Part 50 (1/2)

Her visitor moved impatiently on her chair. ”Oh, don't tell me such fibs,” she exclaimed. ”My dear Muriel, I am a woman of the world. I only want to help you.”

Her words only served to accentuate the girl's alarm.

”But it's true,” she cried. ”I swear to you there was nothing of that kind between us.”

Lady Smith-Evered stared at her. ”You can't expect me or anybody else to believe that. Why, the man is a notorious bad character in regard to women.”

”No, he's not,” she answered. ”He may be a brute in other ways, but all this rot about his Bedouin harim is just the silly talk of Cairo. I'm not going to beg you to believe me. I'm just telling you the truth; and if you don't think it's the truth you can go to ...”

She checked herself suddenly.

”But what are we to do?” said the elder woman, spreading out her hands.

”I'm not a prude; but the whole thing is shocking in a country like this. How are we to prevent it ever coming to your father's ears?”

”I'm going to tell him as soon as he comes back,” Muriel replied.

”Oh, you're incorrigible,” exclaimed Lady Smith-Evered, angrily. ”You hav'n't got the sense even to know when to hold your tongue.” She rose to her feet and paced up and down the room. ”What's to be done? Will you please tell me what's to be done?”

”Nothing much,” Muriel answered. She was becoming calmer now. She saw herself in a new light, and her humiliation was extreme. Lady Smith-Evered belonged to that world which Daniel had tried to teach her to despise; and in this woman's eyes she appeared merely as a foolish, naughty girl, whose rash actions had to be covered up by some sort of lie. She would have infinitely preferred it if she had been instantly ostracized and cut.

”Of course,” Lady Smith-Evered went on, ”I shall tell my maid that the whole thing is nonsense; and it's just possible that the story will go no further. But you ought to be ashamed of yourself for taking such risks. And I have no words to express what I feel about Mr. Lane.”

”Oh, please leave him out of it,” Muriel exclaimed. ”He never asked me to come, or knew I was coming.”

Lady Smith-Evered sniffed. ”He knows his own power over women,” she said.

Muriel turned upon her fiercely. ”I tell you he is in no way to blame.”

Her visitor bowed. ”I respect you for trying to defend him,” she answered. ”We women always defend the men we love.”

”But I don't love him,” she cried. ”I hate the sight of him.”

Lady Smith-Evered spread out her hands again, evidently baffled. ”That makes it all the worse,” she said. ”Romance is whitewash for the sepulchres of pa.s.sion: it makes these things presentable; but if you say the affair was not prompted by love, then I absolutely fail to understand you. It sounds unnatural, indecent.”

She moved towards the door. ”I'll do my best to hush it up,” she concluded; ”but the sooner you get married to some nice easy-going Englishman the better. These sort of things are more _comme il faut_ after marriage, my dear.”

And with that she left the room.

CHAPTER x.x.xII-THINKING THINGS OVER

Benifett Bindane was seated on the front verandah of the Residency one afternoon, when Lord Barthampton drove up to the door in his high dogcart. He rose from his chair, and going to the steps, shook hands with the younger man somewhat less limply than was his wont.

”Is Lady Muriel in?” asked the visitor.

Mr. Bindane shook his head. ”I'm afraid not; but I think she'll be home to tea. Come in and have a drink.”

He led him into the library, and rang the bell. ”What will you have?” he asked. ”A whiskey and soda?”

”Thanks,” Lord Barthampton replied. ”I've given up the temperance stunt.