Tristram laughed and turned away.
"Oh, well, if there are any bones broken, you'll know where to find me. And keep your eye on Meredith. His religion isn't the quiet, unobtrusive kind you favour."
"Good old Meredith!" the other man rejoined comfortably.
Tristram made his way along the fringe of the procession back to his own quarters. When he closed the door he shut out the light and dust, but not the noise, and for that he was conscious of a vague thankfulness. The quiet of the place had begun to haunt him. Rather than help him forget, it reminded him of what was no longer there. He was always looking round involuntarily for Wickie, peering into his favourite hiding-place in the shadow, as though the bright brown eyes would have to answer his appeal, with their solemn, impudent contemplation. Or he would rap out an order to Ayeshi—and catch himself up only to realize the heaviness of the silence which answered him.
And there were other things that troubled him—the carved chair where Sigrid Fersen had sat and looked at him with her disturbing eyes. At the time, she had seemed unreal, a vivid day-dream, a white glowing figure of his fancy, and now she was there always, dominating his consciousness. The place where the picture of the dancer had stood was empty, too, yet he saw her—the radiant head, with its crown of vine-leaves, thrown back, the mouth a little open, as though even in that moment of deliberate pose she breathed the ecstasy of living. That was what mattered, what made her most wonderful, and the poise of her body, stereotyped enough and within the compass of a ballet girl, a thing of Supreme Art.
He turned resolutely away from the empty place, allowing the tumult from without to pour over his vision of her, and went to his day's work. A subdivision of his little kitchen formed a combined laboratory and chemist's shop, and he set about cleaning his instruments, tidying up the bottles, noting failing supplies. That had been Ayeshi's job. He thought of Ayeshi as he dipped the instruments into the sterilizer, wondering vaguely what he was doing, what he thought. Ayeshi, he knew, had found Boucicault and Wickie's body, and probably had buried the latter out of sight. He had shielded Tristram. Probably, too, he now sweated in the Calcutta University with bitter thoughts of a man who had prated so much of life and half-killed a fellow-creature for the sake of a dog. The idea did not hurt Tristram. He ached for the comradeship of the mysterious, romantic boy, but he had no sentimental reverence for himself. He had never realized that he had ever been so much as an ideal—idealizing in his own life too ardently to consider himself at all.
He hummed as he worked. To others, the tune might have been unrecognizable, for at the best of times his voice had an uneven quality, and in singing it escaped control altogether. But in his brain the melody ran smoothly and beautifully. In the midst of it, he heard the latch of the door fall, and went out with his sleeves rolled up to meet the newcomer.
The door was wide open and framed her as she stood with her back to the sun-flooded village street, smiling at him.
"I heard you singing," she said, with subdued mockery. "It was irresistible."
He strove to answer her, denying the savage, joyous leap of his pulses. A kind of stupid deliberation settled on his brain. He found himself wondering whether she had removed her helmet because she knew the light would be shining on her hair.