The invitation was given openly and Jack had no hesitation in accepting it, curious to know how the elusive Barrington Fox would appear on closer acquaintance.
They walked together across the railway lines and past unkempt hedges of Duranta in full bloom towards the group of residences reserved for officials of the Railway, each within its own garden and bounded by barbed wire as a protection against stray cattle.
The Traffic Superintendent's house was built on a more generous scale than the others, though uniformly of red brick picked out with buff. Shallow arches supported the concrete roof, and the verandah in front was gay with ornamental pot-plants and palms of luxuriant growth. Many doors opened upon it, and through them could be seen a lamplit and graceful interior, veiled by misty lace curtains. The verandah itself was left for the moon to illuminate.
Long residence in India and natural good taste had taught Mrs. Fox the art of furnishing with an eye to the needs of the climate, so that her rooms had the charm of restfulness, ease, and coolness. Most of her drawing-room chairs were of Singapur rush-work; the mat was of green grass, the punkha frills of art muslin. The walls were distempered in cool greys and neutral tints; while on all sides were palms, large and small, and china-grass in dainty flower-pots of coloured earthenware. A Japanese draught screen, embroidered in silk upon gauze and arranged carelessly, put a finish to the most picturesque drawing-room Jack had yet seen in Bengal.
Mr. Barrington Fox, however, was not at home. A telegram was found to have arrived, intimating that he had been detained at a wayside station.
"Such a nuisance!" Mrs. Fox exclaimed, laying down the telegram which, as a matter of fact, she had received earlier in the day. "You'll have to put up with only me. Do you mind?"
"It is not for me to mind," he answered awkwardly. "If you think I might stay, I shall be delighted."
"Then you shall. Who cares?—not my husband who has long ceased to mind what I do or how I am left to pass the time," she said bitterly.
"You must often be very lonely?" he ventured sympathetically. He had heard many rumours of Fox's neglect of his wife—of the temptations to which she was exposed and to which a woman placed as she was might be excused for yielding. Plenty of fellows paid court to her, and a good few had grown attached—yet, barring Smart who was a cad and a bounder, he was sure that none could cast a stone.
"I am always desperately lonely," she sighed, as she sank into a chesterfield and motioned him to the seat beside her. "You little know how it preys upon me; how I welcome a sympathetic friend! but—why speak of it?" she passed him her cigarette case, and they began to smoke companionably. "So few understand me," said she in subdued tones. "So many misunderstand! I ask you, what is life worth to a young woman in my position?" her chest heaved, her eyes filled with self-pity. "And who can stifle nature and be happy?—the ache for human sympathy—tenderness—love...." she brushed the moisture from her eyes with a diminutive handkerchief, and smiled a wintry smile. "I refuse to talk only of myself!—let us talk of you, dear Jack. You are a dear and I have so longed to make a friend of you," she interrupted herself to say.