Joyce was unquestionably the "belle of the ball"; there were no two opinions about that. Few remembered that she had been at Darjeeling the previous season, since she had kept to her hotel as a semi-invalid with a very young child; so that she had the additional advantage of being fresh. India loves new sensations and is grateful to those who supply them, gratis.
Men surrounded her and paid her marked attentions, fought with each other, good-naturedly, for portions of dances, and served her as a princess at the suppers. Yet, in spite of her bewildering success, she never forgot the object that had taken her there, and was more than repaid. Her manner to her husband was faultless, and it kept him regardful of her slightest wish. Her mission was to charm all, her husband in particular, so that Mrs. Dalton's humiliation should be complete; and before midnight, victory was achieved. Mrs. Dalton ordered her 'rickshaw at the stroke of twelve, and retired from the ball, her almost empty programme in pieces on the floor. She had been overlooked by men, cut by women, and obliged to look on, with a raging heart, at Mrs. Meredith's triumph. Ray Meredith, with the rudeness of utter contempt, had left her absolutely alone. The cruelty of his behaviour had been insupportable. When, on one occasion, she had seized the chance of a word with him, he was deaf to her exhortations, and she was shaken off with a contemptuous disregard for her feelings.
When she left the building, it was to suffer the tortures of a woman scorned. She was learning to swallow that bitterest of all pills, the knowledge that she was utterly despised by the man for whom she had been willing to lower her womanhood in the dust.
She had come to the realisation of the fact that the woman who lowers herself in the eyes of men, will inevitably find herself shamed and scorned.
When she arrived at the hotel, she brooded far into the night over her bedroom fire, reviewing bitterly her moral decline from the day of her first great mistake. Feeling unable to face the people who had known her in the Station, she departed the next morning for Muktiarbad, leaving her infantile charge and its ayah to the tender mercies of the Sanitarium.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE FAIR
The méla[19] week was a great event at Muktiarbad, for the Europeans as well as the natives of the District, as it gave the officials a holiday, brought people together, and encouraged healthy competition in arts, crafts, and various industries of the country. Prizes were offered for the best exhibits, and local shopkeepers took advantage of the opportunity to advance their own interests by placing on the market, articles of use and ornament from all parts of India. Eager crowds, garbed in all the hues of the rainbow created a kaleidoscope of colour as they jostled one another among the booths, bent on bargaining or on sight-seeing. Merry-go-rounds, puppet shows, monkey-dances, juggling, and cocoanut shies, entertained adults as well as children, while the noise and confusion of tongues was Bedlam.