She began to feel that she could hardly wait for Ally’s appointment to be a certainty; if the Administrator did not inform him of his good fortune soon, the strain on their nerves would make them both ill-tempered, and that was a vulgarity not to be contemplated. Alaric and she had always been as courteous to each other as two acquaintances; it was one of her theories of married life, and not yet overthrown by experience. The indefiniteness of his own escape affected Ally too, so that they were both unusually restless, and it was a relief next morning when breakfast was over and he could go up to Government House.
“Don’t be late for luncheon, Ally!” Chum said, following him on to the stoep, where he paused to light his cigarette, a white figure against the green of the garden. “It will be so awful waiting!”
“Perhaps I shan’t have any news,” said Alaric in gloomy anticipation.
“He must speak of it to-day!”
“It would be just like him not to. He will be so immersed in the East African business, he will forget all about our little affairs.”
A momentary doubt dawned in Mrs. Lewin’s eyes. She thought of the Gilderoys’ picnic, and that large heavy hand on her own. Was she indeed a slight incident in his mind, to be brushed aside by larger interests? She had never set eyes on Gregory since that moment, and the new sweet fear of him that had overwhelmed her was in abeyance for the present. Perhaps Ally was right, and they were only details in this man’s career, a mere speck on his ambition. She tried for nothing but honest relief as she turned back to the house.
“Well come and tell me anyway,” she said over her shoulder. “I must know!”
“All right,” he replied, more soberly than usual. “I will come back the second he will let me—I really will! It’s no joking matter to either of us.”
The morning was growing too hot to be out of doors as he walked off through the rose-bushes, and out of the gate into the grounds of Government House. Mrs. Lewin stood in the doorway until the white helmet flitted out of sight among the thickening trees, and then went in to write letters. The writing-table stood close to one of the seven windows, and she slid up the shutter and fastened the pin so that the draught should fan her comfortably, before she began her correspondence. Outside a wild hot wind was rushing over the hillside, and the smell of innumerable flowers dripped in on its breath. She wrote slowly, and the sentences would not come. All her brain seemed to have followed Ally, and to be waiting with him for the Administrator to speak.
At the hour of the Miroro she went into her room and lay down under the mosquito curtains with a fan in her hand. Usually she fanned herself to sleep, but to-day sleep would not come any more than the flow of words. For half-an-hour she lay in the hot, still room, counting the silver things on the dressing-table, and the photographs on the wall, and noticing without her will that the black girl who attended to her room, had not hung her gowns aright. Natives were so tiresome; it would be almost better to experiment with an Arab.