His anger kept him silent as they entered their bungalow. He was afraid to trust himself to speak.
It was his wife who precipitated the storm; she turned up the lamp that was burning low on a table in the drawing-room, and threw her cloak on to a chair with a petulant movement. The atmosphere of the room was oppressive, yet Coventry had re-bolted the long glass door by which they had entered. Mosquitoes, disturbed by the light, flew with thin screamings around their heads.
For a moment they looked at each other. The man's eyes were cold and contemptuous, and the woman's sense of injury and injustice increased till she felt wellnigh desperate. To think that she should have been dragged home like a naughty little girl from a party, who must be sent to bed as a punishment, while everyone else was still dancing and enjoying the ball!--and Mr. Kennard would have found another partner whose husband was not a monster of unreasonable jealousy. Perhaps he would smile and shrug his shoulders, and cease now to send her violets every morning,and no longer single her out for special attention, or send her little notes asking what were her plans for the afternoon--or give her books with quotations inscribed by himself on the flyleaf: quotations conveying a harmless though flattering homage. In short, all the little inarticulate attentions that to the initiated are but the preliminaries to a game that need be no more than an emotional pastime, but may be fraught with peril to the flattered novitiate.
Instinctively her hand rested on a small, beautifully bound volume that had come this morning with the violets she wore, whose perfume stirred her senses even at this moment as it floated out into the room. On the title page was traced in Kennard's peculiar writing:
"A book of verses underneath the bough,A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, andthouBeside me, singing in the wilderness--Oh! wilderness were paradise enow."
"A book of verses underneath the bough,A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, andthouBeside me, singing in the wilderness--Oh! wilderness were paradise enow."
"Aren't you going to explain?" she demanded in a stifled voice. "You have made me the laughing-stock of the station. You have spoilt my evening. Do you expect me to submit without a word? I am not a child, let me tell you; I am capable of taking care of myself."
"Apparently that is just what you are notcapable of doing," said Coventry. "Unless you promise me to behave decently in future, and unless you do so, I shall send you home to your father until my time is up in India."
A sudden remembrance of the shabby vicarage assailed her, and the dull little village, and the routine of housework, and economy; Sunday school, choir practice, parish duties, old people, the long dark winters, and the cold, and the rain, and the solitude. It chilled her spirit, and filled her with a sickening dread. Yet how could she bring herself to promise "to behave with decency," when, in her own opinion, she had done nothing reprehensible? Her "friendship" with Mr. Kennard was blameless on both sides. It might be true that he did not bear the best of characters; Mrs. Greaves had warned her, most officiously, of that, and had cited one or two so-called scandals in which he had been concerned, to all appearances, discreditably. But had he not told her himself, repeatedly, that it had all been the fault of the women, which she could quite believe, and that her influence on his life was the one good thing that had ever come his way? Had he not declared that for her sweet sake there should be no more "stories," that because of her he would be strong? Surely that was something to be proud of! Therefore, how could she turn andtreat him as though he were a blackguard, and deny him the first incentive he had ever known to rectitude of life? Why, every Sunday lately he had gone to church at her behest, and he said he had given up gambling at the club, assured her that every night he read a chapter of the Bible she had lent him--a worn little volume that had been hers since childhood, with notes in the margins, and flowers pressed between the pages to mark the anniversaries of her life's rare events--her mother's death, her confirmation, her first communion, and her marriage.
"Well?" Her husband's voice cut sharply through her thoughts.
Now she gazed at him with large, distressed blue eyes.
"Oh, George, do try to understand! There is really nothing wrong. We are only friends, and heneedsmy friendship; it helps him, it does him good."
Rage and disgust almost choked him. "Bah!" he exclaimed furiously, "don't talk rot like that to me." He took a step forward, and seized her wrist. "Can you swear to me that the beast has never attempted to make love to you? Can you deny that he follows you about, and writes you notes, and gives you presents, and that you have never tried to stop him? The fellow is notorious,and only a man who was a fool or a blackguard would stand by and see his wife go to the devil with him or with anyone else."
She trembled, terrified, and her face became distorted with tears. "You are cruel and unjust," she sobbed. "I will not bear it."
He dropped her arm, and paced backwards and forwards among the furniture. Then he stopped by the table and picked up a book--the daintily bound little volume that had come for Rafella this morning. He looked at it with contempt.
"This is the kind of unwholesome rot he tries to poison your mind with." He opened the cover, and read the verse on the fly-leaf; next moment he flung the book to the farther end of the room.
"That is enough," he said. "Listen to me! If you don't promise me this instant never to speak to the man again, I'll--I'll kill you."
Coventry was beside himself with passion, for it seemed to him that his honour, his home, his name was besmirched. He felt humiliated, wronged; and the primitive sense of outraged possession had him in its grip. Nothing could ever be the same again between his wife and himself. It was all he could do not to strike her as she stood there, white, and fair, and weak, athis mercy, yet still with a frightened defiance in her childish blue eyes.
There followed a tense pause, as with set teeth he strove to master his passion, holding his clenched hands down on the table before him.... And suddenly the silence outside was broken by the sound of wheels and the sharp trotting of a horse's hoofs that turned into the adjoining compound and ceased. Instinctively Rafella turned her head and listened. Mr. Kennard had come home from the ball. The knowledge that he was at hand gave her a feeling of partial security. That, together with indignation and resentment, kept her firm in her resolve not to be browbeaten into a promise that could only be an admission of guilt. She could not perceive that morally she had erred, though actually she was innocent of wrongdoing. It was precisely what her husband could not perceive either; to him there was little difference.
"Are you going to promise?" he asked, with menace in his voice.
She put up her hands as though to shield herself from violence.
"Are you going to promise?" he said again, and moved a little nearer.
Then her courage failed her. She was afraid of George, afraid of the look on his face that remindedher of a savage animal--afraid of his threats, and his voice, and his presence. She turned and ran to the door that had been bolted by him as they entered. He followed her. She screamed, stretching her white arms up to the bolt, dragging it down.
Next moment she was outside, running in silent terror towards the house in the next compound. The lightly clad figure sped like a ghost through the dim light of the coming dawn, and stumbled through the gap in the low mud boundary, leaving George Coventry standing on the threshold of his house as though he had been turned to stone.
Motionless he stood; then he laughed like a drunken man, and reeled back into the room that smelt of matting and lamp-oil and--violets.
The disappearance of Mr. Kennard and Mrs. Coventry came as a veritable bombshell to the station. Nobody knew exactly what had happened; there were so many different stories. Hitherto people had noticed and talked, some with jealous interest, others more or less good-naturedly, a few with real regret, but none with any expectation of a serious scandal; for domestic disaster is rare in India, in spite of popular delusion to the contrary. And when it occurs, partly because of its rarity, partly because in any community sointimate as one class of the same nationality in exile, such an occurrence goes sharply home, and creates a sensation at once so painful and exciting that it is not quickly forgotten.
It was said that Mrs. Coventry had deliberately left her husband after a terrible scene; another version was that she had confessed on the night of the bachelors' ball to conduct such as had left Captain Coventry no alternative but to allow her to go; again that he had turned her out, and she had sought refuge in Mr. Kennard's bungalow. Someone had seen the runaway couple leaving next day by the mail train for Bombay. The more charitable maintained that the injured husband had been chiefly to blame; he had made a mountain out of a molehill, would listen to no explanation, nor give the benefit of any doubt, driving his wife to the ruinous step she had taken.
All that remained evident was that Mrs. Coventry and Mr. Kennard were no longer seen in the station, and that for a short space of time Captain Coventry continued to perform his regimental duties, to play polo and racquets and cricket, in taciturn silence. His bearing inhibited questions, or mention to him of what had occurred; no one dared to intrude on his secret, and his reticence was respected. A little later he took leave on urgent private affairs and went home; and indue time an undefended divorce case, with Mr. Kennard as co-respondent, was reported without detail in the papers.
Mr. Kennard was eventually heard of in another Province, where, from all accounts, he was as popular as ever with a certain section of society always to be found anywhere, people who are attracted by good dinners and a display of wealth and an apparently superior knowledge of the world, who are content to ask no questions--which they call minding their own business.
Gossip subsided with the fluctuation of the European population of a large Indian station, where the military portion come and go, and civil officials are constantly transferred. Captain Coventry did not come back; he exchanged into the home battalion of his regiment. There came echoes and whispers that little Mrs. Coventry had returned to India after the decree had been made absolute, under the confiding impression that Mr. Kennard would make her his wife. But some declared that, of course, he was not such a fool; others that he had been blackguard enough to refuse to marry her; and what became of her nobody knew, and very few cared; for, after all, it was no one's immediate affair.
TRIXIE
Itwas sixteen years since the night of the ball in India when Mrs. Greaves had twisted her ankle, and had sat on the dais with the wife of a senior civilian discussing the unfortunate domestic affairs of Captain and Mrs. Coventry.
Now Mrs. Greaves's husband was a retired colonel, and they were living comfortably, if dully, within their means in a convenient suburb of London, engrossed in the careers of their boys, content with their surroundings, with their well-built villa, their well-trained maids, their patch of garden and their neighbours--mostly staunch old Indian friends.
Until lately Mrs. Munro, now for years a widow, had been one of these neighbours, living quietly with Trixie her daughter at the end of the Greaves's road in a little house called "Almorah." Hereabouts many of the houses bore names reminiscent of India--rather pathetic links with a past that some of the occupants frequently glorified into "happier days," forgetting as frequently howthey had pined for an English home while living in exile. More or less unconsciously the little colony of "old Indians" preserved among themselves various propensities acquired during their service abroad. For example, they bought each others' furniture, borrowed and loaned belongings with ready good nature, paid informal visits chiefly in the mornings, quarrelled sometimes about nothing, and were inclined to be exclusive outside their own circle.
They were all very happy and comfortable in spite of past glories, whether real or imagined, and when Trixie Munro grew up and clamoured for change, her godmother, Marion Greaves ("Gommie," as Trixie had called her ever since she could talk), urged Ellen Munro to let well alone and stay where she was--to pay no attention to Trixie's ridiculous hankerings after a London flat.
"You can't afford the move, my dear," she had said with truth, "and the sooner Trixie learns that other things matter besides her own whims the better." Trixie and Gommie were more often at war than on terms of peace.
However, persuasions and warnings failed, the obstacle being that the mother's whole life was bound up in the child, and for Trixie to be disappointed meant double distress for Mrs. Munro. Therefore the removal from "Almorah" to the flatin West Kensington, which was all Mrs. Munro could achieve on her income, had been accomplished in direct opposition to Mrs. Greaves's concerned and strenuous advice.
Now, on a wet afternoon in January Mrs. Greaves was starting from her suburban home to have tea in "Mulberry Mansions, West Kensington, W.," with Ellen Munro. Though her once crisp chestnut hair was faded and grey, and her sharp little face had lost its freshness and its freckles--no longer could she claim to be called "The Plover's Egg"--she had kept her health and her trimness of figure, and had lost none of her practical, vigorous grip on existence.
She selected an umbrella--not her best--from the stand in the hall, and opened the front door. A cold, wet wind blew into her face; the outlook was not encouraging, and the walk to the station would hardly be pleasant in such horrible weather. But with her usual determination she closed the door firmly behind her, giving it a pull to make sure it was shut, and set off in the wind and the rain undaunted. She trudged down the hill, traversed a long stretch of road bounded chiefly by boards that advertised plots of "desirable" land for building, and arrived at the tram-riddled town. On the way to the station, she entered a flower shop and purchased a large bunch of violets.When she emerged from the underground railway station into the muddy London street, she had to wrestle with the second-best umbrella that endeavoured to turn inside out. It was a ten minutes' walk to the Munros' little flat, and that she was carrying the large bunch of violets in a paper cone added to her difficulties in the wind and the rain; but she was wearing an old coat and skirt, and she felt it would be an unnecessary extravagance to take a cab. Ellen Munro would provide shoes and stockings while her own were being dried in the kitchen. She knew that Ellen was at home only to herself on the periodical occasions when she came up from the suburb for tea and a talk over old times.
The cold and the wet and the gloom of this January day had not deterred her from the expedition, for Ellen Munro had written to say she had an important communication to impart to her old friend, and, as a human being as well as an old friend, Marion Greaves was agog to know the news. She speculated as to what it could possibly be as she paddled along the slippery pavement; in all probability it was something connected with Trixie, and she wondered what the tiresome girl had been doing now. Seeing that Trixie was her goddaughter, Mrs. Greaves felt she was entitled to interfere when the child behaved more outrageouslythan usual. She had always considered that Ellen Munro was not sufficiently strict with the girl, allowing Trixie to be capricious and extravagant and to do just as she chose! The result some day must certainly be disastrous. What else could be expected when the mother was so weak and indulgent, and the daughter so selfish and irresponsible? The modern girl seemed to be a terrible problem, and Mrs. Greaves felt glad she had only to think of two sons, who were shaping well and would soon be supporting themselves.
She was thankful, presently, to find herself in the warm, though shabby, little drawing-room that was pathetically embellished with Indian relics--embroideries that were dulled with the London atmosphere, bits of brass and Cashmere silverwork that the cook-general had no time to clean, intricate carvings of scented wood, warped and dusty. She laid her offering of violets on a chair, where it lay neglected in the little bustle of greeting and the shedding of her wet shoes. She had bought the flowers for Ellen, who had plenty of vases, though she could seldom fill them, she could not afford niceties; every extra penny was needed for Trixie, so that Trixie need not go ill-dressed among her young friends--friends of whom Mrs. Munro inwardly disapproved, yet could not refuse to acknowledge without unpleasantness with Trixie.Silly, irresponsible boys and girls, who practically ignored Mrs. Munro when they came to the flat, and made up parties with Trixie for second-rate subscription dances, afternoons and evenings at skating rinks, tango teas, river picnics, and so on. Trixie's mother strove to give her daughter adequate pocket-money, so that taxi fares, gloves, sweets, cigarettes should not become too acceptable from young men friends.
Soon the visitor's feet were dry and warm, the cook-general had at last ceased to come in and out of the room, and the tea-kettle was boiling.
"Now," said Mrs. Greaves, "what is it?"
"Trixie is going to be married." Trixie's mother did not look at her old friend as she spoke. She gazed into the fire, and there was a certain defensiveness in her voice.
"Good gracious, my dear Ellen, why didn't you tell me in your letter?"
"You are the first person I have told," said Mrs. Munro evasively.
"Well, are you pleased? Who is he? Has he any money?"
"I suppose I am pleased, but he is so much older than Trixie." There was a pause.
"Really, Ellen, considering we have known each other since we were girls, I think you might be a little more anxious to tell me all about it.""I know I must seem horrid, but it has been worrying me rather, and I hardly know yet what to feel or say."
"At any rate, tell me the man's name?" Mrs. Greaves regarded the worn, white face of her friend with impatient anxiety. Incidentally, she wished Ellen would leave off her mourning; she had been a widow for so many years, and black had never suited her.
"It is Colonel Coventry," said Ellen, with an effort.
"Coventry? Surely not the man we knew in India--in the Barchesters?"
Mrs. Munro nodded, and there was silence between the two women, who were both thinking of Trixie, aged nineteen, pretty, pleasure-loving, wilful, as the wife of a man nearly thirty years her senior; a man, moreover, who had been noted for his intolerance of feminine frailty, for his almost puritanical views where the conduct of women was concerned. How could such a marriage prove a success on either side?
"But, Ellen----" began Mrs. Greaves, and hesitated. Then she added quickly: "Does Trixie know that he was married before, and that he divorced his wife?"
"Yes; she doesn't seem to mind. She says it was all such a long time ago. You know whatTrixie is when she has made up her mind and wants to do a thing."
"I know what girls are nowadays, and Trixie in particular," said Mrs. Greaves rather tartly. "I suppose Colonel Coventry's first marriage must seem prehistoric to her, but sixteen years to us is not so long ago. At any rate, let us hope it will steady her to be married to a man old enough to be her father."
Mrs. Munro's soft eyes filled with tears. She said in plaintive protest: "You are always so hard on Trixie, Marion. There is no real harm in the child. She only likes to enjoy herself in her own way."
"She will not be permitted to enjoy herself in her own way as Mrs. Coventry, unless he has altered very much since I knew him. It will have to be his way or nothing. Ellen, I should not like to see a girl of mine, however well balanced, married to that man. I believe him to be hard and unsympathetic. Remember how he behaved to his first wife, even as a comparatively young man. The whole station blamed him."
"I was at home that year; it was after I took Trixie home; but I remember hearing about the case. Surely Mrs. Coventry only got what she deserved? How could he have done anything but divorce her when he found out what she was?""My dear, I always doubted if there was anything to find out beyond extreme foolishness, though appearances were certainly against her. I knew her fairly well, and I never for one moment thought she had been really bad. George Coventry was one of those men who are ready to believe the worst about women, and who pose as saints themselves. Does Trixie profess to be in love with him, may I ask?"
"She seems happy. He's very good-looking, and she admires him." Mrs. Munro spoke helplessly. Then she reached behind her and took from a small table a silver-framed photograph of a man in uniform--just the head and shoulders--a stern, handsome face, with close-cropped grey hair and grave, keen eyes.
Mrs. Greaves regarded it intently. "He has grown better-looking with age," she remarked. "He looks like an elderly hero in a play. I dare say he might take a young girl's fancy." As she handed the photograph back to Ellen Munro she espied another photograph on the table, that of a young man, cheerful, impudent, boyish.
"What will Guy say when he hears of Trixie's engagement, I wonder?"
"What should he say? There was nothing between him and Trixie, and never could have been. They both knew that quite well.""All the same, it is fortunate, perhaps, that she is not going to India."
"But sheisgoing to India," said Mrs. Munro desperately. "George takes up command of that battalion next month, and he wants Trixie to be ready to go with him. She is quite willing."
"Ah!" exclaimed Mrs. Greaves significantly; and Trixie's mother sat silent, in rueful understanding.
Guy Greaves, Colonel Greaves's nephew, was a subaltern in the battalion of the Barchesters now serving in India, and it was through him, indirectly, that Trixie had met the man she had promised to marry. Some people might have imagined that she was more likely to marry the subaltern than the colonel, until that youth left England, glum and miserable; and there was one young man the less to go with Trixie and her friends to teas and dances and theatres--outings he could ill afford, "broke," as he had always declared himself, "to the world."
Presently Mrs. Munro said: "What could I do, except refuse my consent until Trixie was of age? Of course, I had to consent. I felt I had no right to raise objections that could only be indefinite. As you know, we have nothing but our pensions, and it is a galling life to a girl of Trixie's temperament. Colonel Coventry hasprivate means, and his character is unimpeachable. There are no drawbacks beyond his age and his sad story."
Mrs. Munro's voice trembled; she was almost at the end of her endurance, and she began to cry in the silent, helpless manner peculiar to women of her down-trodden type. All her life she had been sacrificed to somebody; first to her brother, who had been considered in every way before herself; then to her husband's mother and sisters, since the greater part of Mr. Munro's pay had gone home towards their support, and he had died before he could save anything for his wife and child; and then to Trixie, who had always had what she wanted as far as the widow's slender means would permit, and of late had been "such a handful," to quote Mrs. Greaves and various other of the mother's old friends.
The heart of Marion Greaves smote her. She had a genuine affection for Ellen Munro--the affection that is born of custom and propinquity. They had known each other for so many years, and had been through so much together, and having no daughter of her own Marion was deeply, if tiresomely, interested in Ellen's only girl. As Trixie's godmother she felt doubly entitled to speak her mind on the subject of Trixie's faults. She never hesitated to tell the girl she wasvain and selfish and rebellious; that, though it might be true she dusted the drawing-room and darned her own stockings, she ought also to darn her mother's, and help in the kitchen and bedrooms as well, not to speak of making some sort of attempt to keep down current expenses, instead of straining her mother's income to breaking point with her gaieties and her clothes.
Unknown to Trixie, Mrs. Greaves had more than once helped Ellen through a difficulty with a so-called loan, which was afterwards transformed into a Christmas or a birthday present, despite Mrs. Munro's grateful protests; and if, in return, Marion claimed the right to say what she thought, Mrs. Munro felt that the least she could do was to submit amiably to the raps of home truths. Trixie, however, was not so accommodating, and when Mrs. Greaves was expected to tea she generally contrived to have a pressing engagement elsewhere. Even the miserable weather to-day had not inclined her to listen to her mother's supplications that she should stay at home for once to see "Gommie."
"I have some regard for my nose," she had declared, "and I should certainly get it bitten off altogether if I gave Gommie the chance this afternoon."
Now, while Ellen Munro wept, Marion Greavesput more coal on the fire and stirred up a cheerful blaze. She also pulled down the blinds and drew the curtains.
"There," she said, "that's better. Have some more tea, Ellen," she added remorsefully, "and don't mind what I say. I know as well as you do that there's no real harm in the child. It's only a question if George Coventry will realise it when she is his wife, and make allowances for her youth and high spirits. If he manages her judiciously, I don't doubt that she will respond, for I must own that, with all her faults, the child has an honest nature. After all, you have done what seems to you best, and nobody can do more. They must take their chance of understanding each other. Only you ought to give Trixie agoodtalking to before she goes out to India." Mrs. Greaves felt torn between sympathy for Ellen and apprehension for Trixie's future. "Now, what about the trousseau? Of course, she gets a sum down for that from the fund, which is a comfort, and I will give her a cheque to get what she likes as my wedding present."
Mrs. Munro's affectionate expressions of gratitude were muffled by her pocket handkerchief, but she soon allowed herself to be drawn into an interesting discussion concerning Trixie's outfit for India, though both ladies were well aware thatthey were not likely to be allowed much say in the matter.
Covertly Mrs. Greaves glanced at the clock. If she left at once she would be home in good time for dinner; if she stayed a little longer she would miss the next train, but she might see Trixie. Mrs. Munro was oblivious of the time; she was looking happier, more alive, and she described the engagement ring which George had brought in his pocket yesterday. Such lovely diamonds; and he was going to give Trixie a pendant, and all sorts of other delightful things.
Mrs. Greaves very nearly said: "I wonder what became of his presents to the first Mrs. Coventry?" but she refrained, and the next moment the door was opened and Trixie came in, followed by Colonel Coventry.
Even "Gommie" was struck silent by the girl's beauty. She looked so vivid, so radiant, fresh from the cold and the wet outside, though her hat was crammed on to her neck, which raised the ire of Mrs. Greaves.
"Such shocking style!" she commented inwardly. Then she looked beyond Trixie to the man who was to be the girl's husband, and found herself forced to admit that, despite the difference in their ages, they made a handsome and unusual pair. Colonel Coventry was obviously devoted,and Trixie looked elated. She introduced "George" to "Gommie" with scarcely concealed pride and triumph.
A shadow crossed the man's face when Mrs. Greaves claimed him as an old acquaintance.
"I remember you very well," she said, "years ago in India. You have not been back there since those days, have you?"
"No," he answered shortly.
Mrs. Munro fluttered to the rescue. "Mrs. Greaves's nephew, Guy Greaves, is in your regiment, you know, George. It was through him, somehow, that you came across Trixie, wasn't it?"
"I believe I owe him that debt," he said, smiling; "and no doubt I shall be expected to remember it when he wants leave out of his turn."
They all laughed rather artificially, and Mrs. Greaves remarked how curious it was that most people who had been in India found themselves linked up in some way or another.
"Your future mother-in-law and I are such very old friends, and now you are going to marry my goddaughter, and there is Guy in your regiment. It all goes round in a circle."
Then she looked at the clock. "Well, I must be going, or I shall miss my train. Trixie, my dear, I hope you will be very happy and that you will try to be a good wife.""Oh, Gommie, don't be so depressing. Do say for a change that you hope George will make a good husband. That is much more to the point. How could I be happy if he should turn out to be a tyrant, and beat and ill-use me? You know, they say it doesn't matter who you marry, because you are sure to find out afterwards that you have married somebody else."
Mrs. Greaves, regarding her with godmotherly affection, as well as with disapproval, thought of the night at the railway station in India, such years ago, when Trixie had laughed and chattered and danced up and down at the window of the compartment, grabbing her toy, while her parents were breaking their hearts in farewell. Then she was only a baby and could not be blamed for her callousness; yet now at nineteen she seemed almost as heartless!
"I am sure," said Mrs. Greaves dryly, "that it will be your own fault if he does beat you, and that you will richly deserve it."
"Help!" cried Trixie.
Mrs. Greaves addressed herself to Mrs. Munro. "Now, Ellen, may I go into the kitchen and put on my own shoes and stockings? They must have been dry long ago. I only trust your maid has not allowed them to scorch."
The two ladies left the room, and Trixie lookedat herself appreciatively in the mirror over the mantelpiece and hummed a gay tune.
"Gommie is a cat," she said carelessly. "She thinks I am a sort of she-devil, and I am sure she was longing to tell you dreadful things about my frivolity, and want of heart, and my general wickedness."
There was no response, and she turned to see George Coventry regarding her with serious eyes.
"Perhaps she would also tell you that I was hard, and cold, and intolerant," he said brusquely.
"Well, if you are I shall come home again, and enjoy myself as a grass widow," she laughed.
"Trixie!" he protested; and her youth, her sweetness, her bright eyes overcame him, rendered him weak and fatuous. He caught her in his arms and kissed her passionately; she submitted with a sort of gracious triumph. He released her reluctantly. "I wonder," he said, "if I am doing wrong in taking you? My life is half over, yours is only just beginning. You have no experience, and mine has been a hard one. Do you know, child, that I swore I would never believe in a woman again? And then you came and conquered, and made me feel I had everything left to live for if you would be my wife. Trixie"--his voice held an agony of doubt--"you won't failme? You will keep alive my new-found faith? You will be a true and loving wife?"
She quailed a little at his vehemence, as though she had a sudden glimpse of something far more deep and serious than had yet come within her knowledge.
"I will try," she faltered, half-frightened. Then her gay spirit reasserted itself. "But you are not going to expect me to stay at home and mend your socks and sew on your buttons thewholetime, are you? I may go to dances, and join in theatricals, and ride, and play tennis, and enjoy myself now and then, mayn't I?" She looked at him mischievously.
He sighed rather hopelessly. "I'm too old for you, Trixie. I don't dance, and I can't act, though I certainly can ride and play tennis. I must confess I prefer staying at home to going out in the evening, though it will be a different matter now, altogether, going out with you."
"Oh, you shan't be dragged forth when you don't want to go," she said, with mock encouragement. "Guy Greaves can always take me if you don't feel inclined to turn out. I've known Guy since we were both children. He's a dear boy, and he does dance so well. He had tango lessons when he was at home last summer, and he picked it up at once."George Coventry's face darkened. "No other man will take you out whileIam your husband!" he said violently.
"Oh, George, are you going to be jealous?" she cried in genuine consternation.
"I shall not be jealous unless you give me cause," he said heatedly. "But I have no intention of playing the rôle of the complaisant husband, if that is what you mean."
"Oh, don't look so horrid and ogreish. If you can't trust me, you had better say so at once. If you imagine I am capable of doing anything that isn't cricket, we'd better agree to end our engagement. But I thought"--her voice broke and tears rose in her eyes--"I thought you really cared for me, and wanted me to be your wife and not your slave." She turned from him to conceal her tearful annoyance and agitation.
Instantly he was all remorse and repentance. "What a brute I am! Trixie, darling, do try to understand. It's only because I love you so deeply, so truly, that I can't bear to think of your having even a pleasure that I can't share with you. I want all of you, Trixie, all your confidence and your thoughts, and your moods and your companionship. My life would be impossible now without you."
She responded generously. "I know you didn'tmean to be beastly," she said, smiling her forgiveness at him. "You must take me as I am or leave me. And don't forget that I am taking you as you are, too, cross old patch." She gave him a flippant little kiss on his chin.
Then, with an exclamation of surprise and pleasure, she noticed the paper cone filled with violets that had been left on a chair and forgotten by her mother and Mrs. Greaves in the engrossment of their converse.
"Oh, delicious things!" She took them up and smelt them, then held them out to Colonel Coventry. "How sweet they are! Don't you love violets? Do violets grow in India, George?"
He recoiled from the fragrance as though it were some poisonous odour.
"I can't endure them," he said shortly.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Greaves was on her way, in the rain and the wind, to the station. "If history doesn't repeat itself," she was reflecting in anxious forebodement, "I shall be very thankful, but very much surprised."
When she got home she informed her husband that Ellen Munro was even a greater fool than she had always believed her to be.
"What has she been doing now?" he inquired, without particular interest."She has allowed Trixie to get engaged to that Coventry man we knew a hundred years ago in India. He is old enough to be her father, and he divorced his wife for nothing, and never bothered himself afterwards as to what became of her when the other man didn't marry her."
"Coventry? But he wasn't at all a bad sort of fellow!" said Colonel Greaves. "As straight as they make 'em, and such a good shot, if that is the man you mean. I remember his wife. Nowshewas a fool, if you like; he was far too good for her."
"You men always stick up for each other," protested his wife. "No doubt you are as ready to praise that horrible man who ruined poor Mrs. Coventry's life. I can't remember his name at this moment."
Colonel Greaves wisely made no reply.
INDIA
Upcountry in India spring is a period of conflicting impressions. The sharp--sometimes almost too sharp--bite of the cold season has yielded to a warm and languorous atmosphere, perfumed powerfully with mango blossom; dew still beads the grass at dawn; English flowers luxuriate, impelled to rarer bloom and fragrance. There comes a sense of ease and peace, and scented calm, that would be blissful but for the lurking knowledge that the sun is only just withholding the full fierceness of his power--giving "quarter," as it were--till preparations are complete to resist the trials of the true hot weather. Fans and punkahs must be fixed and hung, mosquito curtains washed and mended, screens of sweet kus-kus root made ready for the doorways, supplies of captive quail and teal laid in to tempt the jaded palate, when all day long the hot west wind would scorch and shrivel everything outside the darkened houses, and the temperature might stand as high at midnight as at noon.At Patalpur the winter gaieties were over, and the bustle of departure to the hills had just begun. A feeling of temporary leisure pervaded the English quarter of the station, and Trixie Coventry could enjoy the pleasant interval the more because the drawbacks of the coming months were yet unknown to her. India was perfect. How she loved the sun, the space, the colour, the friendliness, and the novelty of her surroundings! Since her arrival she had revelled in a whirl of popularity; no one's party was complete without pretty Mrs. Coventry; her beauty, her high spirits, and the fact of her youth, contrasted with her position as a colonel's wife, made her exceptionally interesting. One or two "croakers" prophesied that it would surely turn her head, but the majority could not pay her too much attention.
Colonel Coventry bore it all with a fairly tolerant spirit. His work had been heavy, his leisure filled with unavoidable engagements that he recognised were multiplied tenfold because of his wife's perfections. He attended dinners, dances, at homes, but all the while he was covertly impatient for the lull to come, when he and Trixie might be more alone together, when she would settle down, of course, to months of domestic routine. With a certain relief he had observed that, so far, Trixie had given little time to therenewal of her boy-and-girl friendship with Guy Greaves, who seemed to have no special footing in her favour; and, indeed, Colonel Coventry found nothing to complain of in his wife's attitude towards any of her numerous admirers. She was indiscriminately gracious to them all, riding with one and the other, dancing with each in turn, laughing, chaffing, accepting their notes and offerings and adoration with a gay indifference that was unquestionably beyond criticism or gossip.
But now that his duties were slackening, now that he had more leisure to devote to his young wife, Colonel Coventry began to notice that he seldom had first claim on her companionship. She was so frequently engaged for rides, and for sets of tennis that she declared had "been made up ages ago, and could not possibly be chucked." And gradually Guy Greaves seemed to be more often her partner, and to be under promise to escort her on so many riding expeditions. To Colonel Coventry the young man now appeared to haunt the veranda, to be always either calling for Mrs. Coventry, or to have "just brought her back" from something. Inevitably, dissatisfaction began to creep into the husband's heart. He was not exactly jealous--that, he told himself, would be absurd. Trixie was so frank and open, and so clearly unconscious that she was doing anything to whichanyone could take exception. Greaves was a mere boy, and, moreover, one of his own subalterns; and these facts deterred George Coventry from voicing his disapproval quite so soon as otherwise he might have done.
This evening he stood in the veranda of his bungalow waiting for Trixie to come home. Some regimental complication had called him away unexpectedly after luncheon, and he had forgotten to inquire before he started as to her plans for the afternoon. Therefore he had hurried back, intending to suggest a ride, but the bearer informed him she had already gone out with "Grivsahib." They had driven away in the sahib's dog-cart half an hour ago. Coventry, in his annoyance, imagined that the man's eyes held a veiled insolence, and the little rasp of irritation that had worried him of late increased now to definite displeasure with his wife. He went off to play racquets violently; then, calm and more controlled, he had returned, rather late, only to find that Trixie had not yet come back. His anger rose again, but when he had changed for dinner fear also beset him lest some harm had come to her, and it urged him out to the veranda.
Darkness, that in the East drops like a curtain, shrouded the compound; fireflies were sparkling in the trees, there was a smell of hot dust and tiredblossoms in the warm, still air that seemed to hold no sound. He waited, anxious, angry, on the steps, listening intently for the roll of wheels and the beat of a pony's hoofs on the hard road. Once or twice he thought he heard the sounds he expected, but they died away without coming nearer, if they had really been audible at all; and then, as he waited and listened, there rose sharply, cruelly, in his mind the memory of another night in India, many years ago, when, from another bungalow, in another station, he had heard the rattle of a dog-cart driving swiftly into the adjoining compound. He became conscious of the scent of violets. In desperate resentment he moved forward to try and free himself from this spell of hideous recollection, and as he moved his foot struck against a flower-pot. He realised then that it was a pot of violets, and viciously he kicked it over the plinth of the veranda, and heard it smash to pieces as it fell.
The next moment Trixie and young Greaves drove in at the compound gate, laughing, and Trixie called out as the trap drew up before the steps: "Did you think we were lost, George?" She sprang lightly to the ground before he could descend to help her. "Wearelate, but we've had a lovely time. Won't you come in, Guy, and have a drink?""Not to-night, thanks." Then the boyish voice was raised in respectful apology: "So sorry, sir, but we couldn't help it. Mrs. Coventry will explain."
Trixie stood by her husband's side as the dog-cart turned to leave the compound, and she called after the retreating vehicle: "Don't forget the first time there's a moon!" And an answering shout came back: "All right! Good-night!"
She laid her hand on Coventry's arm. "You haven't been fidgeting, have you, George?"
There was no answer. He stood rigid, unresponsive.
"What's the matter? Are you cross?"
"I thought something must have happened to you," he said stiffly.
"Why, what could have happened? I was quite safe with Guy."
"Mr. Greaves," he corrected.
She laughed. "What nonsense! I've always called him Guy. Why should I begin 'mister-ing' him now? Come along in; I'm so hungry." She chattered on happily. "We went on the river and rowed for miles. It was simply lovely. We saw crocodiles, and a funeral pyre on the bank, with the relations all standing round and the smoke curling up. And then we landed and got into a grove full of tombstones. Guy said he believed itwas an old Mohammedan burying-ground. So funny, with Hindu corpses being burnt just below it. What a mixed-up place India seems to be!"
"What made you so late?" he asked, following her into the drawing-room, that was bright and pretty with lamplight and wedding presents and chintz-covered chairs, though it felt a little close and airless.
"Poof!" said Trixie. "How hot it is in the house! Do let us have dinner out of doors."
"We should be smothered with insects," he objected. "We can't dine outside without lamps when there's no moon."
"Directly there's a moon," said Trixie, "I'm going to ride out with Guy to that wood and sit on a tombstone and look at the river. And then we will tango--tango in and out among the trees."
She danced a few steps, singing, down the middle of the room. She looked so gay, so full of life and health, so pretty in her white silk blouse cut open at the neck, and her short drill skirt, and a Panama hat slouched over her forehead, that Coventry's anger melted to a sad regret. He had never felt quite sure of her, never certain that she cared for him; indeed, deep in his heart he knew that Trixie was yet ignorant of love; and he was tortured with the half-acknowledged dreadthat out of some thoughtless flirtation with another man there might arise a primal passion that would wreck his life again and hers. To-night the memory of Rafella, and the dreadful moment of their parting, was so uncannily insistent that he felt as though he stood on the brink of another crisis--one that would be infinitely worse for him. He loved Trixie as he had never loved his former wife--a mature, strong love that held far less of self, combining almost a paternal feeling with the deep devotion of a husband. And now it was poisoned with a helpless, jealous sense of danger that he could not combat. It came between him and his desire to behave wisely, warily, with tact towards her. His innate horror of gossip and scandal, his latent distrust of her friendship with young Greaves, added to the lingering influence of his alarm that some accident had befallen her to keep her out so late, held him harping on the question that she had not answered.
"You haven't told me why you were so late," he said.
"Oh, George, how you do bother! I don't know, except that I suppose we forgot the time, and then, driving home through the bazaar, we got into a sort of block--a native procession, a wedding, or a festival of some kind. There was a tremendous crowd and such a noise--tom-tomsand horns and torches. We were delayed, I should think, for quite ten minutes, drawn up at the side of the street while it passed. Guy got so impatient, and wanted to barge through the middle of it, but, of course, I wouldn't let him. We should have knocked down dozens of people. And, besides, I was awfully interested and amused. I didn't want to go on. It never struck me that you might be anxious."
She ran into her room to dress for dinner, and he could hear her singing softly as she moved about. He resolved to say no more about her staying out so late to-night alone with young Greaves. If it happened again he would put down his foot once and for all. Meanwhile, he would drop a hint to the boy that his behaviour towards Mrs. Coventry should be rather more circumspect; and as to the moonlight expedition that Trixie seemed to contemplate, it would be time enough to deal with that if she talked of such a senseless prank again. Probably she would forget all about it.
He made every effort during dinner to be amiable and entertaining, to avoid any subject that might lead to disagreement, and Trixie responded in her happiest mood. Afterwards they sat outside in the veranda, lazing in their long cane chairs, talking little, quietly content, until suddenly,from the warm darkness of the compound, there came a harsh and piercing cry that rose to an excruciating pitch, then, note by note, sank back once more to silence.
"Oh! what was that?" she asked, startled.
But it was nothing more alarming than the trial song of India's cuckoo, the bird that is no harbinger of hope and life and all the joys of spring, as is his Western cousin, but the token of a time of stress and strain and trial only to be realised by those who have endured it.
"A brain-fever bird," he told her. "If I can see the beggar to-morrow I'll shoot him."
They listened as the sound rose and fell again, this time farther off.
"India rather frightens me," said Trixie, "and yet I get fits of fascination that make me feel as if the country had bewitched me. It all seems so old and so cruel, and yet so alluring. I felt the spell of it this evening on the river, and still more strongly when we were waiting in the bazaar for the procession to pass. That big city, full of people we really know nothing about, with all sorts of weird things happening in it that we never hear of.Ithink the bazaar is quite wonderful, but Guy Greaves said the smell of it was all that affected him, and his one idea was to get out of it.""The young fool had no business to take you through the bazaar at all!" said Coventry, with suppressed irritation.
Disapproval invariably spurred Trixie to truculence. "It was the shortest way," she retorted with spirit, "and we were late as it was. How were we to know that we should be delayed by a procession?"
Coventry did not reply. He had no desire to embark on further argument with Trixie.
"I suppose," she went on idly, "there are no end of extraordinary stories buried away all over India. Do you think it is true that lots of white women were carried off in the Mutiny and were never seen again, or only heard of by accident?"
"I don't know," he said, with curt reluctance to discuss such a subject. "One hears all sorts of things."
One thing had been mentioned in his hearing only this afternoon, on the racquet court, that had filled him with disgust and horror--a whisper, a rumour, that a woman, an Englishwoman, was living in a certain quarter of the bazaar. The thought sickened him. Pah! it was atrocious, if true. It recurred to him unpleasantly, increasing his annoyance that his wife should have been exposed to the gaze of a crowd of excited nativesin company with a man who was not her husband. In his opinion, the less Englishwomen were observed of Orientals the better. His determination strengthened that in future Trixie should have no escort but himself.
He found it easy to carry out his intention for the time being. Young Greaves was laid low with an attack of malaria, and afterwards he took a month's leave to join a rich globe-trotting relative on a little tour through native states. Trixie seemed quite content to ride with her husband and to have him for her partner on the tennis court. He rode extremely well and looked his best on horseback, and there were few couples who could hope to beat the Coventrys at tennis when they played together. Just then a small and select tournament was in progress, and Trixie held high hopes that she and George would win it. She coveted the prize--a handsome silver chain bag for the lady; and she meant to annex the cigarette-case as well that was to reward the victorious male partner. And George weakly promised she should have it if they won, though he disapproved entirely of women smoking, and hated to see Trixie with a cigarette between her red lips. All the same, it was a spectacle that had to be endured, for nothing he could say had yet persuaded Trixie to eschew the habit. Dances were in abeyance for the nextfew months, but there were little friendly dinners, and it was altogether a pleasant and congenial period, though daily the heat grew and brain-fever birds multiplied in the compounds, and people went out later in the afternoons and earlier in the mornings.
DOUBT
ProbablyCoventry was happier just now than he had yet been during his lifetime. He had always known, he assured himself, that, once the first excitement of her new existence had subsided, Trixie would settle down; that it could only be a matter of time for her to realise the responsibilities of a married woman's life; which self-assurance was not exactly genuine. But when doubt has safely turned to confidence, many of us are apt to forget that doubt has ever troubled us at all. However, at last Trixie seemed to have entered upon a stage of domesticity, just as whole-heartedly as she had thrown herself at first into gaieties and social distractions. She became wildly enthusiastic over her housekeeping, and tried her own and her husband's digestions severely by her daring experiments in cookery. She started a farmyard, and was triumphant concerning eggs and poultry, while George was driven silently distracted by the piercing and persistent clack of guinea-fowls. She spent contented hours at herpiano and over her home mail, which, until lately, she had rather neglected. And she did not complain of the increasing heat, nor of the compulsory imprisonment indoors during the long days. She had plenty of resources within herself, and her high spirits never flagged. Any idea of going to the hills apparently had not occurred to her, and Coventry, whose theory was that as long as she kept her health a wife's place was with her husband, prudently did not suggest it. Not that he would have actually distrusted her away from him, but his peace of mind must have suffered acutely, knowing that she was making friendships and joining in amusements that he could not supervise; for undoubtedly Trixie would enjoy herself without reflection wherever she might be, and then there was always the fear of people talking, which held a kind of nightmare niche in his imagination.
It was just at this peaceful period that an invitation came for him to join the camp of a well-known sportsman on a tiger-shooting expedition, an opportunity that no man, however uxorious a husband--and especially a man like Coventry, with whom sport had always been a passion--could easily resist without regret. And yet he hesitated. He could not honestly feel that he did not want to go, and yet he could have wished that Markham had not remembered him, had not thought ofgiving him this tempting chance, or that the letter had miscarried on the way and never reached him.
When he opened the letter he and Trixie were seated at their early breakfast in the veranda, attended by a greedy and devoted gathering of pets. Two well-disciplined fox terriers watched in quivering impatience for scraps of toast, obediently oblivious of a pair of Persian kittens that clawed and mewed and sprang in unmannerly fashion; a noisy green parrot in a dome-shaped cage; a monkey that jumped and jabbered on the back of the memsahib's chair; a tame squirrel that darted to and fro with bead-like eyes and feathery tail, even a greater trial to the dogs than the Persian kittens. Trixie worshipped animals and children; indeed, she had one day scandalised the general's wife by declaring, most immodestly as that lady considered, that she intended to have twenty babies, but, meanwhile, she could content herself with dogs and cats and monkeys.
Coventry threw the letter across the table to his wife; he half hoped she would read it with dismay, and show reluctance that he should accept the invitation. This, he felt, would give him just the excuse he wanted to refuse it, would put a definite obstacle in the way of acceptance instead of his being left at the mercy of conflicting inclinations.He watched her read the letter, but her expression did not cloud; on the contrary, it brightened.
"Oh, George!" she cried, looking up at him with shining eyes, "how lovely for you, and how I wish I could come too! I'd give anything to ride an elephant all day, and see tigers charge, and hear them roar, and then wear a necklace of their claws!"
"Markham won't have women on his shoots. He says it degrades the sport to the level of garden party games!" said Coventry.
"Oh, what a pig he must be!"
"Anyway, it would be far too rough for you, and the heat would be awful in tents. I'm not at all sure that I like the idea of it myself."
"You surely can't mean that you are dreaming of refusing?" cried Trixie, in amazed reproach. "Of course, you must go. He asks you to wire, so you must answer at once. Shall I get a telegraph form?"
"I'm not particularly keen on going," he said, with affected carelessness.
"I don't believe it! I am sure you are aching to wire and say you are coming. If you are pretending that you don't want to go because you think I shall be lonely, you can put that out of your head at once. I shan't miss you a bit."
She in her turn was acting the hypocrite. Inreality her heart had sunk a little as she read the letter. She knew she should miss George very much, that she would feel lonely, dull, and rather helpless without him, and she suddenly recognised that she leaned on him mentally a good deal more than she had been aware of hitherto. Also that his interest in and sympathy with all her little schemes and undertakings had meant much to her. Secretly she had been surprised at her own acceptance of the daily monotony and lack of excitements, and wondered vaguely why she was not bored; and now the knowledge came to her with almost startling effect that it was because of George's constant presence. She looked at him with new attention--he was in uniform, for he had just returned from early parade--and a little glow of pride in his appearance kindled in her heart. Certainly she had a very handsome husband, and, moreover, he was kind and good and faithful, even if his ideas of propriety were somewhat tedious and old-maidish, and he was inclined to be jealous and over-particular. After all, he knew the world; his experience had been long and wide, and he had no great reason to trust either men or women. Trixie seldom thought of the first Mrs. Coventry. The old story had not troubled her; hardly had she regarded it as real. The whole of George's past life was more or less unreal to her, for the reason,perhaps, that he had never spoken of more than casual happenings, or small reminiscences connected with his mother, now dead, and his sister, who had taken up missionary work in the slums of London.
In addition, Trixie was a person who contemplated the present and the immediate future to the exclusion of retrospection, partly because she was so young and had all her life before her, and again because it was her nature. She neither looked back nor far forward. Yet now a glimmering of what her husband might have suffered in the past disturbed her self-engrossment, and caused her to feel inadequate and humble, possessed with a helpless regret that drove her to an unselfish desire to conceal her own feelings over this question of his absence. Her apparent anxiety that he should accept Mr. Markham's invitation was construed by Coventry to mean that she was more or less unaffected by the prospect of his absence, and, half hurt and half resentful, he said a little captiously:
"Well, if you want to get rid of me, of course I'll go."
"You know very well you are dying to go," answered Trixie, with good humour; "and it will do you good. All these years at home you've only been able to shoot pheasants and rabbitsand little birds; and what are they compared with tigers?"
"It's much more difficult to shoot a snipe than a tiger," argued Coventry perversely.
"All the better. You'll be able to bring me back several dozen skins, and heaps of claws, and plenty of those funny little bones that make into brooches and are supposed to bring such good luck."
"How did you know about the bones?" he asked, rather to delay the making of a decision at the moment than because he wished to hear.
"Mother has one--not that it ever brought her any luck, poor dear, unless it was getting me married; and I suppose Gommie, at any rate, would call that good luck! Guy Greaves told me about the bones, too, and he's going to give me one when he shoots his first tiger. He was to have come back yesterday, wasn't he? Was he on parade this morning?"
"Yes," said Coventry.
The sudden mention at this juncture of young Greaves made Coventry's heart contract with a spasm of jealous apprehension.
"I hope," he said, with injudicious haste, "that, if I do go on this shoot, you won't let that boy hang round the bungalow and follow you about all over the place while I am away."Trixie flushed. "So that is why you hesitated about going?" she asked him ominously. "Perhaps you would like me to say 'Not at home' to visitors and refuse every invitation while you are not here?"
"Trixie, don't be foolish!" He regretted having voiced his feelings. It had put him in a false position. Now he must either accept the invitation, or refuse it and remain under the suspicion that he would not leave his wife because he feared he could not trust her to behave becomingly. "Of course, I know you would not do anything really wrong, but you are so careless about appearances, and people don't take circumstances into consideration. Why should they? They wouldn't know or remember that you have known Greaves nearly all your life. They would only say that he was in love with you, and that you were encouraging him. You can't be too careful in India, where we all know each other, and live, so to speak, on the house-tops."
"Then you wouldn't mind how much I went about with Guy so long as nobody was any the wiser?"
"Yes, of course I should; but I naturally should not put the same construction on it that people would who did not know you."
"Perhaps you had better not go, then," saidTrixie sweetly; and she began to play with the monkey and pet the kittens, and throw scraps to the dogs. Then she rose, flourishing a bunch of keys. "I must go and fight with the cook," she announced. "His bill for charcoal is preposterous. The other women tell me we use four times what we ought--or pay for it, at any rate--and, of course, that won't do, will it, George?"
He ignored the appeal, and with ostentatious indifference she strolled into the house, jingling her keys. The dogs followed her, and Coventry sat in moody perplexity, remorseful, heavy hearted. The kittens began to clamber all over the table, the monkey helped himself from the sugar-basin, and the parrot rent the air with jealous abuse in Hindustani. Oblivious to it all, Coventry lit a cigarette and stared out at the dry compound. He was reflecting that he ought not to have married again at his age and with his temperament--or that at least he should have chosen a sedate and serious spinster, if not some gentle widow, who would have caused him no anxiety, no heart disturbance, as did Trixie--one whom he could have left without a qualm for any call of pleasure or of duty. And Trixie was to be pitied. She might have been far happier with a young husband as gay and heedless, and as irresponsible, as herself. They would have gained their experiences, have"worried through" together, come out none the worse for ups and downs and disagreements, having the same outlook on life, and with youth and tastes in common. He wondered if she repented her marriage, if he bored her, if perchance she really preferred the company, say, of young Greaves, to his own? The thought tortured him. He felt he could not go away and leave her. He would only be miserable, unable to enjoy himself, thinking of her all the time, picturing her riding, driving, laughing with that idiotic boy, while the station smiled and whispered, amused, yet commiserating the absent husband.
Markham's letter had fallen from the table and lay open at his feet. He picked it up and read it through again, and the call of the jungle stirred his blood with unwelcome temptation. It was such years since he had heard the whisper of an Indian forest and the hot, dry crackle of tall grass, since he had swayed on the back of an elephant, alert and ready for the sight of a great striped beast, and known the fierce excitement of "sitting up" over a "kill," waiting breathless, motionless, for the first faint sound of a stealthy tread.
Trixie came back. She slapped the kittens and scolded the monkey, and then looked over George's shoulder.
"Well," she said cheerfully, "have you madeup your mind? If you're going, you ought to overhaul your guns and rifles without any delay. You'd have to start in a day or two. You see, he says the 15th at the latest." She pointed with a pink, tapering finger to a paragraph in the letter.
He moved restlessly. "I must think it over," he said, with some irritation.
"All right. But you can't keep Mr. Markham waiting indefinitely for your answer. There are hundreds of men who would give their eyes and ears and noses for the invitation. I only wish I could dress up as a man, and stick on a moustache, and go instead of you."
Anger seized him, engendered by his mingled feelings of reluctance and desire to take advantage of the chance.
"Hang!" he exclaimed, rising to his feet. "I'll go, and take the consequences."
"What consequences?" asked Trixie. "George, you weren't really serious when you talked about Guy Greaves just now? You don't really think you couldn't leave me for a fortnight in case I should get into mischief, and do something that would make you and me seem ridiculous?"
"You don't understand," he argued hotly.
"Then will you explain?"
"I have tried to, but you can't see my point of view. It isn't that I don't trust you, Trixie;I know you don't mean any harm; but if you make yourself conspicuous with other men you can't expect people not to talk and think the worst, and I can't bear that you should be a subject for scandal."