“The day after to-morrow, at the same time,” said Alan Hawke, his heart leaping up in a secret victory, “but no living soul must ever know of it. I will be here in the pagoda, waiting for you. Ram Lal will wait for you himself and admit you. Do you promise?” he said, with a glance which set her pallid cheeks aflame.
“I promise! I promise! Let me go, now!” gasped the excited woman. With stately courtesy, the Major then led her back into the jewel merchant’s luxurious lounging-room.
“Wait here for a single moment!” he whispered as he quickly poured out a glass of cordial. And, then, returning in a few moments, he clasped upon the woman’s wrist a bracelet of old Indian gold, whose flexible links glittered with the fire of a row of old Indian mine stones. Justine Delande sat mute, as if dreaming.
“Our little secret is now all our own!” he pleasantly murmured. “Remember! Should we meet at the marble house, you do not know me! Can you trust yourself? You must—for my sake! This will help you to remember our first meeting.”
“You may depend upon me, whenever you may wish to call upon me,” she whispered. “I will come!” and then she fled away, with soft, gliding steps, to regain the safety of her own room before the trying hour of tiffin.
Major Alan Hawke closed the door, and laughed softly as he threw himself into a chair. “They are all the same!” he mused. “Not a bad morning’s work! For she will never tell our little secret! And she will surely come again! She may be my salvation here! Madame Louison, I now debit you just thirty pounds!” laughed Major Alan Hawke, as he deftly blew a kiss in the direction of Allahabad. “You shall pay for this bracelet, and much more! You shall pay for all! And I’ll set this soft-hearted Swiss woman on to watch you, and you shall pay her well, too! Now, for my old friend, Hugh Johnstone!” He waited in a most happy frame of mind till his carriage bore him to the club for an elaborate Anglo-Indian toilet.
There was a crowd of eager gossips secretly tracking him who watched him roll away in state to the marble house.
“By Jove! I believe that he is the coming man!” said old Captain Verner. “I wonder if this handsome young beggar is really going in for the Veiled Rose of Delhi. Just his damned luck!” And then the loungers left the club window and drank deeply confusion to the would-be wooer’s stratagems.
All unconscious of their busy curiosity, the gallant Major Alan Hawke calmly descended at the marble house, with a secret oath now registered to ignore the very existence of Nadine Johnstone, “The old man is always harping on his daughter,” he mused. “I must throw this old beggar off his guard thoroughly to-day, once and for all. He must never think that I, too, am ‘harping on his daughter.’
“But only let me get to the core of this old secret of the jewels, and I will find a way to frighten the baronet-to-be until he opens his miserly old heart.” And so the wary guest sought his old friend’s presence. When Major Alan Hawke’s neat trap drew up before the marble house there was an officious crowd of Hindu underlings in waiting to welcome the expected guest.