Honor had spoken truth when she said that Desmond was the one big thing in Evelyn's life. Everything else about her was small as her person, and little more effectual. But this impetuous, large-hearted husband of hers—whose love she had been so proud to win, and had taken such small pains to keep—could by no means be chiselled into proportions with the rest of the picture. He took his stand, simply and naturally, on the heights; and if it was an effort to keep up with him, it was a real calamity to be left behind. Understand him she could not, and never would; but it sufficed that she saw him fearless, chivalrous, admired on all sides, and singularly good to look at. This last should perhaps have been set down first; for there is no denying that her remorse, her suffering, had been less overwhelming without that unexpected vision of his face.
But things were going to be all right soon. She would never hide anything from him again—never. And the resolve may be counted unto her for righteousness, even if there could be small hope of its fulfilment.
Such absorbing considerations crowded out all thought of Honor's generosity. It was just Honor. No one else would ever give you two hundred rupees, at a moment's notice, as if it were sixpence. But you might expect anything from Honor—that was how she was made. And the one important point was—Theo. Nothing else really mattered at all.
As Kresney's bungalow came in sight she found herself fervently hoping that he might have gone out; that she might have to encounter nothing more formidable than Miss Kresney, or, better still, the bearer.
But before the gate was reached, she caught sight of him in the verandah, taking his ease very completely in one of those ungainly chairs, with arms extending to long wooden leg-rests, which seem to belong to India and no other country in the world. He had exchanged his coat for a Japanese smoking jacket, whose collar and cuffs could ill afford to brave daylight; and his boots for slippers of Linda's making, whose conflicting colours might have set an oyster's teeth on edge! His own teeth were clenched upon a rank cigar; and he was reading a paper-bound novel that she would not have touched with a pair of tongs.
He had never appeared to worse advantage; and Evelyn, fresh from her husband's air of unobtrusive neatness and distinction, was conscious of a sudden recoil—a purely physical revulsion; to which was added the galling thought that she owed her recent suffering and humiliation to her intimacy with a man who could look like that!
As she turned in at the gate, he sprang up and ran down the steps. Her return astounded him. He was prepared for anything at that moment, except the thing that happened—a common human experience.
"Back again, Mrs Desmond!" he cried cheerfully. "This is a most unexpected pleasure. Rukho jhampan." [31]
But Evelyn countermanded the order so promptly that Kresney's eyebrows went up. She handed him her note, clutching the wooden pole nervously with the other hand.