"For all I know, you may have forgotten that there ever was a Ferlie. This may find you with another woman at your side. You may have ties—children; then, for their sakes, come and hold out your hand in friendship to a child you once knew. I am not satisfied with the little I gleaned about her marriage. I am not satisfied with the accounts I heard of you then. The only thing I am satisfied about is that Ferlie needs you and would tell you what she will not tell me. Perhaps, you may have the key to the whole situation; perhaps, you know nothing. At any rate, if you were ever a friend of Ferlie's come and learn."
After all, the ties which held him were slenderer than cobwebs; surprising the ease with which he snapped them.
Hla Byu did not question. She merely accepted. But her slanting brows creased painfully.
"Will the Thakin let me come back to him?"
Through the rising tumult of his mind he detected the note of alarm.
"There is nothing to fear," he told her. "I will arrange for regular money to be supplied to you. The child shall be provided for all during his life."
The momentary relief in her face struck a feeling of shame to Cyprian's soul. There were men, he knew, who would consider him quixotic. He blinked away the thought. Custom could not lessen the dominion of the Daimon in this matter. Responsible. For all that he had made of life. For the weakness which had originally driven him from his acknowledged sphere. For the narrowness which had spurned Ferlie's confidence in its rightful setting; for the indecision which had kept him from following his truest instincts to love and to declare his love; for the apathetic purposelessness through which he had accepted Burma's bribe of Hla Byu, and the child with the questioning blue eyes.
"What will happen no one can foretell," he said. "Serve another Thakin, or wait; in either case you can always appeal to me for your needs."
Seemingly satisfied, she nodded and then turned from him to hide something on her lashes which made rainbows of the sunshine. She had always been a little afraid of him, although he never got drunk, nor beat her, nor threw things about the house as she knew, from her friends, so many foreign masters did. He was always silent, work-absorbed, apart from her—it was like living with the marble Buddha on the river-bank, who eternally contemplated, in the regulation attitude, the water traffic slipping by on its very mortal affairs, from town to town. She clutched the baby to her in a spasm of passionate regret—although, of course, there remained nothing to regret since their future was assured.
"It has been peace here, Thakin?" she said, on a timid note of interrogation.