Part 34 (1/2)

But as, after a time, impelled--even in his blank uncertainty regarding all things--to think of going into the drawing-room decently and in order, Chris looked up from his dreary meditations, the solidity of this screen wavered. And he saw the cause. A thin delicate hand was pulling the screen aside so as to see into the room.

'Who is it?' he called at once. 'What do you want?'

'Krishn Davenund,' came a voice. It was a woman's.

'Krishn Davenund,' he echoed stupidly, his heart beginning to throb.

'Well! I am Krishn Davenund. Who wants me?'

The next instant he was standing as if turned to stone beside the table; for the white-clad figure which showed itself, and then came swiftly towards him, was his mother's.

'Mother!' he faltered. 'Why?--what----?'

He paused, feeling there was no reason here, no reason at all in the clinging hands about his knees, in the pa.s.sionate kisses rained on them regardless of dress trousers, regardless of everything save that here was the son that had been lost, and was found again!

Not so Chris Davenant. With a certain rage he realised, even as he bent over her with tears in his eyes stirred to his innermost soul, that above all this emotion lay a doubt to what he ought to do next; whether he should raise his mother to the chair beside his, raise her to the unaccustomed, or crouch down on the floor beside her, himself, in forgotten fas.h.i.+on. Horrible, hateful thought; yet there it was!

She solved the question herself unconsciously with the dignified humility of Eastern womanhood. 'Sit thou there, son of thy father, master of my widowed house,' she said, 'so at thy feet shall I find son and husband once more!'

Then, in a perfect ecstasy of joy, she lifted her worn, refined face to his. 'Yea! I shall find Krishn, my Bala-Krishna once more! Lo! canst thou forgive thy mother, child; thy mother who denounced thee, not knowing that thou hadst returned--that thou hadst come back?'

'Come back?' he echoed.

Her face was as the face of an angel over the sinner that repenteth.

She reached her thin arm from her shroud, and laid her finger on his lip.

'Hush, child! Let it be forgotten. Let it be as if it had never been.

Thou canst tell me, after, why thou saidst no word. Yet Krishn, how could I tell? But for the old _pujari_ who laid the caste mark on thy forehead again, I might never have known.'

He understood then; understood why she had come to him; why that clinging mother's touch was his own once more. Poor mother!

'Lo! Krishn!' she went on, interrupting herself hastily at the look on his face, 'be not angry with me. If thou didst know the tears I have shed since he told me but yesterday! How could I know? And to think I might have killed thee. Say thou dost forgive me!'

'Speak not of forgiveness, mother,' he said huskily, bending to kiss her.

What else could he do? he asked himself. Could he tell her the truth--that he had not come back? Or had he? Or even if he had not, did he not mean to do so? He could not say. He only felt himself in the toils once more.

'Leave the past alone, mother,' he said fondly; 'the present is enough.'

She smiled rapturously for a moment, and then she looked round anxiously. 'Nay, child, not yet. There is thy wife. I must gain her forgiveness too, if mortal woman can forgive one who might have made her widow! But I will lie at her feet, Krishn. I will plead with her.

That is why I came hither--to see her--to call her daughter.'

Chris, with those clinging arms about him, Chris, in the luxury of being loved, gave a faint sob.

'She is not here to-night, mother,' he said; 'but fret not: she would forgive thee--even hadst thou made her widow!'

The worn old face looked rebuked, perhaps a trifle disappointed. 'Lo! I have heard ever,' she said, with a regret in her voice also, 'that they are as angels, without jealousy; not as we----'

Here the sight of the dark intelligent face above hers seemed to come upon her as if it had been her lover's and she a girl. She laid her head suddenly on his knee and laughed, a laugh that held a sob. 'Then I have thee to myself for now, heart's darling!' she murmured--'thou and thy house!'