"Surely if you were to explain--"
"My dear Belle, explanation is nothing to demonstration. In six weeks' time, when the first flood comes, I shall prove myself right, and waltz in, hands down, an easy winner. That is to say if nobody fouls me now out of goodness, and righteousness, and all charitableness."
It was one thing to be told this, another to find comfort in it, and as the days passed Belle grew more and more uneasy. She felt sure all could not be fair and square; that there must be some antagonistic element at work to make the unpopularity so intense. Perhaps because she watched for it so keenly, it seemed to her that discontent showed itself more and more freely on the faces of the people she did meet in her now limited walks. One evening she had a bad five minutes listening to a row in the coolies' quarters with her husband's clear voice dominating the clamour. She was still pale when he came whistling through the garden as if nothing had happened. It was only, he said, a war of words between Kirpo and Afzul. There had always been a jealousy between them; the latter declaring that such a hideous female was not worthy to touch any man's bread, for the former had risen by favour from mere cooliedom, to act as cook for a gang of Hindu workers; the woman retorting that the hillmen were no better than pirates, ready, despite their professions of horror at meats prepared by idolaters, to steal her supplies if her back was turned. Afzul had of late been growing idle and uppish; so John had sided with Kirpo in this particular dispute.
"I think Kirpo is rather uppish too," replied Belle. "I heard her ordering some of the men about as if she was their mistress."
Her husband laughed easily. "Just like a native! The fact being that Kirpo is useful to me at present, by giving me information I can rely upon; and she presumes on the fact. When the floods have come I shall be able to dispense with her,--with a variety of things, in fact. I shall not be sorry; I hate being beholden to people."
Belle bent her head over her work and sewed faster. "I don't like Afzul, I don't like Kirpo, and I like the unpopularity least of all. Oh, John, could you not give way a little? I am sure Philip--"
"Now look here, Belle, I said just now that I hated being beholden to any one, and you yourself made enough to-do when I borrowed this money from Marsden. And you've fussed and worried about it ever since, because you think he consented for your sake. Perhaps he did; and so I mean to show him he should have consented for his own. I call that a laudable ambition which should satisfy your pride. Now in my opinion the only road to success lies my way. That, I think, should settle the matter once and for all. Of course I am not infallible; but, unless something very unexpected turns up, you will be laughing at your own fears this time two months. Now, as I told Kirpo to come up to the office as soon as it was dark, let me get some peace and quiet first. I think Haydn would suit me to-day; there is no forced sentiment in him, jolly old chap!"
So Belle played Haydn, and John dozed in his chair till the darkness settled deep enough to hide Kirpo as she stole through bye-paths to the office verandah. There, behind a creeper-hung pillar, she waited till John's tall figure showed itself at the writing-table. Then she went forward, and raising the bamboo chick said softly: "I am here, Huzoor!"
"All right! Come in and shut the door."
Some one hiding in the oleander bushes in full view of this incident muttered a curse, and settled himself down in a new position. So what Shunker had said was true, and, disfigured as she was, Kirpo still kept her hold on the shaitan sahib. But for a promise he had made to the usurer not to anticipate the great revenge brewing for John Raby's discomfiture, Râmu (for it was he, once more out of prison) would have asked nothing better than to have waited patiently till Kirpo appeared again, and then in the darkness to have fallen on her and killed her outright. As it was he sat with eyes fixed on the door, controlling his passion by the thought of future and less hazardous revenge upon them both. He had a long knife tucked away in his waistcloth, but it seemed to him as if he could feel its sharp edge and see its gleaming curve plunging into flesh. Truly a venomous, dangerous animal to be lurking among the white oleanders in Belle's paradise, as she sat playing Haydn, and John, with a contemptuous smile on his face, was listening to Kirpo's tales. She knew a good deal did Kirpo, but not all. She did not know, for instance, that her husband lay among the oleanders, else she might have hesitated in playing the part of spy; though she was no coward, and her revengeful desires were keen.