Part 10 (1/2)
”It's not your fault. You couldn't help it,” she answered, without looking up. ”But--you were telling me my own story!”
”Good Lord! Then--it was _you_?”
”Don't say any more, please. I never meant to speak; only--one had to stop you--somehow. It's time we went back to the others now. I am sure you must be wanting your breakfast. And remember”--she faced him at last, with brave deliberation--”I trust you, as a gentleman, never to speak of this again--to me, or to any one else.”
And Garth bowed his head, and followed her, in a bewildered silence.
CHAPTER V.
”He that getteth a wife beginneth a possession; a help like unto himself, and a pillar of rest.”--_Ecclesiasticus_.
Eldred Lenox stood alone in the Desmonds' diminutive drawing-room, patiently impatient for companions.h.i.+p more responsive than that of cane chairs and tables, pictures and a piano. Yet the room itself, with its atmosphere of peace and refinement, gave him a foretaste of the restfuluess that made Honor Desmond's companions.h.i.+p a growing necessity to this man, whose heart and brain were in a state of civil war. It was filled with afternoon sunlight, with the faint, clean fragrance of violets, wild roses, and maiden-hair fern, and its emptiness was informed and pervaded by countless suggestions of a woman's presence; a woman versed in that finest of all fine arts, the beautifying of daily life.
In this era of hotels, clubs, and motors, of days spent in sowing hurry and reaping shattered nerves, the type is growing rarer, and it will be an ill day for England's husbands and sons, nay, for her supremacy among nations, if it should ever become extinct. For it is no over-statement, but simple fact, that the women who follow, soon or late, in the track of her victorious arms, women of Honor Desmond's calibre--home-loving, home-making, skilled in the lore of heart and spirit--have done fully as much to establish, strengthen, and settle her scattered Empire as shot, or steel, or the doubtful machinations of diplomacy.
A half-acknowledged conviction of this truth was undermining Eldred's skin-deep cynicism; and it did not tend to alleviate his renewed sense of loss. A week had pa.s.sed since his astounding experience on the Kajiar Road; a week in which the hours of sleep had been a more negligible quant.i.ty than usual; in which he had fought squarely against an imperative need to escape from the haunting consciousness of his wife's presence, and had been squarely beaten. His present need to see and speak with Honor Desmond was an ultimate confession of that defeat.
On reaching the bungalow, he was told that the Mem-sahib bad gone out with the Chota Sahib, but would doubtless be back before long, and had decided to await her return. During his ride with her that morning, he had not been able to bring himself to speak. But this time he intended to go through with the ordeal. He felt too restless to sit down; and she did not keep him waiting long.
Footsteps and low voices, punctuated with silver laughter, heralded her coming, and a few minutes later she entered, carrying a pocket edition of herself, who clung about her neck, and pressed a cool rose-petal cheek against her own.
Lenox had described her as a magnificent woman. A Scot may generally be trusted not to overstate his facts; and certainly Honor Desmond, in those radiant early days of marriage, deserved no less an adjective.
Height, and a buoyant stateliness of bearing, lent a regal quality to her beauty. Her grey-blue eyes under very level brows were the eyes of a woman dwelling in the heart of life, not merely in its outskirts and pleasure-grounds.
She expressed no surprise at seeing Lenox again so soon. Come when he might, his presence was accepted as a matter of course; the surest way to put a man at his ease.
”So sorry I kept you waiting,” she said simply, and the hand she gave him was at once soft and strong,--an epitome of the woman. ”Theo was lunching out with Colonel Mayhew--they are both very full of that book of his on the Hill Tribes--and I have been devoting most of my time to this very exacting person!”
Lenox caressed the child's red-gold hair with a cautious reverent hand, and a contraction of envy at his heart.
”What a beautiful little chap he is! Begins to look an out-and-out Meredith already. Desmond must be tremendously proud of him.”
She smiled and pressed him closer.
”He is; and I'm nearly as bad! One son, three fools, you know! Poor little Paul, it's not fair to call him names when he can't hit back.”
”You called him after Wyndham?”
”Yes. They're like brothers, those two. Now let me get rid of him, and we'll have a quiet talk till Theo comes back. Sit down and smoke, please.”
He complied; and she, returning, established herself beside her work-table, and took up an elaborate bit of smocking without question or remark.
His trouble and stress of mind were very evident to her; but she was one of those rare women who are chary of questions--who, for all their desire to help and serve, never approach too near, or say the word too much, which was, perhaps, one reason why men found her so restful, and instinctively talked to her about themselves.
But Lenox was long in beginning.
By imperceptible degrees, this unsought gift of friends.h.i.+p was melting the morsel of ice at his heart; was reviving in him, against his will, that keen appreciation of a cultivated woman's sympathy and companions.h.i.+p, which, among finely tempered men, is as potent a factor in the shaping of destinies as pa.s.sion, or hot-headed emotion.