But, when at length the wire was sent, he experienced no such relief. Relief, indeed, had failed to come when for three days and nights the Orient boat had been plowing across the Indian Ocean, rushing headlong from the tropic heat to the distant ports beyond.
He thought, perhaps, if he informed Elaine, the business would be settled. He attempted that day to introduce the subject, but in vain. Elaine was so sparklingly happy! He postponed the ordeal for the night.
The moon had returned to the skies again, bringing to the wanderers ineffable memories of other nights, when peace lay tranquilly fragrant on the world of their Shalimar. He detected its subtle influence on the ever-vivacious little woman who had shared his perils and his joys.
Elaine was softly thrilling to the spell of it all as she halted beside him, finally, on a strip of the deck abandoned to their uses. She felt that the atmosphere was overcharged, and wondered what might be impending. To still the pounding of her heart she leaned on the taffrail, ecstatically in touch with Grenville's arm. She spoke of the wonder of the night.
"Yes," drawled Grenville, in his old dry way, "great facilities here for manufacturing nights—— I wired Gerald from Colombo."
For a moment Elaine was puzzled by this wholly irrelevant remark. Then her heart began to rock uneasily.
"You—wired we were coming home?"
"Wired I was fetching you home, after unavoidable delay."
She recognized the difference between the way that she and he had expressed the principal fact. She felt herself, as it were, already surrendered to a man grown singularly foreign to her nature. It seemed to her incredible that Sidney and she should ever again be parted, or work out their several destinies in any manner save together—especially after all he had said and even done.
"Was that—all you said?" she asked him, faintly.