Nor heed the rolling of a distant drum.”
The volume used to lie open in her lap at this verse, while she looked so long at the cane, and thought of Gregory.
She could bear to think of him now, even though with a consciousness of her own responsibility she recognised that her intuitive fear had not been one to argue away—he had foreseen and looked for some such removing of the barrier between them, as had actually occurred. If she could, she would have screened him with the impression she had first had of his motive in appointing Alaric to the difficulty and danger of East Africa; she had thought that his words had a literal meaning when he said that he could not part from her, and that he had sent her husband away to indulge the momentary impulse, perhaps even to come to an understanding between them, and woo and win her. Anyhow, she had looked at it as an indefinite move, a respite from Ally’s presence—no more. That would have been a woman’s way—her own way, perhaps, but not Gregory’s. The strong man looked further ahead, he had no motiveless actions. There was a darker object in Captain Lewin’s appointment than a mere desire to be rid of him at the moment.
She seemed to have discovered this without effort on her part, as soon as she realised that he had known of Alaric’s death the night before it was made public. He had been afraid of losing her—his own consciousness told him that he might, if she knew. Had he been innocent of this blood, the fear would not have struck him at all. She never masked the situation to herself any more, once she had faced it; this man that she loved had no scruples, he struck at what stood in his path, though it might be human life, and his career was a proof of such fearless murder. Well, the kings of the earth have succeeded so. But the marvel to her was that this knowledge of him had not killed her love. It had been numbed with the blow of her discovery of his pitfall for the man who stood in his way; but as the first horror passed off, as the mental life flowed back to her in the solitude of Vohitra, she realised that her heart had only been paralysed—the pain of returning feeling proved it alive through its very wounds. The last of her theories fell before the very anguish that cried out for him, the yearning of all her womanhood to his master touch. She had thought that she could not love save at a certain standard; Evelyn Gregory could only reach that standard in one particular, that of ruthless strength, but the knowledge of his shortcomings, though it might appal her, did not make him one whit less dear to her.
The very pain of it seemed to have developed her into something alien, a character not her own. She had been so sure she knew herself, that the revelation of that in her which could overthrow her theories made her more patient and anxious to learn of her own fundamental nature. It was a new education, for she proved what is true of women in all ages—that love teaches them a sorrow so deep that they hide it in their secret consciousness, and swear they are happy. They never are happy, from the days of Eve and Adam until now; yet the woman does not exist, and never did exist, who, having been in love, would part with the experience. She would often willingly part with her after-memory of the man, and her disillusion; but with her own private emotions, and the glow and glory of which he was only the trivial cause, she would not part if God tried the experiment of offering her a miracle and showed her her past undone.
The few days of solitude before Mrs. Gilderoy joined her were invaluable to Leoline Lewin, for they gave her some sort of a real insight into herself. By the time Mrs. Gilderoy climbed the hill on her pony, bringing a breath of the stale life of Port Victoria with her, Mrs. Lewin could listen and pay a courteous attention without moral dislocation. Mrs. Gilderoy was both kind and shrewd; but the habit of many years will not be held in check by dormant good qualities, and she had used her quick wits on the social world around her until a smart saying became her second nature. It was irresistible to her to score off people, however much she might like them, and sometimes the talent even surprised her into a lie.
“Is Major Churton back yet?” Leoline asked, as they sat at their first dinner together. “I saw Diana the day I left. She told me he was coming.”
“He looks a good deal browner and older. I encountered him at the Denvers’, lifting Trixie in and out of the hammock which she hangs up with that end in view. Some man has always got her in his arms. She likes them to paw her! Bute Churton goes there far too much.”
“Di told me that Mrs. Clayton had taken to religion—has Miss Denver tasted conversion also?”
“No, but it’s true about Eva Clayton. She talks about God as if He were an intimate acquaintance whose views she could always command on the telephone. And of course they always coincide with her own conduct! Wray wants to ask her if the Deity approves of ladies smoking! He hates her cigarettes, does my good man.”