"I'll remember," Cyprian promised, slightly catching his breath.
* * * * * *
They had dismissed Digby Maur and his picture too airily. His suffering was intense enough to cause his hatred of Cyprian to reflect again on Ferlie.
Everybody in the Club could see that he and Mrs. Clifford no longer held sweet converse together nor walked in that House of Rimmon as friends. Its numerous unmystical members openly rejoiced that Sterne had, at last, put his foot down.
The iron entered into Digby Maur's soul. His was not the nature to forgo visions of public revenge. Ferlie was involved in them because, although he had unjustifiably presumed upon her frank comradeship to the extent of insulting her, his desire, outweighing the elements of purer passion which she had primarily awakened in him, was an emotion more likely to breed wounded resentment than humble submission, on the well-deserved withdrawal of its star.
Ferlie, though secretly confessing herself blame-worthy, realized too thoroughly by now that dynamite, in proximity with a match-box however innocently decorated, is not a reliable combination, and, having once capitulated to Cyprian's judgment, could be safely trusted to abide by it.
Hence, even an armed truce was out of the question. She welcomed with relief the news that Digby had taken casual leave and gone to Rangoon.
"It shows he has accepted the position and means to be sensible," she told Cyprian. "When he returns we can meet as club-acquaintances and it will be forgotten that we ever appeared to be anything more."
"Burma does not forget," he said cloudily, and she understood that he had learnt that lesson bitterly enough.
She might have been less sanguine of a happy ending to her own affair if she had connected with Maur's departure a detailed announcement in the Rangoon papers of a forthcoming Art Exhibition, on a large scale, and for which contributions were invited in the form of original sketches, paintings, leather-work, pottery and all the usual articles universally acknowledged, on such occasions, a joy for ever.