have seen her. He was vaguely glad of that even in the first shock of his surprise, for he was always afraid of his own temper.
Ally had not begun that letter even in an informal manner, or the “Dear Di” would have prevented Major Churton reading further. It was unguarded in its phrasing, and incriminating to a degree in which he had never written before, because he knew he was going away. To a jealous nature there was no question as to the meaning of its references; but just because Bute Churton knew his own power of anger he was terribly just, and kept an iron control over his judgment. He would not be sure—not quite yet. He would wait and see if the woman made this ugly suspicion a certainty by any incautious speech on her part. He thought for a moment of going down to the club now, whence this had come, and dealing direct with Lewin; but he was not sure—the letter he was mechanically twisting and crushing in his strong fingers was no proof of anything but a dangerous intimacy—no literal proof at least—and there was plenty of time to-morrow.
He looked down at the letter again, and tried to piece the matter out. For years Di and he had gone their own ways, and he had made no fuss over the succession of men who had been her dubious “friends,” because through some infatuated belief in a man’s own wife being different from other women, he had fancied that she was always on the safe side—she had certainly always kept herself beyond the range of scandal, if not gossip. Had the theory of the thing even drifted through his mind, as an indiscretion of the past, he might have shut his eyes to it. It was as an actual experience of the present that made it a hideous and impossible position. A general tenet with regard to loose morals is a very different thing to the example which affects one personally. The most broad-minded people in profession are generally the least charitable in practice.
He stood out there in the darkness until he had regained his grip on himself, and thought that he was cool. He could not re-read Ally’s letter, so he put it in his pocket for further consideration, before deciding to give it to Diana. Perhaps also he hoped that Lewin’s departure meant nothing to her such as the letter suggested; if she did not read Ally’s urgent request to her to ride down and say good-bye to him, it might not occur to her. He would give her that chance.
They had already dined, and the table was cleared and reloaded with the Tantalus and soda-water, when he entered the dining-room. Diana came in as he was helping himself to whiskey,—sparingly, this time,—and flung her writing-case on to a distant table with a movement suggestive of weary impatience.
“It is hot!” she remarked. “I’ll have some claret and soda,—leave me some ice, Bute.” She mixed it for herself, and spoke as she did so. “Have you heard when the Greville is going?”