Upon reflection, however, it could not but occur to him that even a particularly small and dainty-looking bride may reasonably be expected to need some solid food between the hours of half-past seven in the morning and close upon six in the afternoon, and he lamented his own idiotcy in not making proper provision for this. The landlady, who had taken for granted, on receiving no orders for dinner, that her new lodgers intended to dine out, behaved with great energy on discovering the mistake. Without obliging them to wait very long, she translated “chop” into a very tempting dish of cutlets and pommes sautées, and supplemented that with a tart, sent for hastily from a pastrycook’s, in the enjoyment of which repast Nouna got uproariously happy, and told George that she thought being married was “lovely.” To hear herself called “Mrs. Lauriston” by the landlady who came up ostensibly to apologise, but really to get another look at the little bride, threw her into such ecstasies of delight that she could not answer any question to which those magic words were added. When the pineapple, which she had left untouched because she did not know how to handle it, was placed upon the table, the servant asked what was to be done with “the black woman” who, she said, was becoming very restless and unhappy, and wanted to see “her little missee mistress.”
“Let her come up at once,” said Nouna quickly. Then, as soon as the maid had shut the door, she threw herself into her husband’s arms and began to coax him to let Sundran stay.
To this George objected in the strongest manner; but she begged so hard, she assured him so plaintively that she was not used to waiting on herself, scouting the idea that he could replace her maid, and reminding him with tears in her eyes that he could not refuse her first request after leaving her alone on her wedding day and returning to make her cry as he had done, that the young husband could not steel himself to that most desirable point of obduracy, and, entirely against his will and to his own inward rage, he gave permission for Sundran to remain “for a few days.” It was a pretty and characteristic trait in the wilful young creature that she clung, even in the midst of the novel excitements of her marriage, to the old servant who had loved her and served her since her babyhood; but it could not but cause the young husband pain and even a feeling akin to jealousy to learn that he was not all to her that she just now was to him. He bore the Indian woman’s blessings and thanks as well as he could, when Nouna embraced her and told her that she must love Mr. Lauriston, he was good, not like other Englishmen, and he would let her stay.
“For a few days, until she gets used to managing for herself,” murmured poor George explanatorily.
But the excited woman refused to hear or to heed this provision. He wished Sundran in—India within the next half hour; for Nouna, in whose mind the consciousness that by marrying she had done something irrevocable, not yet fully understood, was just waking a childish dread which made her cling to the old, well-known face with a new tenacity, insisted on retaining the Indian up stairs, and asked her all sorts of affectionate questions concerning “Mammy Ellis,” who, she learned, had been in a great fright about her, but had been comforted by a letter from the Countess, who, she said, had treated her very handsomely. Nouna, whose smiles had been on the borders of tears all day, cried a little at this mention of her mother, and on looking up again after drying her eyes found that Sundran, whether or not acting on a mute suggestion from George, had discreetly retired. Her tears ceased instantly, like those of a naughty little nursery tyrant when “papa” comes in; and George, respecting this sudden shyness of a girl whose heart he knew he had scarcely as yet half conquered, went straight to the piano, opened it, and began to sing snatches of love-songs to a very fair improvised accompaniment by way of paying his court to her in a less obtrusive manner.
The device succeeded admirably. George was by no means a great singer. A respectable baritone voice in a perfect state of non-cultivation is a very common gift among young men; but there was enough passion and poetry awake in his heart to-night for a suggestion of something more interesting than the straightforward bawling of the ordinary singing Englishman to find its way to his lips and vibrate in the notes of “Lady, wake, bright stars are beaming.” It is needless to say that his ears were well open to every sound behind him, and that he felt all the significance of the soft creaking of the casters as Nouna drew her arm-chair, little by little, close up to him, until at last she leaned on the end of the piano by the bass notes and watched his face with a furtive wide-eyed scrutiny which he was careful not to divert by appearing to notice its intensity. Unable to keep his eyes off her face altogether, he took care that the yearning, passionate glances he cast at her should be so rapid as to leave on her mind the impression that they were a result of the intoxication produced by his own song, instead of the song being the result of the intoxication produced by the glances. He saw that she was in a more deeply thoughtful mood than he had yet seen her in during their short acquaintance; and he wanted her to give spontaneous speech to her thoughts, and thus to gain an insight into that mysterious recess of which he knew so little—her mind. At last, when he had come to the last note of the “Ständchen” out of Schubert’s Winterreise, which he sang with more passion, if with less sentiment than an artist would have thrown into the beautiful melody, he turned to her and attempted to embrace her. But she shook him off, saying imperiously:
“Go on. I like it. It helps me to think.”
Perhaps this was scarcely the comment he hoped or expected, but the repulse was passionate, not unsympathetic or chilling; and George laid his hands obediently again on the instrument with only one longing, inspiring look at the lovely, flexible face. Then he sang Beethoven’s “Adelaide,” with a strange effect. For the well-worn song was quite new to Nouna, and as it proceeded it seemed to George that the spirit of the passionate music called to her and found an answering echo, for her long black eyes grew soft and liquid, like water under the trees on a summer night, and when the last word was sung and the last note played, she lifted herself in her chair, and held out her arms in irresistible invitation.
“What does the song make you feel?” he asked, whispering, with his arms round her. He began already rashly to feel assured that the low-minded sensual Rahas was wrong; she must have a soul, since she was so susceptible to fine music; than which conclusion nothing could be more futile, as a more enlarged artistic acquaintance would have proved to him.
“It makes me feel that I love you,” she answered, unconsciously touching the root of many pretty fallacies concerning the noble influence of music on devotion. For if she had been better educated she would have said “it raised her, took her out of herself,” and would have delayed her illustration of the fact that it only raised her far enough to throw her in the arms of the nearest affectionately disposed person.