Part 38 (1/2)

Yes! to stifle her, because she could not escape from it! She, Lesley Drummond, who---- In her mind's eye she saw a vision of herself alighting from an omnibus at the corner of Bond Street on a wet day, picking her way over the greasy blister-marks of many feet on the pavement, heedless of the infinite suggestions in the shop windows, to have tea at a ladies'-club with an intimate friend, and solve the problems of life by hard and fast individualism tempered by a sloppy socialism.

Solve! As if it were possible to solve anything in those conditions.

Above all, to solve the greatest problem in the world for women, as you drank your tea on a table littered with the literature of _chiffon_-culture, whose every page proclaimed that woman's aim was to remain temptress, her goal a garden such as this!

They were close to the sanctuary now. The others had entered it, and Lesley paused to look contemptuously at its filagree pretence of protection ere she, too, stooped under its low arch.

'I think you have it, haven't you, Lesley?' asked Grace Arbuthnot, as she entered to find a puzzled look on all three faces. In the old woman's it was mixed with a half-indignant apprehension.

'Have what?' she asked coldly.

'The silk cord that was round the roll; I gave it to you to hold, I think. She won't speak without it; it seems it is a bracelet--an amulet.'

'The bracelet of brotherhood without which a woman cannot speak to a strange man,' explained Jack Raymond. 'Ah! you are wearing it.'

She was. Quite idly she had fastened it by its loop and b.u.t.ton round her wrist, in order to keep it safe. She took it off now, and handed it to him without a word. He pa.s.sed it to Auntie Khojee, whose withered face settled into self-satisfaction as she leant forward, detaining his hand till the bracelet was safely looped on his brown wrist.

Then the words came fast. Floods of them; and Jack Raymond listened patiently.

Fine though the filagree of marble was that shut them off from the garden, it interrupted the light, so that their figures showed dimly to each other. But the scent of the garden drifted in unchecked, and mixed with the faint scent of heliotrope from Grace Arbuthnot's dress. There was something breathless, disturbing to the senses, Lesley felt, in that uncomprehending effort to understand. It was a relief when silence fell suddenly, and there was a pause.

'Is that all?' whispered Grace; she was next to Jack Raymond, her dress touching him.

'I believe I ought to give her a bracelet in return,' he began. She had one of her gold bangles off in a moment, and was thrusting it into his hand--'Take that, please do--you might let me do so much, surely----'

Lesley turned and stepped outside. She felt the need of fresh air.

'There was no use my stopping,' she explained when, after an interval, the two rejoined her. 'I could not understand.'

'Not understand!' echoed Grace Arbuthnot reproachfully. 'I couldn't understand the words either. But I thought the idea perfectly charming.

I wouldn't have missed the little scene for worlds. And she was so delighted with the gold bangle.'

'It is really not uncommon, Lady Arbuthnot,' protested Jack Raymond, who was beginning to feel a trifle restive again. 'And in the old days, the _ram rucki_ was constantly sent by distressed----'

'I know,' interrupted Lesley captiously. 'You read of it in Meadows Taylor's books. But why did she give it to you?'

He paused; a quick annoyance showed on his face; he turned to Lady Arbuthnot vexedly.

'I must apologise,' he said; 'I never realised till this moment that she must have taken me----'

'For Sir George,' put in Grace quietly. 'Didn't you? Now I was thinking all the time how much better you played the part than he would have done. He is like Lesley. He loathes sentiment. No, Mr. Raymond, I won't take it!' she added, as he tried to unfasten the _ram rucki_. 'Give it to Sir George himself, if you like--there he is, coming to meet us.

Or,' she continued, with an elusive, almost mischievous smile, as she went forward to greet her husband, leaving those two on the path together, 'give it back to Miss Drummond! She gave it you first!'

Jack Raymond looked after her quite angrily; then laughed, drew out his pocket-book and laid the _ram rucki_ between the folds of some bank-notes.

'I shall end by doing my duty some day, if this goes on, Miss Drummond,' he said resignedly. 'It is really very kind of you all to take so much interest in my spiritual and bodily welfare.'

As a rule Lesley would have been ready with a sharp retort. Now she was silent. She was thinking that it was true. She had given the bracelet of brotherhood to him first. And then once more a vast impatience seized her. How unreal, how fantastic it was? How far removed from the security of the commonplace?