He had felt in them, himself, ever since the night before, and the feeling grew stronger when Râm Nâth left him to his solitary dinner. For his wife, after spending the best part of the day in bed recovering from the fatigues of the ball, had gone out to dine with some friends and go on with them to the dress rehearsal of a burlesque in which she was singing and dancing. She had not taken any notice of last night's quarrel; had, indeed, practically ignored it and said good-night to him--as she passed out to the carriage in her short skirts--with absolute good humour.
So, baffled, helpless, miserable, he sate down conscientiously to the long, set meal, which his wife prided herself was served with as much ceremony as any in Nushapore. He said 'No thank you' in polite English fashion to half-a-dozen dishes, and still the solemn exchange of one clean plate for another went on and on, till he felt inclined to order the servants, with their ill-concealed tolerance of him as the husband of their mem, out of the room.
They left him alone, at last, in company with the dessert; but even this was not to his taste. Yet, in a way, he felt hungry. So he rose and went to the sideboard, cut himself a slice of bread, helped himself to some mango pickle, and ate it with relish.
Then the mere fact of this revival of a childish taste, with its bathos, its hopeless triviality, reduced him almost to tears, and he came back to sit before the chocolate pralines and French dragées, and leaning his head on his crossed arms, give himself up to a dreary amaze.
The house was absolutely quiet. The servants had closed the verandah doors and gone off to their own quarters. Through the looped portières which--as in so many Indian bungalows--hung in the wide arch between the dining and drawing rooms, he could see the latter lit up decorously with a superfluity of pink paper shades. One of the windows opening on to the garden was ajar, and the light from the lamps made the thin split bamboo screen, hung beyond it to keep out the flies, look like solid wood.
But as, after a time, impelled--even in his blank uncertainty regarding all things--to think of going into the drawing-room decently and in order, Chris looked up from his dreary meditations, the solidity of this screen wavered. And he saw the cause. A thin delicate hand was pulling the screen aside so as to see into the room.
'Who is it?' he called at once. 'What do you want?'
'Krishn Davenund,' came a voice. It was a woman's.
'Krishn Davenund,' he echoed stupidly, his heart beginning to throb. 'Well! I am Krishn Davenund. Who wants me?'
The next instant he was standing as if turned to stone beside the table; for the white-clad figure which showed itself, and then came swiftly towards him, was his mother's.