She paused, with a lightning review of such a lie and its efficacy.
“Yes,” she said in a low voice, her shamed eyes dropping from his. “I think—it is—a touch of fever.” Then in a tone which did not realise its own despair, “I cannot rouse him!”
He stepped back with a long breath, and turned his face from her for a minute, as if listening to something afar off. She heard his chest rise and fall with an extra sense that was not hearing, and realised that he understood. All the sting and shame that had gone before seemed to be nothing in comparison to that moment. He knew, and he was a hard man who gave no second chances. Alaric Lewin was a failure to his judgment; not because he had got drunk on a hot night, which was nothing, but because he was useless in an emergency. The cause was little to a mind like Gregory’s, but the weakness that might fail him again was unforgivable. He had the reputation of sweeping such men from his path as useless, without enmity, but without pity. The hopelessness of it all!
Suddenly she heard him speaking, and the whispering voice had a new kindness; he spoke gently, as if to some small frail thing that must not be hurt.
“Never mind—don’t try and wake him. I’ll go myself. Don’t worry. Go to bed and rest. It will be all right.”
He laid a large hand on her shoulder, as if to impress the words; she hardly noticed the action, but felt a dull surprise when he as quickly drew it back. The man was nothing to her, but a sudden glow of comfort sprang up in her heart at his last sentence. If he said it would be all right, he meant his own coadjutancy to make it so. She felt the power of his will, but not of his manhood, and her face was broken into softness as she turned it to him in farewell, and opened the door for his hasty departure.
“Good-night,” he repeated. “Don’t worry; go to bed yourself, and be quite easy. I am so sorry to have roused you.” There was a touch of mastery in his voice, as if he had taken possession of the situation to heal her physical and mental weariness. She rested on it unconsciously, with the woman’s craving for the strong man who shall not fail her. And Ally, alas, had failed!
As Gregory swung back along the stoep he looked down, consciously this time, at the sleeping Arabs, and there was interest and a secret sympathy in his heart. For the touch of the Eternal Feminine was on him, and he remembered that to love a woman was a goodly thing. His footsteps died away into the darkness of the garden, to the gate where he had tied his pony, and then after a pause came the sound of galloping hoofs as he rode off on his own errand. Mrs. Lewin heard it as she stood at the open shutters of her own window, for she had mechanically gone back to her room, and leaned there conscious of nothing but a horrible reaction from the tensity of the past few minutes. With a primeval instinct she turned from the shelter which civilisation has raised over men’s heads to the healing of the outside world, for she had a restless craving to get away from the confinement of the house and the ugly thing of which she knew in the next room.
The night was quick with fireflies, and the air was soft and warm to touch. Some winged thing sailed lazily by and made her start by the whirr of its heavy body close to her hair—a giant moth it seemed, with a barrel-like body and wings like a dragon-fly’s. Down below on the stoep the Arabs lay asleep.... She pressed her hands over her wakeful eyes and tried not to sob, schooling herself because she was a woman—not a child who cries away the bitterness over a broken toy. This was more serious than a toy, and yet it seemed just like an old unreasonable nursery grief, that fretted for a thing it had endowed with spurious life.
She must begin and love all over again. There was no stronger nature above her to look up to and lean on in fancy, even though she guided by her brighter wits and keener vitality. She had cheated herself happily in thinking that Ally was really the moving spirit in their married life, and that he had a reserve of strength upon which she could lean in an emergency. He was nothing but a weak man, who must be shielded before the world, and watched and helped with tenderest care, but never more looked up to at quite the same height. No one should know or guess that he had so fallen; she would not even have to make excuses for him, she would manage so cleverly, for that was her new phase of wifehood. Even as the thought crossed her mind she turned her head nervously and listened, fancying that the servants were awake and coming to ask who her late visitor had been. If she could only keep it from them till the morning, things would look more natural. Captain Lewin had slept in the dressing-room not to awaken her—he had thrown the mattress on the floor and lay there in hope of greater coolness. There was more draught on the floor—at least she could make it appear so. She went over the details in feverish haste, shielding and managing already with a woman’s tragic skill. But that it should have to be so!