1. Gardeners.
The following afternoon, directly his work at the office was finished, he went out to the oasis in the desert to look at his new possession, his bungalow in the palms.
The moment he saw it peeping out from amongst them, and surrounded by roses, he expressed himself satisfied, and named the place Saied-i-stan, or the place of happiness.
The butler met him there; he was bursting with self-importance.
"You leave everything to me, Sahib—everything. I know all the Sahib wants. He shall have all. Let him come, ten o'clock, nine o'clock, no matter when; all quite ready. I am here. I have everything waiting for the Sahib."
Hamilton smiled and praised him, and went back to the station; took a pretence of dinner and a hurried cup of coffee, and then went down into the bazaar with the precious bit of paper containing the directions to Saidie's dwelling-place in his breast pocket.
He found the house at last, and, going in at the doorless entrance, climbed patiently the wooden stairs that ran straight up from it in complete darkness. On the topmost landing—a frail wooden structure that creaked beneath his feet—he paused, and rapped twice on the door opposite him.
His heart beat rapidly as he stood there; the blood seemed flying through it. All the strength of his vigorous body seemed gathering itself together within him, all the fire of his keen, hungry brain leapt up, and waiting there in the dark on the narrow landing he knew the joy of life.
The door was opened. In a moment his eye swept round the interior of the high windowless room. The floor was bare, with mats here and there, and in the centre stood a flat pan of charcoal, glowing under a closed and steaming cooking-pot. At one end a coarse chick, suspended from a wooden bar, dropped its long lines to the floor, and behind this, on some cushions, sat Saidie with another of the dancing-girls.
The old woman who had opened the door, salaamed, touching the floor with her forehead as Hamilton walked in, and then securely shut and fastened the door behind him. Saidie rose and looked through the shimmering lines of the chick at him as he entered.
Very handsome the tall commanding figure looked in the mean, bare room: the long neck and well-modelled head, with its black, close-cut hair, stood out a noble relief against the colourless wall, and the clear brown skin, with the warm tint of quick blood in it that showed above the English collar, arrested the girl's eyes with a keen thrill of joy. Looking at him, she felt rushing through her the passionate delight that self-surrender to such a man would be. Without waiting to be summoned, she parted the lines of the chick, came out from them, and fell on her knees at his feet.
The heat in the shut-up room was very great, and she was wearing only a straight white muslin tunic, through which all the soft beauty of her form could be seen, as an English face is seen through a veil. Her hair was looped back from her brows and tied simply with a piece of green ribbon, as an English girl's might have been, and flowed in its thick, black glossy waves to her waist.
Hamilton bent over her and raised her in his arms, feeling in that moment, though the whole universe were reeling and rocking round him to its ruin, he would care nothing while he pressed that soft breast to his.
The old woman sat down cross-legged by the charcoal, and began to fan it.
The other girl behind the chick looked out curiously, but her eyes never noted the strength and beauty of Hamilton's figure, nor the bright glow in the oval cheek: she looked to see if he wore rings on his fingers, and tried to catch sight of the links in his cuffs to see if they were silver or gold.
Saidie had the divine gift of passion: all the fire of the gods in her veins. Zenobie had none, and Saidie's joy now was something she could not understand.
"Have you come to take me away, now at once?" Saidie murmured in a soft, passionate whisper close to his ear, and the accent of joy and delight went quivering down through the deepest recesses of the man's being.
"Yes: are you ready to come with me?" Needless question! put only for the supreme pleasure of listening to its answer.
"Oh, more than ready," whispered the soft voice back. "How shall the slave explain her longing to her lord?"
Zenobie had come round the chick, while they stood by the door, and drawn forward the one little low wooden stool that they possessed. She came up now, and pulled at Saidie's sleeve.
"Let the Sahib be seated," she said reprovingly, and Saidie let her arms slip from his neck and drew him forward to the stool by the charcoal pan.
With some difficulty Hamilton drew up his long legs and seated himself cautiously on the small seat; Saidie and Zenobie sat cross-legged on the ground close to his feet. The old woman ceased to fan the fire; the bright red glow of the coals fell softly on the strong, noble beauty of the man's face, and Saidie, looking up to it, sat speechless, her bosom heaving, her lips parted, her dark eyes full of mysterious fires, melting, swimming, behind their veil of lashes.
Zenobie watched her with curiosity: what did she feel for this infidel who wore no rings and only silver in his cuffs?
Hamilton, as soon as he was seated, drew out his pocket-book—old and worn, for he spent little on himself—and opened it.
The old woman sat up. Zenobie's eyes gleamed: the business was going to commence. Only Saidie did not stir nor move her eyes from his face.
"Two thousand rupees was the price agreed upon; here it is," he said, taking out a thick bundle of notes that occupied the whole inside of the poor, limp pocket-book; and as the old woman stretched out a skinny claw for them and began to slowly count them, he turned his gaze away, on to the upturned face of the girl watching him with sensual adoration.
The old woman counted through the notes, and then securely tied them into the end of her chudda.
"The sum is the due sum, well counted," she said, looking up; "and when will my lord take his slave?"
"To-night," Hamilton replied briefly, but not without a swift enquiring glance into the girl's eyes. Though he had bought and paid for her, he could not get out of the Western knack of considering that the girl's desires had to be consulted.
The old woman raised her hands in affected horror.
"To-night! But she is not well clothed, she is not bathed and anointed; the bridal robes are not prepared. My lord, it cannot be!"
Hamilton looked at Saidie; she crept to his side and put her head on his breast.
"Yes, to-night, take me to-night," she murmured eagerly; he smiled, and put his arm around her.
"The bridal clothes are of no consequence," he answered decisively. "My camel waits below. I will take her to-night."
"She has no shoes," objected the old woman. "She cannot descend the stairs."
"I will carry her down," replied Hamilton, and, springing up from the little stool, he stooped over the lovely form at his feet, raising her into his arms, close to his breast. Saidie clung to his neck with a little cry of pleasure, her bare, warm-tinted feet hung over his arm.
The old woman gasped: Zenobie laughed. The Englishman looked so big, so immensely strong. The weight of Saidie, tall and well-developed as she was, seemed as nothing to him.
"Zenobie, will you hold the lamp at the doorway, that he may see his way?" Saidie cried out, slipping off a thin gold circlet she wore on her arm, and letting it drop into the other's hands.
"Farewell, Zenobie; may you be always as happy as I am now."
Zenobie caught the bracelet and ran to the wall, unhooked the lamp that hung there, and came to the door.
"Farewell, my mother," Saidie said, as they turned to it.
"Farewell, my daughter; be submissive to the Sahib, and obey him in all things."
The door was opened, and by the dim, uncertain light of Zenobie's lamp, Hamilton, clasping his warm, living burden, went slowly and heavily down the bending stairs, feeling the life brimming in every vein.
Outside, in the tranquil splendour of the starry Eastern night, knelt the camel, peacefully awaiting its lord, and as Hamilton approached it with his burden, it turned its head and large, liquid eyes upon him with a gurgle of pleasure.
"The camel loves Hamilton Sahib," murmured the girl, as he set her on the soft red cloth laid over the animal's back, which formed the only saddle. He took his own place in front of her.
"Hold to my belt firmly," he told her, gathering into his hand the light rein. "Are you ready for him to rise?"
He felt her little, soft hands glide in between his belt and waist.
"Yes, I am quite ready," she answered, and at a word of encouragement, the great beast rose with its slow, stately swing to its feet, and Hamilton guided it towards the Meidan. The soft, hot air stirred against their faces as they moved through the night.
Nothing could present a more lovely picture than the bungalow that evening. A low, white house, looking in the moonlight as if built of marble, surrounded by masses of palms which threw a delicate tracery of shadow upon it and drooped their beautiful, fan-like, feathery branches over it, between it and the jewelled sky.
A light verandah ran around the lower of the two stories, completely covered by the white, star-like bloom of the jessamine that poured forth floods of fragrance like incense on the hot, still air, and a giant pink magnolia rioted over the wide porch of lattice-work. Within it was brightly lighted, and a warm glow from shaded lamps came out from each window, stealing softly through the veil of scented jessamine and falling on the masses of pink roses surrounding the house.
The deep peace, the sweet scent in the silence, the kiss of the moonlight and the starlight on the sleeping flowers, the exquisite form of the shadows on the white wall, filled Hamilton with pleasure: each sense seemed subtly ministered to; he felt as if invisible spirits round him were feeding him with ambrosia.
He turned round to Saidie as the camel slowly and majestically entered the compound gate, and saw her clearly framed in the soft silver light; all this wondrous beauty round them seemed to be to her beauty but as the harmonies that in an opera float round the central air. And she smiled as he turned upon her.
"How do you like your new house, Saidie?" he said, half laughing as he leant back to her.
"Surely it is Paradise, Sahib," she murmured back in awestruck tones.
Within the door waited the servants to welcome them in a double line, and as Saidie entered, they fell flat with their faces on the floor. She passed through the prostrate row saluting them, and on to the foot of the stairs. The ayah that the butler had engaged rose and followed her mistress upstairs, where she was ushered into her bath and dressing-room; while the butler, swelling with importance and joyous pride, led Hamilton to the large room he had prepared as a bedroom on the first floor. As they went in Hamilton gave a murmur of approval very dear to the man's heart, as he heard it, standing respectfully by the door.
The room was large, and two windows, draped with curtains, stood open to the soft night.
The bed in the centre of the room was one of the wide Indian charpais which are unrivalled for comfort, and glimmered softly white beneath its filmy mosquito curtains in the lamplight shed by four handsome rose-shaded lamps. Small tables stood everywhere, bearing vases of fresh flowers, roses, and stephanotis; a rich, deep rose-coloured carpet spread all over the floor, with only a small border of chetai visible round the walls; and two easy-chairs of the same colour and numerous smaller ones piled up with cushions completed the equipment of the room. The air was full of scent, and the scheme of colour in the room perfect. Nothing but rose and white was allowed to meet the eye. The flowers were selected with this view, and the great bowls of roses all blushed the same glorious tint through the snowy whiteness of the stephanotis.
The room suggested, in its softly-lighted glow of pink and white, a bridal chamber.
Hamilton turned to his servant with a pleased smile on his handsome, animated face.
"You are an artist, Pir Bakhs, and a sort of magician, to do all this in twelve hours."
Pir Bakhs bowed and salaamed by the door, his well-formed polished face wreathed in many smiles.
Downstairs the girl was already waiting for her lord, bathed, and with her long hair shaken out and brushed after the dust of the desert ride, and looped back from her forehead by a fresh green ribbon. She did not sit down, but stood waiting.
This room showed the same care as the upper one, and the table was laid out with Hamilton's plate and glass and four beautiful epergnes held the flowers.
Natives are artists, particularly in colour arrangements; the whole colour scheme here was white and green, and any table in Belgravia would have had hard work to equal this one. Saidie stood looking at it, and the servants, already ranged by the sideboard, stood with their eyes on the ground, yet conscious of her wonderful beauty, and pleased by it in the same way that they would have felt pride and pleasure in the beauty and good condition of a new horse or camel acquired by their master.
After a few minutes Hamilton came down. He had put on his evening clothes as they had been laid out for him by the bearer, and looked radiant as he entered.
Saidie gave a little cry as she saw him. His present dress, well cut and close-fitting, showed his splendid figure to greater advantage than the loose suit she had seen him in hitherto. His long neck carried his fine, spirited head erect, and the masses of thick, black hair, with just the least wave in it, shone in the lamplight. His well-cut face, with its gay animation and charming, debonair, unaffected expression, made a kingly and perfect picture to the girl's dazzled eyes.
As they took their places and their soup was served, she could not detach her gaze from his face.
He laughed as he looked at her.
"Come, you must be hungry. Take your soup while it's hot; don't waste your time looking at me."
"Sahib, I cannot help looking at you. You are so wonderful to me! Please give me leave to. I do not want any soup."
Hamilton, who by this time had finished his own, leant back in his chair and laughed again, looking at her with eyes blazing with mirth and passion. This innocent, genuine admiration was very pleasing to him in its flattery; this worship offered to himself, rather than his gifts, was something new to him, and the girl's beauty sent all the fires of life in quick streams through his frame as he looked on it. He was alive for the first time in his existence, and filled with a surprised happiness as great as the girl's. He was as virgin to joy as she was to love. "You are the dearest little girl I ever knew," he said; "but if you won't take soup, you must eat fish. Yes, I positively refuse you my permission to look at me till you have finished that whole plate."
Saidie dropped her eyes to her fish very submissively at this, while Hamilton himself filled her glass.
"Have you ever tasted wine?" he asked. "This is champagne; drink it, and tell me what you think of it."
"All my people are Mahommedans; we do not drink wine," Saidie replied, taking up the glass and sipping from it.
"Perhaps you won't like it," he suggested, watching her.
"If the Sahib gives it to me I shall like it," replied Saidie, smiling at him over the delicate golden glass: it threw its light upwards into her great gleaming eyes, and Hamilton kissed the little hand that put the glass gently down on the table again.
Next after the fish came game and joints, course after course, more food in that one meal than Saidie was accustomed to see for many people for a week. Her own appetite was soon satisfied, and she sat for the most part gazing at Hamilton, with her hands tightly locked together in her lap: such a nervous delight filled her, such a strange joy in knowing herself to be alive, to be possessed of a beautiful body that by reason of its beauty was worthy the caresses of a man like this; such a pure rapture animated every fibre, to realise that it was in her power to give pleasure to him. With such feelings as these no faintest hint of humiliation or degradation could mingle. Saidie felt only that superb and joyous pride that Nature originally intended the female to have in her surrender to the male.
Her very breath seemed to flutter softly with joyous trepidation and excitement as it passed over her lips. That she was to be his, held in his arms, admitted to his embrace, seemed to her to be the crown of her life, an honour given by special divine favour.
So must Rhea Sylvia have felt praying before her Vestal altar when Mars first appeared to her startled eyes.
And Hamilton, with his keen, sensitive temperament, saw into her mind clearly, and was fully aware of all this fervent adoration, this intense passionate worship springing within her; and an immense tenderness and reverence grew up within him, enclosing all his passion as the crystal vessel encloses the crimson wine.
That she would not in her present state have shrunk or flinched from a knife, if only his hand held it while it wounded her, he knew quite well, and this wonderful voluntary self-sacrifice which is the soul of all female passion appealed to him as a very holy thing.
He knew that constantly this adoring love was poured out by women for men, that almost every virgin heart beats with this same worship as the first pain of love enters it, but ah! for how short a time! How quickly the man tears open those eyes that would so willingly be closed to his vileness! how soon come the infidelity, the lies and the meanness, the trickery and the treachery! How assiduously the man teaches the woman who loves him that there is nothing in him worthy of adoration, not even admiration, not even decent respect! How little confidence, how little credence she soon gives to his word that was once so sacred to her! How in her heart, though her lips say nothing, is that once rapturous worship changed into a measureless contempt!
Men persistently teach women that they must not expect the best from them, but the lowest. And the women cry in pain as they see the white mantle of their love trampled upon and dragged in the mire of lies and falseness, and they take it back from the base hands and burn it in the fires kindled in their outraged hearts. Something of this flashed through Hamilton's brain as he met the adoring trust and love in the girl's eyes, and an unspoken vow formed itself within him that he would not deceive and betray it, that his lips should not lie to her, that to the end he would be to her as she now saw him in the glamour of those first hours.
When he had tempted her to every sweet and bon-bon on the table, and made her drink all the wine he thought good for her, he sent the servants away, and they remained alone together in the dining-room with their coffee before them. He put his arm round her, and drawing her out of her own chair, took her on to his knees and pressed her head down on his shoulder.
"Are you not tired with that long ride on the camel?" he asked.
"No, Sahib, I am not tired."
The soft weight of her body pressed upon him; her lids drooped over her eyes as her head leaned against his neck.
"I think you are tired and very sleepy," he repeated, pinching the glowing arm in its transparent muslin sleeve.
"If the Sahib says so, I must be," responded Saidie quite simply.
"Come, then, and sleep," he said in her ear, and they went upstairs.
Saidie gave a little cry of delight as they entered together the rose-filled room, and beyond its soft shaded lights she saw the great flashing planets in the dark sky.
"This is a different and a better home for love than we had last night," said Hamilton softly, as he closed the door.
A great peace reigned all round them. Within and without the bungalow there was no sound. The lights burned steadily and subdued, the sweet scent of the flowers hung in the air like a silent benediction upon them.
He put his arm round her, and felt her tremble excessively as his hand unfastened the clasp of her tunic. He stopped, surprised.
"Why do you tremble so? Are you afraid of me?" he asked, looking down upon her, all the tenderness and strength of a great passion in his eyes.
"No, no," she returned passionately, "I tremble because great waves of happiness rush over me at your touch. I cannot tell you what I feel, Sahib; the love and happiness within me is breaking me into fragments."
"Then you must break in my arms," he murmured back softly, drawing her into his embrace, "so that I shall not lose even one of them."
In the morning a flood of sunlight rushing into the room through the open windows, bringing with it the gay chatter of birds, roused the lovers. Hamilton opened his eyes first, and, lifting his head from the pillow, looked down upon Saidie still asleep beside him. In the rich mellow light of the room her loveliness glowed under his eyes like a jewel held in the sun. He hardly drew his breath, looking down upon her. Her heavy hair, full of deep purplish shades, and with the wave in it not unusual in the Asiatic, was pushed off the pale, pure bronze of the forehead, on which were drawn so perfectly the long-sweeping Oriental brows. The nose, delicately straight, with its proud high-arched nostrils, and the tiny upper lip, led the eye on to the finely-carved Eastern mouth, of which the lips now were softly, firmly folded in repose. How exquisitely Nature had fashioned those lips, putting more elaborate work in those lines and curves of that one feature than in the whole of an ordinary English face. Hamilton hung over her, filled with a passion of tenderness, watching the gentle breath move softly the warm column of bronze throat and raise the soft, full breast.
Passion, in its highest phase, is indeed the supreme gift of the gods. In giving it to a mortal for once they forget their envy: for once they raise him to their level; for that once they grant him divinity.
Hamilton now marvelled at himself. The whole fruit of his forty years of life—all that accomplished work, success, wealth, rewarded worth, satisfied ambition, all the pleasures his youth, his health and strength, and powers had always brought him, crushed together—could not equal this: the charm and ecstasy with which he gazed down on this warm beauty of the flesh beside him.
And yet he knew that it was not really in that flesh, not even in that beauty, that lay the delight. It was in himself, in his own intense desire, and the gratification of it, that the joy had birth; and if the gods give not this desire, no matter what else they give, it is useless.
The girl might have been as lovely, Hamilton himself, and all the circumstances the same, yet waking thus he might have been but the ordinary poor, cold, clay-like mortal a man usually is. But the great desire for this beauty that had flamed up within him, now in its possession, gave him that fervour and fire, those wings to his soul, that seemed to make him divine. It was for him one of those moments for which men live a life-time, as he indeed had done, but they repay him when they come. To some, they come never. To these life must indeed be dark.
Suddenly the girl opened her eyes; the fire in his bent upon her seemed to electrify and thrill her into life, and with a little murmur of delight she stretched up her rounded arms to him.
At breakfast Hamilton regretted he should have to leave her all day; what would she do?
"You must not think of it, Sahib," she answered. "Have I not the garden? I shall be quite happy. I shall sing all day long to the flowers about my lord, and count the minutes till he comes back."
The office did not attract Hamilton at all that day, yet he felt it was better to attend there as usual, to make no break in his usual routine.
Scandal there was sure to be, sooner or later, about his desert-bungalow, but at least it was better not to give to the scandal-mongers the power to say he had neglected his duties. Yet he lingered over his departure, and took her many times into his arms to kiss her before he went, keeping his impatient Arab waiting at the door. He would not use the camel again this morning, but left it resting in its corner of the compound beneath the palms.
After Hamilton had gone, Saidie stepped through the long window into the verandah, full of green light, completely shaded as it was by the giant convolvulus that spread all over it. The chetai crushed softly under her feet, and she went on slowly to the end where it opened to the compound. Here she stood for a moment gazing into the wilderness of beauty of mingled sun and shade before her.
Against the dazzling blue of the sky the branches of the palms stood out in gleaming gold, throwing their light shade over the masses of crimson and white and yellow roses that rioted together beneath. Groves of the feathery bamboo drooped their delicate stems in the fervent, sweet-scented heat, over the white, thick-lipped lilies, from one to other of which passed languidly on velvet wings great purple butterflies.
The pomegranate trees made a fine parade of their small, exquisite scarlet flowers, and pushed them upwards into the sparkling sunlight through the veils of white starry blossoms of the jessamine that climbed over and trailed from every tree in the compound.
The girl went forward dreaming. How completely, superbly happy she was! And she had nothing but the gifts of Nature, such as she, the kindly one, gives to the gay bird swinging on the bough, the butterfly on the flower, the deer springing on the hills: health and youth, beauty and love.
These only were hers; nothing that man ordinarily strives for—neither wealth nor fame, fine houses, costly garments, jewels, slaves, power; none of these were hers. Over her body hung simply a muslin tunic worth a few annas; of the garden in which she stood not a flower belonged to her, no weight of jewels lay on her happy heart. She had no name; she was only a dancing-girl from the Deccan. With the animals she shared that wonderful kingdom of joy that they possess: their food and mate secured, their vigorous health bounding in their limbs, their beauty radiant in their perfect bodies.
Are they not the Lords of Creation in the sense that they are lords of joy? Man is the slave of the earth, doomed by his own vile lusts to bondage of the most dismal kind. All of those gifts that Nature gives, and from which alone can be drawn happiness, he tramples beneath his feet, putting his neck under the yoke of ceaseless toil, striving for things which in the end bring neither peace nor joy.
All within the compound under the reign of Nature rejoiced. The parroquets swung on the trees, and the butterflies floated from the marble whiteness of the lily's cloisters to the deep, warm recesses of the rose, and the dancing-girl walked singing through the sparkling, scented air thinking of her lord.
Hamilton, speeding down the dusty, burning road to his office in the native city, felt a strange bounding of his heart as his thoughts clung to the low, white bungalow amongst the palms outside the station, and all that it held for him.
He went through his work that day with a wonderful energy, born of the new life within him. Nothing fatigued, nothing worried him. The court-house air did not oppress him. He heard the pleadings and made his decisions with ease and promptitude. His patience, gentleness, his clearness and force of brain were wonderful. The whole electricity of his body was satisfied: the man was perfectly well and perfectly happy. Who cannot work under such conditions? In the evening his horse was brought round, and with a wild leaping of the heart he swung himself into the saddle. The animal felt instantly the elation of his master, and at once broke into a canter; as this was not checked, he threw up his lovely head, and as Hamilton turned across the plain, let himself go in a long gallop towards where the palms glowed living gold against the rose-hued sky.
Hamilton had hardly passed through the white chick into the interior of the house before he heard the sound of bare feet upon the matting, and through the soft magnolia-scented, pinky gloom of the room, shaded from the sunset light, Saidie came and fell at his knees, taking his dusty hands and kissing them.
Hamilton lifted her up, and held her a little from him, that he might feast his eyes on the delicate beautiful carving of the lips, and on the great velvet eyes, soft, round throat, and breasts swelling so warmly lovely under the transparent gauze.
Then he crushed her up in his arms close to his breast, and carried her to their own room with the golden and green chicks all round it, where the servants did not come without a summons. The garland she had twisted on her head smelt sweetly of roses, and the masses of her silky hair of sandal-wood; her soft lips, that knew so well instinctively the art of kissing, were on his; the warm, tender arms clasped his neck. All the way that he carried her she murmured little words of passion in his ear.
After dinner the servants carried chairs for them into the verandah, with a small table laden with drinks and sweetmeats, that they might sit and watch the moon rising behind the palms in the compound, and see the hot silver light pour slowly through their exquisite branches and foliage.
"How did you amuse yourself all day?" he asked her as she sat on his knee, his arm round the flexible, supple waist pulsating under the silky web of her tunic.
"I was so happy. I had so much to do, so much to think of," she answered, gazing back into his eyes bent upon her, and eagerly drawing in their fire. "I wandered in the compound and made garland after garland, then I sang to my rabab and practised my dancing. In the heat I went in and slept on my lord's bed dreaming of him—ah! how I dreamt of him!" She broke off sighing, and those sighs fanned the blazing fires in the man's veins.
"You were quite contented, then, with your day?"
"How could I not be contented when I had my lord to think about, his love of last night, his love of the coming night?"
Hamilton sighed and smiled at the same time.
"English wives need more than that to make them content," he answered.
"English wives," repeated Saidie, with her laugh like the sound of a golden bell; "what do they know of love?"
"Not much certainly, I think," replied Hamilton.
For a moment the vision of a thin blonde face, with its expression of sour discontent, rose before him. What had he not given that woman—what had she not demanded? Extravagant clothes to deck out her tall lean body, a carriage to drive her here and there, a mansion to live in, all the money he could gain by constant work—these things she demanded because she was his wife, and he had given them, and yet she was always discontented, simply because she was one of those women who do not know desire nor the delight of it. This one had nothing but that divine gift, and it made all her life joy.
"Dance for me now in the cool," murmured Hamilton in the little fine curved ear with the rose-bud just over it.
Saidie slipped off his knee, and fastening the little gilt link at her neck more securely, drew her soft filmy garment more closely to her, and commenced to dance before him in the screened verandah, with the hot moonlight, filtered through the delicate tracery; of innumerable leaves falling on her smooth, warm-tinted body.
To please him, to please him, her lord, her owner, her king: it was the one passion in her thoughts, and it flowed through every limb and muscle, glowed in her eyes, quivered on her parted lips, and made each movement a miracle of sweet sinuous grace.
The soft, hot night passed minute by minute, the scents of a thousand flowers mingled together in the still violet air. Some white night-moths came and fluttered round the exquisite form on whose rounded contours the light played so softly, and Hamilton lay back in his chair, silent, absorbed, hardly drawing his breath through his lungs, shaken by the nervous beating of his heart. Motionless he lay there, almost breathless, for the wine of life was in all his veins, mounting to his head, intoxicating him.
"I am very tired; may I stop now?" came at last in a low murmur from the curved lips so sweetly smiling at him, and the whole soft body drooped like a flower with fatigue. Hamilton opened his arms wide. She saw how the fresh colour glowed in the handsome cheek, how his splendid neck swelled as the red deer's in November, how the dark eyes blazed upon her.
"Come to me," he commanded, and she flew to his arms as the love-bird flies upward to her mate in the pomegranate tree.
For three months Hamilton and Saidie lived in the white bungalow in the palms, and drank of the wine of life together, and were happy in the overwhelming intoxication it gives.
For three months Saidie lived there, never going beyond the precincts of the house and the palace of flowers that was the compound.
Why should she leave them? What had she to gain by going out into the dusty way? What had she to seek? Her garden of Eden, her Paradise, was here. She was too wise to go beyond its limits.
Pedlars and merchants of all sorts brought their best and richest wares to her, and Hamilton sat by her in the verandah, commanding her to buy all that pleased her, though she protested she needed nothing.
Jewels for her neck, and gold anklets and bracelets, and robes and sweetmeats were laid out before her. Only the best of the bazaar was brought, and of this again only the best was chosen. And when Hamilton was not there she walked from room to room singing, clothed in purple silken gauze, with his jewels blazing on her breast, his kisses still burning on her lips. Then she would take her rabab and play to the listening flowers, or practise her dancing, the source of his pleasure, or lie in the noonday heat on the edge of the bubbling spring that rose up in the moss under the boughain-villia and look towards the East and dream of his home-coming. What did she want more?
Hamilton now lived the enchanted life of one who is wholly absorbed in a secret passion. He was wise—more wise than men generally are—and made no effort to parade his treasure. This wonderful exotic, this flower of happiness, that bloomed so vividly in the dark, secluded recesses of his heart, how did he know that the destructive heat and light of publicity might not fade and sear its marvellous petals? He told no one of his life; took no one out into the desert with him, to the bungalow among the palms.
He was away a great deal. His work and certain social duties claimed a large part of his day, and during all that time he had to leave her alone with her flowers, but this gave him no anxiety. It was not a dangerous experiment, as it always is to leave a European woman alone. He knew that Saidie, the Oriental, would spend the whole time dreaming of him, longing for him, singing to the flowers of him, talking to her women-attendants of him, filling the whole garden and house with his image till the longed-for moment of his return.
And to Hamilton, full of unspoiled life and vigour, this security, this certainty of her complete fidelity was a wondrous charm.
Unlike a man of jaded passions, who requires his love to be constantly stimulated by the fear of imminent loss, Hamilton, full of unused strength, and thirsty after the joy of life, now that the cup was offered him, drank of it naturally and with ecstasy, needing no salt and bitter olives of jealousy between the draughts.
For years he had longed for love and happiness: at last he had found both, and with simple, uncavilling thankfulness he clasped them to his breast and held them there, content.
Saturday and Sunday were their great days. Hamilton left the office at two on Saturday afternoon, and was back at the bungalow by five.
They went to bed early that night, and rose on the Sunday morning with the first glimmer of dawn. Everything would be prepared overnight for a day's excursion and picnic in the desert, which Saidie particularly delighted in.
The great brown camel, fat and sleek like all Hamilton's animals, and with an enormous weight of rich hair on his supple neck, would be kneeling waiting for them below in the dewy compound, while the early tender light stole softly through the palms; and they would mount and go swinging out through the great open spaces of the desert, full of delicate white light, towards the sister-oasis of Dirampir, where masses of cocoanut palms grew round a set of springs, and waved their branches joyfully as they drew in the salt nourishment of the air from the amethystine sea not fifty miles distant.
Into the shelter of these palms they would come as the first great golden wave of light from the climbing sun broke over the desert, and, descending from the camel, walk about in the groves by the spring, and select a place for boiling their kettle and having their breakfast. The long ride in the keen air of the morning gave them great appetites, and they enjoyed it in the whole joyous beauty of the scene round them. The palm branches over them grew gold against the laughing blue of the sky, a thousand shafts of sunlight pierced through the fan-like tracery, the golden orioles at play darted, chasing each other from bough to bough, the spring bubbled its cool musical notes beside them, and the sense of the blighting heat of the ravening desert round them seemed to accentuate the beauty of the peace and shade in the oasis.
Saidie enjoyed these days beyond everything, and would sit singing at the foot of a palm, weaving a garland of white clematis for Hamilton's handsome head as it rested on her lap.
No English people ever came to the oasis; as a matter of fact, the English generally do avoid the best and most beautiful spots in or near an Indian station; but the place was greatly beloved by the natives who came there to doze and dream, play, sing, and weave garlands in the usual harmless manner in which a native takes his pleasure. Looking at them standing or sitting in their harmonious groups against a background of golden light and delicate shade, Hamilton often thought how well this scene compared with that of the Britisher taking a holiday—Hampstead Heath, for instance, with its noisy drunkenness, its spirit of hateful spite, its ill-used animals, its loathsome language. The Oriental endeavours to enjoy himself, and his method is generally peaceful and poetic: the singing of songs, the weaving of garlands, and the letting alone of others. The Briton's idea of enjoying himself is extremely simple; it consists solely in annoying his neighbours.
To see a handsome English Sahib here was to the habitual frequenters of the oasis something rather remarkable, but these people are early taught the custody of the eyes and to mind their own business. Therefore Hamilton and Saidie were not troubled by offensive stares, or in any other way. All there were free, gathered to enjoy themselves, each man in his own way; and the natives in their gay colours added to the beauty, without disturbing the peace of the scene, much as the bright-plumaged birds that flitted from tree to tree absorbed in their own affairs.
How Hamilton enjoyed those long, calm, golden hours—the golden hours of Asia, so full of the enchantment of rich light and colour, soft beauty before the eyes, sweet scent of the jessamine in the nostrils, the warbling of birds, and Saidie's love songs in his ears!
Not till the glorious rose of the sunset diffused itself softly in the luminous sky, and all the desert round them grew pink, and the shadows of the palms long in the oasis, and the great planets above them burst blazing into view into the still rose-hued sky, did they rise from the side of the spring and begin to think of their homeward ride. And what a delight it was that night ride home through the majestic silence of the desert, where their own hearts' beating and the soft footfall of the camel were the only sounds! the wild flash of planet and star, and sometimes the soft glimmer of the rising moon, their only light! Eros, the god of passion, seated with them on the camel, their only companion!
To Saidie, cradled in his arms, looking upwards to his face above her, its beauty distinct in the soft light, feeling his heart beating against her side, it seemed as if her happiness was too great for the human frame to bear, as if it must dissolve, melt into nothingness, against his breast, and her spirit pass into the great desert solitudes, dispersed, almost annihilated, in the agony and ecstasy of love.
Week after week passed lightly by in their brilliant setting, the hours on their winged feet danced by, and these two lived independent of all the world, wrapped up in their own intimate joy.
One morning, just as he was about to leave the bungalow, he heard Saidie's voice calling him back. He turned and saw her smiling face hanging over the stair-rail above him. He remounted the stairs, and she drew him into their room. Her face was radiant, her eyes blazed with light as she looked at him.
"I have something to tell you, Sahib! I could not let you go without saying it. Only think! is not Allah good to me? I am to be the mother of the Sahib's child," and she fell on her knees, kissing his hands in a passion of joy. Hamilton stood for the moment silent. He was startled, unprepared for her words, unused to the wild joy with which the Oriental woman hails a coming life.
Her message carried a certain shock to him: it augured change; and his happiness had been so perfect, so absolute, what would change, any change, even if wrought by the divine Hand itself, mean to him but loss?
Saidie, terrified at his silence, looked up at him wildly.
"What have I done? Is not my lord pleased?" Her accent was one of the acutest fear.
Hamilton bent down and raised her to his breast.
"Dearest one, light of my soul, how could I not be pleased?" and he kissed her many times on the lips, and on the soft upper arm that pressed his throat, and on her neck, till even she was satisfied.
"Come and sit with me for a moment that I may tell you all," she said. Hamilton sat beside her on the bed, and she told him many things that an Englishwoman would never say, nor would it enter into her mind to conceive them.
Hamilton was greatly moved as he sat listening. The wonderful imagery, the vivid language in which she clothed her pure joyous thoughts appealed to his own poetic, artistic habit of mind.
On his way across the desert to the city, Hamilton pondered deeply over the news and the girl's unaffected joy. Since all those whispered confidences poured into his ear while they sat side by side on the bed, the throb of jealousy he had first felt at her words had passed away. Saidie had made it so clear to him that her joy was not so great at being the mother of a child as that she was to be the mother ofhischild, and similarly Hamilton felt in all his being a curious thrill at the thought that his child was hers, that this new life was created in and of her life that had become so infinitely dear to him.
He was glad now that his wife had refused to have a child. The bitter pain he had felt then, those years ago, how little he had thought it was to be the parent of this present joy. Now the woman he loved as he had loved no other would be the one to bear his child. Still the thought of the suffering the mother would go through depressed his sensitive mind, and the idea of the risk to her life that came suddenly into his brain made him turn white to the lips as he rode in the hot sunlight. Such intense happiness as he had known for the last three months can turn a brave man into a coward. For a moment he faced the horrid thought that had come to him—Saidie dead! And the whole brilliant plain, laughing sky, and dancing sunlight and waving palms became black to him. To go back to that dreary existence of nothingness of his former life, after once having known the delight that this bright, eager, ardent love, these delicate little clinging hands had made for him, would be impossible.
"No," he murmured to himself, "if she goes, then it's a snuff out for me too. I have never cared for life except as she has made it for me."
And the cloud rolled off him a little as he met the idea of his own death. Besides, Saidie had declared so positively that she could come to no harm, that it would all be pure delight, that pain and suffering could not exist for her in such a matter since she would be all joy in making him this gift, that gradually he grew calmer as he thought over her words.
"But I didn't want any change," he burst out a little later, talking to the still golden air round him. "Confound it! I was perfectly happy. How impossible it is to keep anything as it is in this world! All our actions drag in upon us their consequences so fast! There is no getting away from this horrible change, no enjoying one's happiness peacefully when one has obtained it."
When he arrived at his office in the city he found that a far heavier cloud had arisen on his horizon than that created by Saidie's words. The English mail was in, and a long thin envelope, impressed with a much-hated handwriting, faced him on the top of the pile of his correspondence as he entered.
He picked it up and opened it.
"DEARFRANK,—You often used to invite me to come to India, and I have really at last made up my mind to. I am coming out by next month's boat to stay with you for a time. I have been very much run down in health lately, and my doctor says a sea-voyage and six months in India will be first-rate for me. I hope you have a nice comfortable house and good servants.—Yours affectionately, JANE."
Hamilton stared at the letter savagely as he put it down before him on the table, a sort of grim smile breaking slowly over his face. He felt convinced that in some way his wife had learned of his new-found happiness, and that had given birth to her sudden desire to visit India after twenty years of persistent refusal to do so. He sat motionless for a long time, then stretched out his hand for an English telegraph form and wrote on it—
"Regret unable to receive you now. Defer visit. FRANK."
He did not for one moment think that his wife would obey his injunction, or that his wire would have the least effect on her; but he wished to have a good ground to stand on when she arrived, and he declined to receive her. His teeth set for a moment as he thought of the interview.
"This is a sort of wind-up day of my happiness," he muttered, as he took his place at the office table. "Well, I suppose no one could expect such pleasure as I have had these last three months to continue; but, whatever happens, Saidie and I will stick together." He sat musing for a moment, staring with unseeing eyes at the pile of work in front of him.
"Saidie, my Saidie! I shall never part from her; therefore I can never part from my happiness." He smiled a little at the play on the words, and then commenced his day's labours.
That evening, when he returned, Saidie noticed at once the depression in his usually gay, bright manner. When they were alone at dinner she laid her hand on his.
"What has darkened the light of my lord's countenance?" she asked softly.
Hamilton drew from his pocket his wife's letter, and laid it beside her plate.
"Can you read that, Saidie? If so, you will know all about it."
The girl leaned one elbow on the table and bent over the letter, studying it. She had been trying hard to improve herself in the language, of which she knew already something, and with Oriental quickness, had acquired much in the past three months. She made out the sense now easily enough.
"This lady is a wife of yours?" she said quickly, with a swift upward glance at him, when she had finished reading the letter.
Hamilton laughed a little.
"She was my wife till I saw you, Saidie. No one is my wife now, nor ever will be, but you."
A soft glow of supreme pleasure and pride lighted up Saidie's great lustrous eyes. She bent her head and put her soft lips to his hand.
"Have you forbidden this wife to come to you?" she asked after a minute.
"Yes, I have; but she will come all the same. English wives think it foolish to obey their husbands."
He laughed sardonically, and Saidie looked bewildered and horrified.
A month later, a long, lean woman sat in a deck chair on board an Indian liner as it crossed the enchanted waters of the Indian Ocean. Enchanted, for surely it is some magician's touch that makes these waters such a rich and glorious blue! How they roll so gently, full of majestic beauty, crested with sunlight, under the ships they carry so lightly! How the gold light leaps over them, how the azure sky above laughs down to their tranquil mirror! how the gleaming flying-fish rise in their glinting cloud, whirl over them, and then softly disappear into their mysterious embrace!
The long, lean woman saw none of the magic round her. Her dull, boiled-looking eyes gazed through the soft sunlight without seeing it. In her lap lay a thin foreign letter and a telegram, together with a copy of "Anna Lombard" that she was reading with the strongest disapproval. She picked up the letter and glanced through it again, though she knew it nearly by heart, especially one passage:
"Your husband is leading such a life here! He has built a wonderful white marble palace in the desert for an Egyptian dancing-girl. They say it's a sort of Antony and Cleopatra over again, and she goes about loaded with jewels and golden chains. I don't know if you are getting your allowance regularly, but I should think your husband is pretty well ruining himself. I never saw a man so changed. He used to be so melancholy, but now he is as bright as possible, and looks so well and handsome. I hear the woman is expecting a child, and they are both as pleased as they can be. I hear all about it, as our cook's cousin is sister to the ayah your husband hired for the woman, and my ayah gets it all from our cook. I really should, my dear, come out and look into the matter, as after a time he will probably want to stop sending home his pay."
The thin sheet fell into the woman's lap again, and she seemed to ponder deeply. Then she read Hamilton telegram again—
"Regret unable to receive you now. Defer visit," and a disagreeable laugh broke from her thick, colourless lips.
"I will go out and see her first," she thought, smoothing down with a large, bony hand the folds of her rather prim white cambric dress. She was a very stupid woman, and not a passionate one; therefore the agony of pain of a loving, jealous wife was quite unknown to her. But she was malignant, as such people usually are. She loved making other people uncomfortable in a general way, and taking away from them anything she could that they valued. She also felt a peculiar curiosity such as those who cannot feel passion themselves have usually about the intense happiness it gives to others. The picture of this other woman, who had found joy apparently in the arms she herself years ago had thrust aside, interested her profoundly. She told herself that this Egyptian loved Hamilton's money, but some instinct within her held her back from believing this.
The little bit about the child went deeply into her mind. It rested there like an arrow-head, and her thoughts grew round it. When the ship came into port a week or two later, Mrs. Hamilton was one of the first passengers to land, and after careful enquiries and well-bestowed tips she was expeditiously conveyed by ticker-gharry[2]and sedan chair across the desert to the bungalow at Deira. She was considerably pleased on seeing that the white marble palace resolved itself into an ordinary white bungalow, but the garden, was unutterably lovely, and, as she saw in a moment, represented something quite unusual in cost and care.
It was just high noon when she arrived, and she thankfully escaped from the suffocating heat and glare of the desert into the cool shaded hall, and gave her card with a throb of spiteful elation to the butler.
The Oriental servant read the name, and hurried with the card to his mistress's room. On hearing of the arrival of the Mem-Sahib, Saidie descended from the upper room, where she had been lying in the noonday heat, and, pushing aside the great golden chick that swung before the drawing-room entrance, went in.
Her dress was of the most exquisite Indian muslin that Hamilton could obtain, heavily and wonderfully embroidered in gold, and peacocks' eyes of vivid deep blue and green; her feet were bare, for Hamilton, in his revolt from English ways, had kept up Oriental traditions as far as possible in the clothing of his new mistress, and weighty anklets of solid gold gleamed beneath the border of her skirt. Round the perfect column of her neck, full and stately as the red deer's, were twisted great strings of pearls, throwing their pale irridescent greenish hue onto the velvet skin. Above the splendour of her dress rose the regal and lovely face, its delicate carving and the marvel of its dark, flashing, enquiring eyes vividly striking in the clear mellow light of the room.
Mrs. Hamilton, dressed in a plain, grey alpaca dress, rather hot and dusty after her long drive, sat on one of the low divans awaiting her. As Saidie entered, the glory of her youth and beauty struck upon the seated woman like a heavy blow, under which she started to her feet and stood for a second, involuntarily shrinking.
"Salaam, be seated," murmured Saidie, indicating a fauteuil near the one on which she sank herself.
Mrs. Hamilton came forward, her hands closing and unclosing spasmodically in their grey silk gloves, and sat down again, her eyes riveted on the other's face.
"Do you know who I am?" she said at last in a stifled voice.
Saidie smiled faintly; one of those liquid, lingering smiles that made Hamilton's heaven.
"Yes, I know; you are Mem Sahib Hamilton, the first, the old wife.".
Saidie, according to her own Eastern ideas, was in the position of a superior receiving an unfortunate inferior. She was the latest acquired—the darling, the reigning queen—confronted with the poor cast-off, old, unattractive first wife; and being of a nature equally noble as the type of her beauty, she felt it incumbent on her, in such a situation, to treat the unfortunate with every consideration, gentleness, and tenderness.
The British matron's views of the relative positions of first and subsequent wives differs, however, from Saidie's, and Mrs. Hamilton's face grew purple as she heard Saidie's answer, and some faint comprehension of Saidie's view was borne in upon her.
"Where is my husband?" she demanded fiercely.
"The Sahib is in the city to-day," returned Saidie calmly. How odious they were, these Englishwomen, with their short skirts and big boots, and red, hot faces, with great black straw houses over them, and their curt manners, and the impertinent way they spoke of their lords!
"When will he be back?" pursued the other, sharply.
Saidie glanced towards the clock.
"In a few hours; perhaps more. He returns at sunset."
"And what do you do all day, shut up by yourself?" questioned her visitor, with a sort of contemptuous surprise.
"I think of him," returned Saidie, quite simply, with a sort of proud pleasure that made the Englishwoman stare incredulously.
"Silly little fool!" she ejaculated, with a harsh, disdainful laugh.
"Does he give you all those things, and dress you up like that?" she added, staring at the pearls on Saidie's neck.
"He has given me everything I have," she replied, seriously.
That Hamilton was wasting his substance on another went home far more keenly to his lawful wife than that he was wasting his love on the same. She got up, and went close to the girl, with a face of fury.
"They are all mine! I should like to drag them off you! Do you understand that an Englishman's money belongs to his wife, andIam his wife? You! What are you? He belongs to me, and, whatever you may think, I can take him from you. By our laws he must come back to me."
Saidie rose and faced the angry woman unmoved.
"No law on earth can make a man stay with a woman he does not love," she said calmly, "nor take him from one he does. You must know little, or you would know that love is stronger than all law. I give you leave to withdraw. Salaam."
And she herself moved slowly backwards towards the hanging chick, passed through it, and was gone, leaving the Englishwoman alone in the room.
Three hours later Hamilton, sitting in his own private office, surrounded with papers, started suddenly as he heard a well-known and hated voice say, outside the door.
"Thanks, I'll go in myself."
The next minute the door had opened and his wife stood before him. He sat in silence, regarding her.
"Well, Frank, I suppose you were expecting me? You saw the boat came in, doubtless. You don't look particularly pleased to see me!"
There was only one chair in the room, and Hamilton remained seated. His wife stood in front of him.
"I do not know of any reason why I should be pleased, do you?" he said calmly, gazing at her with eyes full of concentrated hostility.
"No, considering you've got that black woman up at your house, I don't suppose you do want your wife back very badly; but I've come to stay, my dear fellow, some time, so you've got to make the best of it."
"You will not stay with me," returned Hamilton quietly. His face was very white, his eyes had become black as they looked at her. One hand played idly with a paper-knife on his table.
"And a nice scandal there'll be when I go to stay at the hotel here, and it's known I'm your wife, and you are living out in the desert with a woman from the bazaar!"
"The fear of scandal has long since ceased to regulate my life," answered Hamilton calmly. "Be good enough to make your interview short; I have a great deal of work to-day."
"You are a devil!" replied the woman, white, too, now with impotent rage, "to desert your own wife for that filthy native woman. I—"
But Hamilton had sprung to his feet; his face was blazing; he seized his wife's wrists in both hands.
"Be quiet," he said, in a low tone of such fury that she cowered beneath it. "One word more and I shallkillyou; do you understand?"
Then he raised one hand and brought it down on his gong. Instantly two stalwart, bronze giants, his chuprassis, entered the room and stood by the door.
"Take this woman out, and keep her out," he said to them. "Never let her in again. She annoys me."
The chuprassis put their hands to their foreheads, and then impassively approached the Englishwoman. She looked at her husband wildly as they took her arms.
"Frank! you will not surely—" she expostulated. "Your own wife!" and she struggled to release her arms.
Hamilton waved his hand, and the natives forced her to the door. For a moment she seemed inclined to scream and struggle. Then her face changed. A look of intense malevolence came over it. She walked between the men quietly to the door. As she passed through it, she looked back.
"You and she shall regret this," she said. Then the door shut, and Hamilton was alone.
He sat down, collapsed in his chair. Oh, how could he free himself from this millstone at his neck? What relief could he gain anywhere? To what power appeal? He could keep her out of his house, out of his office, but not out of his life. She had come here with the deliberate intention of wrecking that, and she would succeed probably, for she would have the blind, hideous force of conventional morality on her side. She would destroy his life—that life till lately so valueless to him; that dreary stretch made barren so many years by her hateful influence, but which, in spite of it, at Saidie's touch, had now bloomed into a garden of flowers. The thought of Saidie strengthened him. It was true that his wife would probably succeed in breaking up his life here from the conventional and social point of view, and he would be obliged most likely to give up his appointment; but he had a small independent income, and on that he and Saidie could still live together. They would go to Ceylon or to Malabar. Perhaps also he could make money otherwise than officially. Wherever he went his wife would probably pursue him, intent on making his life a misery. Still, Fortune might favour him; he and Saidie might in time reach some corner of the world where their remorseless tracker would lose trace of them. Perhaps to go to England at once and obtain a legal separation would be the best plan, but then it was winter in England now, and he could not with advantage take Saidie to England in winter, for fear his exotic Eastern flower would fade in the northern winds.
His thoughts wandered from point to point, and the minutes passed unheeded. His papers lay untouched, scattered on the floor. The chuprassi brought in from time to time a note, laid it on the table and withdrew. Hamilton noticed nothing; he sat still, thinking.
Meanwhile Mrs. Hamilton had been driven to the hotel, where she engaged very modest quarters and ordered luncheon. While waiting for this she went out into the balcony before her windows, and looked with gloomy eyes into the sunny, laughing splendour of the Eastern afternoon. At the side of the hotel was a luxuriant garden, and the palms and sycamores growing there threw a light shade into the sunny street just below her window; the sky overhead stretched its eternal Eastern blue, and the pigeons wheeled joyfully in and out the eaves in the clear sparkling air, or descended to the pools in the garden to bathe, with incessant cooing. Up and down the road passed the white bullocks with their laden carts, and the gaily-dressed Turkish sweet-meat sellers went by crooning out songs descriptive of their wares, pausing under the shade of the garden to look up at the English Mem-Sahib in the balcony. She leant her arms on the rail, and looked out on the gay scene with unseeing eyes. "Beast!" she muttered at intervals, and her hard-lined face crimsoned and paled by turns.
When her luncheon came in she returned to the room, took off her hat and looked in the glass. The narrow, selfish, petty emotions of twenty years were written all over her face in deep, hideous lines. The mass of yellow hair, newly-dyed, looked glaringly youthful and incongruous above it.
Burning with a sense of malevolent discontent and misery, she turned from the glass and hurried through her luncheon, then ordered it to be cleared away and writing materials to be brought in, and set herself with grim feverishness to the concoction of a long letter to the Commissioner. In it Hamilton's twenty years of patient fidelity, through which time he had regularly transmitted to her half his pay year by year were naturally not mentioned; her own refusal to live with him, her incessant demands for more money, her extravagance, her long, whining letters to him, her debts, her own life in town were, of course, also suppressed. In the letter she figured as the ardent, tender, anxious wife, arriving to find her abandoned husband wasting his substance on a black mistress. The visit to the cruel tyrant in his office was long dwelt on, and the whole closed with a pathetic appeal to the Commissioner to use his influence to restore her dearest boy to her arms. It was not a bad letter from the artist's and the liar's standpoint, and she read it through with a glow of satisfaction, sealed it up with a baleful smile of triumph, and then sounded the gong.
"Take this at once to the Commissioner Sahib," she said, handing the note to the servant, "and let me have some tea; also you can order me a carriage. I shall want to drive afterwards."
When the tea came, she thoroughly enjoyed it after her virtuous labours, and in the cool of the evening drove out to see the city.
That evening at dinner, seated at their table, laden with flowers, with the light from the heavy Burmese silver lamps falling on her lovely glowing face, and round bangle-laden arms, Saidie told Hamilton of the visit of the white Mem-Sahib. His face darkened and his lips set.
"So she came here, did she? Did she frighten you? attempt to hurt you?"
"Oh, no," returned Saidie; "not at all. Naturally she is very hurt, very sorry; no wonder she longs after the Sahib, and wishes to be taken back to his harem. I was very sorry for her. It is quite natural she should be jealous, of course," and Saidie rested one soft, silken skinned elbow on the table and leaned across the flowers, and her half-filled wine-glass, looking with tender liquid eyes earnestly at the face of her lord.