Part 21 (1/2)

”_Mujhe muaaf. Murna sub ke hukk hai_” (Excuse me. Death is the right of all), he said with a graceful salaam as he pa.s.sed on.

So the water Captain Morecombe brought back was used for a different purpose than quenching pretended thirst; and the bringer, hearing Kate's version of the story, hastily asked Sonny--who by this time was holding out chubby hands cheerfully to be dried and prattling of dirty birdies--what the Prince had said. The child, puzzled for an instant, smiled broadly.

”He said it was deaded all light.”

Kate s.h.i.+vered. The incident had touched her on the nerves, taking the color from the flowers, the brightness from the suns.h.i.+ne.

”Come and have a turn,” suggested Captain Morecombe; ”they have began dancing in the saloon. It will change the subject.”

But as she took his arm, she said in rather a tremulous voice, ”There is such a thing as a Dance of Death, though.”

”My dear lady,” he laughed, ”it is a most excellent pastime. And one can dance anywhere, on the edge of a volcano even, if one doesn't smell brimstone.”

Kate, however, found otherwise, and when the waltz was over, announced her intention of going off to take Sonny home, and see Mrs. Seymour and the new baby. But in this her cavalier saw difficulties. The mare was evidently too fresh for a lady to drive, and Major Erlton, returning, might need the dog-cart. It would be far better for him to drive her in his, so far, and afterward let the Major know he had to call for her. Kate a.s.sented wearily. Such arrangements were part of the detail of life, with a woman neglected as she was by her husband. She could not deliberately avoid them, and yet keep the unconsciousness her pride claimed. How could she, when there were twenty men in society to one woman? Twenty--for the most part--gentlemen, quite capable of gauging a woman's character. So Captain Morecombe drove her to the Seymour's house on the city wall by the Water Bastion. There were several houses there, set so close to the rampart that there was barely room for a paved pathway between their back verandas and the battlement. In front of them lay a metaled road and shady gardens; and at the end of this road stood a small bungalow toward which Kate Erlton looked involuntarily. There was a horse waiting outside it. It was her husband's charger. He must have arranged to have it sent down, arranged, as it were, to leave her in the lurch, and a sudden flash of resentment made her say, as she got down at the Seymours' house, ”You had better call for me in half an hour; that will be best.”

Captain Morecombe flushed with sheer pleasure. Kate was not often so encouraging. But as he drove round to wait for her at a friend's house, close to the _Delhi Gazette_ press, he, too, noticed the Major's charger, and swore under his breath. Before G.o.d it was too bad! But if ever there were signs of a coming smash they were to be seen here. Erlton, after years of scandal, had lost his head--it seemed incredible, but there was a Fate in such things from which mortal man could not escape.

And as he told himself this tale of Fate--the man's excuse for the inexcusable which will pa.s.s current gayly until women combine in refusing to accept it for themselves--another man, at the back of the little house past which he was driving, was telling it to himself also. For a great silence had fallen between Major Erlton and Alice Gissing after she had told him something, to hear which he had arranged to come home with her for a quiet talk. And, in the silence, the hollow note of the wooden bells upon the necks of the cattle grazing below the battlement, over which he leaned, seemed to count the slow minutes. Quaintest, dumbest of all sounds, lacking vibration utterly, yet mellow, musical, to the fanciful ear, with something of the hopeful persistency of Time in its recurring beat.

Alice Gissing was not a fanciful woman, but as she lay back in her long cane chair, her face hidden in its pillows as if to shut out something unwelcome, her foot kept time to the persistency on the pavement, till, suddenly, she sat up and faced round on her silent companion.

”Well,” she said impatiently. ”Well! what have you got to say?”

”I--I was thinking,” he began helplessly, when she interrupted him.

”What is the use of thinking? That won't alter facts. As I told you, Gissing will be back in a month or so; and then we must decide.”

Major Erlton turned quickly. ”You can't go back to him, Allie; you weren't considering that, surely. You can't--not--not now.” His voice softened over the last words; he turned away abruptly. His face was hidden from her so.

She looked toward him strangely for a second, covered her face with her hands for another, then, changing the very import of the action, used them to brush the hair back from her temples; so, clasping them behind her head, leaned back on the pillows, and looked toward him again. There was a reckless defiance in her att.i.tude and expression, but her words did not match it.

”I suppose I can't,” she said drearily, ”and I suppose you wouldn't let me go away by myself either.”

Once more he turned. ”Go!” he echoed quickly. ”Where would you go?”

”Somewhere!”--the recklessness had invaded her voice now--”Anywhere!

Wherever women do go in these cases. To the devil, perhaps.”

He gave a queer kind of laugh; this spirited effrontery had always roused his admiration. ”I dare say,” he replied, ”for I'm not a saint, and you have got to come with me, Allie. You must. I shall send in my papers, and by and by, when all the fuss is over”--here he gave a fierce sigh--”for I expect Gissing will make a fuss, we can get married and live happily ever after.”

She shook her head. ”You'll regret it. I don't see how you can help regretting it!”

He came over to her, and laid his big broad hand very tenderly on her curly hair. ”No! I shan't, Allie,” he replied in a low, husky voice, ”I shan't, indeed. I never was a good hand at sentiment and that sort, but I love you dearly--dearly. All the more--for this that you've told me. I'd do anything for you, Allie. Keep straight as a die, dear, if you wanted it. And I wasn't regretting--it--just now. I was only thinking how strange----”

”Strange!” she interrupted, almost fiercely. ”If it is strange to you, what must it be to me? My G.o.d! I wonder if any man will ever understand what this means to a woman? All the rest seems to pa.s.s her by, to leave no mark--I--I--never cared. But this! Herbert! I feel sometimes as if I were Claude's wife again--Claude's wife, so full of hopes and fears. And I dream of him too. I haven't dreamed of him for years, and I learned to hate him before he died, you know. I have gone back to that old time, and nothing seems different. Nothing at all!

Isn't that strange? And the old Mai--she has gone back, too--sees no difference either. She treats me just as she did in those old, old days. She fusses round, and c.o.c.kers me up, and talks about it. There!

she is coming now with smelling-salts or sal-volatile or something!

Oh! Go away, do, Mai, I don't want anything except to be left alone!”

But the old ayah's untutored instincts were not to be so easily smothered. Her wrinkled face beamed as she insisted on changing the dainty laced shoes for easy slippers, and tucked another pillow into the chair. The mem was tired, she told the Major with a respectful salaam, after her long walk; the faint resentment in her tone being entirely for the latter fact.