Part 42 (1/2)

”If you were afraid of a scandal,” he answered, quickly, ”why did you come at all? When you arrived this afternoon I thought you had left that question to me, and were ready to get married at once, which was the only way to avoid hurting your father-unless I had sent you back this very night to Kate Bindane. No, you weren't afraid of a scandal: you arranged it all too cleverly for there to be much risk.”

”I was prepared to marry you,” she said, ”if you really wanted marriage.”

”And if I didn't,” he replied, ”you were prepared to live with me for a fortnight. Oh, you make me ashamed!”

”I wanted to save you from these other women,” she protested.

”I tell you there never were any other women,” he answered. ”I'm not a man out of one of your horrible novels.”

”I don't know what you are driving at,” she exclaimed. ”Anyway I won't be played fast and loose with like this. I shall go back to my friends tomorrow, and I hope I shall never see you again.”

Suddenly her voice broke, and throwing her arms out across the table, she laid her head upon them, and cried bitterly.

Daniel did not move. His heart was hardened against her, and he told himself that her tears were but one of the wiles of her s.e.x.

”No,” he said at length, coming suddenly to a decision, ”you shall not go back tomorrow. You have come here for a fortnight, and have made arrangements for your visit to be secret. You say there is no fear of a scandal such as would hurt your father. Very well then, you shall stay here a fortnight whether you want to or not. I propose that we get to know each other: we've had enough misunderstandings. You have misunderstood everything I have ever said to you: it has all been warped and twisted by your miserable society att.i.tude of mind.”

”I shall never understand you,” she answered, raising her head, and drying her eyes with the back of her hand. ”This is quite final. You've insulted me and humiliated me. I might have known that that was what you'd do.”

”Very well,” he said, ”I think you had better go to your room now.

Remember, you are going to stay here for the full fortnight.”

”I shall do no such thing,” she declared, facing him defiantly.

He gripped hold of her wrist. ”Do you want me to have to lock you up?”

he asked; and she quailed before the authority of his voice.

He went across to the door and opened it. Outside, upon the floor, a hurricane lamp was burning; and this he picked up.

”Here's a lamp,” he said, ”and here are matches. Now go to bed.”

She took them from him in silence, and slowly walked out of the room.

He watched her as she pa.s.sed across the refectory, the light from her lantern casting her swaying shadow in huge size upon the ruinous walls.

Then he shut the door, and sitting down at the table, buried his face in his hands.

CHAPTER XXVII-THE FLIGHT

For a long time Daniel lay awake upon his bed at the top of the tower, while his thoughts pa.s.sed through a number of recurrent phases. More than once he felt that he had made a mountain out of a molehill; but this att.i.tude of mind was dismissed by the recollection that, whether Muriel truly loved him or not, she had come to him ”on the sly,” and, by planning this surrept.i.tious interlude (for she had meant it to be no more than that) she had invested their relations.h.i.+p with that very atmosphere of intrigue which he so strongly resented.

He saw in her action the influence of that small section of London society which he abhorred, wherein the women appeared to him to be secret courtesans who would neither abide by the traditional law nor openly flout it; and he was determined either to eradicate that influence or to lose Muriel. He was not entirely clear in his mind as to what he was going to do with her in the Oasis for this fortnight; but of this he was sure, that she needed a lesson, and that he was going to take her in hand, remorselessly, whatever might be the consequences.

The moon, in the last quarter, rose above the far-off hills while yet he was wearily thinking, and realizing thus that daybreak was not more than two hours distant, he obliged himself by force of will, to compose his mind for sleep. In this he was successful and presently he fell into a deep slumber from which it would have been difficult to wake him.

Meanwhile, Muriel had also watched the dim light of the rising moon as it slowly spread over the desert. She had slept for two or three hours-a miserable sleep of exhaustion; but when she was awakened by the hooting of an owl outside the window, she lit her lamp and made no further attempt at repose.

Her one idea was to get away from Daniel and to go back to Kate Bindane, who would still be alone at El Homra until the end of the coming day.