“I think it will be better not, Major North. The honour of your friendship is rather a trying one for the recipient; a stranger might even mistake it for enmity. It will relieve you of the unpleasant necessity of showing your friendship if we remain henceforth on the footing of mere acquaintances.”
“Have a little pity for me, Georgie.”
If Dick had meant to make Georgia look at him, he had succeeded now. The glance she gave him withered him into silence.
“You forget yourself, Major North. At least, I have never given you reason to insult me.”
CHAPTER XIII.
A PROFESSIONAL SUMMONS.
The long hours of another day and night dragged slowly away, and Sir Dugald’s condition remained unchanged. The sight of her husband lying on his bed with half-closed eyes, speechless and incapable of changing his position, moved Lady Haigh to a fervent hope that Georgia’s conjecture as to his partial consciousness of what passed around him might not be true. To know himself absolutely powerless, to perceive that things were going wrong but to be unable to rectify them, she could imagine no keener torment for a man of his stamp. If he continued in this state, she said to herself remorsefully, as she administered the liquids which were the only nourishment he could swallow, she would be inclined to allow Georgia to have her way, in spite of the misgivings of Stratford and North, for nothing could be worse than this living death. Even now, “If you could only tell me you were sure it was poison, Georgie dear,” she said, “I would put him into your hands unreservedly; but as it is, the risk is too fearful. He is all I have, you know.” And although Georgia regretted the decision, it did not affect her as the opposition of the men had done, for she knew that Lady Haigh would have withstood any male doctor with exactly the same pertinacity under the circumstances.
The political duties of the Mission were somewhat in abeyance just now, for Sir Dugald’s illness rendered it impossible to initiate any fresh diplomatic action, and this enforced idleness had a bad effect on the spirits of all. Even Fitz had lost his cheerfulness, and the kitten escaped its daily lesson in gymnastics. Kustendjian, his services as interpreter not being required, spent most of his time in his own quarters, where, as he informed Stratford with appropriate seriousness of demeanour, he occupied himself in making his will several times over, and in writing farewell letters to his friends. In spite, or perhaps in consequence, of the lack of active occupation, however, the post which Sir Dugald had bequeathed to Stratford promised to be no sinecure, and more especially as Dick, since his interview with Georgia, had been in a villainously bad temper, and snapped at every one in a way that made his friend long to kick him.
“They all want a desperate emergency to calm them down,” said the harassed commander to himself. “This monotonous life within four walls, full of suspense, would get on anybody’s nerves, and they will take to quarrelling soon. When that happens, it’s all up with us. I shall have to go and eat humble pie to Miss Keeling if this goes on, and ask her not to treat North quite so much like an officious stranger who has spoken to her without an introduction. As the acting head of affairs, I could put it to her that her method of exercising discipline has a distinctly bad effect on the morale of the force.”
The emergency which Stratford desired was closer at hand when he longed for it than he expected, and as is usually the case with emergencies, it did not arrive quite in the form which he would have chosen had his wishes been consulted. Its inception was marked by the in no way unusual event of the arrival of Fath-ud-Din, desiring to reopen negotiations, on the morning of the second day after Sir Dugald’s seizure. All the day before, so the Vizier averred, he had been expecting to receive a message summoning him back to the Mission, and announcing that his terms were accepted. Hearing nothing, he might well have gone straight to the Scythian envoy and entered into an arrangement with him, but so great was the esteem which he felt for the English, and especially for the members of the present expedition, and so high was the King’s appreciation of the power and good fortune of the British Empire, that he was loath to bring about a definite rupture of diplomatic relations. He had returned, therefore, to lay his offer once more before Sir Dugald, and to find out whether it was impossible to effect a compromise.
Stratford was by no means anxious to undertake the delicate task of endeavouring to resist the Vizier’s blandishments without turning him into an open enemy, and did his best to postpone the evil day by telling him that Sir Dugald was indisposed, and could not be troubled with business. But Fath-ud-Din displayed so much anxiety to see the Envoy, even though only for a moment, and in bed, that Stratford, in order to avoid the discovery of Sir Dugald’s real condition, no whisper of which had as yet been allowed to creep out into the town, was obliged to say that Sir Dugald must not be disturbed, but that the conduct of affairs had been delegated to himself.