“It means a doctor, I think, but I didn’t know Arabs had doctors. Perhaps he has something to do with the Spahis—he talked French very well—perhaps he—” a big yawn swallowed the end of the sentence, and Ann drew up the coverlet with a little admonishing pat. “Never you bother your pretty head about him now, my lamb. Just go to sleep and forget all about it. And heaven send the man’s as good as his word and gets that dratted horse back,” she added, anxiously to herself as she left the room.
It was late in the afternoon when she reluctantly aroused her mistress and set down a dainty tea tray by the bedside.
“It’s four o’clock, Miss Marny, and there’s two eggs to your tea. I’ll see you eat every bit of it,” she announced cheerfully, bustling about the room and flinging back the shutters. Lady Geradine stretched luxuriously and then sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “Oh, Ann, what fun,” she said with a laugh the old woman had not heard for years. “It’s like nursery days. Put heaps of cushions behind me and cut off the tops of the eggs. I’m simply famishing.” Then she paused with a square of toast half way to her mouth and the laughter died out of her eyes.
“Has The Caid come back?”
Ann splashed the tea into the saucer at the sudden question.
“Not yet, dearie, but its only four o’clock—and the train doesn’t get in until seven,” she said, inconsequently. Marny understood very well the meaning of her somewhat obscure sentence, but she gave no sign of understanding. It was part of the pitiful game she played that even Ann received no confidences and was allowed to make no comment on the treatment her husband meted out to her. Angry with herself for the words that had escaped unintentionally, the old woman stole a penitent glance at the girl who was her idol. But Marny was apparently only concerned with the salting of her egg.
“The poor dear isn’t likely to come back by train,” she said lightly, as if the horse alone occupied her mind.
Finishing her tea she slipped out of bed and into the wrapper Ann held for her. Stretching out her arms she patted them tenderly, and then raising them high above her head bent forward easily, sweeping her finger-tips to the ground, and straightened again slowly with a laugh of satisfaction.
“I’m as right as rain, Ann,” she said, reassuringly, “not a bit stiff. I’ll dress for dinner now. I can’t be bothered to change again so soon. Bring me that white teagown thing I got in Paris, it’s loose and cool.”
Too loose and too cool, thought Ann as she went with primly folded lips to fetch the diaphanous little garment that had been made to Lord Geradine’s order and which she herself considered neither fit nor decent for her mistress to wear. A dress suitable in its sensuous appeal to the women with whom the Viscount chose to associate, but degrading to the innocent girl whom he had married. And when the final touches to Lady Geradine’s toilet were completed, Ann stood back and surveyed her handiwork with grim disapproval. And Marny, staring absently into the long mirror, caught the expression in the stern old eyes fixed on her and moved abruptly with a smothered sigh, the colour deepening in her face. The dress was hateful and she loathed it, but in this as in everything else, loyalty to her husband kept her lips closed. Even his questionable taste must pass undiscussed. And discussion would make it no easier to bear. She had to submit to it as she had to submit to the man himself. She was not a free agent. Legally she was his wife, actually she was a slave to be and do at the whim of a capricious and tyrannical master.