Part 33 (2/2)
”Indeed I do,” said Mrs. Travers. ”D'Alcacer has seen me already and he didn't seem shocked.”
”You should,” said Mr. Travers, ”try to get yourself presented with some bangles for your ankles so that you may jingle as you walk.”
”Bangles are not necessities,” said Mrs. Travers in a weary tone and with the fixed upward look of a person unwilling to relinquish her dream. Mr. Travers dropped the subject to ask:
”And how long is this farce going to last?”
Mrs. Travers unclasped her hands, lowered her glance, and changed her whole pose in a moment.
”What do you mean by farce? What farce?”
”The one which is being played at my expense.”
”You believe that?”
”Not only believe. I feel deeply that it is so. At my expense. It's a most sinister thing,” Mr. Travers pursued, still with downcast eyes and in an unforgiving tone. ”I must tell you that when I saw you in that courtyard in a crowd of natives and leaning on that man's arm, it gave me quite a shock.”
”Did I, too, look sinister?” said Mrs. Travers, turning her head slightly toward her husband. ”And yet I a.s.sure you that I was glad, profoundly glad, to see you safe from danger for a time at least. To gain time is everything. . . .”
”I ask myself,” Mr. Travers meditated aloud, ”was I ever in danger? Am I safe now? I don't know. I can't tell. No! All this seems an abominable farce.”
There was that in his tone which made his wife continue to look at him with awakened interest. It was obvious that he suffered from a distress which was not the effect of fear; and Mrs. Travers' face expressed real concern till he added in a freezing manner: ”The question, however, is as to your discretion.”
She leaned back again in the chair and let her hands rest quietly in her lap. ”Would you have preferred me to remain outside, in the yacht, in the near neighbourhood of these wild men who captured you? Or do you think that they, too, were got up to carry on a farce?”
”Most decidedly.” Mr. Travers raised his head, though of course not his voice. ”You ought to have remained in the yacht amongst white men, your servants, the sailing-master, the crew whose duty it was to. . . . Who would have been ready to die for you.”
”I wonder why they should have--and why I should have asked them for that sacrifice. However, I have no doubt they would have died. Or would you have preferred me to take up my quarters on board that man's brig?
We were all fairly safe there. The real reason why I insisted on coming in here was to be nearer to you--to see for myself what could be or was being done. . . . But really if you want me to explain my motives then I may just as well say nothing. I couldn't remain outside for days without news, in a state of horrible doubt. We couldn't even tell whether you and d'Alcacer were still alive till we arrived here. You might have been actually murdered on the sandbank, after Rajah Ha.s.sim and that girl had gone away; or killed while going up the river. And I wanted to know at once, as soon as possible. It was a matter of impulse. I went off in what I stood in without delaying a moment.”
”Yes,” said Mr. Travers. ”And without even thinking of having a few things put up for me in a bag. No doubt you were in a state of excitement. Unless you took such a tragic view that it seemed to you hardly worth while to bother about my clothes.”
”It was absolutely the impulse of the moment. I could have done nothing else. Won't you give me credit for it?”
Mr. Travers raised his eyes again to his wife's face. He saw it calm, her att.i.tude reposeful. Till then his tone had been resentful, dull, without sarcasm. But now he became slightly pompous.
”No. As a matter of fact, as a matter of experience, I can't credit you with the possession of feelings appropriate to your origin, social position, and the ideas of the cla.s.s to which you belong. It was the heaviest disappointment of my life. I had made up my mind not to mention it as long as I lived. This, however, seems an occasion which you have provoked yourself. It isn't at all a solemn occasion. I don't look upon it as solemn at all. It's very disagreeable and humiliating. But it has presented itself. You have never taken a serious interest in the activities of my life which of course are its distinction and its value.
And why you should be carried away suddenly by a feeling toward the mere man I don't understand.”
”Therefore you don't approve,” Mrs. Travers commented in an even tone. ”But I a.s.sure you, you may safely. My feeling was of the most conventional nature, exactly as if the whole world were looking on.
After all, we are husband and wife. It's eminently fitting that I should be concerned about your fate. Even the man you distrust and dislike so much (the warmest feeling, let me tell you, that I ever saw you display) even that man found my conduct perfectly proper. His own word. Proper.
So eminently proper that it altogether silenced his objections.”
Mr. Travers s.h.i.+fted uneasily on his seat.
”It's my belief, Edith, that if you had been a man you would have led a most irregular life. You would have been a frank adventurer. I mean morally. It has been a great grief to me. You have a scorn in you for the serious side of life, for the ideas and the ambitions of the social sphere to which you belong.”
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