Awakening : A study in possibilities

By Maud Diver

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Title: Awakening
        A study in possibilities

Author: Maud Diver


        
Release date: June 10, 2026 [eBook #78836]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1911

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78836

Credits: Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AWAKENING ***






  AWAKENING

  A STUDY IN POSSIBILITIES


  BY

  MAUD DIVER



    "To hold by leaving; to take by letting go,
  Leaving and again leaving, and ever leaving go of the
      surface of things;
    So taking the heart of them along with us--
      This is the law."
                                        EDWARD CARPENTER



  NEW YORK
  DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
  1922




  COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY
  DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

  PRINTED IN U.S.A.




  TO YOU

  Who have always sympathized,
  Always believed, always understood,
  I dedicate this book.

  M. D.


  "There is a collaboration loftier and more real than
  that of pen. It is the collaboration of thought and
  example."--MAETERLINCK.




  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  CAPTAIN DESMOND, V.C.
  THE GREAT AMULET
  CANDLES IN THE WIND




CONTENTS

BOOK I. THE SEED

BOOK II. THE BLOSSOMING

BOOK III. THE FRUIT




BOOK I

THE SEED



AWAKENING



CHAPTER I

  "I stay my haste, I make delays,
    For what avails the eager pace?
  I stand amid eternal ways--
    And what is mine shall know my face."
                          BURROUGHS.


"Where on earth did she spring from?  And who, in the name of all
that's exquisite, can she be?"

Nevil Sinclair asked himself the question, with quite a keen touch of
curiosity, as he sat idly smoking under the araucarias that front the
Cap d'Antibes Hotel.  A slim, clean-cut figure of a man, with long
sensitive hands, a mobile face, and thoughtful eyes where a smile
lurked always like a beam of light.  He looked round in search of
information.  But no one was at hand to enlighten him, and his gaze
reverted to the vision on the corner balcony; a vision unusual as it
was arresting to an artist's eye and brain.

The olive skin faintly aglow, the velvet darkness of eyes that
brooded upon sky and sea, were framed in a gold-bordered _sari_, pale
as an evening primrose, that half veiled without hiding the sweet
seriousness of the girl's face.  These, and her aloofness from the
chattering tea-drinkers in the verandah below, conspired to give her
an alluring air of unreality; and her purely Eastern stillness, in
that temple of unrest, a Riviera hotel, enhanced the effect.

Sinclair had leisure to approve the delicate curves of brow and cheek
and nostril, the slender symmetry of the hand and arm resting on the
balcony's ledge, the classic poise and outline of the veiled head.
For all the gravity of her eyes, a hint of passion in the ripe lower
lip, and of wilfulness in the round chin that matched it, promised
just those varying elements of light and shade that would some day
make her all a woman.  At present she seemed little more than a sheaf
of possibilities; a bud half open awaiting the strong kiss of the
sun.  And behind her loomed the wide, white façade of the Hotel du
Cap, uncompromisingly square and solid; as it were the House of Life
with its hundred rooms, and hundred complications, old as the sea,
yet eternally changeful as the myriad waves thereof.

Sinclair had dallied with love in more than one form, even as he had
dallied with art and life; reaching the core of none.  But art had
lured him farthest; and he saw this child of an alien race rather as
a possible picture than a possible woman.  Her absorption tempted
him: so also did the sketch-book on his knee.  He opened it, and
paused--looking upward.  The thrill of inspiration was on him: a
visitation too rare, too imperative to be ignored.  There was also
the insidious joy of yielding to temptation.  Out came the pencil,
and he went swiftly and skilfully to work.  Naturally she moved the
moment stillness was essential.  But it was only to set an open book
upon the ledge and give him an instant's fuller vision of her face.
Then, her cheek lightly resting on her hand, she fell into a pose
more lasting, more enchanting than before.

"Ye gods!  I'm in luck!" the Englishman muttered; and worked on.

Slowly the sun dipped behind the araucarias and the lofty blue gums,
with their slender, listless leaves.  Slowly the shadows engulfed the
gravel path.  The militant snortings and puffings of motors, that
bore away chance visitors, sounded faint and fainter in the deepening
quiet, and the chatter of tea-drinkers was hushed.  Those that were
not chance visitors took unto themselves books, work-bags, shawls,
and strolled down the wide, tree-bordered road to the coast line of
tumbled rock that gleamed, grey-white, against the blue enchantment
of the Mediterranean.  The Princess from the Arabian Nights watched
them, as they went, with eyes that questioned and wondered and
dreamed.  Then she reverted to her book; and Sinclair to his sketch.

Slight though it was, instinct told him that--in years of promising
and even distinguished amateur work--he had never come so near to
"the real thing."  Be she Princess or Peri, by some means he must get
speech of her, and win leave to convert his sketch into the
picture--long dreamed of yet never achieved--that should prove him
indisputably an artist, and bring home to the father, who would fain
have him a politician, the futility of trying to force a square peg
into a round hole.

He had left England mainly to escape a political "gathering,"
organized for his benefit at the country house of an elder sister.
Lady Roscoe, wife and daughter of politicians, lived and moved and
had her being in the strenuous atmosphere of party politics.  "More
party than politics," Nevil averred--but not in her hearing.  Like
her father, she could appraise pictures, books, music intelligently
enough; could even enjoy them in the rare moments when she was
socially and politically "off-duty."  And, like her father, she had a
tendency to scorn the creators of these superfluous delights.  It was
a case of "music and pictures must needs come.  But woe unto him
through whom they come."  Authors she could condone, provided they
were not poets and had achieved material success.  Journalists she
almost venerated.  Without them where would be the newspapers that
were her daily bread?  Such were her views in regard to ordinary
mortals.  But that a Sinclair, and an eldest son to boot, should
associate himself professionally with anything of the kind was an
innovation against which she set her typically Sinclair face like a
rock.

The Sinclair men--and a distinguished line of them stretched backward
through a score of generations--had so far been singularly free from
such vagrant impulses.  But family traditions, however sacrosanct,
are lamentably at the mercy of individual impulse; and a woman of
poetic temperament had cast her spell upon Nevil's father, the
present Sir George, luring him from sage consideration of Sinclairs
to come.  Such, at least, was Lady Roscoe's version of the matter.
Any other had seemed to impugn the wisdom of the man in whose image
she herself was made.  She preferred to shift the burden of
responsibility on to Lady Sinclair, who had been gone long enough to
be exempted from the kindly fiction that the dead can do no wrong.

Yet wrong or no, she had seriously inconvenienced the house of
Sinclair by bestowing her own name and nature upon the first man
child she had gotten from the Lord.  On him, too, she had expended
her repressed genius for devotion--as little understanded of her
husband as any other form of genius.  For nine years the boy had been
hers, body and soul, and in those years the man was made.  Not all
the after influences of school and life could efface the stamp of her
personality on the child she had so loved.  But Nevil had a streak of
Sinclair in him also.  Hence complications.  Fondness for his father
and dominant elder sister made him shrink from disappointing them;
while he shrank, yet more, from the path worked out for him by
tradition, and by ambitions that were not his own.

So it came about that Lady Roscoe's letter of a week ago, hinting at
a house-party that might prove profitable in view of the General
Election looming ahead, had spurred her refractory brother in quite
the wrong direction.  Scenting fresh schemes for his political
salvation, he had wired straightway for his favourite room in the Cap
Hotel, and had fled to the South of France, on the wings of an
express, to paint Antibes sunsets, and possibly Italian fishermen;
and, if the Muse were kind, add a few poems to the small volume he
had in hand.  The kindness of the Muse had taken a form quite other
than he sought; for the which he blessed her fervently, while the
sketch grew under his hand and inspiration fluttered nebulous wings
in his brain.

"By Gad--it's not half bad!" he muttered, surveying it at length,
with a rare glow of satisfaction.  "Martino shall see it--to-morrow."

Then, from the tail of his eye, he discerned a slim grey figure at
the foot of the wide steps; he looked round, started, and sprang up,
hastily pocketing his treasure.  The girl in grey started and
quickened her pace.  But she was not of the type that scurries.  She
merely took a longer stride that accentuated her boyish straightness
and suppleness of limb.

Sinclair greeted her impulsively.  "Why, Miss Hammond!  You back
again, too, at the dear old 'Cap'?  What luck!"

She smiled upon him frankly with clear eyes, almost as grey as her
dress, and, being observant, he noticed that her hand had grown
harder to the touch since he held it last.

"It used not to be 'Miss Hammond' in the old days," she said as they
sat down.  "I am still Audrey--to my friends."

"Audrey, then--by all means!  I didn't dare, at first sight.  We have
grown up so aggressively since then.  And you've been doing great
things in India, I suppose--doctoring, riding, dancing?"

"Not a great deal of the last," she answered cheerfully.  "As a rule,
I felt too done up by the evening.  Hyderabad isn't exactly bracing;
and my life out there was a very full one."

"Ah!"--a shadow of envy lurked in his tone.  "And mine, at home, has
been quite the reverse.  I often thought of you, and your progressive
schemes, and wondered whether doctoring zenana ladies had modified
your advanced views on the Woman Question, or whether you had fired
them with a craving for the Suffrage--or its Eastern equivalent!"

Audrey Hammond laughed outright.  "How little you know of me or of
them, poor dears, to imagine either!  My own views have not retreated
one inch; and as for them--well, I did more than doctor them.  I
taught a few, and helped--in other ways, when the chance offered.
Rather like trying to alter a coast line by shifting pebbles on the
shore.  Still--one may have done _some_ good; let a little light into
their custom-ridden souls.  But I won't tax your good-nature by
boring you with such things----"

"Which means that they are too sacred to be discussed with a mere
man; even an old friend who has come within sight of the thirtieth
milestone since we lazed and argued on this enchanted headland four
years ago."

"And has not yet achieved a seat in Parliament, or a picture on the
line?" she queried, slipping past the point at issue with the
self-possessed ease of her type.

"Neither," said he, and opened his silver cigarette case as one in
search of consolation.  "The good old man at home is still hopeful.
Jane, the indefatigable, will not suffer the temples of her head to
take any rest till she has cajoled me into swallowing the gilded
political pill.  But the failure of the family remains where you left
him----"  He paused to light his cigarette, and the girl scanned his
well-remembered face and figure with kindly critical eyes, that, like
her hands, were a trifle too hard for her years.

Her silence was more pregnant than speech; and he looked up again
quickly with a disarming smile.

"You disapprove, of course.  We never did agree about things, did we?
Which was just why we couldn't resist discussing them!  I'm not
'indifferent to my country's welfare,' as Jane assures me in her most
parliamentary voice.  The larger issues interest me enormously.  But
minor details of legislation weary me to death; and I confess I feel
no serious call to take an active part in 'the savage wars of peace'
that can be waged very effectually without my luke-warm assistance!"

She smiled in spite of disapproval.

"Have you ever in all these years felt a serious call of any kind?"

"Frankly, I can't say I have," he confessed without shame; the
twinkle deepening in his eyes.  "Too many-sided, perhaps; or too
little call to exert myself.  That's the curse of the ready-made
income, plus family records!  But I've not been altogether idle while
you tried to hustle the East.  I've written a fair sheaf of essays
and verses; painted a few decent pictures, read widely and knocked
round Europe with my eyes open----"

She waved aside his list of mild "achievements."

"Mere dilettantism!  In a world full of work worth doing, and wrongs
crying out to be set right!"

"Hear, hear!" he applauded, with his most imperturbable smile.
"Spoken like the 'Minerva' of old times!  Study the 'Apology for
Idlers,' Audrey.  That's my credo--if I have one.  After all, there
must be a few of us, if only to keep the balance of things.  And
since a million or so of women have waxed strenuous or nothing, what
can the superfluous male do but sit mutely admiring and look on!"

"A rôle for which he gets finely trained at school--watching cricket
and football!" she retorted with a touch of heat.

"Yet even there I seem to remember that now and then he gets out into
the field and kicks or slogs the ball to good purpose.  Some day,
even I may get out into the field too, when I really discover a ball
worth kicking, or a game worth playing."

"You call yourself an artist and talk so----"

"Pardon me.  I call myself a double-distilled amateur."

"Oh--you are as exasperating as ever!--I mean--you care for your art.
At least--I thought----"

"So did I, worse luck!  But the Fates must have quarrelled badly when
I was born, so that all my threads came out tangled.  And they had
not even the grace to endow me with a gift for unravelling tangles;
or with enough selfishness to go my own way in spite of my dear old
father's prejudices.  For him, my art is 'futile piffle'; a
decorative hobby that has helped to keep me out of mischief--or so he
believes.  For me, it is the one thing on earth that might have been
worth doing; would have been if--if my mother had lived----"

She turned on him--rebellious and decisive.

"Don't be weak-minded and shift the responsibility.  If it would have
been, it _is_, still."

"You forgot the long apprenticeship, the great gulf that divides the
artist from the amateur.  If my spell in the _Quartier Latin_ taught
me nothing else, it taught me that."

"You could go there again--why not?"

"Oh, for a score of reasons.  And I'm almost too old for it now.
Every idle year that slips by puts achievement farther out of reach.
Inspiration grows rarer.  Which reminds me--you interrupted one just
now."  And he glanced towards the balcony, fearful lest his vision
had fled.

No.  She had merely deserted her book, and leaned over the parapet
watching them with absorbed eyes.  Then, as Audrey Hammond looked up
also, she smiled and waved her hand.

"You know her?" Nevil cried eagerly, and Miss Hammond's brows went up
ever so little.

"Certainly, I know her.  I am more than half responsible for her
being here.  And was she responsible--for the inspiration?"

A faint change of tone checked the artist's impulse to produce his
work; and he merely answered: "Yes.  I was trying to make a sketch of
her when you came up."

Miss Hammond frowned.  "That was a mistake.  I am glad I interrupted.
They would hate the idea."

"And who are they?"

"She and her father--a high-caste, cultivated Hindu gentleman.  I
came home with them."

"But when did you arrive?  That should have been my first question!
Just like us to plunge headlong into an argument without playing How,
When, and Where?  I never saw you at dinner last night."

"No.  We are wealthy and exclusive!  We have private rooms and feed
upstairs.  The daughter is the one tangible, practical result of my
three years' crusade.  She has been plucky enough to break through
the hampering laws of purdah and caste; and is still rather shy and
bewildered with it all.  But at least she is here, studying medicine,
under my guidance--for the present."

"Studying medicine!  That beautiful child----"

The masculine implication annoyed her.

"Well, why not?  Because she is beautiful, or because she is a child?"

"Oh, a little of both.  Of course, I am an ignoramus about such
matters, and you're quite the reverse, only----"  He glanced again at
the embryo student of medicine.  His vague recoil from the idea did
not readily phrase itself under the quiet challenge of Audrey's grey
eyes.

"What is the rest of the programme?" he ended lamely.  "The final
goal in view?"

"You are really interested?"

"Immensely.  Catholic tastes breed catholic interests.  Call it
dilettantism if you choose.  Well?"

"My hope is, of course, that when I have put her in the way of
things, she will go to college and take a degree.  Then she will go
back to India--and move mountains!  Her loss of caste can be restored
by ceremonies of purification; and she will do greater things for her
self-restricted sisters in a few years than I could do in a lifetime.
The more one sees of Indian life behind the scenes, the more one
realizes that the ideals and aspirations of the West can only be
instilled into Easterns _by_ Easterns--not by foreigners.  One can
only hope to make some impression on units, and trust them to carry
on the larger work."

A rare glow of enthusiasm transfigured her face; she looked almost
beautiful.  Nevil, though still unconvinced, felt a sudden pang of
envy.  This was the quality he lacked; this, and the invisible
assurance that vibrated in her voice.

At that moment the Princess, who would be a doctor, left the balcony.
Both followed her with their eyes.  Then Nevil spoke.

"And has she caught fire from your zeal?" he asked half anxiously.

"Only in part, so far.  But once her foot is on the ladder, that will
come.  It was her own wish, and I believe she will carry it through.
They have a fund of character and courage that would surprise
you--those gentle, dreamy-looking Indian girls who have seen nothing
of life outside their own walls.  But I must go up now.  Lilamani may
be wanting me."

"Lila--how much?"

"Lee-la-mun-nee," Audrey said slowly; and he, repeating it after her:
"Was there ever a more musical name?  The lilt and the rhythm of it.
I hope it has a meaning to match."

"I don't know about matching!  _Mani_ is jewel, and _lila_ Sanskrit
for delight."

"Jewel of Delight," he mused aloud; and she, with her practical
briskness:

"Yes.  Rather too fanciful, isn't it?  Eastern names are apt to
be.--Well, good-bye till to-morrow."

"Why not to-night?  Do they never come down?"

"Not in the evening; at least, not as yet.  Lilamani is still
ridiculously shy.  _I_ should insist.  But her father says 'not till
she wishes it herself.'  He spoils her; idolizes her.  When he is
gone, I shall have a better chance."

"Well--introduce me, will you, when they do come down.  New types are
interesting."

Thought of his unfinished sketch imparted a veiled eagerness to the
casual request; and Audrey, noting it, smiled her inscrutable smile,
that too rarely invaded her eyes.

"Sir Lakshman Singh often comes down, and is very well worth talking
to," said she.  "As a young man he spent several years at home;
studied at Cambridge, I think.  And though he still remains within
the pale of Hinduism, his whole view of life is admirably sane and
broad.  The girl has mainly been taught by him.  But with all her
free and fearless mental outlook, her actual emancipation is still
not much more than skin deep; and being a well-bred Hindu girl she
naturally shrinks from promiscuous talk with strangers, especially
men----"

"Surely--as an old friend of yours--I might be privileged."

"Possibly.  We'll see.  But, Nevil, you must tear up your sketch."

He started visibly.  "Great Scott--that's a pretty cool request.  And
why on earth----"

"Oh, for a dozen reasons.  I told you they would hate the idea; and
'one can't spend the day in explanations,'" she quoted with a little
nod of friendly decision.  "It's really very nice to find you here
again.  _Au revoir_."

She ran lightly up the steps into the wide hall; and Sinclair stood
looking after her in a mixed frame of mind--expectant, interested,
yet vaguely annoyed.  He liked her greatly; always had done.  He had
felt a real glow of pleasure in meeting her again.  He admired her
pluck, her single-mindedness, her unobtrusive strength; all of which
had been emphasized by four years at grips with stern realities.  In
those four years she seemed to have grown older than he; had done so,
in fact, since the soul's calendar is measured by acting and doing,
rather than by months and days.

Yes.  He admired her as much as ever.  But he did not approve her
scheme for conjuring a lady doctor out of an Arabian Night's
Princess; and no word of hers should induce him to destroy his
latest-born--his gift flung straight from heaven; earnest of greater
things to come.




CHAPTER II

  The new hath come, and now the old retires:--
  And now the soul stands in a vague, intense
  Expectancy and anguish of suspense,
  On the dim chamber threshold....--SAROJINI NAIDU.


"Tired of studying, my pale lotus-bud?  No need yet to do too much.
We are here for rest!"

Sir Lakshman Singh put out a welcoming hand and drew his daughter
towards him.  A creature of infinite grace she seemed in her
primrose-pale dress and _sari_, that clashed oddly with the setting
of a modern hotel sitting-room.  Not tall; though her slenderness and
uprightness, as of a young palm, gave an illusion of height, and her
movements had the leisured, rhythmic quality that comes to fullest
flower in the East.

Now she crouched kneeling, with a small, glad sigh, by the great
arm-chair in which her father sat; his own light English suit and
jade-green turban aptly symbolic of the dissonance within.  At the
meeting of their eyes soul spoke plainly to soul: too plainly for the
man's peace of mind.  He, like Sinclair, had his doubts about the
scheme, accepted by him as the one way out of an _impasse_, typical
of India as she is to-day.

His wife, orthodox to the bone, had rebelled fiercely against the
Anglicizing of even one daughter out of three.  But for a time the
will of her husband had prevailed.  The child had been his own, to
make or mar, till the question of betrothal could no longer be
deferred.  Then did outraged orthodoxy assert itself with power.  For
there be two autocrats in the Hindu home: the mother and the family
Guru; the holy man, who carries good or ill in the hollow of his
hand.  These, between them, had discovered a bridegroom, elderly and
dissolute but wealthy and of unimpeachable caste; a sinner rigidly
conservative, whose eagle-nosed mother might be trusted to reclaim a
spoilt daughter-in-law and cure her of new-fangled follies.  Reports
of Lilamani's beauty fired the bridegroom to impatience; and the
matter was formally set on foot.

But they reckoned without the daughter of new India, and the blood of
Rajput fighters in her veins.  Lilamani--proud, wilful, and lightly
disciplined--would have none of him; and her father, after
heart-searchings and vain pleading with the autocrats, had refused
his consent.  Followed a slow, implacable battle of wills, till the
girl's health gave way under the strain, and Lakshman Singh,
distraught with anxiety, had insisted upon calling in Miss
Hammond--caste or no.  It was then that Audrey had seen her chance of
enlisting an Eastern recruit.  Why should the girl marry at all?  Why
not complete her unorthodox education by studying medicine at home,
and returning, in due time, to help those who were so pitifully
unable to help themselves?  It was a daring suggestion: but Sir
Lakshman had caught at it, as a drowning man at a straw.  To
Lilamani--bruised and broken from the storm--it seemed as if a gate
had been opened into Paradise.  And Audrey Hammond had her way.

Thus it had come about that at last--in the teeth of stormy
reproaches and bitter opposition--the three peaceful-looking rebels
had set sail for France and the sun-smitten headland where Audrey
herself had recruited after hospital training.  Such heroic snapping
of chains is still comparatively rare among high-caste Hindu women;
and Lakshman Singh--for all his admiration of the best in English
thought and life--felt not a little anxious as to the ultimate fate
of this daughter, who was in truth as well as in name his Jewel of
Delight.  In the beginning it was much that health and gladness once
more had their home in her cheeks and eyes.  For the rest, he was
content to wait, and watch the confluence of her clear spirit with
the complex spirit of the West.  And at least they were together
without let or hindrance: which sufficed.

He slipped an arm round her crouching form; and she, with the light
laugh of a child, leaned nearer, one tapering finger at her lips.

"Breathe it not to Audrey, father mine.  But all thought of study has
been far from me.  The book she lent me had ugly words in it; and in
all this loveliness they seemed to hurt my mind, even as an ink-blot
on my _sari_ would hurt my eyes."  Slipping her fingers beneath a
gold-flecked corner, she regarded it with grave tenderness, then
turned to him again, her sensitive face alight.  "Oh, father--how it
is beautiful, the way of the sun upon the sea!  As if for very love,
he had flung himself into the deep blue heart of it; and the sea
godlings had bewitched him into a million golden butterflies with
tireless wings that yet cannot bear them aloft----"

"And was that the sum total of your studies, child of learning?" the
man asked, smiling at the quaint conceit.  "Was there not a book
also?  Twice I passed under your balcony.  But you never looked up,
nor even turned the leaf; and I thought I would speak to Miss Hammond
that until you were stronger she should not press you too hard."

"Kindest!  It is true there was a book.  But not hers.  The way of
the brain had wearied me.  So I followed instead the way of my own
heart--and I was happy."

"That is always good hearing," spoke the father, whose idolatry stood
in Audrey Hammond's light.  "Yet, remember, Light of my Life, the way
of the heart too seldom winds up the hill of achievement."

"It is the way of all true women, none the less," answered she of
seventeen summers with a low-toned passion of conviction, that was in
itself a tragedy, seeing that her own feet were set upon a stonier
path.

Words and tones smote the father's heart.  Bending his head to hers,
he spoke softly in his own tongue.  "Lilamani, dost repent?"

And she, in the same tongue, while sudden tears pricked her eyeballs:
"Nay.  I chose the lesser of two evils, and--I look not back.  That
is for weaklings: not for the daughter of Lakshman Singh.  But--if
there might have been talk of another bridegroom----"

"Child, child--that I feared.  I spoke of it to thy mother.  But thou
knowest how it is.  When a woman and a priest are agreed not even
Durga the Ten-handed can prevail against them.  Moreover----"

"Yes--I know--I know----"  And now it was upon his lips that her
light hand was laid.  "Of what avail to speak?  There was no help but
this; and I have peace and freedom and _thee_.  Enough of
trouble----"  She waved it aside as if an actual presence shadowed
her, and her sudden relapse into English had the effect of a snapped
thread.  "Better a hundred times to talk of the sun and the sea and
of my deep, deep studies!  Look!"  She drew from under her drapery a
small volume bound in fawn and gold.  "What would Audrey say?  No
dusty book about cobwebs in the House of Life and how to brush them
away.  But my wonder-woman of India--Cornelia Sorabji!  Her words are
never ugly.  Even upon the hard way of the brains she makes flowers
peep between the stones.  And why I did not turn the leaf was because
I was reading--no, dreaming--over and over, the words of her 'Wise
Man, Truth-Named,' when he tried to make 'a clearing in the jungle'
where they two might sit and speak of 'the big-little things.'"

He smiled at her young enthusiasm, her musical flow of speech.

"What words, child?  I have forgot.  There are too many words in
these days, when the wayside fountains run ink; and the mills grind
out books for flour, so that a man's brain cannot hold a tithe of all
that passes through it.  But the big-little things are always good to
remember.  Show me----"

"No need to show.  I have it all here," touching her forehead, "in
letters of gold upon a scroll of blue."  And closing her eyes, "the
better to read," she spoke, half in recitative, with the grave
simplicity of a child praying at its mother's knee.

"'God!  By what sign shall we know him?  How conceive?  Imagine only
light and light and light, everywhere pulsing, throbbing.  From the
beginning was that and only that; and that was God.  But with God
exists the power and mercy of God; not separate; but as closely
allied as ... the scent of the rose to the rose, as the colour of a
flower to the flower.  Men talk of one God, as if there could be two
or three.  There is just God--the All-pervading, the heart of the
heart of Beauty, the great first Flame which lights every flame that
leaps into life.  Light and light and light; brilliance at the soul
of brilliance ... the God-spark in every soul, in everything created
... only by recognizing this shall we recognize God.  There is no
other way!'"  Then, lifting her gaze to his, she added, still softly,
but in the tone of every day: "And the Wise Man says also: if we do
not keep our windows clean, and the light cannot get through--is that
the fault of the flame?  Was he not rightly 'Truth-Named'?"

Her father's answer showed in his eyes, while his hand caressed her
brow.

"So small a casket to hold such great thoughts," said he.  For being
a man--even though of the religion-breathing East--he could not
readily speak of such things.

Then they started, almost as if they had been lovers.  For there was
a hand upon the door.

It proved to be Kali Das--faithful through all vicissitudes, even
unto loss of caste; and he brought the Indian mail, the second since
their coming.  It was a day early, and Lilamani caught her breath at
sight of the thin envelopes.  A little ache of home-sickness
contracted her heart, not for the first time.  Lakshman Singh, being
a man of note in Hyderabad, had much official correspondence.  But
there was only one envelope out of half a dozen that really
mattered--to them both.

In a silence eager, yet anxious, they explored its contents--a long
letter from Ram Singh, eldest son and brother, and a short one in
laboured English from fourteen-year-old Vimala, smuggled doubtless
without her mother's knowledge.  A quaint, childish effusion it was.
The small writer hovered incoherently between envy at her sister's
daring, a pretty self-importance at her own recent betrothal to an
unknown fairy prince; in her case, happily, a young one.  Lilamani
smiled as she read, and was glad, though a needle-pointed arrow
pricked her heart.  She also envied.  It is the way of life.

Then she glanced at her father, who was scanning his son's letter
hungrily, yet with clouded brow.  Feeling her gaze upon him, he
looked up, and there was a moment of silent communing before the girl
said wistfully: "No message from Mataji*--even yet?"  For Mataji,
obdurate to the last, had refused to bestow her blessing on the
impious quest.


* Honoured Mother.


"It will come in time, little one--in time----" he answered,
enclosing her hand in his.  "Ram Singh writes that she is well.  For
the rest--quarrels and worries the minute my back is turned."  And he
held out the sheet for her to see.

While they pored over it, head close to head, Audrey Hammond softly
opened the door; shutting it again yet more softly, even as Lilamani
stirred, and her father glanced at the clock.

"Lucky these came so early," said he.  "By writing to-night, I may
just catch the out-going mail.  You can send a few words to Vimala
also.  The child is happy?"

"As a young green parrot in love-time," Lilamani answered lightly.
"I will speak my few words to her out there on the balcony, that I
may watch the great sea fall asleep at the passing of the sun."

"Little idolater!" he chided, as she went; and she shook her head,
smiling back at him over her shoulder.

The sun's passing was near at hand now.  Lilamani's "butterflies" no
longer flittered on the waters.  The faultlessly-carven coast line of
the Esterelles--so close and varied an hour earlier--seemed to have
stepped backward miles upon miles into a wonderland of golden mist,
that translated them from solid rock and stone into dream-hills of a
strangely thin, clean outline that enhanced their delicacy of shape
and hue.  At their feet the great sea dozed already.  The fine light
wind of the Riviera scarce stirred it to a responsive ripple.  Truly
a sea of seas for colour!  It was as if amethyst, jade, and sapphire
had been melted in the crucible of some giant alchemyst, now one
prevailing, now the other, as the sun slowly gathered up his gift of
light.  To Lilamani, whose passion for colour made it almost a form
of self-expression, the ever-varying beauty of it all seemed each
evening fraught with some new meaning; and with an indrawn breath of
content she sank into her chair.  Her few words must be swiftly writ
before the coming of that supreme moment when--in poetic Eastern
speech--"the Sun drops into the Sea and splashes up stars for spray,"
and silence passes over the earth like a presence, unseen yet
piercingly felt.

From the folds of her bodice she drew out her father's latest gift, a
gold fountain pen, set with one flashing diamond--her name-stone, the
"jewel of delight"; and for a while it sped over the paper, keeping
pace with her thoughts, that transported her, as she wrote, back into
the sun-splashed courtyard whose four walls had been, for seventeen
years, the boundary lines of her actual world.

So essentially is an Indian woman the product of that hidden
sanctuary of home, and all it stands for, that a sudden uprooting
involves the snapping of a hundred delicate fibres, the entire
readjustment of thought, feeling, and conduct to the complex,
unstable elements of the outer world.  And at seventeen a child of
the fulgent East is already a woman; which complicates matters not a
little, in more ways than one.  So it was with Lilamani, a creature
saturate with the poetic symbolism, the passion and religious fervour
of her race, reared on age-old traditions and ideals not to be
eradicated by a change of continents and a few years at college.
Details, these last, too often overlooked by the fervent
progressivist, who "reforms" in haste and is tripped up by them at
leisure.

The first ecstasy of escape, the first bewildering revelation of the
fullness and beauty of earth, the marvel of riding upon the limitless
ocean, "as it were upon an horse," had left no space in the theatre
of her sensations for the ache of uprooted fibres, the sense of a
familiar foothold gone.  Like a child in its first crowd, she clung
to the two hands she knew, and at night put herself to sleep with
tales of the wonders she would achieve when she fared back as
torch-bearer to the land she loved.  Audrey Hammond had turned her
racial idealism to good account.

But now in the quieter life of the hotel, where as yet they kept
mainly to themselves, there was leisure to feel the pain of those
severed fibres, the vague, insistent yearning for the lost things of
home; leisure to wonder if her venture were foredoomed to failure by
a mother's blessing withheld.  And the beginnings of higher study
proved less inspiring than she had hoped.  The natural poet in her
recoiled from dry facts set forth in Latinized English, with neither
glow of colour nor gleam of fancy to lighten the grey page.  Studies
with her father, who had trained her ear to the music of written
speech had set a halo about the mere word.  She discovered now how
much hung upon the subject--and the teacher.  For all her fine
qualities, Audrey lacked the peculiar sympathy and insight that can
make all learning a delight.  For her a fact was a fact.  Its utility
sufficed.  With Lilamani it was otherwise.  Hence the beginning of
disillusion.  But because she had good grit in her, and the Indian
woman's heritage of self-repression she kept silence about these
small troubles; nor dreamed that any guessed at their existence.

And while she sat writing, the sun slipped out of sight unheeded.  A
small shiver, like the breeze of a passing spirit, chilled earth and
sea, where amethyst and jade had given place to sapphire, and that in
turn to indigo and grey.  The girl, who had begun the last page of
her letter, looked up expectant.  But to-night the sun's passing was
a tender thing.  No fairy islands in a lake of gold; no "crimson
blaring of his shawms."  The sky, emptied of his presence, flushed
delicately, like a maid under her first kiss.  A trailing banner of
cloud that hovered near, caught the wild rose tint and held it, while
light and colour ebbed slowly, till all was grey--sea and sky and the
Esterelles between--a cool, delicate grey, as of a dove's wing; not
one tone, but a harmony of half-tones, a nocturne in a minor key.  In
the upper grey a memory of palest blue; in the lower grey shimmerings
of jade and indigo, changing near the skyline to a luminous pallor,
neither silver nor white; the hills themselves pearl-grey
transparencies, as if washed in by the brush of a master.

Then, as she sat gazing, her round chin cradled in her hand, behold a
change--an aftermath of life before day's ultimate end.  Grey above
and grey below were slowly transfused with rose, so faint, yet
all-pervading that it was as if air and water blushed.  No lines of
light, no hint of the sun's presence, only this ghost of a blush that
faded softly as it came, leaving, at last, one grey; and across it
the twin islands of the gulf lay like a smudge of Indian ink.

Lilamani sat on, still as any Yogi of her own land, the gates of her
receptive soul flung wide to the inflowing message of this strange
grey sunset; a message of peace shot through with the rose of hope.
Such, at least, was her fanciful belief; and there is much virtue in
belief, however fanciful.  In her case, it quieted a new, unreasoning
ache that she had vainly willed to disregard, healed the arrow-pricks
dealt her by Vimala's childish chatter of new bangles and the
betrothed.  With a deep breath of relief she looked down at the blank
sheet upon her knee, vaguely wishful to crystallize the music of the
spheres into the halting music of her own verse.  But the ancestral
spirit of meditation was still strong upon her.  The white emptiness
of the paper held her gaze, shutting out the sense of things actual;
and in place of verse living memory-pictures, real and clear as
crystal visions, moved before her eyes.

The familiar, white-walled courtyard with its central tank and
deep-pillared verandah glowed beneath its turquoise dome.  In the
blue-grey shadow of an arch sat Vimala and little Radha chattering
like a pair of minas, and outside in full sunshine the grey crane
walked delicately, and her own peacock sunned his jewelled tail with
the self-conscious airs and graces that she loved.  Along the flagged
pathway by the tank, scarlet of poinsettia, and blood-red hibiscus
flowers made splashes of passionate colour, while over against the
house itself a gold mohur tree flung out cedar-like branches ablaze
with orange-golden bloom.

From without came the sound of hoofs and wheels and the voices of
passing men.  Then a small shiver ran through her, for to the ears of
her soul came clearly the heart-stirring wail of conches from the
temple hard by; and a figure that she knew for her own, in its simple
home draperies, came out to listen, to bask in the fragrance of
champak and neem.

But now all sense of illusion was lost.  She was there, feeling,
seeing, hearing; all else forgotten as though it were not.  Next it
was Mataji herself who came forth--plump, practical, and a trifle
sharp of tongue; but yet--Mataji, guardian spirit of the home,
honoured and beloved by all.  She had come out to scold her dreamy
daughter--no infrequent happening--for careless rendering of her
morning duties, and worse than all, for having insufficiently watered
the sacred _tulsi_ that languished already from the heat.  She felt
the compelling hand on her shoulder, felt it so forcibly that she
started and turned with an actual shiver, a feeling as of a light
blown out.

And lo--it was Audrey's hand that held her shoulder, Audrey's voice
that reproved her in kindly practical tones.

"My dear child--are you crazy, sitting out again alone in the dark?
You know it made you feverish the other night."

"But I love it so," the culprit murmured lamely, as the other with
gentle professional deftness touched her wrist and brow.

"Of course you do, dear.  But health must stand first.  Besides, it's
nearly dinner-time.  Come to my room.  I'll give you some quinine."

Lilamani gathered up her unfinished letter and obeyed.

There were moments when Audrey's tone and opinions faintly recalled
Mataji herself.  Both were capable and decisive; both slaves of a
fetish.  As the last word of Mataji was _dastur_, so the last word of
Audrey was health; and to-night, jerked abruptly out of her vision,
only to be confronted with quinine, this gentle-mannered girl (who
had bought freedom from _dastur_ at a heavier price than she guessed)
came near to wondering whether, in truth, she had but exchanged one
form of tyranny for another, after all.




CHAPTER III

  "I find, under the bows of love and hate,
  In all poor foolish things that live a day,
  Eternal beauty wandering on her way."
                                      W. B. YEATS.


With engaging docility Lilamani swallowed her quinine, accepting it,
without conviction, as an article of Audrey's faith, that must
shortly be her own also.  But on the suggestion that to-night she
should make a fresh advance by dining downstairs, docility vanished.
Her small decisive chin asserted itself, the chin that had defied
Mataji and _dastur_.

"Eat my food in a crowd of noisy strangers?  Audrey, I cannot.  At
least--not yet."

She spoke quite gently; but Audrey Hammond knew by this time how
delusive was that gentleness.

"Quaint child!  I thought you enjoyed seeing new kinds of people and
things," was all she said.

"Oh, I do!  They are so astonishing.  I love to see them all.  But I
think--not too close.  And not at food-time."

That last made Audrey smile and shrug her shoulders.  It is difficult
for the West to understand the Eastern sanctification of such prosaic
essentials as bathing and feeding; though in their own Book of Books
it is written, "whether ye eat or drink, ye shall do it unto the
Lord."  But that Book came from the East, and even after two thousand
years the essentially Eastern spirit of it still remains a
stumbling-block to the practical, self-assertive soul of the West.
Even Sir Lakshman Singh, whose civilization was more than skin deep,
still disliked hotel meals.  Hence his reluctance to force them on
his daughter.  Audrey admired him greatly, though innate
self-assurance convinced her that she would have managed her rebel
better alone.

"Well, my dear, if you won't, you won't!" she said with a touch of
good-humoured irritation, unfastening brooches and buttons as she
spoke.  "We might try going down after dinner one evening.  You must
make a start some day--now you're here."

"Yes, oh, yes--some day," the girl answered, catching at the soothing
vagueness of the word.  "But you, Audrey, you need not miss what
pleases you because--I am shy."

"No.  Of course not," Audrey agreed; then paused, considering the
matter while she tidied her soft, fair hair.  Till to-day she had
felt no particular wish to join the after-dinner gathering in the
central hall, where a local band played twice a week, and people
danced, when the spirit moved them.  But her meeting with Nevil
Sinclair had set the clock back.  After years of arduous service to
find him just where she had left him--attractive, leisured, and
irresponsible--made her feel unaccountably young again.  Though full
eight-and-twenty, and mature of her age, her pulses had never
quickened for any man, nor, in her belief, ever would.  But, from the
first, this thwarted artist and good comrade had secured a corner of
her heart; and on meeting him again, she found that the same corner,
not an inch more, belonged to him still.  It is even possible that
his arrival may have strengthened her conviction that Lilamani's
nascent home-sickness should be combated by a fresh step in advance.
She would have denied it upon oath, in all sincerity.  But that is
neither here nor there.

Catching sight of Lilamani's face in the glass, she nodded and
smiled.  "Your looks belie your name-stone, child, and your father
seems worried since the mail came in; so I won't 'dine out' to-night.
I may run down afterwards; and I may insist on taking you with me.
Now--run along."


So Nevil Sinclair looked in vain for the possible descent of his Peri
into the crowded room, where the truly civilized discussed their
dinner--in both senses--under conditions that might well seem
barbarous to minds not hypnotized by habit.  Through an intermittent
roar of human tongues and clattering plates, preoccupied waiters
scurried to and fro balancing a silver dish on either hand; and one
only of the glass doors into the verandah stood open to the cool and
quiet of the night.

In the neighbourhood of this friendly door, Sinclair shared a table
with another Antibes _habitué_.  Cuthbert Broome, novelist and
essayist of no small repute; a big, bearded man, nearing fifty, with
a thatch of tawny hair, and sailor-blue eyes, that missed no detail
of men or things.  And there is a sufficiency of both for the born
observer at a continental hotel.  Behind them two Hebraic Germans,
napkins tucked under ponderous chins, fought their business battles
over again, with variations, in the intervals of damning cold soup
and the monotony of the menus.  On one side, a party of Londoners,
correct to the last hook and button, had a politely inquiring gaze
for Sinclair's well-bred profile.  The two girls, in unimpeachable
"restaurant frocks," had evidently been to Nice studying the
momentous hat question, over which they argued like a pair of
theologians over a point of evidence.  On the other side a French
couple, not long married, drank champagne and made love
surreptitiously when they imagined no one heeded them.  But Cuthbert
Broome, listening to Nevil with scrupulous attention, was quite aware
of it all.  The third chair at their own table remained empty; and
when a fresh ebullition of waiters skidded past armed with _noisettes
de veau_, Nevil commented on the fact.

"Little Martino's late.  Anything wrong?"

"Yes; poor chap.  Temperature, with a slight touch of hæmorrhage,"
the big man answered, and the voice that matched his frame had a
sympathetic note in its depths.  "Sat out too late the other night
over an after-glow effect.  The result's magnificent--on canvas.
Quite the reverse on his luckless carcase.  But he wouldn't go to
bed; though I prevailed on him to dine upstairs.  He deserves
immortality, does Martino, if ever man did.  A born fighter, though
his weapons are only a paint-brush and a mahl-stick; and all the odds
against him."

Nevil nodded thoughtfully.  Here it was again, the primal quality
that makes for achievement.

"'Life but a coin, to be staked in the pastime, whose playing is more
than the transfer of being,'" he quoted.  "That's Martino's creed."

Said Broome: "A plucky one.  And he lives up to it.  He'll die for it
years before he need.  But he will leave his mark.  He was
alternately choking and holding forth on a new colour-theory all this
afternoon.  I could only keep him quiet by dosing him with extracts
from a purple epic, which my editor friend of the 'Book World' is
bound over to pat on the back; and I am the chosen instrument, for my
sins."

"A chance to air your gift of subtle irony," suggested Nevil by way
of consolation.

"In which case the great Wigmore would come down on me like a ton of
best Wallsend; and I might snap a connection I don't want to lose.
There's a side-light for you on the ethics of reviewing!  But the
book has some good stuff in it, once you're through with the Epic,
which you shall read, my Nevil, if only that you may learn what not
to write----"

And, having fallen upon a subject of mutual interest, they clave to
it till the doors into the hall were flung wide to admit the spirited
strains of "Semiramide."  For it was band night; and frivolity would
be the order of the evening.  Frivolity of the mildest, and most
innocuous; since Antibes lies a little off the beaten track of the
Riviera as it is understanded of Society, and the budding
millionaire.  Cannes, Nice, and Monte Carlo entangle, in their
jewelled meshes, the gambler, the devotee of bridge, restaurant and
promenade; the well-bred idler with a taste for forbidden fruit; and
restless young America, with a taste for all things costly and
effervescent.  To the grey, rocky headland of the Cap, with its
pinewoods and aromatic cushions of myrtle and lentisk, come rather
invalids in search of health, over-worked professional men and women
in search of rest or renewed inspiration; a fair sprinkling also of
those travellers who have enough of resource within to ask no more
than large draughts of peace, and light, and colour from the twin
goblets of sea and sky; a passing respite from the complex machinery
of modern life and work.  Folk of this kind do not always look
promising at first sight.  Such riches as they may possess are not to
be vaunted in terms of silk and precious stones, and the last thing
in motor-cars.  But a little delving under the surface will often
reveal an unexpected streak of ore; and those gifted ones, swift to
detect the God in the clay, have even been known to dig up diamonds.

Of such was Cuthbert Broome, most sane and human of novelists.  The
fact that half a dozen critics of note had hailed him as a creative
genius--word too lavishly used in this our age of spurious
masterpieces--had neither upset his equilibrium, nor engendered the
disease of acute self-consciousness that is the bane of modern
talent.  His bodily strength and power of work were phenomenal; no
less so, perhaps, his sympathy for those lacking in both.  He turned
up at the Cap Hotel every few years; and more often than not lighted
on a friend or two worth keeping.  In one visit he had discovered
Andrea Martino, the consumptive Italian artist with the body of a
grasshopper and the soul of a hero.  In another he had chanced upon
Nevil Sinclair, beneath whose modesty and seeming lightness he
discovered a measure of talent and strength as yet unsuspected by the
young man himself.  There be natures that come late to fruition, and
Nevil was one of these; the more so because of the smooth ground
under his feet and the curse of the ready-made income.

Cuthbert Broome, kindly yet critical, grieved over him as a victim of
the sorrows of happiness, the vital poverty that may result from
wealth.  But he did not grieve as one without hope.  The finer
qualities were there; and he awaited with interest the pointed pain
or pleasure that should stab them broad awake.  For himself,
Necessity had belaboured him generously ever since he could remember,
with excellent result.

Now, as he passed along with the crowd, that surged out into the
great square lounge, his tawny beard wagged and his sailor eyes
twinkled in one direction and another.  There was the small convex
widow, Mrs. Heath, yclept the Hen Sparrow, by reason of a propensity
for twittering in and out of season.  Beside her sauntered the pretty
niece with the "pompadour coiffeur" and secret hankerings after
Mentone and Monte Carlo.  Then there was the handsome French woman
with lips a little drawn, and a hunted look in her eyes, because the
five-year-old son, her light of life, was smitten with the curse of
asthma, and her husband, smitten with the curse of a "system," was
flinging away with both hands the money needed to keep his child
alive.

Broome had an almost tender twinkle for her; as also for the
eager-faced maiden lady, Miss Swithin, in freckles and spectacles and
her best summer dress of the year before last.  On the sandy-grey
knot of hair half-way up her head sat an irrelevant blue bow,
dropped, as it were, by her youth in its passing, though gleams of it
still lingered in her inquiring eyes.  A lone soul, one of the
thousand and one oddments of earth, squandering the savings of years
on a lone peep into Paradise.  Shy of speaking to strangers without
introduction, she played Patience zealously every evening at a lone
small table in a corner; and nearly fainted between delight and
trepidation, when the big, bearded "sailor-man" had boldly introduced
himself, and talked to her all the evening.  She had sat up late that
night, in her third-floor bedroom, adding a rather incoherent entry
to her neatly-written "Journal of a Golden Month," bound in vellum
and tied with white strings.

After that, he often joined her when she looked specially forlorn and
the blue bow more irrelevant than usual.  Sometimes they played
double patience; and when she won, enjoyment could scarce go farther.
Now when a known writer goes out of his way to make friends with
stray humans, there are those who are sure to believe him--not quite
without reason--merely in search of "copy."  But, in the case of
Cuthbert Broome, such belief were libel.  The man's creative impulse
was too spontaneous and exuberant, and he himself too great-hearted
to be so tempted, even did he not strongly disapprove.

"If ever I caught myself taking deliberate notes of a
fellow-creature," he had said once to a simpering admirer, who rather
hoped he might be taking notes of her, "I should burn all my
skeletons of projected novels, and devote the rest of my life to
picking holes in other people's!"  But like many of us when we take
pains to speak truth, he was not believed.

Be that as it might, he saw in the wearer of the blue bow simply a
woman starved of legitimate hopes and emotions; and out of his own
superabundance he gave what he could.  But Miss Swithin did not
figure in his occasional letters to Mrs. Cuthbert Broome, who was too
practically occupied with committee meetings and demonstrations of
the organized woman's movement, to find time for "loafing at
Antibes."  She would not have understood.  Even after twenty years of
marriage there were whole tracts in her husband's expansive nature
that were entirely outside her comprehension.  Yet their marriage was
not tragic, nor even a complete failure.  Possibly it was a mistake.
But marriage is a mystery seemingly outside human volition; and it
were rash to dogmatise even so far.

To-night, when the folding-doors were closed, and the crowd broken up
into accustomed groups, mainly racial, Broome lit his pipe and
strolled over to the cane table that Miss Swithin had fairly made her
own.  The blue bow, having been fixed on hurriedly, seemed almost to
beckon him as its wearer's head nodded in sympathy with Madame de
Lisle's account of her boy.  Broome had introduced them to each other
and was glad to see them making friends.  Miss Swithin enjoyed airing
her French, and Madame de Lisle her broken English; so it was a
capital arrangement, and he went over to enjoy it, sure of a welcome
from both.

Sinclair gravitated toward the "pompadour coiffeur," for whom he was
an oasis in a desert of boredom; young men being scarce at Antibes.
He found her pleasant enough in spite of her "pretty woman" tricks of
manner; but caught himself wishing it were Audrey and surreptitiously
glancing at the door.  Besides, she could talk of the Peri; and he
was curious to hear more.  It did not occur to him that others could
talk of her, too, till "Semiramide" had hurried to its crashing
finale, and the Hen Sparrow leaned eagerly across her niece.

"Have _you_ seen our Indian curio yet, Mr. Sinclair?  The pretty
little purdah lady who won't defile herself by dining downstairs?"

Mr. Sinclair, who had been looking politely bored, was all attention.
Yes, he had seen her, afar off.  Did she ever come down, and had Mrs.
Heath spoken to her?

"_Of course_ I have," Mrs. Heath twittered triumphantly.  "I made a
_point_ of it on the first opportunity.  Odd specimens.  They make up
half the fun of hotel life.  But this Lilamani girl" (she pronounced
it Lillamanny) "is really quite a sweet creature.  She isn't strong.
Nerves, I believe.  Even India is catching the modern epidemic.
Still ... I _do_ think it would be better for her to come down on an
evening like this, than to stay moping upstairs.  Those three people
are going to sing soon.  The man with the tambourine is killingly
funny--quite a character----"

Then Nevil had an inspiration.  "Couldn't you send up word to Miss
Hammond and suggest it?" said he.

"Why, of course.  How clever of you!  I might write a little note."

"And I might take it.  I know Miss Hammond quite well.  We met here
before."

"It _is_ a pity she's so self-satisfied," murmured Miss Blakeney,
leaning a sequined and bangled arm over the cane table between them
and considering it with interest.

"Is she?" asked Nevil indifferently, and carried off his note.




CHAPTER IV

  "Les rencontres ici-bas sont souvent preparés de loins."
                                          PIERRE DE COULEVAIN.


He sent it in by Kali Das, with a message that Sinclair Sahib awaited
an answer; and before many minutes were out Audrey appeared, in a
little flutter of pleased surprise, very rare with her.

"My dear Nevil!  Was it your plan?" she asked, scanning him with
approval.

"Partly mine, partly hers.  Do come, anyway--all of you."  Then,
after a pause: "Miss Blakeney palls, you know."

"Yes--I _do_ know!  And I am to act as antidote?"

"Naturally!"

His frank smile was as frankly returned.  "Very well.  I'll try to
persuade the child.  If we do come, we shan't be long.  But don't
wait--please."

Of course he waited, not on the landing, but at the foot of the grand
staircase where the lift comes down.  And while he stood waiting,
wondering, there came over him the strange sense--known to most of
us--of having stood thus and waited thus, somewhere, somewhen, for
the coming--of what?

At this point the ghost of a memory eluded him, and reality
intervened.  The iron doors of the lift opened with a clang.

Audrey stepped out, and after her--the "purdah lady"; no longer a
simple evening primrose, but an iridescent vision of grey and gold,
shot through with mother-o'-pearl tints that shimmered changefully
when she moved.  Her _sari_, drawn well forward, had a narrow border
of pale gold cunningly inwrought with rose.  For, as always, she had
chosen a dress to match her mood--her sunset mood of peace tenderly
flushed with hope.

Upon Audrey's introduction of Nevil she bowed her head without
looking up; and he noted, through the semi-transparency of her veil,
the dark, smooth ripple of hair; the red caste mark on her brow; the
fine chain at her throat from which one blue moon-stone hung like a
great drop of dew.  There was not a detail he could have wished
otherwise.  Even while he shook hands with Sir Lakshman Singh, and
appraised the clean-cut strength of the man, he was telling himself
that in this dress he must paint her, though only the hand of an Alma
Tadema could hope to catch its opalescent sheen.

The great door into the lounge was shut, and through it came the
voice of him with the tambourine; not a voice of melody, but of sheer
rollicking _joie de vivre_.  Four or five hotel servants were
flattening their faces against the glass; and an agile waiter pounced
upon the door-handle.  But Lilamani shrank backward, flushing to the
temples.  Her fingers closed upon her father's arm; and he turned
promptly aside.

"She is right," he said to Audrey; "we will go round through the
dining-room, and have chairs put in at the back."

The which they did; slipping in, almost unnoticed, while the whole
room clapped and shouted, and the shock-headed Italian, in the shabby
dinner-jacket, with a mouth like a slit in a turnip and no stage
property save his tambourine, swept a burlesque bow to the woman at
his side.  For it was a duet--an Italian love-song--trilled and
"tra-la"-ed with dramatic abandon by the tambourinist--an artist
after his kind--who could wax playful, reproachful, fervent by turns
over a "Bella" whose middle-aged plumpness was compressed into a
puce-coloured cashmere gown of the same doubtful age as herself.  No
trace in her of the man's madcap surrender to the folly of the
moment.  Being a woman, and practical, music might be in her throat,
but the collection-plate was at her heart.  With the laboured zeal of
one responsible for the number of francs it might contain, she
marshalled her best high notes, her marionette gestures of coquetry,
scorn, and final surrender to the triumphal clashing of the
tambourine.

Then the real woman emerged; and she threaded her way among the
guests, plate in hand.  No band on earth could make sweeter music
than the tinkle of the silver pieces as they fell.  It was her
supreme moment, even as the applause had been the man's.

Through it all Lilamani had sat spellbound; shyness and
self-consciousness forgotten, in this fresh revealing of the unknown
world into which she had flung herself with the valour of ignorance
and despair.  On the steamer she had rarely ventured out of her
deck-cabin, except in those times of peace when hungry passengers
gravitated to the saloon table, like filings of steel to a magnet.
On _tamasha_ evenings, she had heard the sounds of revelry afar off,
and watched the passing figures from her window.

Now for the first time, she saw in full--and was amazed: the ugly
evening dress of the men, that her father must never wear when they
were alone; the women laughing and talking as frankly with them as
though all were brothers or cousins of the first degree: the lights,
the movement, the waiters whisking away coffee-cups and small
glasses.  True, Audrey had told her of it all; but to see it, to sit
in the midst of it, brought home to her with something of a shock the
new conditions of her life.  A couple of French women and an Italian
wore full evening dress.  They sat in a group with three men, leaning
bare arms on the cane table before them, puffing cigarettes and
gesticulating freely.  Young as she was, the sight hurt her in a way
few women of the West would understand.  In truth, the whole scene,
even while it fascinated, troubled her racial sense of dignity and
reserve.

But with the end of the song came the end of self-forgetfulness.  It
dawned on her that people were looking and whispering.  Mrs. Heath,
peering expectantly through a tortoise-shell lorgnette, caught the
sheen of her _sari_, and fluttered across to them, friendly and
voluble; while Miss Blakeney, who found Audrey "superior" and the
Indian girl "insipid," kept her seat and smiled alluringly at
Sinclair, without result.

The devotees of the hat question, lately arrived, could scarcely keep
curiosity within the bounds of good manners, and the Hebraic Germans
stared so flagrantly that Nevil longed to smite them between the eyes
and take the consequences: the more so, when he saw that she noticed
it, and drew her _sari_ forward, almost hiding her face.  During the
song he had stood near Audrey talking of old times; though he, too,
had been watching under his lids, and drawing comparisons between the
sequined fluffy-haired Miss Blakeney, with her self-conscious poses,
and the exquisite simplicity of this flower of Indian girlhood, her
drooping grace and slenderness, as of a willow by moonlight.  And
now, smitten by her sensitive shrinking, he deserted Audrey, drew up
a chair and sat down boldly beside his picture that was to be.

Unhappily, the end of self-forgetfulness had wrought her to an agony
of shyness; and that this strange young man should come and talk to
her reduced her almost to the verge of flight.  But courtesy forbade.
She could only incline her head in recognition of his presence,
leaving him to begin.

And he found it astonishingly difficult.  He who could talk fluently
to anything human, from a guttersnipe to an archbishop, was smitten
dumb by the beauty and aloofness of this mere child of another race.
He cleared his throat and said lamely: "You find all this very
strange, of course?"

"Yes.  It is strange.  I am not accustomed----"

She broke off to moisten her lips, and could get no further.  Her
slim fingers locked and unlocked themselves distressfully.

He tried again.  "The music and the singing pleased you?"

She nodded.  "Your music is very different from ours.  I like it.
But I like a great deal better the music and dancing of the sun upon
the sea."

"So do I," he agreed more hopefully.  "You'll get plenty of that
here.  It was wise of Miss Hammond to choose Antibes."

"Yes--oh, yes."

Another dead pause.  Something across the room had caught her
attention, and he felt himself forgotten.  He also felt foolish, and
vaguely annoyed.  Uphill work with a woman was new to him, and not at
all to his taste.  If she would only help him forward with a smile, a
glance.  But her words, low and musically spoken, were seemingly
addressed to the locked hands in her lap: and he could not know how
her heart was throbbing in her throat beneath the big dew-drop on its
chain.  In his futile search for a fresh topic he was harassed by the
twittering of Mrs. Heath, who believed she was making an impression
on Sir Lakshman Singh, while her courteous victim smilingly allowed
the waters to flow over his turbaned head.

Then the players in the corner dashed into a spirited mazurka; and
Sinclair's next remark passed unheeded, unheard.  A chill of
disappointment quenched his admiration.  As a picture she was
incomparable, this child of seclusion; but as an entity she seemed
unpromising, almost stupid.  None the less did she exhale an
atmosphere of her own.  He felt it even while resenting it, because
it seemed to exclude himself.  More than ever he marvelled how Audrey
could hope to make a doctor of her: yet Audrey was no fool.

Of a sudden he saw that she had realized his predicament and was
coming to the rescue.  He rose at her approach, and Lilamani looked
up.  It was as if a lamp had been lighted within; and Nevil's
flickering spark of interest revived.  Audrey laid a reassuring hand
on the girl's shoulder; but it was to the man she spoke.

"They are going to clear half the dining-room for dancing after this.
Rather nice."

"Capital!" said he with grateful sense of passing from a too rarified
atmosphere into the common light of day.  "The first valse is ours,
of course; not to say the second, if you will!"

He turned to Lilamani, his awkwardness gone.  "Have you ever seen
English people dance, Miss--Lakshman Singh?"

"No, never.  And I think--I would rather not."  She leaned nearer to
Miss Hammond, speaking almost under her breath.  "Oh!  Audrey,
please--there are too many people here.  I want to go up again--now."

"Nonsense, child!  You _must_ stay a little longer now you've come.
Your shyness will soon wear off, and the change will do you good."

She spoke with kindly decision and with the comfortable conviction
that zeal for Lilamani's enlightenment prompted her own wish to
remain.  It is common as it is consoling, this belief that the thing
we would do must, in some way, subserve another's gain: and for all
her steady pulses and advanced views Audrey Hammond was yet a woman;
glad to recapture, even for a moment, the girlish spirit of enjoyment
stolen from her by the strenuous years.

There was a stir throughout the room; a scraping of chairs on the
tessellated floor.  The singers bowed themselves out; the
folding-doors were flung wide again; and the band struck up a
memory-provoking valse.  Audrey patted Lilamani's shoulder, and
murmuring: "Don't be foolish, dear," went off on her partner's arm.

With feelings that veered between interest and vague distaste,
Lilamani watched them go; watched the woman she loved and respected
only less than her own mother, spin lightly round upon her toes, like
any nautch-girl, in the arms of this strange man, who was neither
brother nor betrothed.  The reading of occasional novels with her
father had taught her that the "Europe betrothed" might take
liberties whereof no Indian would dream; but even so it astounded her
that they did not think shame of themselves, capering thus for all
the world to look upon.  The very waiter-folk, peering in from the
hall, showed like grinning emblems of derision.  Yet, seemingly, all
was well.  It was _dastur_, a word that covers more sins than
charity's self.

A dozen other couples followed Audrey's lead: whirling in the same
graceless fashion; women clinging to the arms of men, even those
flagrantly unveiled ones, who had chattered like bazaar folk that
come to sell wares in the verandah.  In some cases women twirled with
women, which puzzled her less, though the distressing publicity
remained.  And in no case did the dancers dream that the shy strange
girl, half hidden in her shimmering drapery, was sitting in judgment
on them; weighing their conduct and finding it wanting in dignity,
delicacy, and womanly reserve.  Even Audrey, of the strong brain and
will, did not come off scot-free; and the fact that she could
criticize her mentor marked a new phase in Lilamani's progress.

Nevertheless, while pain deepened in her, a reluctant fascination
deepened also.  Assuredly the music had some sort of magic which even
she could feel.  The entrancing rhythm of it spoke to the feet,
impelling them to move.  Doubtless it bewitched those others even as
strong wine was said to bewitch men, so that they knew not what they
did.

At this point, her trance of thought was broken by the voice of Sir
Lakshman--mercifully delivered from the kindest lady alive by one who
had persuaded her to dance.

Straightway he came to his daughter, and sitting down beside her,
spoke low in their native tongue.

"Thou art troubled, my child?  Or doth it please thee, this strange
_tamasha_?"

Slowly she shook her head, and turned upon him wide, wondering eyes.

"Strange it is, father mine.  And yet--I am here to learn many new
things.  Is it needful I should become--in all ways--as these----?"

"The Great God forbid!" he said fervently.  "But before long thou
wilt better understand how in some matters--this for instance--we see
through one glass, they through another.  In their eyes this form of
_nautch_ is harmless as child's play.  For them, therefore, it is not
evil.  And in truth," he added with a reminiscent smile, "it is
pleasant enough!  I myself tried it in student days."

"You--oh, father!  With these white women?  But not now----!"  Her
light fingers on his coat-sleeve gave her entreaty a hint of command.

"No, no," he said soothingly.  "In those days, being young, I was
eager to drink the waters of pleasure, as of knowledge, at all
fountains.  Now, being old, I eat the fruit of discretion, and it is
the daughter of my heart who ventures along strange paths!"

"To-night this daughter of thine heart hath seen enough of strange
paths.  Why wait we for Audrey?  Take me back, quickly--to 'the
Inside,' where alone is peace."

Her tone had a light touch of petulance, very endearing to him; and
the familiar Indian word for the women's quarter struck a note of
home that went to his heart.  He rose and offered his arm.

"Come, then.  I am ready.  Miss Hammond can follow when she will.
She seems to be enjoying herself after her own fashion."

So they went forth together, the tall, straight-limbed man in
faultless evening dress, with the iridescent vision on his arm; and
many curious eyes followed their going.

Audrey Hammond saw it also, not without a passing sense of relief
from responsibility.  Most certainly she was enjoying herself--in her
own fashion; which was not the fashion of Lilamani, or of Miss
Blakeney; still less that of Miss Swithin, whose blue bow bobbed
jauntily, if a little tremulously, above the elbow of Cuthbert
Broome.  She found it good to be dancing again with Nevil Sinclair.
But no stir of the pulses enhanced the discovery.  It is a question
whether girls of her type--products of extreme reaction from
mid-Victorian ideals--are not cultivating brain and ego at the
expense of the natural emotions; a doubtful gain for themselves and
for the race, in an age already overloaded with intellectuality and
all its works.

Certainly for Audrey Hammond much of Nevil's value lay in the fact,
that he could seemingly give and take friendship with as little
after-thought as the most inveterate "bachelor-girl" could wish.  The
understanding between them seemed curiously complete; and to both it
appeared quite natural that they should spend the whole evening
together if they chose.  As each fresh dance struck up Nevil remarked
airily:

"Well--shall we go on?" And she:

"Yes, of course.  Why not?"

So they went on, to the disgust of Miss Blakeney and the amusement of
Cuthbert Broome, who saw Nevil's heart apparently rent and riven at a
stroke.  Clearly both were enjoying themselves to the top of their
bent.  For the moment, Sinclair had even forgotten his picture: and
not until the dancing was nearly over did he speak of his wish to see
more of the Lakshman Singhs.

"A pity they didn't stay longer," said he.  "And a pity she's so shy.
My attempt at making friends was a dead failure.  The deadest I've
ever known with a girl."

"Very good for you!" Audrey answered in what Lilamani called her
"medicine voice."  "But very trying for her, poor child.  Her
education didn't include the art of talking to strange young men."

"It must now, though, if you mean to make her a doctor; and I offer
myself as a dummy to be practised on!"

"You really want to try again?"

"Why, of course."  His hidden motive was almost on his lips; but he
knew her capable of thwarting him if she saw fit, and added instead:
"She is charming enough to be worth looking at even if she refuses to
talk!  How shall we arrange things?  Will you all have tea with me in
the verandah to-morrow?"

"I doubt that--after to-night!  The next day would be more probable.
But she's a creature of moods and rather spoilt, as I told you.  If
you really want them to come you had better ask Sir Lakshman."

"That I will.  He seems a capital fellow."

Audrey nodded.  "If modern India produced more of his type we should
hear little or nothing of political unrest."

"Very clever of you to bring them here, and very clever of me to turn
up at the psychological moment!  A thundering good plan all round."

"Thundering good!" she agreed frankly: upon which conclusion they
parted; at peace with themselves and the world.

Nevil saw her into the lift; then lit a cigar; and its flavour was
enhanced by a pleasant conviction that his impromptu descent upon
Antibes bid fair to justify very completely his egregious desertion
of Jane.




CHAPTER V

  "A spindle of hazel-wood had I.
  Into the mill stream it fell one day;
  The water has brought it back no more."
                                  ROUMANIAN BALLAD.


"But this is good.  Santa Maria, it is good!  So slight a thing;
yet--entirely alive.  If you make not a picture of this, Sinclair,
talk no more to me of your aspirations.  No longer I shall believe in
them."

Thus Andrea Martino, standing in a flood of afternoon light at his
third-floor window, and holding Nevil's sketch-book at arm's length
before him.  His shock head of hair--jerked now this way, now
that--suggested an intelligent blackbird considering a worm; a
suggestion heightened by the beak-like nose that sprang boldly out
betwixt eyes cavernously set under one dense ink-smudge of eyebrow.
The single crease of concentration furrowed his forehead, and dull
patches of colour on his cheek-bones, accentuating the hollow
beneath, told their own tale.  It was a fine head, too fine for the
lean, undersized body, producing at times a contrast that bordered on
the grotesque.

Sinclair, bestriding a bedroom chair, a cigarette balanced between
two fingers, was doing his best not to look foolishly elate, and
succeeding fairly well, thanks to a racial heritage of
self-repression.  Martino's studio was a corner bedroom, roughly
metamorphosed by the removal of the washing-stand; a Turkish Djimjim
flung over the bed; easel, canvases and a bare deal table sticky with
paints.  Two oval windows, looking west, framed sun-saturate visions
of the twinkling bay, and white villas of Cannes, backed by the
barren ranges and clean-cut peaks of the Alpes Maritimes.  A third
window looked upon open sea and sky, the twin islands and the carven
outline of the Esterelles.  Beside it, from a tall vase, rose plumes
of mimosa, breathing out faint fragrance.

The one arm-chair was amply filled by Cuthbert Broome, chewing a pipe
and correcting proof slips in the intervals of considering Sinclair's
profile and wondering which emotion struck deeper--the thrill of
Martino's unfeigned approval, or the thrill of laying siege to the
self-poised girl with the disconcertingly direct grey eyes.  It was a
problem congenial to his psychological turn of mind.  The girl--if
her looks belied her not--stood for politics and a fairly assured
parliamentary career.  The picture, if achieved, stood for artistry
and vagabondage, for possible success, and probable family discord
and disapproval.  For the moment, Broome felt doubtful which way
Sinclair--the essential Sinclair--leaned.  Last night he could have
sworn to the girl.  To-day, watching Nevil's face under Martino's
volcanic discharges of encouragement, his assurance wavered: nor
could he quite decide which way of leaning his own ripe, unbiassed
judgment would applaud.

Even from the unfinished sketch it was clear that Sinclair's sleeping
talent had genuinely caught fire.  But one inspiration, however
genuine, never yet made an artist.  It is continuity of power that
tells; as Broome had good reason to know.  He knew, too, that the
keystone of all imaginative work worth doing is capacity for great
emotion--the furnace that fuses thought and inspiration, form and
colour, into one living whole.  In a life packed with observation, he
had seen and noted how often lack of this very capacity stamps as
ineffectual the clever, complex, highly civilized young Englishman of
to-day; and, so far, it seemed as though Sinclair had not altogether
escaped the disability of his race and age.  No doubt smooth going
along the line of least resistance had retarded development.  But
once let him reach the cross-roads, the true man must out....

And while the subconscious brain of the novelist played with
probabilities, as a child with the pieces of a puzzle, his hand
travelled down the printed slips, scribbling hieroglyphics in the
margin with mechanical accuracy, while his ear missed little of the
talk, or rather the monologue by the window.

"And she is in the hotel, you say?  Under the same roof with us--this
houri--this _bellissima_?" Martino had just demanded, slapping-to the
sketch-book on one of his extravagant prophecies that set Nevil
tingling to the roots of his hair.  "And she walks in the garden?"

"Sometimes; not often," said Nevil, wondering amusedly, What next?

"Then why not have I seen her--I?"

"Because, my dear fellow," put in Broome with a friendly twirl of his
eye, "when _you_ walk in the garden your expansive soul spreads
itself over the whole sea and sky.  Incidentally you may be aware of
rocks and trees in the foreground.  But anything so infinitesimal as
a human being----!"

"Chut!"  Martino waved him aside with a laugh that broke midway into
a cough and brought a crumpled silk handkerchief to his lips.  "It is
to Sinclair I talk.  You love not to speak your true meaning except
with your pen!  I remember me now--I have seen a dark man in a
turban.  He is her father--no?"  Nevil nodded.  "Then it is him you
have to make believe what a picture this will be.  If you are too
modest, send him to Martino, who will have a tongue of gold at your
service.  But, my friend, lose no time.  In art you must strike while
your iron is hot.  You wish in earnest to become an artist.  But all
these years, I tell you, Sinclair, you have been playing fool with a
brush that was made for work.  A spark from the fire of God burns in
you, waiting to spring into flame.  But you have choked it with earth
that it cannot burn.  And now, see--right out of heaven, this star
dropt at your feet.  Waste no more time, making glowworms with your
eternal cigarette.  Santa Maria!  How can you with your insolence of
youth and health know--as I know"--he beat upon his damaged chest and
coughed again--"that time is gold and diamonds and all the riches of
the earth rolled into one mass.  Know it or not, only hear this poor
devil with one lung and paint your picture while you can.  Paint it
that it shall please me, and Jacques Lesseppes--and then----"  He
stayed for breath, and again it was Broome who interposed,
instinctively keeping the balance of things by putting all his weight
into the opposite scale.

"You forget, Martino, that as the eldest son of an old English family
Sinclair owes it to his father to make an honest bid for a
parliamentary career----"

"Huh!  Parliamentary candlesticks----!"

"Fiddlesticks, you mean, my dear chap!"

"_Ah, bene_!  Fiddlesticks--candlesticks--it is all one."

"Oh, no; not quite!"  Broome's twinkling gravity held its own.
"Structural differences, you know, to say nothing of value!  Besides,
in this case----"

The Italian flung up his hands in an ecstasy of impatience, and
clapped them over his ears.  "I am a deaf.  I hear not anything!" he
declared, not all in jest; and Nevil, springing up, gripped his
friend by the shoulders from behind.

"What shall we do to him, Martino _mio_?  Gag him with his own
proofs?"

"If--you--please," the small man answered with grave emphasis; and at
their joint shout of laughter his black brows went up.  The gods who
gifted him at birth had overlooked the saving grace of humour.  "You
are always making some kind of foolishness--you two," he said,
looking from one to the other with puzzled intensity.  "But it
remains that for candlesticks or fiddlesticks, I care nothing; and
for fathers and parliaments not a great deal either.  With art it
must be as with religion.  To those who are called she speaks as the
Great Master to his disciples--'Leave father and mother, leave
all--and follow me.'  You--Broome, you have written books to her
dictation.  You know that is truth."

The man's ardour and sincerity were irresistible, and Cuthbert Broome
answered in all seriousness: "Yes, my dear Martino, I know it.  But
like all councils of perfection it is 'more honoured in the breach
than in observance'; except among pseudo-artists, who find it a
convenient cloak for egregious disregard of others.  And in any case,
a man must be very sure of his call."

"_Ebbene_--it is _I_ who am sure--for Sinclair.  He doubts, because
he has modesty.  But give him at least one chance to prove I am
right."

He turned briskly upon Nevil.  "You will speak to that man?"

"Rather!  But I believe they have odd prejudices--these Indians."

Martino dismissed them with a snap of the fingers.  "You show him the
sketch, my friend.  It will suffice.  But when?"

"To-day, I hope.  I'm to meet them at tea-time."  He took out his
watch.  "By Jove, it's late.  I ought to go at once."

"Be off, then; and bring me word to-morrow that all is arranged."

"I thought of asking Sir Lakshman to dine with us to-night."

"Good!  Better than all.  Then Martino can get in his word--and the
thing is done.  Go now--and the saints prosper you."

Nevil Sinclair went whistling along the passage and on down the wide
staircase to the first floor.  In three days his world had grown
singularly interesting and stimulating.  More than ever did he bless
the house-party that had driven him to Antibes.

It was as Audrey had foreseen; his invitation to tea in the verandah
the day after the dance had been refused on the score of Lilamani's
shyness.  Also, on that afternoon Sir Lakshman had promised her two
hours out in a boat with himself: but he hoped Mr. Sinclair would
come to them for tea on the following day.  Mr. Sinclair had accepted
with alacrity; and--Audrey being "off duty"--had suggested a walk
with her along the sharply indented coast to the picturesque old town
of Antibes, returning, as of old, via the Lighthouse hill, highest
view-point of the headland.  No word of the picture had been spoken;
Martino being too ill, for the moment, to be troubled with such
matters; and Nevil preferring to await his verdict before taking any
definite steps in the matter.  Both had thoroughly enjoyed the easy
sense of comradeship, the picking up of dropped threads, and not
least the pleasant flavour of reminiscence running through it all.

Only when Audrey had left him to stroll awhile on the gravel path
with his cigar, did the wandering thought slip into Sinclair's brain
that there went a woman who would make a man "sit up and do things,"
if she cared for him; a wife such as Jane would surely approve, had
he any leaning toward marriage in the abstract, which he had not.
Hitherto, at all events, the modern man's dread of responsibility and
the artist's need of individual freedom had proved stronger than any
vagrant impulse of the heart.

Yet the impression made on him by this girl was no light one.  In
many ways he found her eminently to be desired; and now, looking
backward, he wondered vaguely why he had not fallen in love with her
years ago.  Nor did he guess that other men, who also found her
eminently to be desired, had wondered the same thing without
stumbling on the discovery that, like many admirable girls of her
type, Audrey Hammond lacked altogether that indefinable essence
called charm, atmosphere.  Even as a landscape at noon fails to
thrill the imagination as at sunset or dawn, so does the clear-cut,
self-complete woman of transition fail to stir the tumultuous deeps
of passion.  In one respect, at least, evolving man remains eternally
the same--"it is mystery that he chases finally, not beauty or love
or any success."  Like to like is for friendship.  For love--that can
lift a man's heart near to worship--the charm that eludes, and by its
very elusiveness, holds him fast.

Not that Sinclair, even now, realized all this any more than the rest
had done; but at least it was with a glow of satisfaction that--on
entering their sitting-room--he found Audrey alone, standing by the
tea-table in broad straw hat and cream serge coat.

"You're not long in, then?" he said as they shook hands.  "I thought
I was late."

"You are late!  So are we.  Lilamani begged for another 'ride on the
sea'; though the glare was terrific and it gave her a headache."

"She's coming in, though--I hope?"

"Oh, yes.  Are you so keen?"  Her amused eyes scrutinized his face;
and in another moment the tale of the picture would have been told.
But lo, the door opened and the living picture appeared: simplicity's
self this time, in the creamy, clinging softness of Indian muslin;
only her _sari's_ hem threaded with the gold she loved.

At sight of the tall fair man, whom she had scarcely taken in on that
bewildering evening, her head drooped delicately, while the blood
glowed under the clear olive of her cheek and throat.  For an instant
it seemed as if she would turn and fly; then Audrey's protective arm
enclosed her, and Audrey's kindly voice of decision was at her ear.

"Come, child, and shake hands with Mr. Sinclair.  You mustn't be shy
with him.  He is an old friend.  Almost like my brother.  I have been
telling him how you love riding on the sea in spite of glare and
headaches!"

At the magic word her smile flashed on him like a light; and she
spoke with the eager spontaneity of a child while Audrey poured out
tea.

"Oh, yes--yes.  I love it!  And to-day--it was wonderful, past
telling.  No waves to ride upon; only a blue, blue bigness and
stillness, like gliding through the sky.  How could I mind a little
ache of my head when my heart inside was 'kuroo-koo-ing' like a dove
in spring!"  Sinclair's smile at the pretty conceit puzzled her, and
she added with shy apology: "You know there is not any sea in Central
India where I come from.  It is only since these few weeks I have
known it for the first time.  When you have known it always, perhaps
it does not seem so wonderful."

"Indeed it does," he assured her.  "More wonderful the better one
knows it; at least to those who have enough imagination to wonder at
anything.  Audrey must let me introduce you to my artist friend, who
has been painting it for fifteen years; and declares he would not
come to the end of it if he could paint for a hundred.  Then look at
sailors, who live on it, year in, year out----"

"Ah, that would be better than all!" she broke in softly.  "I feel
always I want to get out far, far, where it is all blue, over and
under; not even a trimming of land round the edge."

Shyness had fallen from her like a cloak.  Her serious eyes dwelt
confidently upon his face.  The subject, the reassuring word
"brother"--most flexible in the Indian language--had wrought like a
charm; and Sir Lakshman Singh, entering while she spoke, had a shock
of surprise and pleasure, vaguely tinged with apprehension.

"Glad to see you have made friends with my daughter," he said
genially as Sinclair rose to greet him.  "And I hope you will justify
to her my high opinion of your country.  For her, at present, you are
representing the whole English race; which I have taught her to
admire as I do myself."

"A poor look-out for England if she's to be judged by me!" Sinclair
retorted, laughing.  "The sooner I introduce your daughter to my
friend, Mr. Cuthbert Broome, the better.  I shall hardly dare open my
lips to her now."

"Oh, please--please," Lilamani murmured so distressfully that
everyone laughed, and that sent the blood tingling into her cheeks.
"He was praising the sea, father," she added, bravely ignoring her
discomfiture.  "He could not begin better, could he?"  The words were
for her father; but her shy glance was for Sinclair, who answered it
forthwith.

"It's easy talking.  But what will you think when I say that my
father wished me to serve my country on the sea, and--I refused."

She shook her head incredulously at the slab of cake she was
crumbling with nervous fingers.

"It is hard to believe.  But--how can I tell?  There might be
difficulties----"

"Oh, there were--there were!  One of the biggest was that I would
rather paint the sea than live on it, any day----"

"Ah," she looked up again, all eagerness.  "You also paint
pictures--like your friend?"

"Yes.  I paint pictures; but not like my friend.  I wish I could," he
answered ruefully, scanning as he spoke the radiantly receptive face,
and wondering how he--the "double-distilled amateur"---dared aspire
to render its quicksilver quality in the lifeless medium of paint and
canvas.

Yet the resolve to aspire remained; and mention of his art having
slipped in, by a happy chance, he dwelt upon it guilefully in view of
that which was to come.  To Sir Lakshman the subject was a congenial
one.  The two men were soon deep in animated talk; while Lilamani sat
entranced, drinking it all in as an opening flower drinks in sun and
dew; and even taking her own small share in it without a trace of the
overwhelming shyness that had baffled and disappointed Nevil at the
start.  Her intelligence amazed him.  Audrey was right.  She was more
than a picture, after all; more than a child, too, it seemed, though
even now he scarce regarded her as woman.

A memorable tea-drinking it was for all; though at the time none
guessed its significance save Nevil himself, increasingly aware as he
was of hidden depths stirred by the wind of the spirit, that bloweth
where it listeth, making music through the children of men as the
wind of earth through an Æolian harp.

The invitation to dinner, lightly given and lightly accepted, the
suggestion--Lilamani's--that when next they rode upon the great deep
he should come also, filled him with a boyish exultation out of all
proportion to the bare facts; and the dinner itself confirmed his
hopeful mood.  Sir Lakshman, having spoken once or twice to Broome,
and read much of his work, welcomed a chance of closer intimacy; and
Martino, mindful of the hidden houri, plied his tongue of gold to
good purpose throughout the meal.

But the subject of the evening was not broached till privacy and the
congenial atmosphere of the "studio" paved the way for confidential
talk.  Broome had not yet come up, and Martino was rummaging in the
adjacent bedroom for a couple of Italian studies, when Nevil took his
courage in both hands--and spoke.

"Sir Lakshman Singh, I have a confession to make--and a favour to
ask," he said simply.

"A confession--to me?  On so slight acquaintance?" the Indian asked
with his kindly smile.

"Yes.  It sounds odd.  But, you see--it's like this----"

A moment of tingling hesitation, then it all came out in
straightforward, boyish speech--the vision, the temptation, the
resulting sketch, and--with a fresh access of boldness--the final
aspiration fostered by Martino's praise.

Sir Lakshman listened with contracted brows, and Martino, returning
while the tale was in progress, could scarce restrain his good word
till their guest had spoken his mind: no easy matter for a man torn
between clear vision of the Western standpoint, and innate recoil
from its application to his Jewel of Delight.

"I fear you will not understand me in this matter, so well as I
understand you," he said at last, courteously, yet not without
constraint; for the high-caste Hindu does not speak of his women folk
to other men.  "If I were English, doubtless I should feel flattered
by your request.  As it is--well--I have allowed my daughter, for
good reasons, to break through the customs of my caste and country.
But to remove a screen is not miraculously to remove all--that the
screen implies.  For the women of India the significance of Purdah is
deeper and more complex than we can ever hope to make Westerns
believe.  It is ingrained in the soul of the race.  It is----"  He
paused, looking from one to the other, increasingly reluctant, and
all that was best in Sinclair sprang spontaneously to his aid.

"If the notion distresses you, Sir Lakshman," said he, "please think
no more of it.  In fact--if you really wish it---I will tear up my
sketch----"

"By God, Sinclair, you shall do no such madness!" Martino broke in
hoarsely; then turning upon the Hindu, twin flames in his eyes: "Sir,
you do not understand what it means for him to say that.  He has in
him the divine spark.  I know it--I.  And beauty like that of your
daughter----"

"Shut up, Martino, for God's sake!" Sinclair cried out, goaded to
irritability by the uncertainty that racked him, as the artist was
swift to understand.

"Then talk no more madness," said he, with less heat.  "And at least
show your work to Sir Lakshman Singh, that he may judge if I have not
right in what I say."

"Yes--yes, let me see what you have done."  Repressed eagerness
lurked in the father's tone; and Nevil, too perturbed for speech,
took up his book, doubled it backwards, and handed it to the arbiter
of his Fate.  For the moment, he felt as though all things worth
anything hung upon Sir Lakshman's "Yes" or "No": and in truth more
hung upon it than either guessed.

"Thank you," he said quietly; and rising, went over to the electric
light near the bed.  Here he stood, with his back half turned,
considering the handiwork of this bold young man, who could dare to
reproduce his Lilamani--daughter of his heart.

Followed a tense silence, that would have been broken by Martino but
for an imperious gesture from his friend.  Then Sir Lakshman faced
them again, his features schooled to a composure that was far from
him.  "It is herself," he said, as quietly as he had said "Thank
you."  "Signor Martino is right about your gift.  You must use
it--use it.  But--there are other beautiful subjects; and that you
should make a living picture of--of her, for all the world to look
on..."

"No--no, not that," Nevil interposed, and the sympathetic
understanding in his voice brought him nearer his heart's desire than
all that had gone before.  "I am not a professional.  If you allow me
to paint a figure study of your daughter, I would only ask leave to
show it to Signor Martino and his friend, a noted painter in Paris;
also perhaps, to my father; because their opinions might just prove
the turning-point in my life.  For the rest, the picture remains my
private property; or--if it proves worth accepting--yours, to do with
as you please."

"Mine!" Sir Lakshman echoed in amaze.  "But, my dear sir, I, a
stranger, have no right to accept your work--that may be of value----"

"Only in so far as it may justify my choice of a career.  If it does
that, I can do no less than offer it to you as a token of gratitude
for your permission, and as a reminder of your daughter, while she is
away from you at college."

It was a few seconds before the Indian could command his voice;
then--"You know too well how to tempt a father, Mr. Sinclair," he
said feelingly.  "And I can do no less than accept, gratefully, your
offer and your gift; unless my daughter should shrink altogether from
the idea.  I would not for the world subject her to such an ordeal
against her will.  But I will speak to her."

"When?"  The eager question leapt from Sinclair's lips and eyes, and
the older man smiled.

"You are young--therefore impatient."  He drew out his watch.  "If I
go now, I can talk with her to-night; then you shall have your answer
the first thing in the morning."

"And if all's well--I could start in the afternoon?"

"Yes; in the afternoon."

"I shan't sleep for thinking of it!" Nevil declared as they shook
hands.

But, being young, he did sleep--soundly; though impatience waked him
long before his usual hour; and, once awake, the turmoil within gave
him no rest.  He breakfasted alone with the waiters and one English
girl--pretty, and fresh-looking, clearly a lover of the morning.
Then, while the tables were filling, he paced the empty pathway to
the sea, making glowworms with his cigarette--to no purpose.  For the
first time in his life the fire of genuine enthusiasm burned in him;
and he knew that until now he had not truly lived; that now, if the
chance were given him, he could not fail of success.  Like most men
of the age he had early lost the habit of prayer: but intensity of
hope and desire brought him nearer to it than he had been for years.

On turning for the second time in his caged-lion walk, he sighted
Audrey's grey figure at the foot of the steps, and hurried forward.
Not so she; and her smile, as she drew near, had a touch of
constraint as yet unknown to him.

But he could not stay to consider that.

"You have brought Sir Lakshman's consent?" he cried in one breath.

"Yes," she answered coolly.  He had never dreamed her eyes could look
so hard.

"And you don't approve?"

Her straight brows went up ever so little.

"I?  Do I count at all?"

"Of course you do.  But still----"

"But still--not enough to matter; which amounts to not at all.  Yet
it is I who brought her here, Nevil.  It is I who am devoting my
hardly-earned leave to her.  Surely you might have consulted me
before making a proposal that is bound to distract her from studies,
on which I have trouble enough to hold her attention as it is----"

"I thought so!" Nevil cried, triumphant and quite unrepentant.
"She's not the type.  And if they are uncongenial, why press them on
her?"

"For very good reasons--that are no concern of yours," she answered,
looking him straight in the eyes.  But he wore his elation like a
shirt of chain mail, and merely asked with interest:

"Does she mind much--about sitting to me?"

"Yes.  She rather dreads it; I can see that.  But her father could
not conceal his pleasure at the idea, and for his sake she made light
of her natural recoil from it.  We talked of it afterwards, she and
I; but she begged me not to let him know.  I confess I did my best to
make her retract her consent; you may think what you please of me.
But I didn't see why my carefully thought out plans should be put out
for the mere whim of an idler----"

He winced.  "I say, Audrey, don't hit so hard.  It's more than a
whim.  You know that.  And I do think you're a bit selfish----"

"Selfish?  Of course I am!" she flashed out with her formidable
directness.  "We're all selfish, whether we admit it or not.  It's
the main motive power of human achievement.  You've as much right to
yours, after all--as I have to mine.  But still--it does seem hard
that the child's studies, which are important for her and may mean a
great deal to me, should be interrupted--perhaps upset----"

Genuine emotion checked her, and roused at once the natural
kindliness of the man.  "Aren't you making more of it than you need,
Audrey?" he asked gently, and she drew in her lips, hiding their
tendency to soften at his tone.  "A sitting every other day will do
for me, and in between you can cram as much into her as you please.
The whole thing won't take much more than a fortnight.  I'm no
portrait painter; it can only be a study.  Then you can wipe me out
of your sacred programme altogether, if you choose!"

"That remains to be seen!" she answered, forcing a smile as she
turned away.  He made as if to go along with her, but she waved him
back.  "You're very nice about it, Nevil, or you wouldn't be you.
But just at present I shouldn't be good company.  We'll be ready for
you this afternoon."

"And will you ask Miss Lakshman Singh to wear that mother-o'-pearl
_sari_?"

"Oh, yes."

"Much ado about nothing," he mused, looking after her.  "Queer
creatures women--even the soundest."

Then he sauntered back again toward the grey rocks and the myrtle
bushes and the many-twinkling smile of ocean, seeing visions and
dreaming dreams.




CHAPTER VI

  "Drive nature out with a fork;--she comes running back."
                                                      HORACE.


Lilamani stood alone upon her balcony--her "House of Gods," she had
named it--feeling a little lost without her private shrine dear to
Hindu womanhood.  And here was a shrine indeed: roofed with turquoise
of heaven, paved with sapphire of the sea.  The trees set about its
portals were rough-cut emerald and jade; and the grey-white rocks
that broke up the sapphire into foam of diamonds--what were they?
Here she was at a loss.  The rocks, it seemed, stoutly refused to be
anything but rocks; and it pleased her whimsical fancy to set this
down to the natural obstinacy of their hearts.  Surely no Hindu
woman--not even the queens of immemorial times when _purdah_ was
not--could have possessed a House of Gods so richly jewelled; so
vast, yet so intimate in its appeal alike to sense and spirit.

Here she came when the demands of her new life, or intrusive thoughts
of troubles ahead, perturbed beyond measure that inner calm which
broods at the core of Hindu faith.  And here she came now to steady
herself for the impending ordeal; accepted with joy, despite hidden
tremors, because of the gift that would gladden the father she was so
soon to lose--for a time; only for a time.  Thought of that parting
she had not yet schooled herself to face; and to-day the need of the
moment eclipsed all else.

She stood very still, as always in these mystical moods of hers; that
were, in truth, but a spontaneous surrender of her whole being to the
strong serene influences wherewith light and colour baptize the
receptive soul.  To-day, from shore line to sky line, the sea's vast
breadth rose and fell like the breasts of the blue goddess Durga in
her sleep.  The very wavelets lapping against the rocks were too lazy
to laugh in foam.  To her it seemed that the Gods of her pantheon
blessed her decision, and reassured her tremulous spirit; stilling
its nameless fears.  She--a brave man's daughter--who had so boldly
taken the first step toward freedom, ought by no means to shrink from
the lesser penalties involved.  And she would not shrink; not even in
thought.  Her father's willingness to grant so unorthodox a favour
should suffice for his child.

The fact that this god-like young man, with threads of sunlight in
his hair and the sea's changeful laughter in his eyes, was of an
alien race, seemed to make possible that which could else be scarce
endured.  For, if publicity be thrust upon a Purdahnashin,
race-distance strangely lessens the sense of impropriety.  Besides,
this Mr. Sinclair--she named him shyly--was Audrey's friend: almost
her brother.  No; most certainly she would not shrink.  She would
look at and speak with him straightly, even as Audrey did.  She would
be calm, without and within.  Not so much as one foolish pulse should
flutter--

Then, the door-handle turned; a man's step sounded in the room behind
her; and she stood transfixed, while the hammering of her
pulses--that were not even to flutter--filled all space.  How should
she face him, she--the courageous one--who had even now commanded the
waves of the sea and believed they would obey her?  What had become
of Audrey, of her father, that they had left her to face--this,
without them?

Then--with a glad start, she recognized her father's footsteps also.
Yet could she not bring herself to turn till he came close behind
her, and spoke softly in her own tongue.

"Art worshipping, child?"

"Seeking a sign, rather.  And the omens be favourable!"

Her smile was a triumph of luminous serenity; and the man's last
doubts were stilled.  "It is well," said he; adding in English:
"Come, then.  Mr. Sinclair is here, and ready to begin."

Sinclair, who had busied himself, tactfully, with colour and tubes,
came forward.

"I'm afraid you dislike the whole thing," he said, hoping by frank
friendliness to put her at ease.  "And it makes me feel rather like a
dentist preparing to operate!"

"I have never seen a dentist," she answered sweetly.  "And I can't
tell if I will dislike it--till I've tried!  But I am quite pleased
to try.  It is so wonderful--" her eyes dwelt thoughtfully upon the
clean expanse of canvas.  "Nothing there now!  Yet in one week, or
two, I will see my own reflection, as in a mirror----"

"I wish I could believe that!"  Sinclair was squeezing paints on to
his palette.  "You shall see the nearest that my unpractised brush
can create."

"You have the modesty of true talent," Sir Lakshman interposed.
"Show my daughter the creation of your pencil."

Nevil, who had not come without his treasure, put the open book into
her hands; and while she stood absorbed--fascinated as a child might
be at first sight of its own image--he made a few preliminary strokes
upon that blank canvas which stood for him as the possible
turning-point in his life.

It was at this moment that Audrey entered, and paused in the doorway,
watching her pupil with an odd contraction of the heart.  Never had
book or dissertation of hers brought that rapt look to Lilamani's
face.  Was she then, for all her brains and courage, no true pioneer
student; but mere woman, such as India breeds by the thousand?  At
least this annoying interruption might have the merit of putting her
to the proof.  Here Lilamani, disturbed by the double scrutiny,
looked up; and, meeting Sinclair's narrowed gaze, pulled her _sari_
forward with the petulant imperiousness of a spoilt child.  Dignity
and thought of her father alone saved her from ignominious flight.

"Oh, no--that's hard lines----" she heard Sinclair say; and the ring
of disappointment in his tone smote her sensitiveness more sharply
than rebuke.

"I am sorry.  I promise not to be foolish any more," she murmured
penitently, and was reassured by the support of Sir Lakshman's arm.

"Sit down, my child," he said tenderly, drawing her to a chair beside
the table.  "Just lean on one elbow, as in the sketch; and if you are
not caring to talk, then read.  Only Mr. Sinclair must be permitted
to see your face!"

"Yes.  That is the trouble!" she answered, flushing and smiling
tremulously, as she arranged her veil.  "If I may read, I will have
my little 'Wisdom and Destiny,' please."

But a haunting sense of the man's concentration on her affected her
like a lantern flashed in her eyes: and Nevil, keenly aware of her
quivering sensibilities, contented himself with as brief a sitting as
might be.

Sir Lakshman, having promised to drive with Broome, went out, leaving
an abnormally studious daughter behind him; and Nevil devoted himself
not unreadily to the delicate task of toning down Audrey's
disapproval.  It troubled his kindly nature to feel out of gear with
any unit of his world; and by way of practical conciliation he
suggested driving her into Cannes next day in the motor chartered by
himself and Broome.

"You could leave Miss Lakshman Singh with something to prepare for
you, and it will give her a nice quiet time for the deep studies I am
so wantonly interrupting!" he added, with an irrepressible twinkle,
and had the satisfaction of producing the double effect he hoped for.
Audrey was manifestly pleased; and Miss Lakshman Singh looked up, an
answering gleam in her eyes.

"Audrey knows too well that it would be Browning or Maeterlinck or
Miss Sorabji the minute her back was turned!"

Nevil laughed.

"A hopeful pupil!  I don't know Miss Sorabji.  But there's a deal to
be learnt from the other two--even if it's not physics.  Three
o'clock suit you, Audrey?"

"I've not accepted yet!"

"Not?  Why, your eyes said 'yes' the minute I spoke."

"Pure conceit on your part!  They merely said it would be nice; but,
in the face of Lilamani's confession, surely--inconsistent?"

"Therefore human!  Consistency is the bugbear of small minds; and
I've always believed yours to be--quite the reverse!"

At that, Audrey, the self-possessed, blushed for the first time in
many years; and being awkwardly aware of the fact blushed deeper
still.  "Really, Nevil, you are too foolish for words," was all she
said.

But Nevil knew he had gained his point, and made his peace with her,
for the moment at least.  "Three o'clock sharp, then," he said as he
covered the easel.  "And for you," turning to Lilamani, "Friday at
the same time?"

"Yes--yes."

Her hesitancy distressed him.

"Not unless you feel inclined, of course," he added at once.  "You've
only to send me word.  I shall understand."

"Because you are so kind," she murmured shyly.  "But I have promised
not to be foolish any more; and the Wise Man, Truth-named, says that
to break one's word is 'damage to Sainthood.'"

"Well said--the Wise Man!  And who may he be?"

"He is my chosen Guru--since I left India.  I found him in Miss
Sorabji's book.  Some day, if the gods are kind, I may find him in
the flesh and tell him how he helped for making me be brave."

"I ought to thank him too for that.  And, look here, since you're so
strict about promises, will you promise me something else?"

"Ah--what?"

"Nothing very terrible!  Only that you and your father will have tea
in the verandah with Audrey and me when we get back, if I engage a
table right at the far end.  Do!"

"Oh--but----" her startled eyes begged help from Audrey--in vain.

"Try it, Lilamani," said she, "and see how it feels."

"Very well--if I must--I promise."

And so he took his leave; well pleased, and hopeful, though little
enough had been achieved--on canvas.

The next afternoon's programme--motoring with Audrey, the Casino band
and a turn at the tables, proved no less enjoyable to this man of
catholic tastes; though an under-current of longing to be back at the
picture that meant so much to him, made him a trifle _distrait_
during the drive, and disposed him to talk a good deal about "that
charming child."  For such was still his main view of her; and Audrey
found herself singularly ready to encourage it; though, for a woman
of her type, the encouragement of a fallacy was as little consistent
as motoring into Cannes with a young man, when she ought to have been
reading physiology with the brand snatched from the burning.

They went alone, Nevil being an accomplished driver; and Broome, with
ready tact, refusing the invitation that he was clearly not meant to
accept.  Not that he had by any means solved his problem yet; but
that he preferred to glean such crumbs of observation as Fate flung
in his path.  The tea-party at the end of the verandah, obviously a
Fate-flung morsel, proved irresistible.  Nor was he disappointed,
when, after greetings and introduction he sat down opposite the
"houri"; and--while talking to her father--absorbed, as through a
sixth sense, the essence of her quality and charm.  For to-day, she
waxed "braver" than Nevil had seen her yet; and he made good the
chance of watching her expressive face in motion while it was his.

So it befell that Audrey soon found herself the odd man out in the
little group: a position uncongenial to all save the speculative
observer, and at the moment doubly uncongenial to her.  She had come
back feeling very much at peace with herself and the world, for no
particular reason that she knew of; except that she believed motoring
to be good for the nerves.  But before tea was over, the restless
discomfort that had puzzled her yesterday afternoon was upon her
again.  Not feverishness; for her blood was cool and her pulses
steady.  Nor did she feel ill: merely ill at ease; though discomfort
amounted to irritation when Mrs. Heath fluttered up with Miss
Blakeney, and the burden of making small talk for their benefit fell
mainly upon her.  Even when Miss Blakeney succeeded in detaching
Nevil from "the Hindu child," Lilamani--instead of helping--relapsed
into shyness and monosyllables; for the which she was rated severely
when the two found themselves alone again upstairs.

"It's nonsense being so shy with two women, after talking to Nevil so
that I couldn't get in a word."

Her tone was sterner than need be; and Lilamani listened in wide-eyed
dismay.

"Audrey--don't call it nonsense," she pleaded.  "Mr. Sinclair is
seeming to talk another kind of language--I can't explain.  Don't you
understand?"

Yes; in a measure, Audrey understood.  But for the moment she was
cross, even with Lilamani, whom she loved, in the repressed
undemonstrative fashion that was hers.  So she merely said: "Of
course they're less interesting.  But if you're going to be so
fanciful and fastidious, we shall never get on at all."

To which Lilamani made answer quite gently: "I don't like you when
you're cross, Audrey; and it's nicer having tea upstairs."

They had it upstairs next day, and all went well.  Sir Lakshman left
them afterwards, for a stroll with Broome; and Nevil looked to a
longer sitting and fuller achievement than before.  Only one item was
amiss.  In place of the mother-o'-pearl _sari_, she wore the primrose
and gold in which he had seen her first.  But not till he had begun
painting and charmed away her self-consciousness did he venture any
comment on the fact.

Then he said, as if by the way: "I wonder whether you realize that I
wanted you to wear that grey and gold every time?"

"Yes, I did think so," she answered, smiling.  "But--it seemed not to
fit my mind to-day.  You see, for me, colours are nearly same as
people.  Sometimes you are needing one, sometimes another.  And if I
am always wearing the one you want, by order, it is same as if you
told me what words I must speak whenever you come!"

"Heaven forbid!" cried Nevil, laughter in his eyes; and she, with
pretty imperiousness, tremors forgotten:

"If you were so much--_zubberdust_* as that, I would soon say 'no
more picture'--even for father's sake!"


* Tyrannical.


"Then I won't be '_zubberdust_'--whatever that may be.  I must have
my picture now, at any price.  But if I'm to achieve that _sari_,
I've got to see it sometimes.  Perhaps being painted will induce the
mother-o'-pearl mood!  What do you think?"

"I think you understand my silliness better than anyone--only
father," she answered simply as a child.  "And I think when I am in
golden mood, or almond-blossom mood, we might have that _sari_ thrown
over the sofa, to help you.  Is that good?"

"Very good."

"Shall I fetch it now?"

"Oh, no--don't trouble."

"But it's not trouble."

She ran lightly out; and Audrey, who had opened a book, glanced up,
frowning.

"Don't talk too much nonsense to her, Nevil.  You'll turn the child's
head."

Her tone had an edge to it that surprised herself as much as him; and
provoked him to the retort discourteous.

"It's _you_ that are talking nonsense, Audrey.  For Heaven's sake
don't say anything repressive when she comes back, and spoil the
pains I've taken to put her at ease."

Audrey shrugged her shoulders and went on reading; for she--who took
pride in her full command of the emotions--dared not trust her own
voice.  A physical feeling of weight on her chest unsteadied her
breathing, while the blood tingled in her veins.  It was
absurd--almost degrading--that a woman of her good sense and
convictions should allow the tone or manner of any man so to disturb
her regal equanimity.  Clearly something must be wrong.  If only Sir
Lakshman would come back, she could go out and walk it off.  Till
then--what on earth was Lilamani doing?  To-day everything and
everyone seemed in league to set her nerves on edge.

A few seconds later the girl reappeared; and the reason of her delay
was obvious.

"Oh, but I never meant you to put it all on for me!" Nevil exclaimed
in such evident delight that she laughed softly and clapped her small
hands without sound.

"I did not mean either.  It--it simply happened!"

"Great luck--for me!  The mood came?"

"Yes--in touching it, I wished suddenly to wear it; and also--I knew
it would give pleasure--to you."

Her shy hesitancy added grace to the last words; and Audrey did not
miss the softening of Nevil's eyes as he answered: "I can't tell you
how much pleasure it gives me.  But you must obey your colour-moods.
I believe in them.  And I'll make the most of my chances when they
come."

The little incident seemed magically to affect her spirits; and Nevil
drew from her by degrees a hidden store of shy, poetic intuitions as
to the eloquence and significance of colour; a topic on which he
found her far richer in ideas than himself.

For a while Audrey joined their talk.  But the subject was too
fanciful for her taste; and soon--quite without intention on their
part--she found herself, as it were, edged out.  Again that tingling,
as of red-hot needle-points under her skin; that longing to move, to
shake herself free of this nameless something that oppressed her,
body and mind.  If only Sir Lakshman would come back!

In the meantime she did not choose to force herself into their
_tête-à-tête_; nor would she sit merely on guard, while they laughed
and talked.  Quietly taking up her book, she went out through the
French window on to Lilamani's balcony, and stood with her back to
the room, while the wind caressed her burning cheeks.  Why this
unwonted irritation because Nevil, her friend, had so rapidly
succeeded in lifting a corner of the veil that Lilamani would always
wear, figuratively, with strangers, though in fact she had cast it
aside?  It was so little-minded, so unlike her normal self----

At this point their voices interrupted her thoughts; and she sat
down, keeping Lilamani's face in view.  Nevil was urging her to cap
yesterday afternoon's courage by dining downstairs; and Lilamani's
gentle, decisive refusal soothed Audrey strangely.  But Nevil was not
the man to accept it without demur.

"You say you are interested in the people you watch from your
balcony," he persisted genially.  "Yet you don't want to see more of
them close at hand.  Why?"

The girl drew her delicate brows together.  "It does seem all wrong
when you say it.  But it's true--both ways.  I wonder--can I make you
understand?"

She leaned an elbow on the table; and while she spoke Nevil's hand
moved swiftly, capturing the gracious curves of head and shoulder and
arm.

"I think it is really that I love only to watch them all--far away
down there, and plan my own tales about them.  But when they come
close, they make so much noise with talk about foolish little things
that my thoughts all get broken up, like water-reflections when you
put your hand into the tank.  From the balcony I see them coming and
going.  I see them talking and smiling; but their words are never
reaching me.  When I like some faces very much I watch for them to
come again, and then ... sometimes ... you mustn't laugh!--I make
mind-pictures of their souls."

"Laugh?  Of course not!"  The best and gentlest that was in his own
soul looked out of the man's eyes.  "Do we all carry them in our
faces plainly to be seen?"

"Oh, no.  Many do not seem to be at all.  Others are small and
hidden, like pools, grown upon with weeds.  But there are some--oh
some--they shine clear and still like lakes making mirrors for sun
and sky.  My father's is of that kind.  Have you not seen?"

"Yes--I have seen.  It is good to know men like your father, even a
little.  You would find a picture something like that in the eyes of
my friend Broome."

Her face lit up.  "That man I saw yesterday with gold in his beard?
Oh, yes!  But his soul is all sparkling like the sea over here."

"Good indeed!  Yet you hardly spoke to him at all."

"My pictures come more clearly without speaking.  I told you--it
interrupts!"

"You're a white witch!" he said, laughing.  "And are all your
soul-pictures of water?"

"No.  Some are sky and clouds.  Some birds.  Some walled
courtyards----"

"And mine?  Have you made a picture of mine?  Do tell me."

Audrey--out on the balcony, frowned at the intrusion of the personal
note, and contemplated a return to her post, the more so when she saw
that Lilamani veiled her eyes.  But curiosity gained the day.

"It is difficult," the girl said softly; and Nevil wished his picture
more advanced that he might catch the veiled blush permeating the
olive tint of her skin.

"Why?  Because you see it like a mud-puddle with a star or two
dropped into it?"

"But no--no!"  The imputation unloosed her tongue.  "I see it like
one of those glad, quickly-moving rivers in the hills that I am
reading about in books.  How shall I truly paint it for you?  There
are rocks, and bending trees, and birds--you know----"

"Yes--I know quite well.  And an aimless, chattering stream, dodging
to and fro, and achieving nothing----"

"Oh, no--you are unkind!  I did not mean it so----"

The tremor in her voice smote the strongest chord of his manhood.

"Of course you didn't.  Forgive my nonsense," he said hastily.  "I
quite understand; and you couldn't have painted a truer picture.  Ask
Audrey."

The girl outside started; and to her relief Lilamani sprang up with a
cry of joy: "Here comes my father!  And--oh--there is someone
else----"

As Sir Lakshman entered with Cuthbert Broome, Audrey stepped in from
the balcony, determined on flight.  Not that she admitted the
ignominious word into her mind.  Her ostensible excuse was shopping
in Antibes; and before starting, she--who inveighed against
stimulant, except in illness--took a dose of Lilamani's sal volatile
to still the flutter of her heart.  It was bad enough owning to
nerves at all.  But this haunting discomfort could by no means be
ignored; and instinctively she sought a physical basis for most forms
of mental disturbance.

The tram, with its chattering "fares" and the prosaic business of
shopping shut out, for a space, the memory of those two voices that
had so annoyingly perturbed her: and reduced, at last, to her normal
calm, she decided to complete the cure by a brisk walk back along the
coast.  But she had not gone far before she discovered her mistake.
Unquestionably she should have been faithful to the tram.  For along
this path by the sea she had walked scores of times with Nevil, in
the old days; and again only four days earlier in simple, unthinking
content.  And now----

What folly was this that had gotten hold of her?  At each turn of the
road some memory waylaid her of Nevil's face, and Nevil's friendly
presence; the sympathetic inflections of his voice; the smile lurking
always beneath his gravest mood.  Breaking wavelets whispered his
name at her feet.  Sun and sky shouted it overhead.  Look where she
would, his face smiled back at her, in imperturbable disregard of her
bewilderment and distress.  With a dry sob in her throat, she sank
upon a rock and covered her eyes, as if the vision she would escape
came from without, not from within.

But the act was instinctive, merely.  She knew now--and raged against
the knowledge, like a trapped beast--that she, even she, had fallen
in love.  Nature, careless of individual conviction, had wrenched the
heart out of her body, and given it to a man, who no more needed it
than she needed the pebbles at her feet: a man by no means her match
in forcefulness of purpose or of will.

The thought burned in her till all her body seemed one flame.  What
right had he to take possession of her thus, against her will?  The
thing challenged her pride; her perverted spirit of antagonism
against all that man stood for in the average woman's life.  From
earliest girlhood she had taken her stand with the advanced guard of
her kind; had even presumed to despise the average woman and all her
works.  And now--behold her punishment!  Scorn is a slippery weapon;
apt to turn in the hand.  It was the twisted blade of her own scorn
that cut most deeply into Audrey Hammond's heart.  With the inherent
stoicism that was hers, she repudiated her discovery; denied it;
trampled on it--to no purpose.  Finally she rose on the decision that
at least she could conquer it--unless----

Again that tingling of hot needle-points in her veins.  Not even in
thought would she complete her broken sentence.




CHAPTER VII

"There stood one with a heart in her hands: there sat another with
hers in a cage:--and the tale goes on."--HEWLETT.


If those two first sittings had proved trying to Audrey, they were as
nothing to the later ones that followed upon her disastrous walk by
the sea.

Whenever Sir Lakshman Singh's presence set her free, she would find
some valid excuse for slipping away to the garden; or the piano; or
better still, to spend an hour with Madame de Lisle and her boy,
whose trouble was of a kind that her practical nature could help and
understand.  This is what comes of putting one's life into the hands
of a _man_, she would reflect, by way of consolation, whenever
Monsieur de Lisle's folly and selfishness reacted more sharply than
usual upon his wife and child.  But the consolation did not strike
deep, and do what she might, the thought of the two, left in the
sitting-room, knocked incessantly at her heart.  The primitive woman
in her--long repressed and denied--rose up with might and taught her,
at first hand, some plain truths that she had little will to learn.
She, who took her stand upon self-knowledge, found suddenly that she
had a stranger to reckon with--and that stranger, Audrey Hammond.
For love, like all great natural disturbances, stirs up best and
worst alike from the deep waters of the human heart.  Had it come to
this, that she was actually jealous of Lilamani, because Nevil's eyes
and mind were concentrated upon her with increasing delight as the
picture grew under his hand?  So much at least was patent; even as
the change in her--smother it how she might--was patent to Nevil.  He
set it down to her original disapproval; and was disappointed to find
her so obstinate over a question settled past dispute.

But, for him, every minor consideration was dwarfed by the one thing
that mattered: his picture, that already whispered of success, and
the quickening sense of power that grew by what it fed on.  There was
a delicate pleasure, also, in the pursuit of an intimacy by no means
to be hurried or unduly pressed.  For all her young simplicity and
flashes of confidence, this alluring child of an ancient race was
still, in his eyes, almost as much a thing apart from the common
round of life as she had seemed at first sight.  Still, for him, she
was the Arabian Nights' Princess brought hither by a kindly Fate to
save him from the ambitions of others and kindle his spark of talent
to a flame.  Something of this Audrey guessed, and rated herself
roundly for the relief it brought her.  It was not Lilamani, it was
the picture that enthralled him.  With its completion, he would
retreat to his allegiance; and then--then----

But at this point the old unawakened Audrey would slam the door
sternly upon vain imaginings unworthy an enlightened woman.

And Lilamani?

For her this week--charged with a hidden drama--was a time of mental
and spiritual changes the more vital because they were evolving
unawares.  Nor had they any direct relation to the studies so
zealously pressed upon her by Audrey.  These traversed only the
surface of her mind, leaving few and hazy impressions in their wake.
From books more inspiring than any in Audrey's trunk she had learnt
astonishingly much for her years; and now her hidden self whispered
that it were well to learn something of her fellow-beings direct from
life; or, in other words, from the blue eyes and golden speech of the
first white man Fate had flung in her path of life.

All unguessed by her the folded flower of her heart was opening, like
a lotus to the moon, under an influence silent and irresistible as
that which draws petal from petal till the shining secret stands
revealed.  She only knew that the dreaded sittings had become the
pivot round which all lesser lights revolved; that the days between
seemed empty and unsatisfying; the more so, because those days were
disfigured by Audrey's battalions of the "ugly words" that hurt her
mind.  "Hygiene," "oxygen," "structural physiology": she grew to hate
the sound of them; to wonder how she would ever face those dreadful
"exams," whose mission was simply to give her a free pass back to
India, as a woman qualified to live her own life, and to help those
who could not or would not desert the beaten track.

But what if she herself found the unbeaten one too steep, too stony?
No--no.  That were mere weakness.  By some means she must attain her
goal; though at present its far-off gleam was dimmed by emotions more
immediate in their appeal to her budding womanhood than any she had
yet known.

So it befell that she let Sinclair persuade her to join a tea-party
in the studio, where she was presented to Martino and ravished his
inflammable heart.  Nay more, she spent two evenings downstairs,
losing, each time, a little of that paralyzing shyness induced by
strange human beings in the mass.  It cost her a greater effort than
Audrey or Sir Lakshman knew; and both times she had her reward.
Nevil devoted himself to her as gallantly as though he divined that
the effort had been made for his pleasure; and Broome began to ask
himself, was it, after all, not the picture, but the "houri"?

As for Audrey, it was useless to repeat that the craze would pass,
that there could be no possibility of serious complications between
such mighty opposites.  She was in the grip of an emotion that is
deaf to reason, nor regards the great god Common Sense, under whose
banner she had lived and moved.  On the second occasion she could
scarce speak naturally to Lilamani when they reached their rooms; and
the girl, who had come up a-flutter with the thrill of her new
gladness, had gone to bed chilled, puzzled, almost unhappy.

So day by day the love and confidence that had been between them were
dimmed by friction and constraint; and more trying than all--for each
in her degree--were the morning hours of study.  New faces, new
imaginings, and the thrill enhancing both, estranged Lilamani more
than ever from Audrey's bone-dry discourses on conditions of health
and disease.  The call of youth in her blood was ten times more
commanding than any appeal to her intellect or ambition.  Again and
again, in defiance of brave resolves, her fancy would wander off at
will, while Audrey's voice, reading or explaining, formed a sonorous
accompaniment to the airy visions of her dream.

Audrey, meanwhile, had her own private devils to fight; and the fact
that at times they mastered her, bred a smothered irritability that
too often flashed out in sarcasm, or sharp speech.  Her pupil's
increasing absentmindedness annoyed her as never before.  Nevil's
doing, she could have sworn it.  Whether he were merely turning the
girl's head or disturbing her heart, some sort of veiled warning
seemed advisable.  Yet she shrank from engendering by premature
speech, ideas that might never occur to this unsophisticated child of
seclusion.

In any case the effect upon her studies was obvious.  Each morning
Audrey was maddened afresh by a sense of ploughing the sands.  Each
morning, when books, notes, and pencils were put away, the mutual
sigh of relief became harder to restrain.  Whenever Audrey's vexation
flashed out, Lilamani's penitence would have disarmed a stone.  But
no penitence, however genuine, saved her from relapse next day: and
at last, after a week of mingled happiness and strain, the inevitable
crisis came.

It was a day of sudden, still heat.  Even the persistent light wind
of the Riviera seemed too lazy to blow.  And it is on just such balmy
days that imagination, like the swallow, soars highest into the blue;
as Lilamani found to her cost.

To-day her mood was less rebellious than usual.  She was making an
honest effort to "be good" and "attend."  But Audrey's chosen subject
was not a happy one; nor had she the art of infusing life into dead
facts.  Her remarks on sick-room hygiene, illustrated by Indian
experiences, were eminently sane, eminently practical; while Lilamani
sat still as a mouse under a cat's claw, a pencil in her fingers, her
eyes on the brilliant strip of sky and tree-tops framed by the open
French windows.  Vainly she clutched at each sentence, trying not to
let it slip out of her mind as it passed; till she began to feel like
a clumsy child playing at ball, and the foolish fancy whisked her
miles away.

For a space Audrey talked on, unaware.  But when, in the midst of a
technical dissertation on invalid food-values, a dreamy half-smile
flitted across her pupil's face, the smothered irritation of days
leaped out in flame.

"Lilamani, will you attend!" she cried, slapping the open book so
sharply that the girl jumped in her seat.  "Have you heard one word
of what I've just said?"

Lilamani puckered her forehead distressfully.  "Oh yes--I heard."

"Well then--tell me what it was."

"It was--I----"  She passed a hand across her brow as if to brush
away cobwebs.  "It was--oh, I forget."

"Speak the truth, please.  You never heard it at all."

"I did _hear_--only----"

"You weren't listening?"

"I--I suppose not ... I was thinking----"

"Of carbons and proteids?"

"No ... no ... of some small verses I have been trying to make.  One
had just come so beautifully; and you've startled it away."

"Verses?  Good heavens, you're incorrigible!  What about?"

The grey eyes probed the brown ones as a lancet probes a wound--and
they drew blood.  Lilamani looked down, saw she had scribbled a line
or two, and crumpling up the paper thrust it into her bodice.

"I cannot tell you what about, Audrey," she said, with the gentle
dignity that so well became her.  "They are only for my own private
heart--

"Don't distress yourself.  I've no wish to see them."  Her tone was
cold now, her face a mask.  "But I have at least the right to insist
that you shall not write verses when I am talking of far more
important subjects and trying to make them clear to you.  I wonder if
you've taken in anything at all this week?  Look at your notebook!
Nothing but a few incoherent scribbles.  It's a disgrace!  And
here--verses again----"

Lilamani's hand covered them promptly, and she tore out the page.  "I
can't help that.  It's my nature," she said with a touch of heat.  "I
am not meaning to write them when you talk.  They come."

"My dear girl, don't ask me to believe such fairy-tales.  But if they
do come--you must stop them coming--or I must stop teaching you.
Frankly, Lilamani, I expected great things of you; and I am
disappointed.  Girls of your race are generally such eager
students--so quick with their brains----"

"My brain is made in another pattern--that's why."

"It didn't seem so at first.  It's all this stupid business of the
picture and seeing so many people that has turned your head----"

At that Lilamani pushed aside the hated books and sprang to her feet.
Tears stood in her eyes.  The crimson of anger stained her cheeks.
"Oh, I am sick of these studies--you are unkind to speak such things.
I shall not hear you.  My head is not 'turned,' and the picture is
not at all stupid.  It is going to be a beautiful gift for my dear
father.  As for too many people--it was you that made me----"

Her voice broke, and she hid her face from the eyes that seemed to
look through her as if she were a pane of glass.  A word, even a look
of sympathy, might have worked wonders just then.  But though Audrey
was not so made, she could not see the girl thus, unmoved.

"My dear child," she said, touching her shoulder and speaking more
gently, though scarce tenderly.  "When I 'made you,' as you say, I
couldn't foresee that--that things would move so fast.  You're not
quite strong yet, and a little overwrought through doing too much.
That's all the trouble really.  Lie down for an hour, and I'll give
you some bromide----"

That last was fatal.  Lilamani stepped swiftly backward, and
uncovered her face.

"Oh, you _don't_ understand!  You never do.  You think everything is
from the body.  This trouble is in my soul--and you cannot cure it
with any of your stupid medicines----"

Audrey's face hardened again.

"No.  I don't understand your behaviour," she said in chill, even
tones.  "But I wish _you_ to understand that if you think medicines
'stupid' and are already sick of your studies, they will not be
forced on you by me.  Give up college and medicine, by all means--if
you are prepared to go back home and obey your mother's wishes----"

"No--no.  I will not--I will kill myself rather!" the girl cried out
with sudden passion and fled precipitately, leaving Audrey alone by
the table, angry and bewildered as she had rarely been in all the
well-regulated years of her life.

Her bewilderment was for Lilamani; her anger was for Nevil, first and
last.  The emotion of a week, however genuine, was no match for the
sex antagonism of ten years.  "When man comes in at the window, Peace
goes out at the door," was her favourite perversion of the old
proverb anent Poverty and Love.  And behold her wisdom justified: but
at what a cost!  Small consolation to reflect that she had foreseen
this result of Sir Lakshman Singh's permission.  But there would be
some satisfaction in telling Nevil plainly what damage he had done to
the girl whom he obviously admired, if nothing more.

Why not seek him out and tell him now--while she could trust her
embittered heart to hurt either him or herself with an equal stoicism
...


Lilamani, leaning against her closed door, a-quiver from head to
foot, heard her friend's departing footsteps, and drew a breath of
relief.  Never till now had she admitted that there lurked in Audrey
some unnameable quality that seemed to rub the bloom off everything,
and crush out all the beauty and colour of life.  Whether that
quality belonged to this one Englishwoman or to all, Lilamani could
not tell.  But there were moments when the prospect of a college full
of Audreys, with a Miss Blakeney or two thrown in, seemed hardly less
terrifying than the marriage from which she had fled.

While she leaned against the door, with closed eyes and heaving
breast, tears stole unheeded over her cheeks that were no more on
fire of anger, because anger was drowned in shame at her own loss of
self-command.  Had not that dear father--whose precepts were sacred
to her as the laws of Manu--impressed on her from earliest childhood
that only the low-born or the god-forsaken allow the red mist of
anger to darken the light within?  Happy for her that he had not seen
her five minutes ago.  But now, the way being clear, she could slip
softly back to her House of Gods, and recapture the virtue she had
lost.

There sun and sea gave her greeting, and a little lazy wind whispered
of evening coolness not far off.  Lying back in her chair, she closed
her eyes again, that the last of the sunbeams might caress their
lids, while the twin healers--warmth and silence--spoke peace to her
soul.  Of a sudden, in the heart of silence a sound was born: a
footstep.  Well, what matter?  Let it pass.  But she had an almost
uncanny ear for footsteps; and this one----

She leaned forward eagerly: eyes wide, lips apart.  Yes.  It was he,
in the greenish-grey flannel suit that she always hoped for when he
came.  Remembering the afternoon when she had seen him first, she
could scarce believe it was but two weeks ago.  It seemed as if it
must have been another Lilamani in another life.  Yet it was indeed
she, even to the selfsame yellow _sari_: but how little she had
dreamed----

Here came a shy thought not to be framed in words; and she slipped
past it hurriedly wondering if he would look up; if a vision of her
ever visited his mind when she was not present?

It was as if she had spoken aloud.  He looked up at once.  For a long
moment his eyes held hers, while the blood burned in her cheeks.

Then, taking courage, she waved a hand.  To her amazement, he replied
by a gesture bidding her come down; and all the natural woman in her
yearned to obey.  But for a Hindu girl of good breeding, yea, though
she had dared to rebel against _dastur_, such boldness were out of
the question, even had not her quick ears heard the approach of
footsteps more familiar than his own.  Shaking her head, she leaned
back out of sight just as Audrey came along the path.

She heard their voices at meeting; but no words.  Then, cautiously,
she peeped between the balustrades, watching unseen.  He was smiling,
the kind, infectious smile that lighted all his face.  But Audrey's
eyes showed no answering gleam.  They wore the hard masked expression
that had grown too familiar to Lilamani in the past week.  She asked
him something.  He assented with raised brows; and, turning about,
they walked together down the wide pathway to the sea.

Then she leaned over and looked after them; looked and looked till
the tears gathered again in her eyes.  What were they talking of,
those two favoured ones, free to go where they would and with whom
they pleased, while she could only look and long and wonder--like a
human bird in a cage?  Nay, her true cage had been happier, since she
could not see too plainly between the bars.  For the first time she,
who so loved the land of her birth, regretted her nationality.  Of
what use to give her freedom, when the dusky skin, and all the hidden
differences it implied, could no more be wiped out than the colour of
the sea!

Sobs came thick and fast now, and fearing her father's return from
Nice, she fled blindly back to her room; flung herself on the bed,
and there let grief have its way with her.  For the passionate heart
of the East slept beneath her girlish gentleness; and already it had
turned in its sleep.  If there could only have been talk of such a
bridegroom--was the stifled cry of her soul: and the next instant she
reproached herself for a bold, shameless one, to think thoughts so
unworthy of maidenhood.  For this cherished daughter of Sir Lakshman
Singh was no precocious little woman, like most Indian girls of her
age; but something as near the English type of "sweet seventeen" as
the conflicting elements of her life and education could be made to
produce.  And through all her vague, chaotic misery, her thoughts
clave to those two down by the sea.  What were they talking of--what?

Only at the sound of her father's footstep afar off did she rise up
bravely and bathe her swollen eyes.




CHAPTER VIII

  "Love, the great volcano, flings
  Fires of lower earth to sky;
  Love, the soul-permitted, sings
  Sovereignly of Me and I."
                            MEREDITH.


And of what were they talking, those two, down by the sea?  Of what
else but the girl who agonized alone upon her bed?  And Audrey, in
her degree, was agonizing also; though Sinclair was not suffered to
suspect the fact.

Her greeting had been blunt, and to the point.  She was in no humour
for softening sharp outlines.  "Good evening, Nevil.  If you can
spare me half an hour before dinner, I would like a talk with you."

It was then that he had assented smiling.

"Delighted.  My spare half-hours are of no remarkable value.  Is it
anything particular?"

"Yes.  It's about Lilamani--and your picture."

"Ah!  What of them?"

It was then that they walked off together down the wide path, ending
in a balustrade, beyond which rough slabs of rock fell sheer to the
sea.  For a moment Audrey compressed her lips; and Sinclair,
scrutinizing her profile, was puzzled and half annoyed.

"What's wrong with you, Audrey?  You've not been a bit the same girl
this week.  One could only suppose you were still fussing over the
picture and the studies and all the rest of it.  Rather superfluous,
surely, now the thing's half done.  Rather hard lines, too, if I
mayn't take such a unique chance without your making a tea-cup
tragedy out of an interlude that's pleasant enough for us all, so far
as I can see."

Audrey regarded him very straightly, without flinching.

"Pleasant for you, no doubt; and--in a sense--for her too.  But if
you will give me a chance to speak, instead, of rating me unheard, I
can prove to you that the 'tea-cup tragedy'--which may be
sufficiently serious for her, poor child, is of your own making, not
mine."

"What d'you mean?" he asked sharply, genuine pain in his voice.  "I
wouldn't upset her for the world."

"It's not a question of what you would do, but of what you have done."

"Do be more explicit.  You're keeping me on hot plough-shares.  She
seemed quite happy when I saw her just now."

"Saw her?  Where?"

"Looking over the balcony, a minute before you came."

Audrey made a small sound of vexation.  "I left her lying down.  But
really I don't know what to do about her.  When she began to grow
home-sick, I thought seeing a little more of people might do her
good.  But I didn't reckon on this affair of the picture; and now she
seems quite overwrought and unstrung."

"And it pleases you to throw the blame on me?"

"It doesn't please me, Nevil."  Her voice softened instinctively on
his name.  "The facts speak for themselves; and it's as well you
should know them."

"Fire away, then--for God's sake."

His impatience in no wise hurried her wonted precision of speech,
while she sketched for him in outline the week's day-to-day
difficulties, ending with an expurgated edition of the final scene
that had left her baffled for the moment, and deeply disquieted as
regards possible results.  To Nevil's half-knowledge the way out
appeared sufficiently plain.  They had reached the balustrade, and he
brought his hand down on it with decision.

"I told you before, Audrey, she's not the type.  That girl has the
temperament of genius.  I suspect her verses might be worth seeing.
But as for trying to cram her brain with hygienics and physiology,
you'd both be better occupied in trying to reach the moon."

Audrey bit her lip.  "I am beginning to be afraid that's true.
But--if you remember, Nevil, I told you also that these studies were
of special importance to her; and now--it seems high time to convince
you of the fact by telling you plainly what she came to England to
escape."

"Escape?  What was that?"

He spoke rapidly, almost under his breath.  All the laughter had gone
out of his eyes, that looked steadily seaward, and continued so to
look, while Audrey--in phrases deliberately blunt and bald--told him
the story that she hoped might disgust him a little; that must, at
least, force him to recognize that gateless barrier of race, caste,
and creed that divided him from this alluring yet antipodal child of
the East.

The story was no easy one to tell.  Only a conviction that her duty
to both demanded plain speech, and a secret hope that his leaning
toward sentiment might be checked in time, gave her strength to carry
it through.

She drew an unvarnished picture of the conservative, priest-ridden
Hindu mother, who, ever since Lilamani's fourteenth year, had urged
betrothal, if not marriage, without avail.  She told him of the
bridegroom--wealthy, elderly, dissolute--finally brought forward by
the Guru, to whom doubtless great gifts had been promised by the
husband-elect if the transaction were carried through with success.
She spoke of Lilamani's rebellion; of the nerve-shattering struggle
which had ended in collapse.  And at that the man could control
himself no longer.

"Good God!" he muttered between his teeth, but without looking round;
for the which she was grateful.

"Yes, it seems incredible to us," she answered quietly.  "Yet you
know next to nothing of what such a marriage would mean for a girl so
indulged by her father, so sensitive and fanciful as Lilamani; and
even I know little enough.  Happily for her Sir Lakshman is as brave
as he is broadminded.  But for his championship she could never have
stood out against the combined authority of family and religion.  He
himself, when he called me in, was fairly desperate; or he might not
have agreed so readily to my bold suggestion.  But he did agree; and
after a fresh struggle we three gained the day."

"Well done, Audrey!" he cried, looking full at her for the first time.

In spite of stern repression her heart throbbed at his praise, and
she smiled.  "I'm glad you think that, Nevil.  It may help you to
realize something of my feelings this week in seeing what I believe
to be her one chance of freedom slipping from under her.  The
ordinary hotel-folk would probably have disturbed her very little.
But talk with men like you, Mr. Broome, and Signor Martino
over-stimulates her imagination, her emotions, which must be
subordinated to her brain and commonsense if she is to stand on her
own feet when her father and I go back to India.  Surely any studies,
however uncongenial, are better than her only alternative--an
ignominious return to the arms of a dissolute, bigoted bridegroom.
Not that I think she would go.  This afternoon, when I was driven to
speak of it, she said: 'I would kill myself rather.'  Indian women
are like that; and I firmly believe she spoke the truth."

"Good God!" the man broke out again.  "It's downright brutal that a
sensitive white-souled girl should be so tormented----"  His voice
near failed him; but he steadied it, and went on: "What are you going
to do about it, Audrey?  Speak to her father----?"

"I don't know.  I haven't had time to think.  Most likely I shall
urge her to speak to him herself.  The understanding between them is
singularly perfect; and he may feel less baffled than I do by her
deplorable change of front.  But it's useless for you and me to
discuss possibilities.  I merely felt you ought to know; and now----"
She consulted her wrist-watch.  "I must hurry back.  I shall be late
for dinner.  Are you coming in?"

"Not yet.  You've given me too much to think about.  But I'll see you
to the hotel."

"Please not.  I'd rather be alone.  I have a good deal to think
about, too.  But it's close upon dinner-time, you know."

"Is it?  Good night.  You're a brick, Audrey; and I'm a worthless
good-for-nothing.  Forgive me if I've made things harder for you--or
her."

To that she had no answer save: "Good night": and he, wringing her
hand, turned down the lesser pathway that winds among shrubs of
myrtle, cytisus, and olive toward that rocky promontory from which
the hotel takes its name.

Flat and tapering, free of sun and wind, with its carpet of
sea-lavender and scarlet-leaved mesembryanthemum; its cushions of
myrtle and lentisk; its grey-green clumps of aloe and fringe of
rugged white rocks--the Cap d'Antibes reaches farther out into the
Mediterranean than any other headland of Southern France.  To sit
near its peak at dusk--with all the coast behind one, looking away to
the Esterelles and hidden Corsica, is almost to believe oneself on a
steadygoing vessel in mid-ocean.

As Nevil Sinclair strode rapidly toward this haven of solitude, the
fires of sunset were ebbing from a sky tenderly rippled with light
cloud, that threw into sharp relief the few outstanding features of
the Cap.  Here a lone umbrella-pine made a bold smudge of sepia on
the delicate pallor beyond; there the crescent-topped outline of a
spurious Moorish archway--remnant of some forgotten folly--was bitten
out sharp and clear.  Farther on, from a black mass of building and
bushes the little lighthouse reared its head; and farthest of all,
the skeleton of a dead aloe-flower, upspringing boldly from its nest
of jagged leaves, was etched as with a fine-pointed pen upon the
darkening sea.

Mechanically, the artist's eye noted every detail of the picture,
even while brain and heart seethed with such an exalted mingling of
rage and rapture as he had never known; a white heat of chivalry that
burnt up in its pure flame mere accidents of race and creed; that
bade him, at all hazards, snatch this heavenly-sweet flower of
girlhood out of the impasse for which he was in a measure responsible.

Blessed Fate that had brought her to him!  Not that he might paint
her merely; but that he might save her from a degradation worse than
death.  Audrey, plucky Audrey, need not trouble her head about ways
and means.  He--Nevil Sinclair--would be the god out of the machine.
This pearl of womanhood--who had awakened his talent no less than his
heart--should not die, but live--and give herself to him.  For he
could win her; some inner voice assured him of that, even while he
marvelled at his own arrogance.  The divine intoxication that had put
a new song in his mouth, blinded him to the hundred and one prosaic
obstacles that hovered outside the charmed circle of his dream,
biding their time.  He could have shouted aloud in triumph, there
alone with the darkening sky and sea.  This was something altogether
different from earlier sentimental adventures.  So lightly, in his
unawakened ignorance, had he taken the name of Love in vain.

One only problem puzzled him.  Why had he not discovered the truth
until to-day?  From the first she had so enthralled his imagination;
so satisfied his taste for all that was rare and beautiful.  Yet her
tender years, her impalpable aura of grace and purity had made her
seem a being set apart from the rough and tumble of common life; and
always absorption in his picture had stood between him and personal
thoughts of her.

But to-day in that direct contact of spirit with spirit, the divine
ray had passed between them.  They had touched the electric force
that vivifies the world and hurls it spinning through the spheres.
Then, in that moment, he had first seen her as woman--the one woman,
preordained to be his own; brought to him by Fate, in the teeth of
opposing circumstances across six thousand miles of sea.  Striking
sharply upon this revelation, Audrey's story--that was to have
disenchanted him--or at least checked sentimental impulses--had
wrought the very opposite effect.  The rage it engendered sprang, not
from chivalry alone, but from the consuming jealousy that is
twin-brother to passion.  He had scarce known how to control himself,
to hide his secret, as it must be hid till he could win speech of his
beloved alone.

And here the first prosaic obstacle reared its head.  The thing
seemed impossible of achievement.  But their destiny was assured; and
somehow, somewhen, it must come to pass.  If matters looked too
hopeless, he could always write, or speak first to her father.  But
neither alternative was to his taste.  It was she to whom he should
first tell the secret, that he might watch the rose of her heart
blossom in her cheeks, that lamp of her pure spirit lighten in her
eyes....

At this point he found himself far out among the last of the broken
rocks, whitely fringed with foam.  Here he sat him down, lit a cigar
and gave himself up to his fairy-tale, while the sky changed
imperceptibly from grey to indigo, the stars from silver to gold; and
the half-moon, high in the east, took on her borrowed robe of light.

Appetite rather than hunger whispered of dinner that by now must be
half over.  But in his present mood he was loath to face the heat and
noise of the crowded dining-room and the penetrating eyes of Cuthbert
Broome.  He would go in when it was over, and get a plate of
something from his friend the head-waiter; and avoiding the studio,
make straight for his own room.  In the meantime, his cigar--while it
dulled the edge of the body's need, enhanced his mood of dreams, his
visions of a purely Bohemian life with this Jewel of Delight here in
the glowing South or among the Italian hills.  Only let Martino
praise the picture he was to see to-morrow, and he, Nevil, would
devote himself in earnest to the art that, but for her, might have
withered and died in him unrecognized, unfulfilled.  Henceforth her
temperament of genius would be as oil to the flame of his new-lighted
lamp.  He would not take her home, or subject her to the ordeal of
family disapproval; with a throb of exultation he perceived how
completely such a marriage would exonerate him from the rôle of
politician and landed proprietor that had hung over him like the
sword of Damocles for seven unfruitful years.

And Jane?

He smiled to himself in the darkness at thought of her impotent
wrath.  But his father's wrath--tinged with bitter
disappointment--was another affair altogether.  For Nevil--primarily
the child of his mother--seemed to have inherited also her indelible
tenderness toward the stolid, obstinate, good-hearted man, who had so
little true affinity with either wife or son.  This same tenderness
that had kept him loitering at the cross-roads, surged up in him now
and threw the first shadow across his enchanted garden of dreams....

It was close on ten when he ran up the hotel steps on to the
balcony-verandah.  The hall was nearly empty, and waiters were
putting out the lights.  He went straight to the restaurant,
unearthed a plate of cold tongue and a bottle of Burgundy; asked if
there were any letters, and was presented with an envelope addressed
in the square, uncompromising hand of Lady Roscoe.

"Damn," said he softly; and pocketing the missive, went upstairs.

Once in his room, he sat down by the small table that held his books,
manuscript, and painting gear.  "Now for Jane's hydrostatics!" he
mused, slipping a penknife under the flap.  It was her answer to his
own first letter, giving chapter and verse for his impulsive flight
abroad; and through the curt, vigorous phrases he could hear his
sister's familiar tone.


"My dear Boy,--You bolted.  That's the plain truth, stripped of lame
excuses.  But my party isn't coming off after all.  So you can safely
take the next express home!  In fact, you must come and do your duty
at the election like a man.  You should have heard Lord Shandon's
inquiries after you the other night.  Polite, of course--he wouldn't
be otherwise to _me_--but scathing.  That I should live to hear a
brother of _mine_ called 'shirker'--even by implication!  But what do
you care for our good name?  So long as the sun shines and there's a
yard of blank canvas in the market, the dear old Place might go down
before the auctioneer's hammer and I might take in washing without
your turning a hair.  Why I was allowed to be the eldest, and yet not
a _man_, passes my comprehension.  All I can do is to try and hammer
you into the outward semblance of a Sinclair.  Little enough use!
But it's my duty, and the word carries weight with _some_ of us.

"If you've an ounce of right feeling or affection for the dear old
Dad, you _ought_ to be at home this spring.  I don't quite know
what's wrong with him, and he refuses to consult Dr. Ransome.  He
seems just irritable and restless and out of spirits.  Not like
himself, in fact.  Business worries, I fancy, from something
Thornbrook said the other day about the estate.  But I'm sure it
would give him a fillip to have you at the Place for a few weeks, and
to feel he had a personal stake in the election.  So just pocket your
artistic selfishness, and wire 'Coming' to my town address.  Don't
give yourself time to haver and change your mind.  Remember I
_expect_ you.  So it's _au revoir_.

  "Your affectionate sister,
      "JANE ROSCOE."


"Damn!" her affectionate brother remarked again--not softly this
time--flinging the sheet from him as if it burnt his fingers.

Then, rising, he paced the room in a turmoil of conflicting wrath,
indecision and dismay.  Here was no shadow, but a bomb flung
ruthlessly into his enchanted garden.  Jane and her exhortations went
for nothing.  But the poor old man, worried and out of spirits--that
was quite another matter.  The inherent impulse of tenderness tugged
at him; and, but for the tone of Jane's letter, might have overruled
"artistic selfishness," for all the chains that bound him, and his
recoil from the prospect of three or four weeks at Bramleigh Beeches
alone with Sir George in his present mood.

The first warmth of greeting over, he would probably be sworn at, and
certainly bored to extinction by the old futile effort at playing
good comrade to the father with whom he had nothing in common save
the mysterious tie of blood and their unspoken allegiance to her who
was gone.  For, even when Nevil exasperated him most, the stubborn
heart of Sir George clave to the son who spoke the language of his
dead wife, and smiled upon him with her eyes.  A sore point, this
last, for Jane who, in secret, sympathized acutely with the
immaculate elder brother in the parable.  For her, the loyal, the
ever-present, neither fatted calf nor feasting.  But for Nevil, the
defaulter----.  Eyebrows and shoulders, mutely eloquent, implied the
rest.

Could she have witnessed his present perturbation, she might have
admitted a rudiment of conscience in his spiritual anatomy.  Certain
it is that, in the face of such a call, his picture alone would not
have held him back.  But--there remained Lilamani; her possible love
for him; and the cruel alternations between which she stood.

So half the night long he agonized and deliberated over the age-old
problem--that loses no whit of its tragedy through repetition--how
far a man is constrained to cripple the fulfilment of his own life
and love, out of respect for his father's wishes.  Can filial duty
condemn a son to live unhappy that his father may die happy?  All the
undiluted Nevil in his blood cried out, No, a thousand times.  How,
then, if he went home immediately for a week or two and thrashed out
the whole matter with his father once for all?  A few days earlier
such a step had been conceivable, if uncongenial; but now--on the eve
of his divine discovery--!  No, again.

Should Lilamani prove indifferent, or marriage with an Englishman
beyond the pale of possibility, time enough then to think of fathers
and of flight.  For the present two events only filled all his
horizon: Martino's verdict, and Lilamani's answer.  On the morrow a
wire should speed homeward: "Immediate return impossible.  Writing";
nor would he put pen to paper till his fate was sealed.




CHAPTER IX

  "Oh, the little more, and how much it is!
    And the little less, and what worlds away!
  How a sound can quicken content to bliss,
    Or a word suspend the blood's best play--
  And life be a proof of this."
                                        BROWNING.


For all her decision of character, Audrey Hammond fell asleep that
night in a painfully unsettled frame of mind.  Obviously Lilamani's
story had shocked and perturbed Nevil Sinclair in no small degree.
But to what end, or with what probable result?

Heavy-laden with pain and perplexity, she had stood watching him as
he strode away from her toward the Cap, secure in the bitter
certainty that he would not dream of looking back; and upstairs, in
their sitting-room, fresh perplexity had been her portion.  In place
of the passionate girl she had left, behold a smiling,
faintly-repressed Lilamani, who, after dinner, read to Sir Lakshman
from her favourite "Wisdom and Destiny"; discussing with him--in her
quaintly poetic turns of phrase--the roots of happiness and the
hidden springs of peace, as though the storm of two hours earlier had
never been.  In the circumstances, Audrey had thought well to bid her
good night without their occasional after-talk over the day's events.

Whatever conclusions the girl had arrived at were best slept upon
before being submitted to the test of speech.

Not till she began setting out her books next morning did Audrey
broach the subject.

"Does this mean you have thought better of yesterday, child?" she
asked smilingly; and Lilamani bowed her head.

"I was too much mistaken," said she, still looking down and twirling
a pencil between fingers and thumb.  "My father's heart cannot be
hurt just for the wandering of my brain.  So please not say any more,
Audrey.  I will try to keep my thoughts in chains.  But if I am still
stupid--perhaps--some small punishment----"

"My dear girl!  I may have been impatient with you, but I draw the
line at battering medicine into your head!  We can try again, and see
how things go."

They did not go brilliantly that morning.  Though Lilamani zealously
held her "thoughts in chains," and Audrey was patience incarnate,
each was aware of an invisible "Something" between them that made for
division.  Lunch ended, Audrey excused herself on the plea of a
promised outing with Madame de Lisle: and Nevil, arriving well ahead
of his time, was relieved to find father and daughter alone.

They also were to have their first sight of his picture to-day; an
event made ten times more significant by his newly-awakened passion.
For the moment, artist and artistry were eclipsed by the natural
man's eagerness to gauge her share in the divine discovery.

At the first meeting of hands and eyes he knew himself predestined
victor: knew that the shy, virgin heart of her was astir, if not yet
awake; and gloried in the privilege, that would be his, of revealing
to her, by tender and delicious degrees, the golden secret that
gleams at the core of life.

In the meantime he must curb imagination, and sun himself in the
twofold triumph of the moment.  For it was no less than a triumph to
lift the embroidered curtain from his canvas, to watch the dawn of
wonder and delight in the faces of those two, who had, in so short a
space, become the nucleus of his world.

To Lilamani it seemed that she beheld her very self leaning there
upon the balcony's edge, looking away out of the picture with
uplifted eyes, wherein--oh, miracle of miracles!--she caught
reflected glimpses of her own most hidden thoughts and dreams.  Tint
of skin, sheen of _sari_, all her tender curves of budding womanhood,
were rendered with an astonishing delicacy and truth.  For if
Sinclair's pencil had wrought excellently, his brush had verily been
inspired; so that he himself stood amazed; marvelling helplessly--as
every true artist marvels more than once in his life--how the thing
had come about, and whether he could ever hope to touch so high a
point of excellence again.

Before Sir Lakshman could find voice, Nevil had found Lilamani's
eyes, that gazed on him with a young, unveiled adoration; and even as
her whole face lit up in response to his smile, Sir Lakshman spoke.

"My dear Mr. Sinclair--it is many times more wonderful than I was
imagining.  Almost, to me--she lives and breathes."  Then, drawing
Lilamani nearer, he looked steadfastly from counterfeit to reality,
till the colour flooded her face.

Nevil took a deep breath to steady himself, and heard his everyday
voice make answer: "Honestly, I believe it's good; and I'm delighted
that it pleases you.  If only Martino, the hypercritical, thinks half
so well of it----"

"That he will, beyond doubting: and then----?"

"Oh then, there shall be no more havering.  All along I have looked
on this picture as the touchstone of my talent.  So you see"--his
glance dwelt a moment on the girl, rejoicing in the swift warmth of
her cheek--"it has been yours to decide the question of my career!"

"If that means I am deciding you to paint more pictures, and always
more," she answered, plucking at the border of her _sari_, "then I
am--glad."

"It does mean that; if Martino approves," said he: and, Sir Lakshman,
glancing from one to the other, felt a sudden twinge of apprehension
that impelled him to draw his child away from this magnetic young
Englishman, and set her down in her usual seat.

Then he turned to Sinclair.  "You are wishing, perhaps, to do some
work before they come?"

"I think not, to-day."  He covered his canvas with a smiling glance
at the original.  "I feel too restless.  Besides--it would be a pity
to risk superfluous tinkering, till I've heard what Broome and
Martino have to say.  They'll be here early, I know.  And that
reminds me--a very old friend of mine, a Mrs. Despard, who arrived
yesterday, begged to come too.  She's always been keen for me to take
up painting in earnest.  So you can imagine my news pleased her.
Hope it wasn't very cool of me to invite her?"

"My dear sir, any friend of yours must be welcome to us.
Despard--you say?  I must have known some relation of hers in India."

"Probably her husband.  A civilian somewhere down your way.  Had to
retire not long ago on account of heart-trouble, poor chap.  But Mrs.
Despard was out there a good many years, and is naturally interested
to meet you and your daughter."

Sir Lakshman's smile had a hint of scepticism.  "That does not always
follow.  Anglo-Indians are of many kinds, and many minds.  Not all
are so wide-hearted as to break through the official shell that
checks intimacy with the native of the country; less than ever,
strange to say, if he shall show any taste for ideals or education of
the West.  But, as I said, there are many exceptions----"

"And Mrs. Despard is one," Sinclair broke in warmly.  "They live
quite close to us at home.  She and I have had endless talks about
India and its peoples; her favourite subject.  There's no question
about how she will feel towards you and your daughter; or I assure
you I would not have asked her up."

"That I should have known.  I think it is they who are coming now."

It was so: and three minutes later Lilamani looked upon the one
daughter of England destined to love and understand her, from the
moment of meeting; while her own soul--young, ardent, steeped in
poetic fancy--was bowed down in worshipful admiration before this
lissome slip of an Englishwoman, whose delicate-featured face, with
its softly shining eyes, was crowned with a mass of dull gold hair,
through which ran threads of fire.  A clinging gown of tussore silk,
finely embroidered, such as Audrey never wore; and old lace at her
throat--where an aquamarine pendant hung from a silver
chain--completed a picture distinctive enough to impress brains and
hearts less susceptible than those of a Hindu girl of seventeen.

And she, scarce waiting for Sinclair's introduction, swept toward the
shyly smiling creature in the mother-o'-pearl _sari_, and took the
slender hand in both her own.

"Welcome to Europe," said she in a voice of singular sweetness.  "How
brave and wise of you to cross 'the black water!'  And how lucky for
my friend, Mr. Sinclair, that he happened to be here at the time!"

"Greatly I hope it is," Lilamani murmured with a fervour that even
shyness could not quite subdue.

"And I am sure it is!" the other declared, as she turned to greet Sir
Lakshman, who was shaking hands with Broome.

Then, while the four fell into friendly talk, Martino plucked
Sinclair by the sleeve, and, with an impatient jerk of his head,
signified his wish to have done with superfluities and come at the
real thing.

Lilamani, watching them covertly through the curtain of her lashes;
saw them move towards the easel; saw Nevil Sinclair fling back the
covering as before.  Then--her heart leaped at the light that flashed
in Martino's eyes.  With an inarticulate grunt he stepped back a
space, and stood so, looking, looking, and still looking, while the
other two hurried forward, eager to see that which had smitten the
volcanic Martino dumb.

Greater triumph Nevil Sinclair could not have desired: yet was there
pleasure almost as keen in Broome's curt tribute: "Good Heavens--what
a likeness!"

The words seemed to rouse Martino.  His eyes flashed again.

"Likeness?--Sapristi!  It is interpretation."  Then he swung round on
Nevil.  "Your handshake, _amico mio_.  No further doubts now--is it?
I--Martino--salute the inspired artist!" the which he did with a grip
of steel.  "Pity it cannot be shown.  But after this--you are
pledged.  There must be others."

"I hope to Heaven there may be," Nevil answered, overwhelmed.  "But
the thing's not done yet.  There must be faults; room for
improvement.  It's criticism I want, man.  You know that."

Martino's vigorous nod signified fullness of understanding.  "The
last infirmity of the true artist--no?  _Ebbene_, you shall have
it--without sparing.  For by all the saints in the calendar your work
is worth it."

So they two, regardless of the rest, plunged into their private
jargon of tones and values and the critical nature of those last
touches that may spoil the whole: while the rest, being human,
gravitated to the tea-tray, that wooed them with gleam of polished
plate and delicate tints of _petits fours_, ordered daily by an
indulgent father for his daughter's special delectation.

Mrs. Despard, increasingly drawn towards this child of the
_purdah_--who seemed, yet, so fully a woman--laid a friendly hand on
her as they sat down.

"When I talked of Mr. Sinclair's luck just now, I had no idea that
you had actually done for him what he has failed to do for himself in
the last seven years.  I am one of the few who have always urged him
to follow his natural bent in earnest; undutiful though it might
seem!  Between money and position, one feared he would never achieve
anything.  But now--through you--he has found himself.  And I can't
tell you how delighted I am!"

Neither could the girl--with eyes demurely intent on three carnations
at her breast--tell this angel of the golden halo how delight
unspeakable sang within her like a hidden bird.  She could only
answer in the same low tone: "You are mistaking.  It is not I.  It is
Mr. Sinclair who has done all."

Then, because the room was large, and the two behind the easel and
the two on the hearthrug much engrossed in their own talk, she drew
from her new friend, by a shy question or two, more of Nevil
Sinclair's home and history than she had yet heard; till he himself
joined them and the rest followed suit.

Seldom had there been so festal and frivolous a tea-drinking in the
quiet sitting-room, mainly dedicated to study and art.  Martino's
triumph brimmed over in a fireworks display of his quaintly
characteristic English, whenever he could command the field; and Mrs.
Despard glowed openly when the East was her theme.

Sir Lakshman, stirred alike by her beauty and enthusiasm, cast aside,
for once, his mask of polite reserve.  He spoke frankly, warmly, on
the subject that lies nearest the heart of all thoughtful Indians in
this our day of agitation and transition.  His zealous championship
of British rule, and fervent belief in ultimate concord between
"mother and eldest daughter," woke an answering echo in the hearts of
two, whose fate hung upon his readiness to give personal proof of the
faith that was in him.

But it was Mrs. Despard alone who voiced her approval.  "If only
there were more men of your mind on both sides," said she, and her
smile was in itself a reward, "how much disastrous friction we might
have been spared all round.  But though you are in a minority, it is
you, and men like you, who may end in saving the situation, unless we
ourselves--or those who misgovern us--bring the whole Empire crashing
about our ears!"

"May the Great God forbid such calamity!"  Sir Lakshman spoke with
unusual warmth.  "Yet, my dear lady, because I have shown you all the
good feeling that is in my heart for that England who made India what
she is, you must please not to misjudge me in respect of my own
country.  You must believe that I am as zealous for her welfare as
any Bengal agitators or inflammatory news-writers, who, in blind
perversity, are trying to break up the only influence which can make
possible that national unity they cry for, among the Indian peoples.
It is only that I see one manner of welfare: they another.  In my
belief--and I am sharing it with scores of men better than myself--no
worse harm could befall to India than that Great Britain should cease
to be paramount power.  But only this--in order for being paramount
she must be, in best sense, a power; not mere figure-head or rash
experimentalist, shifting now to this foot, now to that.  Even in
your own Book is it not written, if the trumpet give an uncertain
sound, who shall prepare themselves for battle?"

"Who, indeed?" the daughter of England assented ruefully.  "And of
late years the sound has been less imperious, less inspiring than it
should be if we are to hold our own."

"Unhappily--yes.  I cannot help but agree.  It is not that I am
disloyal, as you know.  It is that we are troubled--we Indians, who
believe in England's power--to see how such a great land is seeming
to lose grasp on those noble ideals of straightforward strength and
courage that we learnt in early days to couple with the name of the
British Raj.  Trouble it is also to see how blessings of
enlightenment and patriotic feeling are now made weapons against her
supremacy, that she won by those ideals, and cannot keep except
through the same.  Let us hope it is only by appearance that she is
losing hold on them; that the true England, yes, and the true India,
may wake up and grasp hands together before it is too late."

"Hear, hear!" was echoed by all: then Martino thrust in his oar
again, and the talk became general.

Only Nevil, the ready of tongue, had singularly little to say.  For
if Lilamani found her private ecstasy hard to conceal, her lover was
in much the same case.  The hearts of both were too full for speech
of any kind.  But though the door of the lips be locked, there are
windows through which the hidden self looks forth.  The girl--a
little startled by her own emotions--kept her windows veiled.  Not so
the man.  Transported beyond pedestrian counsels of prudence, he
could not withhold his eyes from her face and form.  Neither could he
compel hers to meet his own.  Primitive instinct whispered that that
way danger lay.  But Nevil was in no mood to be baulked; and now that
general conversation was in full swing again, he boldly drew a chair
up close to her, and spoke under his breath.

"I know you are almost as glad as I am.  But I want above everything
to hear you say so."

The flagrant lover's folly of it, and the dawning sense of her
woman's power to give and to withhold brought her heart thrilling
into her throat.

"If you know it, that is enough.  The rest is only nonsense!"

"It's not.  It's truth, serious truth.  I----" he checked himself,
realizing that this was no moment to unveil the shining secret.
"Well, to-day I've a right to be foolish!" he added more lightly.
"And you might do what I ask.  Just to please me."

"Of course, if you make it like that, I could not be so discourteous.
And ... I am glad that your success has come ... through my picture:
much more than I could say.  So it is no use trying."

Her shifting colour, and refusal to meet his gaze, pricked him to
further boldness.  He knew, and gloried in the knowledge, that--by
every means of mute confession given to woman--this girl was showing
the very truth she strove to hide.  Never before had he been quite so
close to her; and the fresh, faint scent of sandalwood that pervaded
her went to his head like wine.  Once get the whole party down into
the garden, and he could trust himself to contrive some flying chance
of speech.

He set his hand on the tea-tray's rim within an inch of her own, and
noted how her glance travelled from one to the other while he spoke.

"It is just because this has come ... through you, that it means so
much to me.  I never dreamed how it would be when I had the audacity
to begin.  But I want one thing more to complete my great day.  Can
you guess?"

"No."  The full lower lip was indrawn demurely, and an uplift of her
lashes revealed laughter in her eyes.

"Perhaps you don't want to hear!" he challenged her with increasing
boldness.

"That is quite possible!  All the same ... you will tell it!"

"Of course I shall.  And you will grant it."

"That is not at all so sure."

"Oh, but it is.  I want to end with a walk down by the sea ... all of
us.  I've not bothered you much about coming down these few days.
But I want this immensely.  Will you come?"

She drew in a quick, startled breath as if he had touched her.
"No--no, please.  Not to-day."

"And why not to-day?"

His voice took a deeper note that filled her with nameless fear both
of herself and him.

"I cannot tell," she whispered, glancing instinctively towards her
father, who was too absorbed in his subject to be aware of the
magnetic young Englishman's latest move.  "Only ... it has been very
wonderful ... for me also; and I am wanting to be alone with it all,
in my House of Gods, for sunset time.  Please understand."

"I'm doing my best," he said ruefully.  "But still--it's unkind to
disappoint me, and spoil everything."

"Oh, _don't_ say that!  It hurts----"

Her hand went to the carnations at her breast, as if indicating the
point of pain; and that small gesture took the sting out of refusal
and disappointment alike.

"Not enough to make you say 'Yes'?"

She shook her head.

"Well, then ... to-morrow?  You shall ride on the sea in my boat.
Your father shall come, and Mrs. Despard, and Broome.  There now!  In
common decency you can't say 'No' again."

"Then I can only say 'Yes'!  If father will come."

"Promise!"

"How unbelieving you are!  I promise."

Before he could answer, Sir Lakshman had become aware of them; and
the hand he laid on his daughter's arm had a movement, as though he
would draw her away.

"Mrs. Despard is suggesting a walk now it is cooler; and I have
agreed.  Do you feel inclined?"

"Mr. Sinclair was just asking that same!" the girl answered with
admirable composure.  "But I said ... not to-day."

"She has promised to come out in my boat to-morrow, instead," Nevil
hastened to add--unaware, as yet, of hidden antagonism.

"Only if you would like it, father," from Lilamani, in a note of
irresistible eagerness.

"Decidedly, I should like it; and there is good chance of my being
free, unless a heavy mail comes in.  But then, no doubt, Miss Hammond
could go.  I would not like you to lose a ride on the sea."

Broome and Mrs. Despard accepted readily: but Martino, who worshipped
the sea as a Titanic force, rather than a means of locomotion,
refused point-blank.

In the leave-taking that followed, Nevil--with a lover's
ingenuity--contrived to secure the last touch, the last word; and
that small cool hand, once captured, was singularly hard to
relinquish.

"To-morrow ... whatever happens," was all he dared to say.  For
answer he had the rose-flush on her half-averted face; and he went
forth as one who goes to victory; secure in his belief that the
morrow could not pass till her lips had confirmed the avowal of her
cheeks and eyes.  Almost, in that moment, he felt capable of bidding
the sun stand still and expecting it to obey him.

And she?

So soon as the door had closed behind them all, she went swiftly to
the threshold of her shrine, and stood there, cooling her face
against the glass of the open door, one hand upon her heart that
throbbed and sang as though it would burst the bounds of flesh.

What it all meant, whither it would lead them, she dared not ask
herself in set terms.  As yet it sufficed that she shared his
triumph; and he, in turn, shared with her the nameless thrill of
touch, and speech, and glance.  Nor was that all.  Something within
whispered that he craved more than this sublimated essence of
emotion, so satisfying to her.  Was it conceivable that he craved
all--might even dare to ask all?--he, the inspired English artist, of
her, the Indian girl-student, divided from him by immovable barriers
of country and creed?

Then the door was flung open briskly; and she turned to meet Audrey's
inquiring eyes.

"It's all over, then?" was her greeting, and her very voice brought
Lilamani to earth with a thud.  "Was it a success?  What's come to
you, child?  You look transfigured!"

"Do I?"  Lilamani tried to smile, but tears sprang unbidden from the
deeps.  "It has all been so wonderful!  Signor Martino spoke such
praises.  And--I am so happy----"

Her voice broke.

"What is there to cry about, then?" asked practical Audrey: and the
girl swept a hand across her lashes.

"Oh, how can I tell?  You would never understand."

She made as if to go, but Audrey's hand closed upon her arm.

"Don't run away, dear, the minute I come back," she said a little
wistfully.  "I'm not so stupid as that amounts to; and I want to hear
about this afternoon.  Signor Martino is pleased?  And your father?"

"Yes.  He says--it lives and breathes."

Audrey's hand was on the silken covering.  "I suppose I may look
since everyone else has seen it?" said she; and proceeded to look,
long and silently, defying the ache within; while Lilamani, in
broken, half-coherent phrases, told her of Martino's enthusiasm, of
Mrs. Despard's conviction that through this--her picture--Mr.
Sinclair had "found himself" at last.

Audrey listened without interruption.  Then she nodded, compressing
her lips.

"Yes.  It's a very remarkable bit of work.  But still----"

"But still--_what_?"  Lilamani spoke almost sharply.  The cool tone
maddened her so.  Yet now she must endure the worse ordeal of the
cool glance that discerned something, at least, of the agitation
within.

"What I mean is this----"  Audrey handled her words steadily, as the
surgeon his knife.  "It is a cruel kindness for them all to inflame
Nevil with their enthusiasm on the strength of one exceptional
success.  They only make it harder for him to remember his _real_
duty----"

"What is that?"  The low voice was toneless now, the sweet submissive
face a mask.

"The duty he owes to his father and his family at home; as you, a
daughter of Hindu tradition, very well understand.  Nevil is the
eldest son of a distinguished house----"

"Mrs. Despard told me that; and all his father's wishes.  Only--she
thinks----"

"In my opinion she thinks too much of Nevil, and of his art; which
makes it a pity she turned up just now.  No right-minded person can
doubt that it is high time for him to drop philandering with paint
and canvas, and knocking aimlessly about the Continent, achieving
nothing.  He ought to go home, and stand for Parliament, and then
marry the right sort of girl--in his own position.  The marriage of
an eldest son is an important matter in England.  He is less free to
choose haphazard than other men."

Then, kindly but inexorably, she enlarged upon the subject; doing her
own duty by friend and pupil without stint: and while Lilamani
listened meekly, expressing a mild interest from time to time, all
her vague rose-coloured possibilities shrivelled and died.

No sunset peace was to be hers.  Better had she accepted the walk by
the sea.  The afternoon had quickened all her deepest sensibilities
into passionate life; and Audrey's dutiful dissertation was like a
chill hand upon her quivering heart.




CHAPTER X

    "O sun of heaven, above the worldly sea,
    O very love, what light is this of thee!
  My sea of soul is deep as thou art high,
    But all thy light is shed through all of me,
  As love's thro' love while day shall live and die."
                                              SWINBOURNE.


But the heart of seventeen is nothing if not resilient; and the thin
coating of ice, dutifully laid on by Audrey, could not choose but
melt again in the light of Nevil Sinclair's eyes.  Then the laughter
of sun and sea; the boat, pulling lightly at its mooring-rope, like a
playful child; all glad things seemed wooing her to forgetfulness of
a pillow wet with tears, and carefully turned over lest Audrey
discover the fact.

One thing disappointed her.  There were but four of them.  Mrs.
Despard's husband was too ill to be left; and a heavy mail, that Sir
Lakshman wished to grapple with at leisure, had made him beg Audrey
to take his place.  She could not well refuse; and now the four stood
ready to embark from the toy bay scooped out of the headland where
Nevil had sat with his "divine discovery" two nights ago.

Vivid against the broken white rocks, the sea that Lilamani loved so,
shone blue and green, like her favourite peacock's breast, and her
golden butterflies flickered, in their millions, along the wide path
of light travelling westward with the sun.  But the silken calm of
yesterday was gone.  Out in the open, heaving billows rose and fell,
hinting lazily at huge forces in reserve.  A brisk little breeze from
the south-west tipped them here and there with feathers of foam; and
away towards Italy a harmless-looking flock of grey-white clouds
dappled the blue.  A day that justified in full Lilamani's phrase of
riding on the sea; and she could scarce restrain her impatience to be
afloat.  But, the boatman, with eloquent hands and eyebrows, appeared
to be dissuading the Englishmen from going out.  He detected promise
of storm in that brisk little breeze, with its affectation of playful
frivolity; and Audrey made haste to put in her word.

"If he thinks it best not to go, Nevil, don't be unwise enough to
insist."

But Nevil was mysteriously aware of the cloud that shadowed
Lilamani's face.

"My dear girl, I know what I'm about.  It's merely a case of not
going too far.  But, of course, if you feel nervous----"

She silenced him with a glance; and he, turning to Lilamani, added,
with manifest change of tone, "You rather enjoy a little tossing,
don't you?  And we can turn the minute our friend here gives the
word--eh, Broome?"

"Right.  I see no symptoms myself of serious derangement of the
elements.  Our friend may be more lazy than weather-wise, after all."

That happy suggestion clinched matters, and they set out: the women
in the stern; Nevil rowing stroke; the pessimist reclining in the
bows, to keep a sharp look-out on the heavens and lend a hand if need
be.  By this arrangement Sinclair's eyes were free of the beloved
face; and he had promised himself, by interplay of stolen glances, to
prepare the way for speech.

But he reckoned without the effect of Audrey's presence on the girl,
and the yet more repressive effect of her words.  To Lilamani,
however rebellious at heart, one thing was certain: if there were the
remotest fear of injuring his family or his fame, then yesterday's
wonder of revelation must be, for her, as though it had never been.
And without speech she must contrive to make him understand.  So she
refused, stoically, to meet the eyes that sought hers, at first in
glad certainty of response; then in a growing bewilderment that
verged on despair.  This was not the Lilamani of last night.  It was
the Lilamani of earlier sittings: and he did not hold the key to the
change.  Instinctively, he blamed Audrey; though what she had said or
done he was too distracted to guess.

It may be imagined that conversation fell flat: while
Nevil--shuffling and discarding wild conjectures--handled his oar
more casually every moment.

Broome, amusedly trying to keep time with him, gave it up at last,
and balancing his own blade, smote his friend upon the shoulder.

"Come out of that, Nevil!" cried he.  "I'm tired of playing second
fiddle to a stroke who indulges in a _scherzo_, with variations,
under the delusion that he is propelling a boat.  I've not sworn at
you once--audibly.  And I claim my reward.  Come out of it, and let
me give the ladies a taste of my quality!  Good Lord, man, steady on!
You'll have us all in the water."

For Sinclair had risen impetuously, with a swift darkening of his
whole face, duly noted by Audrey.  One last look at
Lilamani--unreturned, like the rest--and pulling himself together, he
exchanged seats, with all due precaution, and a twisted smile in
response to Broome's friendly pressure of his arm.  Then did the boat
bound forward to some purpose; and flagging conversation revived:
though not for long.  Of a sudden that brisk little breeze from the
south dropped its pretence at frivolity, and raced full speed across
the open sea, lashing the long lazy billows to crested waves.  They
caught the green and white pleasure-boat broadside on with a force
that set it shuddering from end to end; and the pessimist in the bows
had his moment of triumph.

"_Voyez donc, Messieurs, tournez--tournez vite!_" he cried in
unfeigned alarm.  "_Ça vient comme un ouragon._"

Before the words were out, both Englishmen had gripped their oars and
bowed themselves to the task with a will.  But the leaping, rocking
boat seemed animated by a will of its own.  Every moment the onrush
of wind and waves grew fiercer; while the harmless flock of clouds
sped across the sky, their dark edges blurred with rain.  Audrey,
gripping the gunwale, paled a little; not on her own account, but on
account of the girl at her side, who--for her part--was lost in sheer
delight at the beauty and movement and tense excitement of it all.

The two men battled and failed; battled and failed again, swearing
inaudibly, between their teeth.  Then--even as a curling monster
broke over the boat, wetting Audrey to the skin--will and muscle
triumphed.  With a perilous lurch they swung round, and headed for
the shore, as speedily as a broadside gale and wave on toppling wave
would allow.

Not till then did Nevil dare snatch a glimpse of Lilamani, round the
intervening bulk of his friend.  Alert and upright she sat, this
fragile being in her silken draperies; head uplifted, lips apart.
One small hand had followed Audrey's lead; the other held her _sari_,
that flapped and billowed about her fantastically with each fresh
gust of the gale.  And now the eyes that had been denied him, met his
own fearlessly, all shadow of self-consciousness swept from them by
the keen joy in things elemental that drives out the spirit of fear:
and her lips flashed him a smile of such clear confidence as
redoubled his own.  With zest renewed he fought his way through the
surging waters.  All would yet be well; though this confounded
hurricane had upset his cherished plans, and might conceivably upset
the whole boat-load into the bargain.

Once--yea, twice, when a green wall of water bore down upon them,
implacable as Fate, the end seemed a matter of minutes; and the
natural, human dread of Death clutched at their hearts.  But light
craft, like certain light natures, will weather a sea that would sink
a sturdier vessel; and, at each crisis, their cockle-shell rose gaily
on the wave that should have whelmed it; shuddered down the far side
with no worse punishment than a blinding shower of spray; and still
headed gallantly for the Cap.  But here, in the toy bay, where
breakers laughed and thundered among the rocks, fresh danger
confronted them.  Almost it seemed as if landing were impossible; and
to attempt rounding the point were certain destruction.  But Cuthbert
Broome was more than a mere weaver of fiction; and as they neared the
danger-zone, his voice rang out, clear and commanding, above the
sonorous laughter of the sea.

"_Attendez bien!_" he shouted over his shoulder to the weather-wise
one in the bows, bidding him take fast hold of the rope and leap or
plunge ashore on the first ghost of an opportunity.  He and the other
monsieur would manage the rest.  A command tipped with gold; two
louis, no less: and the son of old Antibes laughed in his sleeve.
Certainly a wetting would be a nuisance.  But gold was gold.  And,
though the breakers ran high, they were child's play to others he had
weathered in fifteen years of intimacy with their kind.  So long as
"_les messieurs Anglais_" did not expect him to help with the
women-folk--who would certainly shriek and struggle at the last--all
was well; and he promised two whole candles to his patron saint, who
had plainly made these fools of foreigners deaf to his warning out of
pure consideration for his own empty pocket and recent ill-luck.

Before three minutes were out, he had seen his chance and taken it,
with the agility of a chamois.  Then, as the boat's keel screeched
and jarred upon hidden rocks, Broome shipped his oar, and leaned
forward, speaking with quiet decision.

"You must let me carry you across, Miss Hammond.  It's imperative.
Nevil can take Miss Lakshman Singh."

Revolt against the indignity of the first, and determination to
prevent the second, made Audrey thrust out both hands, as if to ward
him off by force.  But, in such a case, might is right.

"For God's sake don't make a fuss," the man said sternly; and a
moment later she was in his arms, held high like a child, while he
slipped and staggered among the last of the breakers; till a hand
thrust out by him of Antibes pulled them safe ashore.

Then--as Broome released her, and the boatman pocketed his gold--down
came the rain: not mere drops, but steely shafts of water that
flogged the earth and the tossing, shuddering trees.  Sinclair, still
in the boat, found time to hurl Audrey's parasol at his friend.  The
wind swept it yards ahead of them: and Broome, with a backward glance
of pure amusement, secured his thankless captive by the arm.

"Come on, Miss Hammond.  It's a case of running for all we're worth.
That toy of yours won't be much use."

But Audrey stirred not an inch.  "I'm wet through already," she
answered coolly.  "And I don't mind rain.  I must wait for Miss
Lakshman Singh."

"Nonsense, nonsense----"  The masterful hand on her arm propelled her
rapidly forward would she or no.  "Sea-water's one thing; rain's
another.  At my advanced age it spells rheumatism; and Nevil, of all
men, may be trusted to take good care of your friend."

"What do you mean?  You don't understand," she panted.  They were
fairly running now; and as they passed under the archway of Moorish
design--set where headland merges into mainland--Audrey snatched a
last look over her shoulder at the two, who were so annoyingly far
behind.

Nevil stood safely on the pathway now, with the treasure he coveted
in his arms.  Jealousy stung her, like a scorpion, jealousy that gave
place to anger, and the old antagonism, as she was ruthlessly hurried
along.  Why did he not put the girl down at once?  What shadow of
right had he to hold her an instant longer than need be?  What right,
indeed, beyond the primeval one of a heart that is set on fire of
love, and feels the only other heart on earth throbbing close against
it, to the same immemorial tune.

Chivalrous gentleman though he was, the primal man triumphed in Nevil
Sinclair just then.  Instead of relinquishing his heaven-sent burden,
he set off at a round trot--without leave asked or spoken word--for
the archway a hundred yards off, whose width promised shelter and a
chance of speech.  Odd that, although he had flung his own coat about
her shoulders, he should have forgot her parasol; but the boatman
chased him with it and thrust it open into the girl's hand.

As for her--shyness, amazement, and a thrill of fear, that was
rapture, had smitten her dumb.  But now, as he began to run, she
dutifully strove for freedom; pushing herself from him with one
ineffectual hand pressed against his drenched silk shirt.

"Let me walk.  Put me down.  Oh, please, please!"

"When we get to the arch," he assured her, smiling, as he hurried on.
And all the while his arms that held her, lightly, yet so closely,
were telling her things not to be uttered save through that mystery
of contact which is love's daily bread.

Then the arch loomed darkly above them.  There was respite from the
lash of the rain, that fell now in a steady downpour; for the wind
had dropped.  And the man was constrained to set her down, to loose
his hold upon her yielding slenderness--for a time.  Before they went
on he would have her promise; not in words alone.

The blood drummed in his temples, and the whisper of her quickened
breathing was music in his ears.  But speech was difficult; more so
than he could have believed.  His flannel coat slipped unheeded from
her shoulders as she stood before him, wind-tossed and palpitating, a
flower shaken by the storm.

Then he drew a step nearer, and dared all.

"Lilamani----"

The word swept through her like triumphal music; and he saw the whole
rose of the woman blossom in her cheeks.  Then--remembrance stabbed
her: remembrance that as far as the East is from the West, so far had
Destiny set them asunder.

"Oh ... but you must not--" she pleaded, veiling her eyes lest they
contradict her tongue.  "And ... we ought to go on, please.  At once."

"Why?  You're very little wet; and the storm will soon pass over."

"But Audrey will be angry----"

He dismissed Audrey with a gesture of impatience.

"I'll settle with her, if only you will give me leave to tell
her----"  He came closer and she stepped back a pace.

"Lilamani!" he cried again, his voice breaking with passion held in
check.  "You know--you must know that those sweet, small hands of
yours have plucked the heart out of my body.  Will you throw it down
and break it?  Will you--will you?"

Still she denied him her eyes.  "Oh, do not ask me such things.  How
shall I say?  It is to my father you should speak."

"But it is from his daughter I must have my answer first."

Experience of her kind tempted him to enforce his plea by persuasion
more compelling.  But never had he realized more poignantly her
delicate aura of apartness than in this, their first moment alone,
when it seemed that he had but to go forward, with tender mastery,
and take her to himself.  Opportunity beckoned; temptation was keen;
and he readier, by nature, to yield than to resist.  Yet he merely
put out a hand and passed caressing finger-tips along the edge of her
_sari_.

He had his reward.  For a small shiver of ecstasy ran through her;
and he knew--exultingly he knew----!

"Beloved--let me see your eyes."  He spoke low and eagerly.  "Let
them promise me that you will be ... my wife, in spite of everything.
Put out of your mind all foolish scruples about difference of
race--and colour.  They are unworthy of you--of me--of the great
countries to which we belong.  Oh, my beautiful love!  Don't keep me
in suspense----"

At that she let fall her hands, and he cherished their chill
moisture, while those dark unfathomable eyes of hers dwelt upon his
face in a passion of adoration, such as the modern man rarely looks
for in marriage, and still more rarely receives.  Nevil Sinclair had
seen enough of counterfeit coin to realize that--worthy or
unworthy--he had struck pure gold at last.

He let out his breath in a sigh of supreme content.

"Now nothing in Heaven or earth can come between us," he said; and,
still holding her, leaned nearer for the crowning assurance.

But she, with a broken sound, stepped backward against the brickwork;
and, freeing one hand, warded him off with a gesture that for him was
a command.

"Oh, I must not--I may not!  There is not yet any betrothal.
And--and--there never can be----"

"In God's name, why not?" he cried out desperately.  "If you wish it
... and I wish it----"

Again that appealing gesture.  "Oh, please--please--not to speak,
and--try to understand.  You are asking if--if I--love you; and--how
shall I deny?  But--for marriage----"  The sob that struggled in her
throat was bravely driven back.  "In my country it is not just to the
pleasure of two people.  It is to union of families, of same
religion, same caste.  But ... how can we ... for sake of my father,
and--and--for yours----"

"Mine?  What d'you know of him----?"

"Not a great deal; but--enough.  Audrey told me----"

"Audrey----?  Good Lord----!"  Fire that was not passion blazed in
his eyes; and her lips quivered at this new revealing.

"Have I said wrong?  Please not be angry----"

"With you?  Never!"  Betrothal or no, his arm went round her
shoulders, and, in defiance of gentle resistance, held her so.  "But
I'll not put up with Audrey's interference.  My home affairs are no
concern of hers, and I shall tell her so in straighter language than
she'll care about.  What has she said already?  Tell me honestly.  I
have every right to know."

The measure of an Eastern woman's submission is the measure of her
love; and, in faltering, tailless phrases, she told him honestly of
the half-hour's talk that had jolted her from heaven to earth;
adding, on her own account, a tremulous plea for duty and family
honour, and--hardest of all--for the girl in his own rank of life....

But this he would not endure, even from her.

"Lilamani--how dare you, after--just now!  As for my father, no doubt
he would rather I chose a girl in my own set; you see, I am frank
with you.  But in my country, a man marries to please himself, not to
please his father."

She sighed; then, smiling bravely up at him: "In my country it is not
so: at least--not with women----"

"I know that.  Audrey told me also--of you----"

"Of me?"

A wave of hot colour flooded her face: and his hold upon her
tightened.

"Darling, we won't speak of that, or think of it even," he whispered;
and through the thin veil she felt his lips upon her hair.  "You are
mine now--for always.  Your father will never be blind to your true
happiness!  He is so courageous, so wide-minded----"

"Yes--yes.  But--in this, it is not him; it is our law, our custom.
If I, a Hindu, marry to a foreigner, I am cut off for always from
family, from caste, from religion--from ever going back to my home.
This he cannot change with all his wishing and his courage; and for
this--he would surely break his heart.  But he shall not--he shall
not----" her voice vibrated on a low note of passion--"that is why I
can only--break--my own."

"And mine, by the way.  Does that go for nothing?"

At the thrill of pain in his tone, the sob so bravely beaten back
rose up again, striking away her pitiful defences of pride and
maidenly aloofness.  Then--how it came about she never quite knew,
though he perchance could have enlightened her--she found herself
crying her heart out on the shoulder of the man who could never be
her betrothed; burning face hidden against his damp silk shirt;
distraught spirit soothed by the magic of his touch.  And, for a
while, beyond murmured endearments, he made no attempt to check her
tears.  He blessed them, rather, in that they brought relief to her,
and to him the privilege of such caresses as a smiling Lilamani would
never have allowed.  Only when the sobs had died down to shuddering
sighs, he brought his head close again and pleaded his cause with
hope renewed.

"Beloved--if ... supposing ... your father is not dead against me as
a son-in-law, you would be willing to sacrifice ... all you said----?"

Her passionate whisper, "Yes--oh yes----" lifted him to such heights
of humility as it is good for a man to reach once in a life.  "But he
will never--never----" she sighed out her tragic conviction.  "And
without his consenting, I will never--make promise ... even for
you----"  A tremor shook her stoical resolve.  But she checked his
threatened interruption, and went on, with a lift of her small, proud
head: "For me there can be no marriage.  Punishment of gods doubtless
for going against my mother.  I must only be thankful for freedom to
do Audrey's plan.  I will conquer these ugly studies.  Then--I go
back to my father and--my country; and I will bring health and light
to my less free sisters, who are sick of body or of mind----"

"You will do nothing of the sort, you blessed little saint," he
assured her; and his conviction, though a smiling one, equalled her
own.  "You will stay where Fate has sent you, to give health and
light to one unworthy Englishman, who can't live without you.
Lilamani----!"  He drew near again and stood before her, very
straight and virile in the clinging silk shirt and _kummerbund_.
"Have you quite grasped the fact, even now, that I want you more than
I have ever wanted anything on earth?  Why should we meet tragedy
half-way?  Seeing how you are placed, your father might be readier
than you think....  Only give me a chance to ask him,
to-morrow--to-night even----"

"Not you.  It is for me now," she said softly.  "It is I that can
give him less pain in telling.  Also--it is only I that
might--perhaps--bring him to see this thing with our eyes----"

"Yes--yes.  You are right.  You will speak soon?"

"I could not sleep to-night without telling him all that is in my
heart."

Her eyes had a far-away look, rapt and tender.  He felt himself
forgotten, and knew the prick of jealousy.

"Dearest," he said with sudden intensity, "will you ever love me half
as well as that?"

"Foolish one!" she rebuked him tenderly, and the play of blood in her
cheeks was an uplifting thing to see.  "How shall I know--yet?  But
this I know--we are staying here too long.  Audrey will be so
wondering and so angry."

"What a calamity!  And your news won't mend matters, I'm afraid."

"No.  That is the pity.  But still--we must go quickly.  Look--the
wind is almost dead."

"Is it?" he asked, looking instead at the delicate pencillings of
distress between her brows.

"And the rain also," she went on, stepping out for a fuller view of
sea and sky.  "Look how the sun is sparkling it like jewels!  And
there--over there--more beautiful than all!  So great a rainbow!  Two
rainbows.  Such as I have never seen!"

It was true.  Arched across the eastern sky, where rent clouds
unveiled a vision of frail, storm-washed blue, a double rainbow
spanned the heavens in two unbroken arcs.  Not blurred and misty, but
astonishingly clear, gleamed each ring of those primal colours that
rightly fused create the miracle men call light; even as love and
courage, faith and truth, in perfect fusion, create that other
miracle men call a human soul.

And while they stood watching, awed to silence, these two who had
touched the secret springs of life, sea and sky grew calmer, till all
the blue was stippled with footprints of the vanished wind--umber and
grey and white, smitten by the passing sun to luminous tints of pearl.

"'Bride of the Rain,' that is how Arabs call it," Lilamani whispered
at last; and the man's hand closed upon hers that hung at her side.

"Very beautiful," he said in the same tone, as if they stood on the
threshold of a temple.  "For you are my Bride of the Rain!  And it's
a good omen.  You know our Bible legend?"

"Yes.  I have read."

"The bow of promise--you remember?  Well, there it is--twice over.
Yours and mine."

Smiling, she shook her head; and the eyes she turned upon him had
their own rainbow-light of love gleaming through tears.

"You have the more courage.  But you cannot see, so clear as I see,
all the frowning mountains----"

"Love and faith can move mountains, Lilamani."

For a fleeting instant, her glance caressed him.  "It is possible.
And you must believe that I will do all I can--except go against my
father.  Come now----" the hand that nestled in his own was gently
withdrawn.  "And please--if Audrey is waiting me downstairs, will you
come up with us--that she shall not ask me questions?  I cannot speak
with her--of you, till I have spoken with my father.  Will you come?"

He beamed at the request.  "At least, then, you allow my right to
protect you?"

"I am allowing--every right," she answered very low.  "Only--I have
so little hope--

"Well, I have enough for us both and to spare!"

"Ah--that is a thought to shame my weakness.  Come, quickly."

So they went together up the broad path from the sea, keeping farther
apart than need be, lest any recognize them as lovers stepping
downwards from the hill of dreams into the valley of stones.  And
Miss Blakeney, smiling distantly upon them, as they mounted the
steps, was moved to righteous disapproval at the increasing
forwardness of the "Indian curio," who by rights should be safely
shut away from the sight of man, "Instead of flagrantly fishing for
an English husband--whom she would certainly never catch!"  A
spiteful touch evoked by the transfigured aspect of Nevil Sinclair's
face.




CHAPTER XI

  "C'est un ordre des dieux qui jamais ne se rompe
  De nous vendre bien cher les grands biens qu'ils nous font."
                                                  VICTOR HUGO.


No sign of Audrey below stairs, to their exceeding relief.  Lilamani
hoped secretly that practical considerations had driven her to her
room.  So might the culprit escape unchallenged to her room.  But
when jealousy and curiosity join hands with an unwavering sense of
duty, the culprit's chances of escape are small: and Audrey Hammond
had every intention of speaking out her mind to both.

Reaching the hotel, saturate and rebellious, she had looked round for
a sight of them, in vain.  Dignity and the state of her own heart
alone withheld her from going straight back through the rain; and she
may be forgiven if irritation triumphed.

"What on earth can Nevil be doing?" she broke out hotly.  "It is
abominable of him to detain Lilamani like this, when she's wet
through----"

"Not half so wet as you are," Broome said soothingly.  "You got the
full brunt of it, being on the weather side; and no doubt Nevil
thought it better to take shelter till the worst was over."

"He had no business to think----!"

"Make allowances, Miss Hammond.  It's a talent worth cultivating.  I
was nine-and-twenty once myself, and one remembers a thing or two.
Seeing that shelter included ten minutes alone with a charming girl,
I don't blame Nevil for taking it.  No young fellow worth his salt
would have done otherwise."

"Of course not.  That's the exalted way you men look at things!"  The
concentrated superiority of modern girlhood tinged her tone.  "But
with Lilamani it is different, as he knows well enough.  She is an
Indian girl----"

"And Nevil is an English gentleman," Broome reproved her quietly.
"Miss Lakshman Singh is perfectly safe with him; and I see no reason
why we should risk catching severe colds on their account.  If a
layman of advanced age may presume to prescribe to a doctor--I should
advise immediate change of clothes, and ammoniated quinine.  May I
see you to your room?"  Again he had her metaphorically by the arm.
Refusal would have been folly--undignified folly; and of that Audrey
was incapable.  At her door he had left her; and she, hurriedly
exchanging a wet coat and skirt for a dry one, was out again on the
landing before five minutes were up.

The lift halted; an elderly lady emerged, closing the door behind her.

Cool as she was by temperament, anger burned in Audrey Hammond like a
white flame; anger against the man who had stolen her own heart
unawares, and now--in the teeth of her straight-speaking--seemed set
upon wrecking her dearest project, to say nothing of Lilamani's
happiness.  That he would be mad enough to offer his distinguished
name to a Hindu girl-student--however well-bred--she could not bring
herself to believe.  He was simply indulging his masculine privilege
of stealing with one hand the priceless thing he must needs throw
away with the other.  Oh, these men--these self-styled "lords of
creation!"--with their unconscionable assumption that women, whose
meed is worship, were created solely for their personal delectation!
And the heresy dies hard; despite the pains taken by a subversive
minority to refine away from man, the overgrown schoolboy, all the
true masculinity, the essential barbaric, that spells national power.

Not that Audrey would have admitted this last.  She merely rejected
on principle the "lord of creation" theory of life: raged against it,
rather, in her present mood.  But so long as the bulk of
"unenlightened" women persist in setting the needs of others above
their own, what hope for the champions of self-assertion and
so-called equality?  What hope indeed, seeing that Nature--who abhors
equality as heartily and justly as she abhors a vacuum--framed the
other-regarding woman for her own great ends: a fact more frankly
recognized in the East than in the West, as Audrey had good reason to
know.

And Lilamani, angelic little fool, was, in this respect, Eastern to
the core: misguided past hope of redemption!  If Nevil had won her
love, she would quite conceivably take a pride in prostrating herself
at his feet, while he stepped over her quivering heart into more
eligible arms.

Thus Audrey, pacing the empty passage; listening for the
unconscionable two, who came not; and longing for the relief of
speech, however inadequate.

Ah!--the lift again.  She swung round, steeled to fresh
disappointment; and lo, they were coming towards her.  But there was
that in both faces which proclaimed the futility of reproof.  Baulked
at all points, she could only listen, with impassive interest, to the
transparent lameness of Nevil's explanation, that explained nothing
save the one fact obviously suppressed.

"We were afraid you might be wondering what had come to us," he
concluded airily.  "But it was a punishing downpour; and Miss
Lilamani is wet enough as it is."

"Yes, I will go at once and change.  Good-bye for now; and thank
you."  She gave him her hand, but not her eyes; adding, for Audrey's
benefit, with a desperate attempt at lightness: "I will make sure and
remember the quinine!"

Two minutes later, she stood alone, behind the blessed shelter of her
bedroom door; and Audrey heard the key turned softly.  A knife turned
in an open wound could hardly have hurt her more.

But Nevil was speaking again; apologizing for his disregard of
advice, and for the anxiety it must have caused her, to say nothing
of the wetting.

"But I sincerely hope you'll neither of you be the worse for that,"
he added with a fervor that hardened her heart afresh.

"Make your mind easy.  Lilamani won't die of it," she answered him
gravely.  "But rain or no rain, you ought to have brought her
straight in.  You had no right whatever to do anything else."

A light she had not yet seen sprang to his eyes.  But he controlled
himself and said coolly: "That remains to be proved."

"Nevil!  What on earth do you mean?"

He answered her with a direct look that drew the blood to her cheeks.
"I can't give you a full explanation yet, Audrey.  What's more, I'm
not responsible to you for my actions."

"To me?  No.  But what of Sir Lakshman Singh?"

"We can settle that--when I see him to-morrow.  Good night."

He was gone; and she stood alone, deliberately shut out from the
confidence of the two human beings who, at the moment, made up more
than half her world.  Incredible that he could be in earnest.  And
Sir Lakshman Singh?  If she knew anything of the man he would not
hear of it.  But still--it might be well to see Nevil before the
morrow, in spite of his rebuff; and make him understand that, for
Lilamani's sake, he must not persevere in so crazy a proposal.  She
would go down after dinner; leaving the father and daughter alone.
Her heart cried out that she could not sleep till she had the truth
from Nevil himself.

Fortified by this decision, she looked into the sitting-room, told
Sir Lakshman (who was growing anxious) they had escaped with nothing
worse than a wetting, and that Lilamani was lying down; then went on
to change for dinner.

The meal that followed was not enlivening: Sir Lakshman preoccupied
with the business that had kept him at home; Lilamani patently ill at
ease; and Audrey, between snatches of machine-made talk, counting the
minutes till she could decently make her escape.

On the arrival of coffee she rose with a hurried murmur about
promising a book to Madame de Lisle, picked one up at random, and
sped down the broad, shallow staircase, rating herself for the
flutter of trepidation within.

Disappointment again.  The Spinners of Destiny seemed in league
against her all round.  Nevil was nowhere to be seen.

He had dined early, in the restaurant, to evade the X-ray glances of
his friends; and at the moment of Audrey's descent he was pacing the
long path by the sea, "making glowworms" with an unimpeachable cigar
and living the afternoon's triumph over again.

On this night of nights, the claims of father, family, social
position, and trifles of a like significance to both, suffered total
eclipse.  The man saw nothing but Lilamani; his indubitably, by
virtue of that dumb adoration in her eyes.  To-morrow he would claim
her openly, regardless of conventional arched eyebrows and uplifted
hands--if only she could win the consent of Sir Lakshman.  In this
direction alone he admitted possibility of failure.  Not all Love's
sovereign egoism could blind him to the truth that upon those hidden
rocks of duty and devotion to her father the storm-waves of passion
would beat without avail.  But surely if the man idolized her, as
Audrey had said, all must be well.

Impatience racked him.  How could he wait till morning, when by now
his fate might be sealed!


And even while he paced and smoked, and built air-castles under the
wistful stars, Lilamani knelt beside her father's chair, lids lowered
demurely, hands resting lightly on his arm.

"Father mine--there is a thing I must tell before sleeping: a thing
my heart is aching to tell.  And yet--it is afraid----"

"Of me?  Since when has it learnt such foolishness, joy of my life?"

His free hand covered hers.

"Since a few days only; and now still more--because, in returning
from the boat--Mr. Sinclair----"

"Ah--what of him?"

The sharpness of his tone startled her.  She looked up in dismay.

"Kindest, please not be too quick to blame, or how shall I find
courage for the truth?  To-day, after landing, when Mr. Broome and
Audrey hurried on, he ... he waited me, under the arch, because of
rain; and then he told me ... asked me.... How can I say all?  Only
that he wishes, very much ... oh, very much ... that I give him
promise--of betrothal----"

Sir Lakshman felt the small hands quiver beneath his own, that closed
upon them firmly in token of assurance, while, for her sake, he
mastered his amazed indignation and spoke.

"My child, I have been fearing, these last days, that some such
madness was in his mind.  But this I did not look for, that he should
presume, without my leave, to speak so freely----"

"He says ... English custom," she pleaded softly, not daring, now, to
hint at freedom other than speech.

"With their own women, it is true.  But in such a case, quite outside
experience, he did wrong to make use of closer intimacy, permitted
only for a time, by reason of his urgent wish.  Yet, after all ...
_I_ should have foreknown.  Lacking true detachment, by reason of
love's frailty, I had not courage to resist the offer of this
picture, when your image in my heart should have sufficed.  Seeing
how your beauty had smitten him from the first, I should have been
steadfast in refusal: and now--because the gods strike through our
best-beloved--behold my punishment laid on you, who have already
suffered enough.  Is it not so, Lilamani?  Is it he alone who wishes,
very much--this impossible thing?  Or do you also----?"

"I also."

The words were a mere whisper.  She had bowed her forehead upon his
hand; and it was wet with her tears.

"You told him this?"

"I told him."

A stifled sound escaped Sir Lakshman Singh: and she, choking back her
grief, knelt upright, the tear-drowned eyes challenging his with a
courage of his own bestowing.

"Kindest--if I did wrong, you will forgive.  How should one heart lie
to another, when both stand unveiled?  Yet I gave no promise, except
I would plead your consent to this, which you call impossible.  Oh,
Father ... to us it does not seem so."

"Kama, godling of the arrows, has thrown dust in your eyes," the man
answered, smiling sadly.  "And this Mr. Sinclair has not the smallest
knowledge of what such marriage would mean--for you----"

"But I told him; saying also I was ready ... to forego all; in
certainty nothing could quite cut me off--from you.  Could it--could
it?"

"No, sweetest one.  With us, no division can come between soul and
soul.  Yet spirits are constrained to dwell in the house of the body.
And the ocean is wide; as you know, now----"

Her tears overflowed.  "I know ... bitterly I know.  Only ... you
would come more often, for my sake----"

"Assuredly: whenever possible.  But what of your mother, your
brothers, your religion?  True, I have shown you sacred books of many
creeds, that you might perceive how the light of the One great Unseen
dwelling behind the veil of the seen shines alike through all forms
of doctrine and worship.  Yet for each man the form received from his
own ancestors, his own country, is best.  Believing this, as I do,
daughter of my heart--you would surely not wish to change; even
though you must lose all except essence of our faith?"

She drew in a tremulous lip.

"Oh, it is easy with lips alone to make sacrifice!  But marriage and
religion are one; and unless--by accepting the last, how shall I gain
the first?"

"There is yet a way: only it is as if to cure one ill with another.
In Europe they have an evil practice of making marriage by law,
without ceremonies of consecration----"

"No--oh no!  We could not have it thus.  Sooner, I would make any
sacrifice.  From him I will learn of his creed, that his God may be
as my God.  In this first great matter husband and wife must be of
same mind."

"Truly spoken, wise one.  You have seen enough in your own home of
the trouble that comes when they are not so, even though of same
creed.  But faith is not as a garment, to be taken up or cast
aside--even at command of love.  Believe me, child, yours would not
change, though you deck it in new words and give it a new name.  You
would not ever have one mind with this man of traditions and ideals
far away from your own.  Knowing these things, I do well to say such
union is not possible for this daughter of mine."

"Oh, Father--Father!"  All the newly-awakened passion of her woman's
heart, dutifully repressed till now, voiced itself in that despairing
cry.  "I will never go against you.  But you said ... I have suffered
enough.  Now ... will you kill me right out?"

He winced: then gathered her close.

"Hush, dearest one; that is wild talk.  If I am seeming cruel for a
moment, it is only that I may save you from worse suffering--when too
late.  No, not to interrupt.  Listen a little longer; remembering
that I have lived in England and speak of what I understand.  Even if
you are ready to renounce all, endure all--and I am believing you
capable of both--there are, for Mr. Sinclair, difficulties not to be
brushed aside like cobwebs.  Audrey tells me he is eldest son of a
Baronet and by duty to his family----"

"That she told me, too----"  For some reason Audrey's name pricked
her to impatience, "and to-day, I tried to speak of it; but he
said----"

"Yes, yes.  I know well what young men of all nations say when their
blood is on fire for passion of a beautiful woman.  And you are a
woman now, little one, beautiful as a half-blown lotus-bud in the
moon.  More than that, remember you are light of my eyes, the most
priceless jewel of my heart; and you are asking that I shall bestow
this upon a stranger, a foreigner, of other creed and race----"

"But Father--are you not forgetting he is of the race you admire more
than all?" she pleaded eagerly, inspired by despair to one last
eloquent appeal.  "Is it not from your own so big mind I have been
learning, all these years, to join your admiration of this great
England and those her ideals you told of only yesterday?  Is it not
you that have shown me, by stories and poems of her highest writers,
how it is beautiful, this love-made marriage between
freely-consenting hearts of woman and man?  Is it not you who saved
me from that other marriage, worse than death, and gave leave for the
picture that has brought to me this--crown of life?  Have I not heard
you speak often against those lines about East and West, that the two
may not meet; because you must believe there might one day come
closer understanding, through sympathy--through love?  Is it only
from your _lips_ this believing, Father mine?  And if from the
heart--how better to prove such belief than by giving even your most
priceless jewel to a man of this fine race----"  Her voice broke on
the words; her flash of eloquence died out.  "Oh, Father, I beg you
not take away all hope!" she cried piteously, and hid her face upon
his breast.

For many minutes she lay thus, a quivering sheaf of sensibilities,
soothed by the strong pressure of his hand upon her head; praying
passionately to Mai Lakshmi, goddess of Fortune, who, being a woman,
must surely hear and make him understand.  Then, in a tense
expectancy, she waited--waited for the words that seemed as though
they would never come: not realizing, in her anxiety, that his
silence proved the strength of her appeal.

In language the more arresting for its simplicity, she had set before
him the truth that unwittingly he himself had led her, step by step,
toward this undreamed of consummation.  He saw her--his priceless
jewel--set between the devil and the deep sea; between the hideous
marriage from which he had snatched her, and a life of barren
womanhood, devoted to uncongenial work.  To this pass he had brought
her through insistence on a Western education, and delight in her
sweet companionship; or, in the language of his own creed, through
lack of detachment, whereby all evils come.

Dare he deny her so miraculous, if questionable, a chance of escape?
No student, it was plain--this lovely and lovable child of his
begetting; but just true woman, who, having found her lode-star, must
follow it, "to her triumph or her undoing."  And he who so heartily
wished to see concord replace conflict between East and West, could
it be thus that the gods bade him give proof of the desire, the
belief that was in him--as she had said?

"Lilamani."  He spoke at last, lifting her head from its shelter and
framing her face with his hands.  "Habit is master even of the
strongest.  I have never denied you in small things.  How should I
deny you in this--greatest of all?  Your words have the force
belonging to truth.  That which my own acts have brought about, I
have no right, no power to undo.  Marry this man, child, if you
cannot find happiness except in taking such tremendous risk.  I was
hoping in time you would get more pleasure from your studies.
Selfish hope, because in the end they would bring my uncaged bird
back to the nest."

"I also was hoping, and for that same reason--dearest," she made
answer steadily, though tears gleamed on her lashes.  "But ask your
private heart only--is woman created for wisdom in book-lore, or in
heart-lore?  Is she, before all things, Life-healer, or Life-bringer?
Audrey might think--the first.  But I ... never!  And will it be
great harm for England if I give to her a few children with best
blood of India in their veins?"

For such a mingling of young simplicity and womanly wisdom he could
find no answer but a lingering kiss on her brow.

"That is the seal of your consenting?" she whispered.  And he: "It is
the seal of your freedom, rather, to make your own decision.  Only
this I counsel, that you give no promise of betrothal till you have
considered, with cooler brain and heart, all that you must lose for
this one gain.  Best wisdom, believe me, child, is that you should go
without any sight of him for one whole week.  Abstinence will bring
surer knowledge of your own heart; also, in detachment of spirit, you
will see more clearly to judge true judgment."

"And--he?"

"I will myself see him to-morrow.  I must know something more of him
and of his own people, before I can fully give consent.  After seeing
him, I will ask him to go right away for one week.  Not too long,
little one?"

She shook her head with compressed lips and puckered brows.

"I shall put very clearly to him all you must forego, and see that he
too is ready to face his share of difficulties like a man.  Because
... if he should make you unhappy----?"

Murder gleamed in the dark of Sir Lakshman's eyes; and she leaned to
him, lightly smoothing his brow.

"On that account, Father, have no fear."

"Yet even so--there is too much that might bring you trouble; and I
not by to help.  Think, my child, if the Gods in anger should take
him from you, leaving you a widow--young, beautiful, cut off from
home and country----"

"Oh, please, please hush!" she cried out, covering her ears.  Then,
with a sudden dawn of inspiration in her face, she added low and
fervently: "Shall the flesh survive when the soul is gone?  If the
Gods smite me through him--I go also.  I am _suttee_.  There are
other ways than the funeral pyre."

She set her small hands palm to palm; and he pressed them between his
own, knowing well that she spoke truth.  Yet, for all his
enlightenment, was he too innately a Hindu to voice his conviction
that surely she was of those whom the Gods themselves could not
wittingly harm.




CHAPTER XII

  "He which observes the wind shall hardly sow;
  He which regards the clouds shall hardly reap,
  Risk all, who all would gain: and blindly.  Be it so."
                                          FRANCIS THOMPSON.


There were at least four people in the Hotel du Cap who slept very
ill that Friday night, and welcomed the smile of morning with the
peculiar gratitude of those who have been at odds with their pillow
through the small hours.

Perhaps, of the four, Audrey Hammond had the worst of it.  A sense of
being shut out from the confidence of those, who in a peculiar sense
belonged to her, added poignancy to suspense; and, by the time
Annette's knock gladdened her ears, all she asked was certain
knowledge--good or bad.

The maid handed her a note.  She paused a moment to steady herself
before opening it; then she read the few lines writ in pencil--and
knew the worst.


"DEAR AUDREY,--I slept too little in the night, and this morning I
will stay in my room alone.  You will hear from father all that came
to me yesterday, still too wonderful to believe.  It will make you
sad.  Perhaps angry.  But I am hoping you will understand that heart
must come before head when it is a woman.  And please forgive, if you
can, your stupid and disappointing, but so grateful,

"LILAMANI."


She read the note twice over, tears clutching at her throat.  But she
would not suffer them to fall, though such kindly rain would have
been her best medicine of healing just then.  Strange how all
jealousy, all thought of the man seemed suddenly eclipsed by the pain
of losing this "stupid and disappointing" Lilamani, whose heart must
come before her head.  Instinctively her latent motherhood had gone
out to this unmothered child, whom Nevil--with characteristic
disregard of complex issues--must have asked to be his wife.  But
what of Sir Lakshman?  Could even Lilamani persuade him to
countenance such madness?  With Audrey dressing was always a rapid
operation: but this morning she broke her record.

Sir Lakshman stood awaiting her, composed and courteous as usual, but
with creases of worry on his brow.  Her own mask of cheerful
practical interest did credit to her powers of self-control.

"Lilamani sent me a line," she remarked, pouring coffee and milk into
Sir Lakshman's cup.  "The child slept badly and won't hurry up.  She
says you have news for me.  Is it--Nevil?"

"Yes.  He wishes to marry her."

"And--can you bring yourself to consent?"

At that direct attack, composure deserted him.

"Miss Hammond, situated as she is--can I bring myself to refuse?"

Audrey considered the question while helping herself to honey.

"That complicates matters," she admitted grudgingly.  "It is
disappointing that the study of medicine is so little to her taste.
Yet--I suppose you would hardly let her marry into a family that
might refuse to receive her as one of themselves?"

"Is it likely?" the man asked sharply.

"Well--possible, from what I know of Sir George Sinclair and Lady
Roscoe.  Arrogance, and narrow prejudice, you will say.  But you have
to remember that many intelligent and cultivated people, who have had
no connection with India, would not see much difference between an
Englishman's marriage with an Indian girl of good breeding, like
Lilamani, or--say--with a superior ayah."

The fighting gleam in Sir Lakshman's eye told her the shot had gone
home.

"It is precisely about this that I must speak to Mr. Sinclair," said
he, and the fighting note was in his voice.

"Oh, you can trust Nevil to make light of family disapproval!  But it
will be no light matter for Lilamani.  And, for them--well, Nevil is
the eldest son.  It is only natural they should think ... of his
children."

"Believe me--I think of them also.  In India marriage is for that
purpose.  Yet consider, for her sake, if I refuse--what then?
Stumbling-blocks at every turn," he muttered, frowning.  "I have been
breaking my shins against them all night long.  I have sent word I
will see Mr. Sinclair.  And, at all events, I send him away for a
week.  Then--we shall see."

"A week!  Poor Nevil!"

"Yes.  I can enter in his feelings.  But she is worth waiting for."

With which conclusion he fell back upon silence.  Plainly his pride
of caste and of fatherhood were up in arms--which was well, from
Audrey's point of view.

The instant breakfast was over she made haste to be gone.  If she
knew anything of Nevil that message would bring him upstairs three
steps at a time; and she prayed to be spared from meeting him as she
ran down.

To-day her _kismet_ was kinder.  She was safe in the little olive
wood near the tennis-courts when Nevil Sinclair sped along the
passage to the corner sitting-room, marshalling arguments that might
convince the man who had power to crush or crown him with a word.
Rather odd, having a Hindu for a father-in-law, he reflected; and
hardly knew whether he relished the idea.  Still--Sir Lakshman was
the father of Lilamani, and in many respects far above the average
semi-Anglicized Asiatic.  His enlightenment was not a mere matter of
Bond Street suits, slang phrases and a motor-car.  He was of the very
few who assimilate the spirit of culture with its forms; and without
question he had passed on the lighted torch to his child.

Certainly he appeared a father-in-law of whom no man need feel
ashamed as he rose to greet the bold young Englishman, who was
displaying one of the essential qualities of his race in his
readiness to take a risk and face the consequences: a quality that
breeds great mistakes, and, by the same token, great achievements
also.

"Good morning, Sir Lakshman.  Glad to get your message," Sinclair
said, with a valiant show of assurance.  Then, irresistibly, his
glance travelled towards the balcony.

"No, she is not there," Sir Lakshman said, smiling, yet with a touch
of constraint.  He had not been prepared for sudden recrudescence of
the keen primeval antagonism that for the moment made further speech
difficult.  His passing awkwardness gave Sinclair courage, and
unloosed his tongue.

"I believe I did wrong in speaking first to your daughter, Sir
Lakshman," said he, plunging valiantly into the heart of the matter.
"And I apologize.  Frankly, though, I don't regret it.  If I had come
to you first, you would probably have sent me about my business."

"That is possible."  Sir Lakshman smiled more kindly.  In the face of
such manly straight-speaking how should antagonism hold its own?

"But now that I have spoken, for God's sake don't say you can't trust
her to me!" Nevil cried out; his assurance changed to sudden fear.

"Sit down, Mr. Sinclair," said the Indian, laying a hand on the young
man's shoulder and gently pushing him into the arm-chair.  "It is of
this that we must speak.  You come to me asking the greatest gift one
man can make to another.  Well--I have strong prejudice in favour of
your country; and to yourself I took great liking on that first
evening, when you drove in your thin end of wedge.  Yet I hesitated
very much even then.  Better, perhaps, for all--had I refused."

"Can you honestly think that, sir, seeing how she is placed?"

"Honestly--perhaps not.  But now, if I hesitate still more, do me
justice to believe it is not from doubt of trusting her to you, but
because such trusting would involve many difficulties over which you
can have no control."

"Yes--yes.  That's the pith of the problem," Nevil admitted with a
frankness that raised him many degrees in the Hindu's esteem.  "I
hardly slept last night for thinking of it all.  It seems she must
pay a big price for the privilege of accepting a worthless chap like
me.  But she's willing to pay it.  That I know--since yesterday.  And
I suppose you know it too?"

"Without a doubt.  She is pure Hindu woman in her capacity for
sacrifice of self.  But her eyes are dazzled.  They cannot see all it
will mean.  And her great loss makes greater responsibility for you."

Nevil nodded feelingly.  He stood at the cross-roads now with a
vengeance.  But the last vestige of hesitation had been burnt up by
the flame within.

"That's true enough," said he.  "And responsibility's new to me.
Audrey would tell you I don't know the meaning of the word.  But I do
know that in these few weeks, your daughter has awakened more than my
heart.  Isn't my picture proof of that?  And can I do more than give
you my word of honour to make her happiness my first consideration?
I admit there are difficulties I can't control.  But there are still
a good few that I have power to soften.  In the first place, we could
live mainly abroad.  The climate and the general atmosphere would
suit her better than England--don't you think?"

"Yes; much better.  But what about your people?  Your career?"

"My career--if I achieve such a thing--was decided on Thursday, by
Martino's verdict on my picture.  No more amateur work for me after
that.  So, in any case, remaining abroad gives me a double advantage.
Better scope for study, and escape from family friction at close
quarters."

Sir Lakshman suppressed a sigh.  "You are claiming heavy price for
your gift, Mr. Sinclair.  For you the substance.  For me the shadow.
And I am to understand there would be even more 'family friction' as
you say, if I permit this marriage?"

Nevil hesitated, tugging at his moustache; and for a second or so
they confronted each other in silence, these two, who so deeply and
diversely loved the girl to whom the murmur of their voices through
the wall came as the sound of an unresting sea, that had power to
float or to capsize her rosy-sailed bark of life.

"I have the right to expect frankness from you," the Indian began,
and Nevil broke in eagerly--fearful of what might follow:

"You shall have it, sir; only ... such things are not easily said.
I'm afraid my people would be as much against the marriage as against
the artistry.  But--I'm my own master; and their annoyance would blow
over.  I promise you I would not take her home until I made sure they
would give her the right sort of greeting."

"That is well.  I should demand it.  Yet there is always possibility
it might not 'blow over'; and anyway, from my point of view it is
most distasteful to think of letting daughter of mine marry in a
family that will look on her as what you call--_mésalliance_.  It is
true what Miss Hammond said this morning.  They would probably have
no knowledge of caste distinction.  They would think you have
demeaned yourself----"

"They may think what they thundering well please!" Nevil flashed out,
goaded by suspense.

"Of yourself, certainly; if you are indifferent;" Sir Lakshman
conceded with his imperturbable dignity.  "But of her--by no means.
You have to remember that although I give much respect to your
country, and am inclining to consent, for Lilamani's sake, yet, if
your father has his pride, I too have mine.  To me it seems no more
honour for her to marry with you than with any fine young fellow of
her own country.  She is of old Rajput family, therefore of good
birth and lineage, like yourself.  In fact, if you had not been her
equal in that, I would never give consent.  But there are other
obstacles serious enough.  In the first place--her religion.  For the
Indian woman religion is all; and marriage is a chief part of that
religion.  It is consecration for this life and all other lives.
That is the inmost reason of _suttee_.  The wife, being spiritually
higher than her husband, has all power over the welfare of his soul
in future incarnations; he, without her, having none.  These are not
matters spoken of in my country between one man and another.  But
only I do so because you most honestly love my child, and because
Westerns so ignorantly misjudge our motives in the matter of our
women; thinking we hold them in contempt, because we are giving them
so little material power, which is what you peoples chiefly prize, in
spite of Christian faith.  But now consider--how shall there be
marriage of consecration without unity of creed?  See then, what loss
for her, that she can have no power for the welfare of your soul."

Nevil frowned; his fingers once more at his moustache.  Dimly he
began to perceive the full complexity of a matter he had hoped, if
not expected, to settle out of hand.

"Seems a sorry affair for her all round," he said ruefully.  "I quite
thought a civil marriage would meet the difficulty."

"So I was imagining.  But to her, marriage unconsecrated is so
distasteful that rather would she change her religion for your own,
and would learn from you----"

"My dear sir, I'm afraid my faith, what there is of it, is as
unorthodox and formless as the faith of most men nowadays.  But hers
is the biggest part of her; and if she wants a voice in the welfare
of my soul, I'd almost as soon turn Hindu myself----"

Sir Lakshman raised a protesting hand.

"Put that from your mind," he said with great kindliness.  "I
appreciate it as proof of your feelings.  But if religion means not a
great deal to you, better, most certainly, to keep what you have of
your own.  It is want of vitality in religion that is causing so much
harm in all progressive countries to-day.  But you will not mend that
by change of name, which also would do no good in the matter I spoke
of.  By this marriage she would be cut off--as she told you--from all
religious rites and privileges.  She can keep only the spirit of her
belief.  Better therefore, civil marriage, and for both to accept
that in this case, as in too many others, you cannot be of one mind."

"God knows I'm willing to accept anything sooner than lose her,"
Nevil made answer fervently.  "And if she's willing too, why
shouldn't we have the courage of our convictions and make the
experiment?"

Sir Lakshman had a smile of sympathetic understanding for the eager
confidence of youth that is at once so enviable and so pathetic to
the middle-aged.

"A big matter for experiment.  You have to consider also that
marriage is for more than for personal companionship.  With us in
India that counts perhaps for too little.  But at least we do very
well in recognizing that chief purpose of marriage is for continuing
the race; though unhappily there are too many signs it is not so
regarded among better classes of modern Europe and America.  You will
please not take my frankness amiss.  For this is a very serious
difficulty about which your father would have right to feel strongly,
you being his eldest son."

Fresh confusion of face here for Nevil, who, in the ardour of
personal desire, had overlooked the most obvious stumbling-block of
all.

"Jove, I didn't get as far as that!" he confessed, so ruefully that
the elder man's smile deepened to pure amusement.  "But all the
same," he added valiantly ignoring the momentary jar, "whatever my
father's prejudices may be, I'd stake my life on it that--her
children and your grandchildren couldn't have very much wrong with
them, inside or out."

"You are more wide-minded than most men of your race," Sir Lakshman
answered, plainly gratified by such wholesale loyalty to his Jewel of
Delight.  "Yet there is one thing not to be escaped.  In spite of
good blood on both sides those children must suffer the stigma of
half-breed, which Nature herself is said to abhor."

Nevil winced: but his courage held good.  "Why any more of a stigma
than if I married a well-born Spaniard or Italian?"

"That has always been a puzzle for me, seeing that Indians are no
less of Aryan stock than southern races of Europe.  But fact remains
that in one case there is stigma; in the other, not.  Still, in my
great wish to promote closer sympathy between two so fine countries
as England and India I have often wondered would this be helped or
hindered by occasional marriage, between best on both sides.  It is
very hard to tell.  And, in my thinking, chief difficulty is not so
much race as religion, that is the soul of a race.  From idealist
standpoint it seems as if such combination ought to produce fine
result; if only because soul of the West is masculine and soul of the
East, feminine.  Yet look how unsatisfactory the mixed race created
in India by such crossing----"

"In most cases, surely, the wrong kind of crossing.  A marriage like
ours would be quite another affair.  You know that.  I declare you're
on our side in heart, sir: and it's you that should have the courage
of your belief and give your daughter a chance to work it out."

Sir Lakshman shook his head.  "Strange that she said much the same
last night; and between both of you, it seems as if I shall be driven
to it, after all.  The Moslems have a proverb, true enough: 'When a
man and a woman are agreed, what can the Kazi do?'"

"Give 'em their way, and wish them luck!" cried Nevil, in open
triumph.

"So it appears!  Yet the theory-maker is not often so eager to put
his theory in practice, fearing his pretty bubble might break; and no
father worthy of that name is eager to make experiment with his own
daughter.  Also in my theory-weaving I have been checked too often by
a thought that even if some of us were willing to bestow our
daughters, as I mine, how should it fare with a high-caste Hindu who
should ask an English father what you ask from me.  Now, you--who are
wide-minded--what answer to that?"

Nevil hesitated, plainly at a loss.

"There--you see!"  Sir Lakshman turned out his hands in expressive
Eastern fashion.  "Little use of readiness on one side.  It must also
be on the other.  And it is not."

"But--surely--there is a difference.  Indians admit it, tacitly, when
they speak of Western views and customs as enlightened.  One, say
your daughter's case, seems an advance: the other--if you'll forgive
me--would be, in a measure, retrogression."

"You think that?  Well--I forgive.  But I do not entirely admit.  I
think only that for people of each country their own customs are
suited best.  If we seem to Westerns too much jealous for the honour
of the Inside, it is partly because marriage, as I said, is for the
woman a consecration to motherhood, almost like Roman taking of veil;
and no Hindu would allow mother of his sons to run into such risk and
temptation as English husbands permit.  For them it may be well;
their men having cooler blood and more restraint.  Yet how often come
tragedies!  How often family life--chief of all sanctities--is ruined
by consequence.  Believe me, something can be said for both sides:
and always there is risk of suffering, if not harm, from change that
is not first prepared by development.  In my daughter's case there
has been preparation--a small measure; chiefly in hope I might one
day bring her to England and lead her to wider life.  Of such means
as this I did not dream.  Yet it might seem as if without knowledge I
had most carefully prepared the path.  Such mystery is in the ways of
Fate."

"I believe it was ordained from the beginning--on both sides," Nevil
declared, with indomitable conviction forged upon the anvil of
desire.  "And now may I see her, sir--and claim her promise?"

"No, not to-day," spoke the voice of inexorable calm, so maddening
when the blood is on fire.  "In fact--not until to-day week."

"To-day week----!  Why the devil----?"

"My dear Sinclair, contain yourself."

"Was it _her_ wish?"

"The suggestion was my own; and she--in spite of her few years--has
enough of wisdom to know how it is needful to consider such important
question without too much disturbance of emotion, which nearness must
bring.  I cannot let her make so great sacrifice with dazzled eyes,
even if to gain the desire of her heart.  You also have to consider,
with cooler mind, your own share of sacrifice.  Because if it should
happen that you are regretting when too late; and she came to know
it--as she surely would--then by all the Gods of my fathers----!"
Sir Lakshman checked himself sharply; but the set of his jaw and the
sheet-lightning in his eyes spoke his thought more forcefully than
words.  For all his lover's egoism Nevil Sinclair recognized, beneath
the schooled detachment of Eastern fatherhood, a devotion no less
ardent than his own.

"I'm not a mere boy, sir.  I'm close on thirty," he said quietly.
"I've seen something of the world, and of women.  Any chance of
regret, on my side, is out of the question.  Consideration for
her--is another matter.  It'll be a black week for me.  But I'll pull
through it somehow, for her sake."

"Bravely said," Sir Lakshman applauded, rising to his feet.  "Better
for both if you could go right away.  Make some little motor
expedition with your friend Broome.  No?"

Nevil's relief was obvious.

"A happy thought.  I'll ask him.  I mayn't write a line?"

"Better not."

"And you won't over-persuade her?"

"You can trust me for that, Sinclair.  I may call you so now?"

"Wish you'd make it Nevil, sir.  It would sound a bit more promising."

"That I shall do with pleasure--when Lilamani gives me the right."
The kindness of Sir Lakshman's smile seemed a promise in itself.
"Now good-bye, and good luck for you, till this day week.  You shall
hear from me if you let me have address."

"Thank you, sir.  You've been uncommonly good to me," Nevil answered,
frankly returning the other's grasp.

Then, in a mood of sadly-chastened exaltation, he went forth in
search of Cuthbert Broome.




CHAPTER XIII

  "Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment."
                                              SHAKESPEARE.


No sign of Broome in the lounge-hall; and Sinclair, passing out on to
the wide balcony-verandah, scanned the seats where smokers and
newspaper readers basked in the strong unclouded sun of early March.
Two of the benches on the path below had been transformed into
open-air stalls; and toward these Sinclair was lured by the lover's
imperious need of giving, that is, in its essence, divine.  But
choice was difficult, for a beloved so far removed from the usual
type.  The trinkets were too trumpery; hairpins, combs and brushes a
trifle too intimate--as yet; paper-knives, and their like, too
impersonal, too prosaic.

Then--while the rival pedlars volubly assailed him with
impossibilities, his eyes lighted on a pair of oval buckles in
mother-o'-pearl.  By divine right of fitness, they were made for her
small golden shoes; and pushing aside the human flies that buzzed at
his ears, picked up his treasures.

While he stood so, querying the man's preposterous demands, behold
Audrey, emerging from the olive wood, where she had been remodelling
her "sacred programme," and metaphorically fighting the beasts, like
any early Christian, without the stage properties of arena, audience,
and the martyr's crown.

At sight of Nevil, appraising those shimmering trifles on his open
palm, she set her lips and stood still.  Escape were impossible, nor
was she in the mood for it now.  There are moments when
self-chastisement dulls the edge of self-pity.  Besides--she wanted
to know.

He looked up and recognized her.

"Hullo, Audrey," he said, flushing awkwardly and closing his left
hand.

"Too late.  I saw them!" she rallied him, with a forced lightness
that had its undernote of pathos and pluck.  "Has the modern dandy
progressed from striped silk socks to buckles on his pumps?"

"Not yet!  No doubt he will--in time!  But--if you saw them----" his
boyish awkwardness was vexatiously engaging--"you must know--they
weren't the right size----!"

"Yes.  It puzzled me.  Does it mean--congratulations?" she moistened
her lips.  "I understood you were to be banished for a week."

"So I am--bad luck to it."

"And yet----?"

"Oh, hang it all, it comes natural to a man.  And I thought--I'd give
a hostage to fortune.  You might wish me luck, Audrey," he went on,
paying for his hostages, and moving away with her, "though I have so
egregiously upset your apple-cart.  It's awfully tactless of me; and
I apologize humbly.  But one couldn't foresee--this."

"No, indeed!"

"Well then----?  Are you quite too angry to wish me well?  Or do you
disapprove, as usual--root and branch?"

She lifted her shoulders.  "Yes.  I disapprove.  But I'm not angry.
I've no right to be.  Only disappointed, for the moment.  Though I
don't see that my disappointment or disapproval need matter much--to
either of you."

She had turned down toward the sea in speaking; preferring the pain
of his nearness to the pain of his absence; and she stepped beside
him in resolute fashion, with long leisurely strides.  But the calm
of her tone did not carry conviction; and Nevil scrutinized her
well-cut profile with troubled gaze.

"I wonder why you say that, Audrey?" he asked in the voice of
sympathy against which she steeled herself in vain.  "Seeing that we
owe pretty nearly everything to your pluck, in persuading Sir
Lakshman to bring her home.  And yet--I'm hanged if I know what's
gone wrong with you!" he broke out in honest bewilderment.  "A
fortnight ago we were such good friends, I'd have sworn nothing could
come between us.  But ever since I started the picture----"

"My dear Nevil, it's not like you to make mountains out of
molehills!"  Only a show of anger and open speech could save her from
betrayal.  "Naturally I was anxious about Lilamani when I saw what
was happening to her.  I never believed for a moment you would dream
of asking her to become--the future Lady Sinclair; and I dreaded
another emotional crisis, that would upset her studies and her
health----"

"Well, then--now, you ought to be satisfied.  And you're not."

"No.  You've only turned my anxieties into a fresh channel.  To me
such a marriage seems little short of madness--for you both."

"You think I'll not understand her--that I'll make her unhappy?"

"God knows!  If Lilamani were more like the average Indian girl--a
precocious little woman, graceful and gentle on the surface, sensuous
and subtle underneath, my chief concern would be--for you.  But she
has a personality, a rare spiritual power that may just possibly
enable her to transcend the limitations of race.  I'm not
over-fanciful or impressionable; and at first I looked upon her
simply as an attractive child, with brains that I was keen to develop
for the service of her country-women.  But of late I have been
compelled to recognise--quite against my will!--that this mere child,
ten years my junior, could teach me deeper things than I could ever
teach her.  Nevil--when that girl gives herself, she will give all,
without reservation or stint, as few English girls can, or will, in
these days.  It's this that makes me tremble for her: and I confess I
half resent such a complete burnt-offering of personality being made
for the sake of--any man."

"Even if he feels his own unworthiness in every fibre?" Sinclair
cried out with sudden fervour: and for a second or two--her own pain
forgotten--she regarded this new Nevil of Lilamani's making.

Then: "If you honestly feel that," she said slowly, "if I could only
believe you might continue to feel it--after the gift has been given,
my own loss would be easier to bear.  It will be a big loss in many
ways; how big I hardly knew--till I read that."

Obedient, for once, to an impulse she did not stay to analyze, Audrey
Hammond handed Lilamani's note of the morning to Lilamani's lover,
and watched him while he scanned it; the ache of jealousy clashing
with the ache of mother-love.

Nevil Sinclair read the note twice through, lingeringly, before
handing it back.

"Hindu or no--she's an angel of God," he said under his breath.
"Thank you for letting me see it.  But it makes me feel madder than
ever at being banished for a whole week!"

"The best thing that could happen, all the same," said she.  "I
admire Sir Lakshman's wisdom.  When d'you go?"

"This afternoon, I think; if I can fix it up with Broome.  I came out
to look for him.  But I'm glad I stumbled on you first.  It's been a
relief, and a pleasure, to have a friendly talk with you again.  Have
you seen anything of Broome?"

"Yes.  He went past, while I was in the wood, with Mrs. Despard and
Signor Martino, who had his easel.  I believe he's painting on the
Cap."

"Good.  Let's join them."

"You can.  I'll turn back."

"Why?  Don't you like Mrs. Despard?"

"Yes.  She's charming.  But we don't see life from the same angle.
She'll prophesy much smoother things to you, and wipe out all the
effect of my foreboding!  Good-bye!"

"No--not that: _au revoir_!  And you won't wish me luck--even now?"

"I can only wish--what is best, for you and her; and honestly I don't
yet know what that is."

"But you won't frighten her off with your forebodings, will you,
Audrey?  You'll play the game?"

"I've too much of the boy in me to do anything else," she answered,
half proudly, half in bitterness.  "If she is really--yours, nothing
will keep her from you."

The last words gave an added warmth to his hand-clasp.  "If you
believe that, Audrey, it should soften your disappointment.  She
wasn't yours from the start.  I'm convinced you brought her all the
way from India, simply that we might meet.  And some day what is
really yours will come to you for a reward."

"Will it?  I wonder."

Her eyes and tone had a strange softness.

"Take my word for it," he assured her, smiling: and again, as on that
first night of revelation, she stood watching him while he left
her--alone.

Yet was Sinclair thinking more of her, in that moment, than of his
banished love.  This was not the Audrey who had greeted him, and
rated him, less than a month ago.  There were new inflections in her
voice; and, just now, he could have sworn to the gleam of tears in
her eyes.  Then--a sudden suspicion darted into light.  Did it
mean----?  Could it be ... that she...?  Nonsense!  He thrust away
the thought as an impertinent ebullition of masculine vanity; and
hurried on to the gleaming headland where Martino's easel and small
figure were silhouetted against the blue, while Broome and Mrs.
Despard lounged near at hand on a fragrant cushion of lentisk.

They waved letters and newspapers at his approach, and Helen Despard
patted the empty space at her side.

"Good morning, Mr. Sinclair.  Come and laze with us on the most
luxurious spring couch in Europe!  How that Colossus of industry,
Signor Martino, can stand and paint, hour after hour, in this
lotus-eating atmosphere is beyond me altogether.  But you have earned
the right to loaf; and I want you to talk to me about that charming
girl."

"I'm ready!" Nevil answered, sinking easefully down beside her, and
sniffing the aromatic sweetness of crushed leaves.

Broome, leaning round on one elbow, eyed him keenly.

"Thought I noticed a glorified air about you this morning," said he.
"What is it, my son?"

"The best it could be.  I've asked Miss Lakshman Singh to be my wife."

"Good Lord, Nevil!  You don't mean that!  I thought----"

"You thought I was amusing myself--legitimately?"  All a lover's
indignation burned in his tone.  "I've just been trying to persuade
Sir Lakshman to let me marry her at once."

"Well?"

"He's turned me off the premises for a week to think things out with
a cool mind, and give her a chance of doing the same."

Broome nodded three times decisively.  "'A Daniel come to judgment!'
You mean to leave the Cap?"

"Yes.  A week's spin in the motor would meet the case, if it suits
you."

"Right.  I'm your man.  The last of my proofs went off yesterday,
which leaves me a free agent--till next time!"

Helen Despard, prone upon her cushion, looked from one to the other
with sympathetic interest, awaiting her cue.  But Martino, hearing
vague snatches of their talk, suddenly caught the drift of it and
pounced round upon them as a dog upon a bone.

"_What_ is that you are talking, Sinclair?  Not enough that you have
painted such a wonderful picture, but you are marrying the _houri_
herself?"

"The minute her father gives me leave," Nevil answered, proudly
content.

"_Sapristi_!  But that is true romance; too seldom seen in this age
of dry bones!  And I applaud your choice.  I--Martino--would have
done same myself, only that I have--lost my one lung."

It was as if he had said "I have lost my umbrella"; and his stoical
coolness smote so sharply upon Nevil's sensitized heart that it cost
him an effort to answer, laughing: "No fear, Martino _mio_!  Not
while I was alive and could wield a pistol!"

The Italian shrugged his lean shoulders.  "_Ebbene_!  The better for
my art; even like my lame inside, that forbids me from
unfaithfulness, such as you will fall into, my friend, when that
_houri_ makes you the necklace of her arms, and you cannot see the
stars of heaven for the shining in her eyes."

But for Sinclair the vision eclipsed the warning.

"It's my belief I shall see them ten times more clearly," said he.

"Ah, the incomparable lover!  For that I shall petition the Holy
Virgin and all the Saints.  Only through some great emotion, some
lightning-flash into Heaven or Hell--small matter which--is great
achievement born.  So!  If you can make full surrender, you gain the
more.  For myself, I paint for your bride a sea-piece--the finest
that Martino's brush can achieve.  It would please her--no?"

"Beyond everything!"  Nevil glowed visibly, Englishman though he was.
"Let it be all sea and sky, Martino.  That's how she likes it best."

It was then that Helen Despard leaned forward, laying a hand on his
arm.

"This makes the fairy-tale sound astonishingly real," she said, with
softly smiling eyes.  "I was charmed at first sight.  I always found
Indian women curiously appealing: but I have met few of her quality.
I had my suspicions on Thursday--about you both; and I wondered very
much how far the Bohemian element in you would dominate the average
Englishman's instinct for the beaten track.  It's a daring venture.
But, like Signor Martino, I applaud your choice."

"Thank you.  I felt sure you would," Nevil said simply.  But though
his words were for Mrs. Despard, his eyes were questioning Cuthbert
Broome.

"You don't feel quite so sure of me--eh, old chap?" quoth the
novelist, pensively tapping his pipe against a rock.

"Well, it's always been the trouble--hasn't it?--the Bohemian element
under your Park Lane surface!  I admit the girl's attractive enough
to knock any man off his centre.  But still--what of Sir George?"

Sinclair winced.  "My affair, surely," said he, with a touch of
constraint.  Then, because Broome was Broome, and licensed to say
what others might not, he added in a changed tone: "It's rough luck
on the old man, of course.  But I'm free to choose for myself.  He'll
admit that, if I know him, when the first vexation's over; and I
shan't take her home till it is.  Once get 'em together, I can trust
her for the rest."

"H'm.  It's conceivable--after a time.  What's more, if you leap into
fame with a picture or two, as Martino prophesies, and turn up in
town with a beautiful Eastern wife, it's quite on the cards that, in
this day of volatile fads and crazes, she might become the rage.  I
can just picture certain hyper-cultivated, esoteric hostesses of my
acquaintance thrilled to the tips of their French suede gloves over
'a new find,' and discovering, with enthusiasm, that _saris_ and
Hindu philosophy are the only wear--

"Confound you, Broome!" Nevil broke in hotly--a new Nevil indeed.
"D'you think I'd let her be exploited by a parcel of society women?"

"No, no, my dear boy, he doesn't think anything of the kind!" Thus
Helen Despard extinguishing the egregious author with wave of her
hand.  "He's only talking ribald nonsense because it is his nature
to!  Let him alone, and listen to me.  I didn't spend fifteen years
in India with my eyes glued to one side of the picture, as some of us
do.  I made many friends among high-caste native ladies and girls,
who are entering on a phase of transition as full of disadvantages
and difficulties as our own; and even more fertile in distressing
incongruities.  Anklets jingling above heavy Oxford shoes.  Saris
draped over unspeakable 'English jackets.'  A smattering of music,
and a veneer of education from Zenana schools.  But this girl--like
most Indian women of real distinction--seems to have been educated
mainly by her father, a very remarkable specimen of the Anglicized
native.  Still--if you _do_ marry her, don't Westernize her more than
you can help.  Keep her away from superficial English influences----"

"Yes, yes, that's my notion," Nevil assented eagerly, with a
triumphant glance at Broome, the extinguished, who was consoling
himself with a second pipe.  "I wouldn't change one iota of her
unique, delicately-poised personality.  Her pretty poetic fancies and
her quaint turns of phrase are as much a part of her as the scent and
colour are of a flower."

"Happy for her that you are poet enough to discern the essence of her
charm--once lost, never to be recaptured.  Again and again I have
been puzzled and distressed to see how all that is vivid, beautiful,
and alluring in the Indian woman's personality becomes crude,
inartistic, and inadequate through too close contact with Western
things: the wrong things, no doubt.  But it's hard to discriminate.
Keep your _houri_ Eastern, in thought and feeling--_and dress_, Mr.
Sinclair, and it's possible you may learn much from her that will
make you a better man and a finer artist.  There's rank heresy for
you!"

"Then you may write me down the rankest heretic that ever stepped."
And while Broome chuckled in his beard, Mrs. Despard patted the
artist's sleeve.

"In that case it won't shock you if I add that we have more to learn
from the East--especially perhaps from its women-folk--than our
native arrogance will let us admit.  There! my sermon's over; and I
shall see all I can of Miss Lakshman Singh while you're away.  When
d'you go?  At once?"

"This afternoon; eh, Broome?"

"M--yes.  By the way.  I promised to run over to Monte Carlo for the
night, on the trail of that mis-begotten lunatic, de Lisle, who went
off three days ago with some infallible new system in his pocket, and
every penny of his wife's spare cash.  Not a line from him since; and
she seems afraid he might make away with himself if he lost it all.
Best thing that could happen for her, in my private opinion."

"Poor soul!  But how is she managing without the spare cash?"

It was Helen Despard who spoke; and Broome, studying the horizon with
interest, made answer gruffly: "Oh, that's been squared--for the
present.  And, for her sake, I've agreed to hunt for a needle in a
hay-stack.  It's worth trying on the chance.  You don't mind, Nevil?"

"Rather not.  We can put in the week-end there; and then take a run
into the low hills--Cagnes, La Tourelle, Gorge du Loup.  Good to see
all the old places again, with new eyes."

"That's fixed up, then.  Two o'clock sharp."

And on the stroke of the hour a snorting motor whirled them forth
upon their pilgrimage, through the iron gates of the Cap Hotel; while
a girl in a primrose _sari_ looked after them from the corner
balcony, and knew, for the first time, that strange and terrible
feeling, as of the heart being dragged out of the body and flung
quivering into space.




CHAPTER XIV

  "We are children of splendour and flame,
    Of shuddering also and tears."
                                  WILLIAM WATSON.


In the week of shifting scenes that followed, Nevil Sinclair saw many
things with new eyes.  For love--the true, other regarding love that
lasts--is an adjusting glass, the most delicate and infallible given
to man.

The two hours' drive, through Nice and on along the Dantesque
magnificence of the Grand Corniche road, with the peacock-breasted
sea flashing a thousand feet below, set him yearning for the presence
of his beloved, for her young, untarnished delight in it all.  Not so
Monte Carlo, where the world, the flesh, and the devil stalk naked
and unashamed; where clean sea-breezes and life-giving sunshine seem
tainted with the greed of gold, the feverish pursuit of pleasures,
artificial and meretricious, that satiate, without satisfying,
creatures designed for better things.  Even to think of Lilamani in
such an atmosphere seemed desecration; and Sinclair privately cursed
de Lisle for dragging him straight out of Paradise into this
glorified human dust-bin, where men and women of all nations and
temperaments scrabbled shamelessly for notes and gold.  A man in love
is apt to resent the intrusion of ugly realities; and, in his present
mood, Sinclair marvelled how he could ever have found the place
amusing, even as a panorama of varied, if distasteful, life.

They spent Saturday evening in the heart of the dust-bin--the great
Casino; passing from room to room, hot and heavy-laden with mingled
odours of orris-root and patchouli; from table to table, where silent
intent men and women massed three and four deep, automatically set
down and received doles of silver, paper or gold; their movements
regulated by the reiterate cry of the croupiers: "_Faites vos jeux,
messieurs.  Faites vos jeux!_"

Anxiously they scanned the close-packed rows of faces, frivolous or
haggard, tense or stoical, according to the player's race,
temperament, or immediate run of luck; themselves staking here a
five-franc, there a ten-franc piece, and winning, most often, because
they cared little for the game.  It needed some grit on Nevil's part
not to desert his purposeful, great-hearted friend for the more
cheerful distraction of the theatre, or the divine serenity of stars
and sea faintly silvered by a moon nearing the full.  But he had
promised to help; and for over an hour they pursued the needle
through the mazes of that unsavoury hay-stack.

No sign of de Lisle.

"Come out of this soul-destroying temple of lust, my son," Broome
said at last, taking Sinclair by the arm.  Then--as the heavy swing
doors fell to behind them, and a whiff of cool night air gave them
delicate greeting: "Phew-ew!  But it's a pestilential atmosphere,
offensive to the nostrils of sense and spirit.  Tempts a man to
endorse the fool who said in his heart 'There is no God.'  And we
must go again to-morrow evening--if it is the Lord's Day."

Sinclair sighed.  "Yes, worst luck.  I suppose I'm a fool not to find
it amusing.  But I don't."

"Sorry, Nevil.  But if you'd seen that poor plucky woman at Antibes,
agonizing over her boy, you'd not grudge a couple of days spent in
her service.  And a man's not half a man if he can't look in the face
of sin and pain without his muscles turning to jelly and his blood to
gall.  You young fellows of a hyper-civilized age need reminding, at
times, that there is such a thing as wholesome brutality--and an
unwholesome delicacy.  Now come on, to the Hotel de Paris, and I'll
stand you a champagne supper to take the taste out."


Sunday was a nightmare of fruitless, unremitting search.  Casino,
gendarmerie, likely hotels were ransacked for a husband--lost,
stolen, or strayed: without avail.

"Give it up, man.  You've done enough," Sinclair urged, as they
commanded _chocolat_ and _patisserie_, preparatory to a fresh start.

"Have I?" quoth Broome, carefully choosing a sugared cake.

The man had the persistence of natures born to succeed.  More or less
Southern in temperament, he was emphatically British in his refusal
to accept defeat: and an hour later they ran their quarry to earth,
in a fourth-floor bedroom of a second-rate Pension.  But his
wife--who knew de Lisle too tragically well--had been justified of
her forebodings.

It was the shell of that which had once been a man that lay stiff,
dishevelled, and unshorn upon the neat white coverlet: the glazed
eyes half-open, the lean hands clenched, as in impotent defiance of
the Power that made and broke so poor a creature on the wheel of
things.  The untidy dressing-table was littered with brushes, razor,
a half-empty coffee-cup, the unpaid hotel bill, and scraps of paper,
covered with hieroglyphic proofs of the infallible system that had
driven him to his death.

Broome closed the unseeing eyes, and slipped a hand under the gaping
shirt.

"Not long gone," he mused aloud.  "Poison, most likely.  Not a word
to his wife, I'll swear!" he added between his teeth; while Nevil,
with a sick sensation, compact of pity and disgust, went over to the
window that looked down into a narrow street, and away across a
forest of chimney-stacks to a gleaming line of sea.

The horrible sense of uncertainty, of unreality, that assails the
young and imaginative in face of the one awful actuality, clutched at
his throat.  And while he wrestled with it, ashamed of his own
weakness, Broome had collected the dead man's belongings, and rung
for a waiter, who testified that Monsieur had been present at
_déjeuner_.  Then they went down, and out again, into the common,
reassuring world of life, after Broome had interviewed the manager,
written out a wire for Madame de Lisle, and made all needful
arrangements for the morrow.

"Now then, Nevil, old man," said he, as they stepped forth into the
street.  "Back you come to the Casino; fork out your last night's
winnings, and stake 'em for all you're worth."  He held up a
five-franc piece.  "That's all I found in the poor chap's pockets:
and, between us, we've got to swell it into a sum worth passing on to
Madame and her boy.  She's proud.  But if we've honestly won the
money, we knock that pedestal from under her brave feet.  Monte
Carlo's a devilish awkward place to die in; and if we mean to see
Madame through, we must put up with delays.  Come on, my son.  Early
dinner at the cafe.  Then we'll back our streak of luck till it
turns."

Two hours later they were backing it still; regardless of the
pestilential, over-scented atmosphere that stirs the senses and lulls
the brain; regardless of the thronging faces, that had so painfully
absorbed their attention the night before; eye and brain concentrated
upon the devil's own pastime--hallowed, momentarily, by the hidden
motive that glorifies or debases every act of man.

Save for an inevitable failure or two they won steadily from first to
last.  Broome, in particular, played like a man inspired; and fell
asleep, near midnight, on the justifiable conviction that the Lord's
Day had not been ill spent after all.

Monday brought Madame de Lisle, pale, red-eyed, yet stoically
composed.  In her speechless amazement and gratitude, over their
joint achievement, both men reaped full and sufficient reward for a
day that neither would readily forget.  On Tuesday Sinclair took
possession of the motor and scoured the stark, stately heights above
Mentone, while Broome did all that mortal man may do to smooth the
ground under a proud and suffering woman's feet.  But if Monte Carlo
is an awkward place to die in, it is a still more awkward place to be
buried in.  The endless inquiries and formalities could neither be
evaded, nor hurried.  So it came about that Nevil's interminable week
was more than half over before the blunt-nosed motor turned its back
upon the sea, and sped, purring, up and up into the green heart of
the hills.

Crowned and fulfilled with an all-pervading peace were the sun-kissed
valleys and majestically unfolding heights of the Alpes Maritimes,
after the fret and stir of Monte Carlo, where pain struck sharp on
pleasure makes jangling music to sensitive ears.  Here were no
jarring contrasts; but on every hand, upon every tree-top, and in
every cranny of rock, the secret music and laughter of life renewing
itself with unwearied zest.  Everywhere unseen forces yearned up
towards the light: and Nevil, controlling with skilful hands the car,
that throbbed under him like a live thing, felt his own pulses
chiming in tune with the season that, in tree and bird and flower, is
a festival of love made manifest.

Skirting the low spur where the brown, flat-topped houses of Cagnes
huddled, in picturesque disorder, among gardens and vineyards more
than half awake, they swept up and round to the far side of that
noble valley, past the waterfall and rocky hamlet of La Tourelle,
where they stayed to unpack their lunch-basket, to smoke and lounge
among the rocks, while Nevil achieved a lightning sketch for his
beloved.

Then down and down again into a sterner region of volcanic
rock-walls, ochre, and red, and grey, towering higher with each mile
of their descent, till they reached their Ultima Thule, the Gorge du
Loup; a gorge as wild in nature as in name, where the Loup leaped in
thunder, over rocks and stones, between glowing cliffs, at whose feet
nestled terraced orange groves and fields of wild flowers, in all
their new bravery of purple and yellow and white: the narrow dip
spanned by great railway arches two hundred feet up.

Here, in the one little hotel overhanging the boisterous torrent,
they spent the night; completing their pilgrimage by a "spin" through
Grasse and Cannes, and on along the red, fantastic coast line of the
Esterelles.

Here, too, before leaving, Nevil achieved a long explanatory letter
to Sir George; denouncing himself, in his father's own phrase, for "a
damned unsatisfactory son"; and justifying the denunciation by news
of a picture, appraised of Martino; a picture that plainly indicated
the one career in which he was like to attain distinction.  He had
decided, therefore, to stay abroad for the present, and devote
himself to something better than spoiling of canvas.  As for the
election; surely none of them had really believed he would stand.
They knew him for a duffer at politics.  But he had hopes of proving
that he could handle a brush to some purpose.  And withal, he
remained Sir George's most affectionate, if undutiful, son ...

A brief note of regret to Jane referred her to his father for
details; and thereafter he vented his repressed impatience in a
fervent plea to Sir Lakshman for a few lines of assurance, that
should reach him at Valescure, and enable him, on the return journey,
to ransack Cannes for a ring approximately worthy his Jewel of
Delight.




CHAPTER XV

  "O king, thy kingdom who from thee can wrest?
  What Fate shall dare uncrown thee from this breast;
  O god-born lover,--whom my love doth gird
  And armour with impregnable delight
  Of Hope's triumphant, keen, flame-carven sword?"
                                          SAROJINI NAIDU.


And of her, who looked shyly for his return, what record through
those days of waiting; of quickened breath and fluttering pulse?

While Sinclair, with the restless energy that is the hallmark of the
male throughout creation, sought distraction in movement from the
fever of longing, Lilamani went softly down the days of her appointed
week, accepting it with all the fundamental woman's capacity for
still endurance and folded wings.  While Sinclair looked without, she
looked within; marvelling, now at her own daring, now at her
unworthiness--unrepentant rebel as she was.  The wonder of it all,
the miracle of unlooked-for escape from those grey studies dazzled
heart and brain, as Sir Lakshman had said.  It was as if enclosing
walls had crumbled at a touch, setting her in a blaze of sunlight,
that warmed and cheered and--above all--gave promise of womanhood
made perfect through renewal of life.  Yet it demanded no small
venture of faith to go forward, irrevocably, along this unknown, if
alluring, way of the heart.  Like all ways leading to the next-door
House of Life it must needs have ups and downs; stones also, it might
be--and shadows.

The first of these--a mere cloudlet--blurred already her clear sky of
dawning.  It had hurt her inexpressibly to realize that her lover had
taken for granted the unconsecrate marriage by law; that their
difference of religion affected him little, if at all.  Tactfully and
delicately as her father had broken the truth to her, there had been
need of much silent wrestling and praying to induce the conviction
that she could endure all things sooner than face the blank of life
without him.  To such fullness of knowledge she had attained in those
first bewildering days of his absence: and, recognizing this,
gloried, woman-like, in the wisdom of that dear father, who was her
"Wise Man, Truth-named"; father and Guru in one.

As for that other, chosen lord of her life--not yet to be named, even
in thought--her Eastern woman's instinct of worship, and skill in
glossing over flaws, convinced her finally that his ready acceptance
of mere legal marriage had arisen from reluctance to suggest the
supreme renunciation on her part that a religious ceremony would
involve.  And through her secret pain and shrinking ran the one gold
thread of consolation that, loyalty at least would be permitted to
the faith of her country and her ancestors; excommunicate though she
would be from the rites, feastings, and sacrifices that absorb more
than half the Hindu woman's life.  These she had learnt to regard as
garments of religion; and Sir Lakshman assured her that the gods, not
being man-made like priests, would surely not reject sacrifice and
incense of the soul.  So he believed; while yet he prayed--with human
inconsistency--that if fatherly love had led him into "benevolent
falsehood," his lapse from accuracy might not be visited on her.

And she--having wrestled and overcome--quietly set about preparing
herself for the great consecration, in much the same spirit as a
novice might prepare for the veil.  True, in her case no stricter
retirement would follow upon betrothal: yet could not a few months of
freedom dispel that instinct for purdah, so deeply ingrained in the
soul of her race, that the word has become a synonym for family
honour, modesty, prestige.  Of the customary prelude--the colourful
pageant of sacrifice, feastings, and gift-bringings--she could have
none.  Greater need therefore, to her mind, for personal purifying by
prayer, fasting, and meditation, that body might become subordinate
to spirit; even as she, Life-bringer, would become subordinate to
him, Life-giver, when the days were accomplished that she should be
his.  Symbolism, always symbolism.  It is the Hindu woman's breath of
being.  For where complexities of outer life are denied, the soul
must live by thought and feeling, or die outright.

But East and West agree at least in this, that a good deed is twice
itself when the right hand knows not what the left hand doeth.  So
did Lilamani, quite simply and instinctively, devote the night to her
spiritual preparation; reducing sleep to a minimum, and in reserving
only the first hour of the morning and the last hour of light for
reading, or meditation, alone in her House of Gods.

In addition to translations of her own sacred books, she renewed her
acquaintance with the Holy Book of her lover's country, choosing her
favourite Gospel of John and St. Paul's dissertations on wifely
submission and womanly modesty; finding in both, as always, fresh
confirmation of her father's teaching, that the light of the one
great Unseen dwelling behind the veil of the seen shines alike
through all forms of doctrine and worship.

Then with the quaint incongruity that belongs to transition, her
study of St. Paul would culminate in a form of prayer to Sarasvati,
Goddess of Wisdom: "She who, robed in white, sets far all ignorance.
She who abides with the Creator, may she abide with me----"; or Mai
Lakshmi, Goddess of Fortune, would be entreated to make her a wife
not less perfect in devotion and mighty in renunciation than Sita,
the ideal woman of Hindu legend, and heroine of India's great Epic
the Ramayāna.  Even from dim days of childhood,
Rāma's unsullied queen had reigned supreme in Lilamani's
heart--had been, as it were, her chosen patron saint, upon whose
character she must strive to model her own.  It is in this fashion
that India's two great Epics have become so closely inwoven with her
national life and religion.  To be called by her father his little
Sita Dévi, had been, and still was, Lilamani's crowning reward for an
act of self-suppression, or a day well spent; so now it was Sita who
dwelt constantly in her thoughts during her hours of secret vigil.

But the fasting, not to be foregone, could by no means be achieved in
secret.  Her father she could trust to see without seeing, and say no
word.  Not so Audrey, who was bound in honour to protest on the score
of her own private godling--Health; and the girl shrank from speech
on the subject, with one who could not be expected to understand.
She supposed that even the unveiled bride of the West could not
approach so great an event without some form of sanctification.  But
to her, the subject seemed too intimate for discussion.

With the smiling _insouciance_ of one who does quite the ordinary
thing, she drank tea at breakfast, milk at lunch, and ate no food
till after sundown.  Even then her meal was of the lightest; and to
Audrey's anxious remonstrance she answered with sweet reasonableness:
"Why must I eat--if not hungry?"

Had not Audrey been herself in love with the prospective bridegroom,
it is possible she would have jarred the Eastern girl, by attributing
this to his absence.  For, while we of the West profess to hold love
sacred, there remains the paradox that we hold it also fair game for
the most inept form of humour, aptly called "chaff."  Happily,
Audrey's lips were sealed: but a repetition of no breakfast and no
lunch brought the direct question Lilamani dreaded.  She gave the
direct answer, briefly as might be, with eyes downcast and cheeks
that burned; while Audrey, unversed in certain phases of Indian life,
realized, as never yet, that this poetic, passionate child, deeply
imbued with the primitive woman-soul of the East, could never have
been hers to mould and make into a student of medicine, a pioneer of
the brain.  In that realization she could, and did, forgive Nevil
much; though her own disappointment was none the less keen.

"You are thinking me a too much foolish Lilamani?" the soft voice
ended on a note of pleading.  "But with us--it is custom.  Father
understands."

And Audrey recognized by now the finality of that last.  She could
only counteract it by a tentative appeal to vanity, quite against her
principles.  But of late these had been tumbling about her like a
house of cards.

"No, dear, I've never thought you foolish," she said with unwonted
gentleness.  "Only remember you are marrying--an Englishman, who
won't understand such things.  He will come back expecting to find
the same beautiful bright-eyed Lilamani.  But if you starve you won't
sleep; and where will your bright eyes be then?  Do what you think
right.  But I advise you to eat and sleep normally the last two days;
or the very joy of it all may upset you, and make you ill.  Not
pleasant for him; and as _I_'ve done my best to get you strong, it
would be sad to go away and leave you more or less of a wreck----"

"Leave me?  But Audrey--why that?"

Her dark eyes echoed the question, in pained surprise; and Audrey
looked deep into them before answering.  She had her own confession
to make.

"Dear child, what else?" she asked, forcing a smile.  "No more
studies after next Saturday; so no more need of me.  I met a friend
in Cannes yesterday, who is stopping at Mentone.  She wants me to go
over and see her; and I thought of leaving on Friday----"

"So soon?  Leaving your Lilamani, for always?"

Audrey Hammond's arm went round the girl's slender shoulders.

"Do you really mind as much as all that?" she asked.

Tears welled up into the great brown eyes.  Caresses from Audrey were
rare enough to make both feel a little shy of them; and Lilamani
looked down again, choking back her "foolishness."

"How could I not mind?" said she.  "It is all through you--this
wonderful thing.  But it will not be yet!  Father said so.  And--I
was hoping----"

She hesitated; and Audrey caught her breath.  "What were you hoping,
child?"

"If only--you could come too, for a little time--and teach me, that I
should not feel so strange for that lonely fashion--of English
marriage.  Oh, are you angry?  I didn't mean..."

For Audrey had looked up sharply, white to the lips.  "Lilamani,
that's impossible.  You don't understand."  Then seeing a quiver of
pain on the sensitive face, she added more quietly, "Is it only that
you are afraid of the strangeness, or--that you want me a little too?"

"It is half--I am afraid; and half, I am greedy, wanting you too.
But if that is wrong, then I must not make storms in the tea-cup,
like you say.  Only when I am trying to think it all, my mind comes
quite in a fog.  No mother-in-law to teach new-made wife.  No
brothers and sisters--of him.  No women-peoples for companion or for
home-duties----"  She smiled a little wistfully, shaking her head.

Even here in the hotel, with studies for home-duties and one
"woman-person" to replace the small colony of relations--by blood and
marriage--she had missed, at times, the cloistered seclusion and
intricate etiquette and deference to the claims of others that are
the key-notes of Hindu home-life; and Audrey, recognizing this, felt
the more anxious as to the outcome of Nevil's daring leap in the
dark.  But for Lilamani's sake at least she would do her best to make
the crooked straight and the rough places plain.

"You will have women-peoples in time, dear," said she.  "If you
manage to make friends.  But, though the Englishman denounces purdah,
he has his own variation of it.  If an Indian wife may not go abroad,
your joint-family system gives you a little world of life under your
own roof.  The English wife has her world of people outside; but in
the home her husband, if he loves her, wants her for himself,
especially in the first few years.  You see, with us marriage is a
much personal affair.  An English husband wants more than a mother
for his sons.  He wants a woman companion, specially devoted to him."

Lilamani nodded pensively, though still with puzzled brows.

"Yes.  That I have come to know a little, from your novel stories.
It is beautiful; and--I must learn.  But sometimes, I am
thinking--with us it is even more beautiful; to become, by sacredness
of bond, even from childhood, so truthfully one that both are almost
seeming to forget each other, in welfare of family.  Only in their
secret hearts they carry the light."

Moved beyond her wont, Audrey Hammond drew the girl closer and kissed
her forehead.

"Well, child, whatever happens, I believe you will always carry your
light," said she; and Lilamani, shyly, in the midst of her blushes:

"Perhaps one day--you also----

"No, no.  I'm not the type."

A hint of bitterness in her tone saddened the girl, who was herself
so essentially "the type," primal yet eternal, that inspires, through
the ages, the worshipful love of men.

"Is it that you really like better the way of the brain?" she
hazarded gently, surprised and pleased at such intimate talk with
Audrey, the inaccessible.  "Or--have you no father to make
arrangement--to give dowry?"

A smile, half-amused, half-wistful lightened Audrey's gravity.  "No,
I have no father.  And if I had, he would not 'make arrangement'!  We
English think we believe in marriage.  But we believe still more in
personal freedom; and our women are left to shift for themselves.  As
for the compulsory dowry--in that matter we might very well take a
lesson from India.  If English fathers were bound to provide for
their daughters, the Woman Question might be less acute than it is."

"Woman Question?  What is that?"

"Happy little ignoramus!  It's a disease of modern civilization.  A
riddle without an answer; and I'm a part of it.  But don't trouble
your pretty head about me, dear.  After all, the life I've chosen
gives me a kind of satisfaction it could never give you.  When my
leave is up, I shall go back to Hyderabad; and perhaps find another
brave girl among your women-folk to help me with my work."

"Yes, yes--there are so many in these nowadays, eager for way of the
brain.  You will surely find a much more commonsense Lilamani, not so
troubled by ugly words."

"But, never, I think, one with such a talent for creeping into other
people's hearts!" Audrey answered with so rare a tenderness that--for
the first time, in months of close intercourse--the girl's arms went
round her in a young spontaneous caress.

"Please not quite leave me," she whispered.  "Since I was coming from
India, you have been for me like--like Mataji; and I can't forget you
ever."

That was Audrey Hammond's good minute; though Lilamani guessed it
not; a reward quite other than she looked for, as is the way of
rewards; the gain through loss, in which it is so difficult to
believe till the heart responds to its touch.  Persistence along the
stormy paths of study would have ended in alienation; but one touch
of nature, shared unconsciously, though decreeing separation, drew
them closer than either could have believed three weeks ago.


Thus, illumined by the white joy of a closer understanding, the days
slipped peacefully by.  Audrey made no further protest; though her
medical conscience pricked her at sight of paling cheeks and
darkly-shadowed eyes.  But when Friday brought the parting, she
pleaded once more for normal meals, these last two days, if only on
account of someone, never directly named between them: and Lilamani,
feeling not a little unstrung by recent austerities, could not say
her nay.  Mrs. Despard had gladly undertaken to "mother" her during
Audrey's absence; but so soon as dates were fixed she would write,
and Audrey must come back.  Audrey would.  She promised.  And so an
end.

Lilamani had meant to sleep that night, having given her word.  But
habit prevailed; and she lay, acutely awake, with sealed lids,
counting the hours, that seemed to elongate, like stretched elastic,
as they neared the dawn.  Then she slept heavily; and Sir Lakshman,
who guessed at the week's programme, allowed her to sleep till noon.

It was tea-time--thronged tables under the white, wide awning
proclaimed the fact--when a much-travelled motor drew up at the foot
of the hotel steps.  Broome grasped the wheel--having refused to
trust the life of an invaluable parent to the hands of an accepted
lover; and Sir Lakshman met them in the deserted hall.

"I may go up and claim her?" Sinclair demanded eagerly, when Broome
had passed on.

"You may.  That is her wish."

"And yours, I hope?"

"Yes--mine also.  Since she is trusting you from her heart, I am
agreeing to trust you also, with biggest proof father can give."

"Thank God you see it that way, sir----"  They were nearing the lift
now.  "My thanks to you I can only prove--through her."

"That is how I look for you to prove them," the other answered almost
sternly, his hand upon the doors.

"I'll do my utmost.  On my honour, I will.  And--I may see her alone?
It's our way, you know."

"Yes.  But it is her wish that first there should be some small
formality of giving.  With us betrothal is not mere personal promise;
but religious ceremony.  It is, in fact, true marriage, sanctifying
union--if consummated or no--through all lives to come.  This it will
mean for her.  Therefore she is wishing that first I make my gift,
joining your hands, in our own fashion; then, conforming to your
custom, I leave her with you."

On that understanding they went up together, and along the passage to
the corner room; Sir Lakshman ahead, Nevil following, his thumb and
finger at the waistcoat pocket where two rings were nestling--merely
to assure himself they were there.

Then the door opened and he had the desire of his eyes....

Alone upon the hearthrug she stood, her drooping head turned from the
door, _sari_ drawn forward, as of old, half hiding her face, restless
fingers shifting her bangles up and down the bare slenderness of her
arms.  There were more bangles than usual--in honour of his coming;
delicate trifles of jade and glass and gold.  Above the soft silk
under-robe of palest green, shot through with golden light, was wound
and draped a _sari_, quite new to Nevil, of true deep indigo, like
the night sky, gold-bordered and flecked with golden stars.  No shoes
upon the small feet, slender and shapely as her hands; silk stockings
only, green like her skirt, and anklets of gold; the first he had
seen.  For she had learnt the unfitness of wearing them over English
shoes.

Very still she stood, and from the whole of her, from curved instep
to veiled head, emanated the peculiarly Eastern mingling of demure
aloofness with a delicately direct appeal to the senses and the
heart.  Possibly some instinct had impelled her, before it was too
late, to bid him remember the gulf between; and he, who had drawn so
close to her in spirit, since that day of mutual revealing, was
arrested by a sudden sense of strangeness, of the veil down-dropt
between them, as at first.

All the week long he had been picturing over and over this moment of
vision: the first glance, the first words, the first rapture of
reunion: nor was he analytical enough to realize how the very
intensity of anticipation robs reality of its due.  For the space of
a heart-beat or two, he saw this marriage as through the eyes of
Jane: and for that space--he was afraid.

Then--hearing them enter--she turned with an audible catch in her
breath, and fear fled, stricken and shamefaced, once for all.

Framed in the dusk of the _sari_ her beauty shone out with a
moon-like pallor that intensified the red of her lips, as the faint
shadows, left by sleepless nights, intensified the deeps of her eyes,
when they flashed a smile at him for greeting.  Four rows of pearls
made a gleaming collar round her throat; and beneath it on a fine
chain one great diamond shone out, five-pointed, like a star.
Clearly she no more dreamed of speaking at such a moment than an
English bride would dream of bidding her groom good morning at the
altar rails.  If her wedding must perforce be an affair of
registration, she could, and did, impart to this simple ceremony of
giving her own deep sense of the moment's sanctity; while Nevil
Sinclair, touched to the heart, was thankful to defer speech till he
could have her to himself.

And now her head was bowed again; for Sir Lakshman had taken her
hand, joining it with her lover's, and enclosing them in both his own.

"Nevil Sinclair," he said with simple dignity, looking the Englishman
in the eyes, "I, Lakshman Singh, give you this most priceless
daughter of mine, confiding that you will cherish and protect her
through your whole life; and in fervent belief that she will fulfil
to you all duties of wifehood with loyal and loving heart.  Give both
hands, Lilamani, in token that nothing is kept back."

Both hands she gave him, and Sinclair, bereft of words, could only
press them to his lips; while Sir Lakshman conferring a mute
benediction on his daughter's head, went quietly out, leaving them
alone.

For a space they stood so, in a throbbing silence, that enfolded them
like a spell of enchantment, difficult to break.  Then very softly,
Sinclair spoke her name.

"Lilamani."

For answer came her passionate murmur: "Live for ever, my Lord and my
King."

The sheer unexpectedness of it unloosed his tongue.

"Beloved!  You shame me to earth!" he cried in genuine distress.
"I'm no fit subject for a woman's worship.  Yours less than any."

Smiling, though without looking up, she shook her small wise head.

"That is no matter at all.  In my country--husband of every true
woman is even as her God."

"It's not so in mine, by any means," he answered drawing her close,
yet restraining himself because of the delicate tremor that ran
through her.

"No?  How pity!  The woman is losing so much----" the right to serve
and worship and the glory of it, that was her Eastern view.  "But
with me you will permit----?  You could not prevent----!"

"I'm afraid I wouldn't, if I could," he said with sudden fervour.
Then, taking out the ring, that had delayed his coming a full hour,
he slipped it gently on to her marriage finger.  "That is my form of
betrothal, Lilamani.  The ring of promise."

It was a heart-shaped aquamarine, limpid as a drop of sea-water, set
in brilliants: and at sight of it she caught her breath.

"Oh, but how kind!  How beautiful beyond telling!  Like Mrs.
Despard's pendant that I must be looking at--always."

"You shall have one--soon," he told her, exulting in his power to
please her every way.  "But now"--she was drawn closer still--"I want
something in return for my ring of promise.  Something you would not
give me under the arch.  I've been wanting and waiting for it a whole
week.  Tell me I may have it now--Jewel of Delight!"

She told him.  And he, taking her veiled head between his hands, set
the seal of their compact first upon her down-dropped lids, and last
upon her lips, claiming to the full their shy, soft passion of
surrender.  Then, with a low, broken sound, she withdrew them and
fell sobbing on his breast.

Lightly lifting her in his arms, as if in fear that she might break
on too strong pressure, he carried her to a low chair that looked
upon her balcony, and away, over tree-tops to the sea.  There he set
her down, kneeling beside her, and whispering persuasively at her
ear: "My Bride of the Rain--is it only a sun shower?  Or is she
broken-hearted, at having promised herself to a barbarous English
husband?"

"Yes--oh yes--she is too much broken-hearted!"--laughter gleamed
suddenly through her tears--"and also--too much foolish.  A little,
how Audrey calls 'run down,' by not sleeping a great deal, these few
nights----"

"Thinking of me?"

"Yes," she answered, with truth; then veiling her eyes: "And ... how
to make myself good wife in such unknown fashion, hard to
understand----"

"Not so very hard.  Trust me to make it easy for you, darling, once
you give me the right.  When is that to be, Lilamani--when?  I've an
ideal home all ready for you."

"A home?"

"Yes, true.  That good chap Broome has offered me his villa on Lake
Como for the summer.  A little lone place, under a great rock, close
to the water's edge, opposite Cadenabbia, in Italy, where Martino
lives.  Think of that: a real home, waiting for the bride.  When will
she come?  Next week?"

"Oh no--no!  How you are impatient!"  She put forth a shy hand and
caressed the dull gold of his hair.  "Have you not spoken with
father?"

"Only a word or two.  I came back to claim his child.  What's the
delay?  What must we wait for now?"

"Oh, so much; and you must please not make trouble for that.  Father
wishes that first I should get stronger; and I wish, from home, our
Indian wedding-ring: bangle of iron, covered in gold; also--other
things for this kind of other life so different to my expecting.
That must mean five weeks, or six."

"A lifetime!  But at least I shall be here.  I shall see you."

"For two weeks--yes.  After that he is thinking better for both if
you go to Paris for studying, and put this troublesome Lilamani a
little from your head----."

Sinclair sighed.  "He's a horribly wise man, that father of yours.
And does this troublesome Lilamani honestly wish to be put out of my
head, even for a little?"

"No.  Not for one smallest minute," she murmured, and was caught
close again for reward.  And again her exquisite fragility held his
ardour in restraint.  So yielding, so unsubstantial a creature was
she, in her soft natural draperies, that it was as if he enfolded
some fragrant ethereal essence of the eternal feminine rather than a
woman of flesh and blood.

This he told her, in lover's language, his lips at her ear: and
she--drawing herself away from him with pretty dignity: "At the same
time it is truthfully a woman; and inside it ... there is fire ... of
so great love that not all the waters from my beautiful sea could put
out ever--ever----.  That is what my _sari_ has been telling you,
without speech, all this while.  But your eyes are still too deaf for
language of colour----"

"They're not blind anyway!  They saw, and admired.  What is it
telling me, Lilamani, this beautiful new dress?  I want to know."

"Listen then--lord of my life," she answered very softly.  "With us,
indigo is for constancy of love, because it is dye that nothing will
remove.  This green of my skirt, like young leaves, is for hope--for
new life.  Gold and pearls are for purity: and this"--touching the
star that flashed like a prisoned sunbeam--"gift of my father, is for
happiness with ... with..."

Shyness overwhelmed her.

"Nevil?" he prompted tenderly.

"Yes."

"Well then, let me hear you say it.  I've been waiting--all this
time."

"With us, it is not custom even when married to take the name
of--beloved," she told him with averted eyes; and stooping he kissed
her with sudden passion.

"Beloved's good enough for me.  But still ... as the promised wife of
an Englishman, it's only fair--isn't t?--that you should study our
customs a little, too?"

"Yes--yes.  With all my heart I am wishing it--Nevil."  And at that,
he kissed her again.



END OF BOOK I




BOOK II

THE BLOSSOMING



CHAPTER I

  "And now my cheek is warm against thy cheek;
  Yet, is Love satisfied?  Nay,--evermore
  Thy hands are full of promise;...
  Joy hath joy in store
  And heaven another heaven within its skies."
                                      J. H. COUSINS.


Every detail in the little room--save the well-grate with its plain
oak mantel--breathed of India, even to the warmth and fragrance of an
atmosphere charged with spices, sandalwood and attar of rose.

Over one door a Punjab _phulkari_ made a blaze of gold.  Over another
hung a priceless embroidered panel--green and purple cunningly
inwrought.  On the walls, two pictures only; one of Sir Lakshman
Singh, in State dress, and an old Indian painting of the sacred
three--Rama, Sita, and the devoted Lakshman--setting out, in "coats
of bark," for their fourteen years of banishment.  Over the
mantel-piece, with its gleaming rows of _lotahs_, a square of vellum,
gold bordered and lettered in gold, "There is no likeness of Him
whose name is great glory.  Deathless they become who, in heart and
mind, know him as heart-dwelling."

For the rest, an octagonal table, bearing a sandalwood casket and the
Bhagavad Gita; velvet-soft prayer-rugs on the matted floor; a native
bedstead of red lacquer, and a low square stool of the same, whereon
sat the guardian spirit of the place, in pearl-white robe, and _sari_
golden-edged: Lilamani Sinclair, bride of six weeks' standing.  The
magic circlet of gold gleamed beneath the drop of sea-water shaped
like her heart; and upon her slender wrist, the wedding-bracelet of
her own land.  At her throat hung the promised pendant, shimmering
drops of water and light; and her father's star of happiness
transformed into a brooch fastened the drapery on her left shoulder;
a modern innovation, worn for the first time.

Little of the West about this girl-bride beyond her ring and her
English name.  But even had she chosen to exchange her _sari_ for a
Paris "coiffure," and her simple robe for a Paquin "creation," her
doings would have bewrayed her.  Crouched upon the stool before a
primitive brick oven, set up under her own supervision, she was
absorbed in cooking her lord's dinner; a service so sacred to the
Hindu wife that a special garment of silk fibre is reserved for that
function and for prayer.

Europe nominally endorses the Divine command: "He that is greatest
among you let him be your servant."  Asia acts upon it.  In a Hindu
household domestic service--as the West understands it--is not.  All
home duties, save the most menial, are carried out by sisters,
daughters, daughters-in-law, under supervision of their
ruler-in-chief--the mother; though here, as elsewhere, change is
creeping in.  Drudgery?  She of Asia would resent the implication.
Her law of life rests upon one basic principle: The highest may serve
the lowest, but may accept service only from the highest.

And woman stands, spiritually, higher than man, because "she alone is
capable of conquest--for others."  Logically, then--and Asia is
nothing if not logical--"to accept service and devotion of any is the
highest honour you can pay her."  That is the core of the Indian
woman's credo; the lamp hidden in her heart; and by the light of it
many perplexities are made plain.

But when a woman, for whom service and worship are birthright and
crown of glory, mates with a man in whom the Western idea of chivalry
has not been quite crushed out by the haste and pressure of an
unchivalrous age, complications are born.

That the wife of Nevil Sinclair of Bramleigh Beeches should cook her
husband's dinner--only his dinner, she urged, deeming the request a
modest one--did not square with his British sense of fitness,
Bohemian though he was.  What is more, he distrusted amateur cookery;
little dreaming of the talent he bade her hide under a bushel; and of
which she had been too shy to speak.  "What would his valet think?"
he had asked, "and Broome's Italian _chef_ and the little
waiting-maid?"  Dread questions, for which she could find no answer.
Only, beneath her wifely submission, had dwelt a faint hope that
possibly, when he should see the contents of those boxes from
India----!

Two weeks after their first shy home-coming these had arrived; and
from out of them had come the store of simple home belongings, that
had brought a sense of familiar sweetness into her new nest.  Then
had she laid before him the shining row of brass plates and _lotahs_,
the boxes of spices, of shredded cocoanut and herbs.

"All the way from India they came for you.  Must they not be used
ever?  Even if only sometimes for game of play?"  Then, with a
captivating honesty and confusion of face, she denied that last.
"No, for me it is not play.  With us, I have told you, worship of
husband is worship of Life-force.  And if food is fuel for keeping
that flame alight, shall it not be sacred duty and privilege for wife
to prepare it?"

And he, without waste of words, had set the seal of permission upon
her lips.

"Not every day," had been his sole stipulation; "once or twice a
week; or on great occasions"; thus instinctively annulling domestic
comment.  Intermittent ebullitions of cookery might be accepted as an
Indian lady's whim.

And Lilamani, lifted far beyond thought of comment, had enjoyed her
small triumph to the full.  Her first curry and _pillau_, her
irresistible sweets and lightly-tossed chupattis had been a
revelation to Nevil, shaming his distrust; and upon the third great
occasion, when she had won leave to cook all three courses of their
simple meal, he had laughingly warned her that it might end in his
refusing to eat a dinner prepared by any hands but her own.

"That is how it should be for true honour of the house," she had
answered, smiling demurely.

And this golden 14th of June, that completed her eighteenth year and
her sixth week of marriage, was a day of privilege, past question.

Six beatific weeks, sun-filled and love-enchanted, they had spent in
Broome's chalet, set in a shelving cove, under the lee of a rugged
hill, its balconies and verandah overlooking Como's blue stillness,
now blurred with pearl-white films, now pierced by a million
quivering points of light.  Too still almost, it seemed to Lilamani,
after the changeful majesty of her sea.  Yet that very stillness, as
of some harmonized Yogi purged from passion, spoke to her heart of
the palm-girt lakes in her own Hyderabad; and through them, of dear,
far and familiar things never again to be seen, or heard, or felt
while breath remained in her body.  What this completeness of
severance meant to her she dared not admit even in her most secret
thoughts.  There were inevitable moments when the prick of
remembrance intruded upon her joy.  Yet each day that passed deepened
her conviction that she had chosen aright; and this "lonely fashion
of English marriage" proved itself not so hard to understand, after
all.

But even the devotion of a new-made husband had not availed to soften
the wrench of parting from that father, who had been parent, comrade
and spiritual guide in one.  Each smallest happening of that last
unwedded week was graven upon the tablets of her heart: a week of
tangled emotions, overlaid with a smiling stillness that had almost
deceived Sir Lakshman himself.  Once only had her self-control gone
to pieces.  The mail that brought her wedding-bangle and other
necessaries, had brought no word to her from Mataji.  How should it?
Yet, with the divine inconsistency of human nature, she had hoped
against hope.  She could not know that all Mataji's bitterness had
been vented in a vehement, incoherent letter to Sir Lakshman that had
cut her husband to the heart, while it revivified all the devils of
misgiving he had trampled under foot in the days following upon
Nevil's declaration.  Not for a kingdom would he have spoken of it to
his child, who was sufficiently upset by her sole word of greeting
from home.

Even Ram Singh, favourite elder brother and playmate could not write
otherwise than in sorrow of an event that, at one stroke, cut every
thread binding his sister to home and country.  Some day, perhaps,
Destiny would bring him to England.  There they might meet, if her
English husband would permit.  Till then he would write without fail:
and, in a tear-blotted postscript, Vimala--blowing her a kiss across
the "black water"--promised to write also, though pens were not her
favourite toys, and it was not letters she wanted, but her "dear own
Lilamani" who would never come home again.

Impossible to hide from Sir Lakshman the turmoil wrought by such
letters and by Mataji's tacit repudiation of her child.  But at least
he should not see her tears.  It was on Audrey's shoulder that she
had cried till the black demons of fear and disloyalty had been
washed clean out of her anguished heart.

For Audrey, true to her word, had come back just before Nevil started
for Paris, and had left again--upon a flawless pretext--on the eve of
his return.  Her going broke yet another link with India, and the
pain of it was acute.  But with the coming of Nevil, love's warmth
and light had enveloped the girl, till the day of days, arising out
the East, called on her to quit her dream Paradise and grasp the
shining, implacable facts of life; to make good her irrevocable gift,
and break the last link, the last link--

Something of this final pang Sir Lakshman had foreseen, and his had
been the happy idea of shipping home the modest contents of her room
in India, supplemented by rugs and embroideries of his own bestowing.

On that day of days Mrs. Despard had been all a mother to the
tremulous girl-bride, deprived alike of mother's blessing and bridal
rights.  Together they had hidden away all trace of what Lilamani
called her "Hindu-ness" under the hood and long cloak devised by
Audrey for her first flight.  A fine lace veil tied beneath her hood
shielded the girl from curious eyes; and in the after-hours she had
blessed that kindly veil from her heart.


Vividly it all came back to her, while she sat alone, in her shrine:
the early start; the motor-drive to Nice; the brief, unromantic
formalities, that had joined them irrevocably as any immemorial
rites, or sevenfold circling of the sacred fire; and afterwards, the
lifting of her veil, while he--her husband--set the ring upon her
finger, the bracelet on her wrist, the sacramental kiss upon her
lips.  Then--the wrench of parting from Mrs. Despard, who must return
to Antibes, while they three fared on to Milan in luxurious privacy;
the two men, tenderly considerate, leaving her to absorb, as in a
dream, the colourful beauties of Italy's coast line, till a sudden,
overpowering weariness blotted out all things; and she knew no more.

Not until the following morning had she awakened fully from that
blessed spell of stupor--Nature's reaction from another week of
secret austerities.  Dimly she had been aware of the journey's
ending, of noise and flashing lights; of a glass held to her lips;
then the vague thrill of her husband's arms, the cool softness of the
bed that received her; the touch of hands that freed her deftly from
cloak and hood, unwound her _sari_ and covered her with a quilt.  By
that time she was too far gone again in sleep to feel his kiss on her
eyelids and on the dear, unveiled head, seen so for the first time.

Next morning she awoke in full sunlight to find herself alone on the
great white bed.  And while she lay wondering mistily over it all,
he--Nevil--had come to her from an adjoining room; an unknown Nevil,
wearing a long _choga_; his hair, damp from bathing, crisped into
fugitive curls, and in his eyes a gladness beyond speech.  Then only
had there flashed upon her the full significance of yesterday's
doings, that had stripped her of all things familiar and set her
alone in an untried world with this deeply adored stranger, lord of
her life in very deed.

Sir Lakshman had seen them into the train for Como, promising on his
return from London to be their first visitor.  But while he spoke,
the inexorable engine drowned his voice; her desperate clutch upon
his hand relaxed, some chord within her seemed to snap, and she lay
back dazed, tearless; the rattle and clank of machinery seeming to
beat upon her bared nerves.

Six weeks she had lived without him; six weeks of happiness
unspeakable.  Yet in one secret corner, the ache remained.  Even in
memory she drew a veil over that moment's anguish, softened though it
was by the peculiar tenderness that Nevil Sinclair had gotten from
his mother.  She preferred to dwell on the journey up the Lake in the
pellucid end of a May evening that conjured the grey-green water into
gold.  And oh! before starting--the sight and smell of the white
bullocks, in Como town!  Dignity and reserve alone had withheld her
from open worship--there, on the cobblestone of Italy, that knew
nothing of Shiva or his sacred bull.

In early spring the winding reaches of Lake Como have the grey-green
tone of Italy--of olive and rock, stone cottage and pebbled paths.
Here, white incidents of hotels or villas, there, black incidents of
cypress, flashed like exclamation marks on some jutting headland, or
grouped like sentinels about a shrine.  But by now the grey was
jewelled everywhere with green, enamelled brightly and delicately
with every tint of every flower that blows.  Only the Northward view
showed a gleam of the high Alps; gods of the upper heaven untroubled
by the season's ebb and flow.

At last, slipping round a fir-capped island, they had sighted their
villa, set upon the water's edge like a brooding bird.  And lo, at
Tremezzo landing-stage, a slim white boat awaiting them, its gay
little flag aflutter at the stern.  In the deepening stillness, they
had been rowed across to their own private oasis, where nightingales
were already at even-song among the bushes, and fire-flies dipped and
darted in irregular flashes like stars gone mad.  Without spoken word
Nevil had slipped a hand through his bride's arm, leading her in and
up to the room that would be his studio.  He had shut the door behind
them.  And they were alone.

Then, as he turned, with that in his eyes that made her heart stand
still, it had come upon her afresh--the fear and the ecstasy.  In one
appealing look she had besought him to understand.  And he had
understood: most tenderly and amazingly he had understood.  For in
the best men, and in all true artists, there lurks some hidden touch
of the woman, some impress of the mother that bore them; and it had
needed just this touch in Lilamani's husband to ensure that the
ecstasy should outweigh the fear; nay, drive it out for good.

He had succeeded; and that so completely as to leave her wondering,
now, if she really had been afraid--ever.  As for the ecstasy, it
stood revealed in her eyes as she paused in the deft scraping of a
carrot, arrested by the low, clear whistling that came from behind
the _phulkari_ hanging over his studio door.

The key was turned in the lock--on her side; a daring act of coercion
achieved, with delicious tremors, after his fourth incursion, just to
see how things were going.  It was the only way to ensure his getting
any dinner at all, she had explained sweetly--from the other side.
For the _chef_ had been given a holiday, leaving her, Lilamani,
mistress of the situation.  It had been her chosen birthday treat;
and the simplicity of it smote her husband's heart.

For two hours he had worked contentedly, on his side of the barrier,
at the new picture--"Dreaming": a bevy of Eastern girls asleep,
suggested by a descriptive passage in the "Light of Asia."  His month
in Paris had justified to the full Sir Lakshman's decree.  Immersed
in his natural element, his talent had blossomed and expanded with a
readiness that surprised none more than himself, and delighted none
more than his girl-bride, self-dedicated high-priestess of the sacred
flame.

In those first days of divine idleness, when they had lived mainly in
the little white boat, it had been decided that he should make his
name as a painter of Eastern subjects, having become enamoured of
half a hemisphere in the person of one small woman.  It was then that
she had reillumined for him the familiar "Light of Asia," and pleaded
for a painting of the great Prince's "pleasure-home," with its walls
of pearl-shell and lace-worked stone, through which moonbeams
filtered, making tender light and shade upon a group of sleeping
dancers, fairest and most favoured _houris_ of the royal household.

She herself, in her loveliest _saris_, would be model for all, if he
could change the faces a little "from his own imagining": and for him
remained the joy of painting six sleeping Lilamanis, each in some new
pose of girlish grace and beauty.  Then, as the work progressed, she
had written to Sir Lakshman for a full and abridged translation of
the Ramayāna--Saga of princely heroism and wifely devotion,
that lies nearest to India's heart.  The full translation,
sumptuously bound, had been her birthday gift: and thence they would
cull fresh subjects for his brush when he had completed his dream of
one fair woman multiplied by six.

It was nearing completion now: and while he worked lovingly at
shadows of marble tracery and silver lamps that swung like censers
from the dim roof, she, on her side, chopped vegetables, washed rice,
and measured out spices with the ardour of a devotee and the
absorption of a happy-hearted child at play.  But she knew what that
whistling meant.  He was tired of his "Dream."  He wanted reality.
She wanted it too; yet she made no sign.

Then the tune broke off short, and through the curtain his voice came
to her, appealing as a caress.

"Little wife!  I'm tired of seeing you asleep.  Come out of your
shrine."

"Wait only a small time--impatient one!  Or curry will spoil."

"Hang curry!  I want you."

"Then no dinner.  Only soup and cream pudding.  Think how squash!"

"Cheese and pâté," said the curtain, clinching the argument in a
fashion beneath contempt.  "Come along."

She smiled enchantingly at the mixture she was tossing in the pan and
hurried on with her work.

Silence for a half a minute: then the curtain spoke again.

"I say, Lilamani.  Giulietta's brought the tea.  Your cake, with
coffee icing, and a box of fondants from Martino with a thousand
compliments.  There now!"

Supreme conviction in that last.  He could see the delicate disdain
upon her face before speech confirmed it.

"You think if I will not come--for you, I come for cakes and
fondants?"

But her fingers were unfastening the brooch at her shoulder, and the
_sari_ sacred to cooking was whisked off with surprising alacrity.
For answer he began crooning with guileful intent her favourite song:

  "'My heart, my heart is like a singing-bird,
  Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
  My heart, my heart is like an apple-tree
  Whose boughs are hung with thick-set fruit;
  My heart, my heart is like a rainbow shell
  That paddles on a halcyon sea.
  My heart, my heart is gladder than all these
  Because my Love, my Love has come to me----'

Ah!--so you _have_ come, after all!"

The key had turned softly in the lock, and now she stood before him:
a slender, iridescent vision with lids dutifully downcast, awaiting
his pleasure.

At the first he had been puzzled, then increasingly charmed, this
English husband, by the worshipful aloofness with which the Hindu
bride approaches her lord, at least until the crown of motherhood is
hers.  To the Indian husband this attitude is merely a part of the
immemorial nature of things: but for Nevil Sinclair, used to the
casual camaraderie of the West, there were moments when it went to
his head.  He had to temper elation with the reminder that it was
instinctive, impersonal; homage to husbandhood rather than to
himself.  But, enchanting though it was, he would not always have it
so.  She must learn his ways also.  And she was learning--shyly,
proudly; her woman's adaptability quickened by the impulse of love.
For a heart-beat or two he watched her where she stood.  Then,
smiling, he indicated the tea-table.

"I angled well!  You couldn't resist them--eh?"

"That is as my lord pleases!" she answered demurely, imps of laughter
in her eyes; and he held out both hands.

"A shame to insult her on her birthday!  Come then--English wife."

It was their private password; and straightway she obeyed its hidden
command; laying light hands upon him and lifting her face for his
kiss.

"The necklace of your arms," he whispered, caressing their silken
softness.  "D'you know Martino said one day, at the Cap, that when
the _houri_ made this necklace for me I should be faithless to art;
and I contradicted him flat.  Was I Truth-named, Jewel of Delight?"

She nestled closer.

"Even at the first you were so clever to know your Lilamani.  Now he
must believe, when he sees, in one little month--how beautiful
picture----!"

"To say nothing of the masterpieces we mean to paint from your
Ramayāna before the summer's out."

That "we" sent a shiver of joy through her.  It united her, not only
with his manhood, but with the art that was his crown of manhood; the
art dear to her, as to himself.  Had it not brought her this--her
crown of womanhood?

"About those other pictures, I have a new thought to tell.  It came
in my mind--God-bestowed--when making your curry----"

"My curry!  You inimitable high-priestess of a brick oven!  While you
were chopping onions, I suppose?"

"Yes.  Just exactly by that time."  She assumed an adorable gravity.
"It is bad to make joke of my sacred service--worthless one!  I shall
not tell."

"Oh, but you will."

His lips brushed hers in a fugitive caress; and the "God-bestowed"
thought found utterance.  She had seen, in fancy, a group of
pictures, each with Sita for central figure; the whole, when
complete, setting forth India's ideal of womanhood in the ascent of
that gracious spirit from steep to steep of renunciation, unsullied,
unafraid, even until the end.

Lilamani's whole face glowed as she warmed to her subject.

"Sita, when begging of Rāma to share banishment," she went
on eagerly.  "Sita, alone in forest hut when that Terrible is
approaching in guise of Brahman.  Sita coming out from fire of
ordeal, in great God's arms.  Think how splendid!"

"Jove, yes--_if_ it's possible."  His ardour caught fire from hers.
"Arrogant high-flying, of course.  But we'll lay the scheme before
Martino to-morrow and see what he thinks.  You shall give us an
outline idea of the story and the special scenes you want."

"Yes.  Only ... Sita is like patron saint to me; like a piece of my
own heart.  And how difficult!  When all is so big----"

"Not a bit of it.  You'll manage beautifully.  Think it all out when
you get back to your sacred curry!  And you would be my Sita?  Is
that it?"

"Yes, I would--oh, I would--in all things.  If there came a need."
She brooded on the thought with gravely luminous eyes.

"But, Lilamani, suppose I paint you, yourself, how about letting all
the world see?  Wouldn't you hate that?"

Her scarlet flush gave answer, and she hid her eyes a moment; then
looking up again, spoke bravely.  "Not--if I shall be Sita.  Think
how small thing for honour of your name, comparing with ordeal of
fire."

"And you wouldn't stick at that either," he said, "if such barbarism
still existed."

"No," she answered simply.  "I am _Suttee_."

"Lilamani--what d'you mean?"

"Only--in old days, when _Suttee_ was not outside law, girl-brides
would fear sometimes were they strong enough, were they worthy?  Then
they would make test; holding smallest finger in fire till flesh
burnt from bone; or stirring with bare hand rice when boiling.  And
I--I have done--that last; though never I told to anyone--till now."

"You?  My little one!"  In a passion of protection he held her close.

"Such a small thing!" she murmured, not ill-pleased at his concern.
"But now--I am glad; and perhaps a little more worthy for being Sita
in your so beautiful pictures, that I long to see."

"_Our_ pictures," he corrected her in a sudden humility.  "It's you
that are the true artist, Lilamani--the inspired brain.  Without you
I should never have painted a thing worth looking at.  But with you
there's no limit to the insolence of my aspiration--."




CHAPTER II

  "My heart in me was held at restless rest,
  Presageful of some prize beyond its quest,
  Prophetic still with promise, fain to find the best."
                                            --SWINBOURNE.


Martino's approval of the _houri_ and something more dated from his
first sight of Nevil's sketch.  Constrained by that something, he had
wrought, in the sea-piece that was his wedding-gift, a symbolic
portrayal of his own soul, untamed and untameable as the waters that
cover the earth.  All wind-driven wave and cloud it was; save for one
down-sweeping sword of radiance that struck a path of gold through
the turmoil: the whole smitten into life by the illusion of light and
movement that was fast gaining him recognition as one of the
master-painters of his time.  This much, at least, of himself should
be hers: the quintessence of his nature purged from the dross.  For
outside his art, and his touch of heroic fortitude, Martino's code of
morals did not bear critical inspection.

It was Sinclair's mention of her "soul-pictures" that had inspired
his attempt at symbolical portraiture, in the hope that she might see
and understand.  She had seen and understood.  On the day of its
bestowal he had watched discovery creep into her eyes; had heard from
her lips the tribute he coveted: "But, Signor Martino, it is
you--yourself!"

"For which reason, Signorina--it is yours," he had answered with his
awkward little bow of gallantry.  And to-day, as he sipped his
_chocolat_ in Broome's familiar study, he felt a thrill of pleasure
in seeing "himself" hung in the right light, at the right angle; the
only picture added, by Nevil, to the chosen few that adorned Broome's
grey-green walls.

The French windows were flung wide; and the two men sat just within
them.  Out on the balcony, in full sunshine, gleamed the silver
tea-tray, and beside it, on her lacquer stool, sat the _houri_;
Signorina no longer, but bride of another; shyly conscious of her new
dignity, shyly aloof, for all her flutter of pleasure at sight of one
who recalled Antibes.

Lovelier and more desirable than ever she seemed to Martino, in her
subdued glow of happiness and health renewed; the olive and
rose-madder tints of her skin set off by a _sari_, delicately pink as
the lining of a shell; its narrow border of almond-buds, breaking at
each corner into a full-blown spray.  Whatever pangs of envy may have
pricked the man, the artist, at least, could find pure pleasure in
watching her, while Sinclair unfolded her God-bestowed conviction
that, between them, they could achieve a set of paintings from the
great Hindu Epic, choosing scenes that should not involve an
overcrowded canvas, or technical knowledge of detail, hard to acquire
out of India.

"It's flagrantly ambitious, I admit," Nevil concluded, lighting a
cigarette and holding his vesta to Martino's cigar.  "But Sir
Lakshman is a keen student of ancient literature; and--she is
astonishingly well up in it all.  She tells me he has a remarkable
collection of old books, native pictures, and curios; and thinks he
would gladly send out for some of them to act as "stage properties"
and give me a better grasp of the subject.  What d'you think, Martino
_mio_?  Is it a credible venture?  Or has too much good-fortune
turned my head?"

Martino considered the question a moment, his ragged moustache thrust
out.

"Difficult to answer," he said at last.  "It is I who am lost,
confounded, by your so rapid advance.  Your new picture!--how
remarkable! ... All in one month.  After that, it is not for Martino
to say possible or impossible.  In Paris you shall have worked like
anything else than the Sinclair known to me these three years."

"Jove, I did!  But then, I had a very special inducement--waiting for
me at Antibes."

Nevil's eyes dwelt an instant on his wife's half-averted face; and
Martino coughed till the tears came.

"That one can understand," he muttered gruffly.  "But you painted no
picture there--was it?"

"No.  Only studies and sketches--scores of them.  But without
Leseppes I'd have been nowhere.  He called himself my godfather.
Even let his own work slide a bit on my account."

Martino nodded.  "H'm.  That is Leseppes--when the finger touches his
heart.  Which is not too often, I can tell you, Sinclair.  It is--how
you call?--feather in your cap.  He knew it would be worth.  And he
knew right.  One can trace Jacques Leseppes in that."  He jerked his
cigar towards the dreamers.  "But I--Martino--knew it first.  That is
my _panache_.  The surprise to me is how you were content, those many
years, to play fool with a gift so precious----"

"My dear fellow, I wasn't content.  That was the deuce of it all.
Often and often I felt the ache and stirring of a power, that seemed
as if it must work itself out--somehow, some day.  But in between
times conviction went to pieces; and I cursed myself for an
imaginative, conceited fool----"

"Surest proof you could not be!" Martino broke in with a short laugh.

"Horribly disconcerting all the same.  Without proof of unusual
talent I could hardly ask my father to spend money on a gift he
didn't believe in.  So there I was!  A failure in my father's eyes.
Worse than that in my own.  Only when I got into touch with you and
your kind, I used to feel like a man who has a treasure locked up in
a secret room of which he has lost the key----"

"And, by God, you have got it now, _amico mio_!  Not often is it that
an artist shall have the unique good fortune to find himself--in his
wife."

He jerked out the last with an effort; and the half-averted face was
turned gently away.  It was the custom of her new world, this open
fashion of speech: but not soon would her sensitiveness become inured
to personal allusions impermissible among Hindus of good breeding.

Her husband, keenly alive to the significance of that slight
movement, answered, without direct mention of her: "I'm quite as much
confounded as you are, Martino _mio_; and perhaps a little
intoxicated with the wine of the gods, or I could hardly take this
new notion seriously.  But I do.  Honestly, I do----"

"_Sapristi_!  That picture gives you right.  And to take seriously,
is to achieve.  Will you or ... the Signora tell me more of this
Epic, Saga--what you call it?"

"Yes.  I want my wife to give you an outline of the story.  Will
you--Lilamani?"

She turned, aflush to the temples; her ringed hands moving nervously
in her lap.

"If Signor Martino is wishing--I will try.  But--it is so great and
beautiful; and my telling so clumsy.  I am not clever to such things."

"Your telling's good enough for us.  Eh, Martino?" Nevil said,
smiling.

The small man nodded vigorously.

"No fear for Martino to be critical, Signora," he said with unusual
gentleness.  "Outside of form and colour there lives no great
knowledge in my black bullet head.  Tell me, please, this Epic of
your country.  History, is it?  Or legend?"

"Hard to say how much from each," she answered, clasping her hands to
steady herself.  "It is mixture of all things; war and philosophy and
family love.  But almost for us it is religion.  Because
Rāma, prince and hero, was incarnation of Vishnu, called
Preserver, second great god of Hindu Trinity; and this poem tells of
his many adventures in ancient forest of Dandak.  There he was living
fourteen years in banishment, because of long-ago promise made by
that old king, his father, to second queen, who was favourite, and
was wishing to see her own son in Rāma's place.

"Then, because royal word cannot be broken, Rāma must fulfil
that promise; even if father, mother, and all the peoples break their
hearts for losing such a Prince.  In rough guise of pilgrim he chose
to go; leaving all possessions, even Sita, beautiful and beloved
wife.  She must stay safely with his mother because forest life was
too much rough and dangerous for high-bred woman.  But now there came
difficulty----"

Lilamani paused and drew in a low soft breath.  The sacredness of
Sita, of all communion between wife and husband, made the telling of
so impassioned a love-story more difficult than she had foreseen.
Nevil, divining her thought, frowned imperatively at Martino,
checking comment on his lips.

And she, leaning forward, chin cradled in one hand, found courage to
speak on; her eyes intent upon a fairy fleet of clouds, her voice
hushed to a musical monotone, as if thinking aloud.

"Sita, dutiful beyond all women, refused in this one matter to obey
her lord, caring nothing for danger or rough life if only she may
behold his face.  Rāma, too much anxious, would not hear
such thing.  Only at last, by saying she will take poison, even
fainting with grief, she won consent.  Lakshman, own brother to
Rāma, said he will go also; and they three, in coats of
bark, went forth to their strange adventures.  There might come one
picture.  Another might come, months after, when Sita was sitting
alone in forest hut, built by Lakshman, while Rāma has gone
in search of wonderful deer, seen by her, and greatly wished.  But
this deer was only form taken by a Wicked One to draw Rāma
far from his beloved.  Because of his strength, no evil giants of
that wood were able to conquer him; and they were desiring vengeance,
because he spurned offered love of hideous giantess, sister of
Ravān, that ogre-king of Ceylon.  By his devising was such
cruel trick played on Rāma, all-conquering one; only to be
caught by deceit because his spirit was too clear for such muddy
thoughts.

"So he was leaving his Queen in care of Lakshman, and following that
deer.  But at first prick of arrow, the Wicked One cried out, in
voice of Rāma: 'Ah Sita, ah Lakshmana--help! help!'  This
they heard with fearful hearts; and Sita was insisting that Lakshman
shall leave charge of her and follow that call.  But even for her
command, he would not disobey Rāma and desert his Queen;
till Sita became angry, saying she must believe he wishes that
brother's death, so he may marry with herself.  Heart-broken from
such suspicion, Lakshman must go.

"Then while Sita was sitting alone, beautiful as full moon, in robes
of amber silk, with lotus-wreath upon her hair, came That Terrible,
stealthily up from river, in guise of Brahman.  First he was begging
food, as holy man, that none may refuse.  Then, throwing off
disguise, he was speaking shameful things to that most loyal wife.
In scornful anger she spurned him, as her lord had spurned his
sister.  More than this, weak woman could not do.  So That
Terrible--catching her by waist and by hair--carried her off in his
flying car, over tree-tops to Lanka, now called Ceylon.  Only one
great vulture, friend to Rāma, saw them go and made battle
with Ravān.  But no use.  He fell, with many wounds and
arrows, killed almost to death----"

Another pause.  Half-unconsciously Lilamani was identifying Sita with
herself, Rāma with her lord; and now it was as if the actual
sword of division pierced her heart.

"See a fresh picture--sorrowful beyond telling," she murmured, the
thrill of oncoming tragedy in her voice.  "Sita, broken of heart and
hope--true wife still, pure as snow newly fallen--grieving alone in
that garden of Ravān, where all was beautiful, except only
the she-fiends--with head of wild beast and bodies of women--who must
guard her and torment her with insult and cruelty; because not all
flatterings or gifts or threatenings could make her disloyal by even
look or word.  Only one thing kept That Terrible from taking her in
his palace by force.  He feared she was daughter of high gods who
could punish him for that sacrilege.  Therefore he tried every way
for winning her consent.  But no use.  So he grew angry, and gave her
in charge of she-fiends that she might not escape.

"But on this day, unknown to her, there sat one among the branches
with message from her lord: Hanuman, general of the monkey-peoples,
by which is meant wild forest tribes.  Lightly leaping down, he knelt
before that sorrowful lady, telling her how one great prince
Rāma had been searching many months all over Southern India
for stolen wife dearly-loved; how he, general of monkey-peoples, had
leapt across the sea to make search in country of Ravān.
Hearing of beautiful prisoner in Asoka garden, he came, by his
littleness and cunning, through the tree-tops to see.  And now, if
she is that lost Queen, he is begging token for her husband that she
is still alive and true wife.  Then he will bring great army and win
her back.  By this news, joy came once more to Sita's heart; and most
precious jewel, gift of her father, she sent for greeting and proof
of faithful love.

"Then, through many months the story is filled with noise of battle
and chariot-wheels, and death and victory.  No pictures here.  Till,
at last, came day of meeting between Sita and her lord.  By his
orders she was carried in litter to greet him on field of victory.
And he, not approaching, called her to come forth, with face
uncovered, before those many folk.  From this so strange command she
had fear of trouble; yet, shrinking greatly, she came forth.  With
eyes veiled, though face must be seen, she went proudly to her lord;
heart and thought unstained as when her father made the gift.

"Then fell that unspeakable thing.  There, in cruel speech, that all
his army shall hear, he told her not for great love had he fought and
conquered, but only to avenge insult and theft.  There, before all,
he named her faithless wife, Queen of Ravān, that could
never any more be Queen for him.  Oh, cruel!  _Too cruel_----!"

Lilamani's voice vibrated with pain and scorn.  The hand that lay on
her lap clenched itself in passionate protest.  Martino, pictures,
Nevil himself forgotten, she was seeing all, hearing all; translated
in spirit back to the morning of the world.

"Surely Rāma, true husband, must be lost in Rāma,
proud Prince, to speak so.  And Sita was answering, in such noble
meekness, that he may doubt others, if he will; but not that truth
which all her life has shown.  'Why,' she was asking, 'had he not
sent such word through Hanuman, that she might die and be spared from
deepest insult and shame?'  Then she was pleading remembrance for
early days of happiness and love: 'O King, is all forgotten--all?'

"From Rāma no word; and she, peerless one, turned to
Lakshman, begging him, in broken voice, make ready funeral pyre.  For
loving woman, hurt beyond healing, what else was left?

"So there, before all, it was made ready, none daring to disobey: and
Sita, not shrinking now, drew near those leaping flames, praying with
uplifted hands to the God within.

  "Universal witness, Fire,
  Protect my body on the pyre!
  As Raghu's son has lightly laid
  This charge on Sita--hear, and aid!"


"When these cruel flames closed upon her loveliness, most piercing
cry went up from all; and tears came in Rāma's eyes.  Then
down from heaven came the great Gods, in cars golden like sunbeams,
revealing to Rāma he is no mortal man--but Vishnu himself in
human shape; reproaching him for such treatment of his Queen, like
man of common clay.

"But see--see!  Those flames are rolling backward, and out of their
burning heart came the Lord of Fire himself, carrying that stainless
one, no fire could harm.  Fresh, like she came from the litter; not
one flower of wreath scorched nor hair of eyelash singed, that
Universal Witness gave her again to her lord of life.  Then
Rāma was proclaiming, before those many peoples, that never
had he been doubting her word and her love; only for princely honour
there was need that searching fire should give proof to all.  Now he
will cleave to her as hero cleaves to glory; and never leave her
again.  Oh, if he kept that word ... if he kept it----!"

The low cry ended in a broken sound; and Lilamani sat motionless, her
face hidden.

Martino glanced at Sinclair.  His cigarette had gone out.  He leaned
back in his chair lost to everything but this fresh revealing of his
girl-wife; and the Italian, more poignantly moved by her distress
than by Sita's sufferings, leaned impulsively towards her.

"It was not kept?  That demi-god, was he so despicable?  Tell me,
Signora--is that the end?"

Nevil frowned sharply.  Lilamani started and looked up.  Tears hung
on her lashes.

"That is the ending--for my pictures," she said quietly.  "True
ending of story also, in my belief.  But in such far-away times, who
can tell?  Long after death of that great poet was added _Uttra
Kanda_, after-part, telling of triumphal return to their own kingdom,
where they two lived in happiness, too perfect, one year only.  Then
came to Rāma's ears that people were murmuring doubts of his
Queen in spite of all.  Not one doubt had Rāma.  But for
honour of his kinghood, he was believing Sita must go.  So he sent
her, even before birth of his child, to that far hermitage; and she,
in great grief of her heart, said only: 'Husband is God of the wife;
what seems right to him she must do even at cost of life.'

"So for twenty long years she was living, without anger or complaint,
in that hermitage of early days; till twin sons of Rāma had
become men.  Then they, without knowing, went to sing glorious deeds
of their father at his Court.  There came recognition: and
Rāma was crying out that he will bear separation no longer;
that Sita must come back to grant forgiveness, and once more reign as
his Queen.

"She came; proud, but sad from too much pain and waiting.  There,
before chiefs and kings and all subjects, she stood in crimson robe,
still beautiful as dawn.  But--oh terrible!--even while Rāma
was greeting her, came the people's murmur: 'Let her be tried by
fire.'  Even for such a great heart that was too much.  Like one
pierced with a sword, she covered her face, crying in broken voice:
'If unstained in thought and action--Mother Earth, receive thy child!'

"Then that great Earth-Mother, quick to answer, cleft the ground and
came up, there, at her daughter's feet.  Beautiful beyond telling her
throne: wide her arms of welcome.  Vain, all vain, outcry of
Rāma and his people.  The earth was closing on mother and
child.  She is gone ... that stainless one----!"

With a shuddering sob Lilamani sprang to her feet, flung both arms
heavenward in a gesture half triumph, half despair: then, stabbed
awake by sudden acute self-consciousness, turned and fled.

In the silence she left behind her, the hush of sun-sinking seemed
still to palpitate with ghosts of dead emotions interwoven with live
ones.  The breathing of both men sounded curiously distinct.  Nevil
lit a fresh cigarette, mechanically, as if his mind were elsewhere.
Martino sat gazing at the empty chair; then, with awkward haste,
brushed a hand across his eyes.

It was Nevil who stepped first out of the cloud.

"Well, Martino--it's a big thing, isn't it?  What do you think?"

Martino grunted.  Then he coughed.

"My friend, at this moment, I _think_ not at all.  But this I know.
Through her clearness of vision you shall paint those pictures in
such a fashion that they shall make your name.  I, Martino, have
said.  Let your strong imagining take colour from her.  She is like
flame to your mind--to your life.  No?"

"She is."

"_Bene_.  That I thought.  Of lesser matters we shall speak another
time."




CHAPTER III

      "Oh laisse frapper à la porte
      La main, qui frappe avec ses doigts futiles.
  Notre heure est si unique; et le reste, qu'importe
      Le reste, avec ses doigts futiles.
    * * * * * * *
  L'instant est si rare, de lumière première,
      Dans notre cœur, au fond de nous."
                                        EMILE VERHAEREN.


It was after sunset when the little white boat "Marietta" slipped out
of the rocky cove, as it had done almost every evening for the past
six weeks.  Nevil rowed.  Martino sat beside his _houri_ in the
stern; since rowing was apt to catch his breath and make him cough.

The hush and glow of early evening, in sky and lake, cast its spell
upon all three.  The Western hills wore a halo of light, shell-pink
melting to amethyst.  In the east an orange-golden moon hung poised
above the rugged heights as if loath to lose touch with earth.  The
watchword of the evening was Peace.

The three in the boat talked fitfully of passing things.  But of the
great scheme no one spoke, till the keel grated on the pebbles.  Then
said Martino abruptly, gripping his friend's hand:

"When my spirit shall have digested that wonderful recital, I shall
better be able to speak of details--possibilities.  You understand?"

"Very much so.  You've only to send word across when the process is
complete!"

"That will be soon, I hope," softly, from Lilamani.

"The sooner the better for me, Signora.  _Buon riposo_."  From the
top of the stone steps he watched their departing boat cleave the
shining, sensitive silver below, while the black worm of envy gnawed
at his heart.  Fame, recognition--the one great good he had wrestled
from life in defiance of his "lost lung,"--seemed of a sudden chilly,
unsatisfying, like a glass of water on a cold day.  _Santa Maria_!
To be young and strong, with such a wife to feed the sacred flame!
As if in jeering comment a violent fit of coughing shook him, as a
dog shakes a rat.  Then, with a curse, he turned homeward to supper
and probable recriminations from a devoted if sharp-tongued sister:
sole genie of his lamp.


Out on the lake, in the vanishing boat, silence had fallen again.
But at the heart of it was understanding.  To stir a man's
imagination, is to seal his lips: and to-day Nevil Sinclair's
imagination had been profoundly stirred.  The rapture of the artist
was his; his vision of things, beautiful beyond expression,
entreating to be expressed; of things vital clamouring to be born.

And it was her doing--hers.  He worshipped her with his eyes, while
she lay back against her cushion, watching the birth of star upon
quivering star.

Who that saw her, without prejudice, could doubt that his unique
experiment seemed like to prove a unique success?  Martino did not
doubt.  But Martino was of the elect.  It was thought of the
Philistines that chilled him; one Philistine in particular, brimful
of prejudice.  He thrust her impatiently aside.  His decision for art
had made him permanently a black sheep in her eyes.  What matter one
smudge the more?  And his father?  A twinge of pain here, tempered
with annoyance.  Why in the name of common sense couldn't folk who
swore by it let a man be happy in his own way?  He was, and would be,
none the less.  Nay more, he would make the name of Sinclair famous.
Perhaps they would be satisfied then.  For himself the glowing golden
present was satisfaction enough.  It is at once the strength and
weakness of the artist nature, this full surrender to the spell of
the moment.

Beyond this enchanted summer he refused to look definitely.  Vague
visions of a winter in Rome, or Egypt, sufficed.  What matter where?
The secret charm lay in seeing the whole world afresh, through her
eyes; in realizing, through her, as never yet, the sanctity and
sanity of the common, primal bond between man and woman that is at
once keystone and pinnacle of the house of life.

Mighty opposites were they--irreconcilables?  By no means.  Six weeks
of closest intimacy, of spelling out letter by letter the unknown
quantity he had taken to wife, inclined him to believe rather that
East and West are not antagonistic, but complementary: heart and
head, thought and action, woman and man.  Between all these "pairs of
opposites" fusion is rare, difficult, yet eminently possible.  Why
not, then, between East and West?

In the strength of that analogy he could go forward, unafraid; still
more so because the poetic temperament common to both implied a
certain imaginative insight and flexibility, favourable to the
bridging of gulfs; and the fact that, in Broome's phrase, he had "too
little of the average Englishman under his Park Lane surface," was no
longer a stone of stumbling, but his most valuable asset.  In less
than six months of marriage with the average Briton--say his own
brother George--Lilamani's fairy boat of happiness would almost
certainly have run aground upon the rocks.  Even with himself, to
whom a great love had given understanding, its fragility was a thing
to tremble at; and he dreaded the risk of impact with sharp-cornered
headlands that loomed vaguely through the golden mist.

Yet, for all his understanding, he did not dream that already two
intrusive actualities threatened the fragile thing; did not dream of
her troubled wonder in divining that the vital, motive power of her
own life seemed to count for little in his.

Six weeks; and, to her knowledge, no form of devotion or prayer.  A
Bible lived among his books; an old Bible, solidly bound and clasped,
with Christina Nevil writ in faded ink on the fly-leaf.  But though
Lilamani had read it--with an awed thrill in touching a book handled
by his mother in her girlhood--she had only seen Nevil open it once.
It was strange.  Were all Englishmen thus?  Or was it a part of his
tender consideration for her that had been the crowning revelation of
their union?  Shyness and innate shrinking from the least hint of
criticism made her fear to ask him--yet.

The second intrusive reality was more personal, more poignantly
disturbing; one that might compel her to speak.

Six weeks; and no word of recognition from that father and sister,
henceforth to be dear as her own; dearer, if that were possible.  For
in theory, if not always in fact, her husband's people become
paramount to the Hindu wife; only a degree less honoured, less sacred
than her lord himself.  But then ... the home-coming of an Indian
bride sets her in the heart of his family: an additional daughter,
modestly self-suppressed; handmaiden in chief to the Queen-mother of
that human hive.  And Lilamani Sinclair--child of transition--found
herself, instead, alone with this one man upon an unknown road, with
never a signpost for guidance, and never a word from that England to
which she must now belong.

For the first three weeks, secure in her certainty, she had not given
the matter a thought.  Then she had begun to watch her husband a
little fearfully, whenever a post came in.  Days passed.  Eagerness
faded into a wistful anxiety.  Surely, even in England, some form of
greeting, of "friendly wishings," was due to bride of eldest son?
Could it be that he had never written of his marriage?  And if not,
why--why?

Day after day that question had tormented her waking, and bred
grotesque nightmares when she slept.  More than once it had been upon
her lips.  But her own conviction that he ought to have written made
her dread his answer.  Better they should be in the wrong than he.
Yet--she must know; she must!  And to-night, while she sat silent in
the dusk, watching the birth of the stars, she was wondering,
wondering--dared she ask him now?

The moment seemed propitious for touching upon intimate things.
Courage waxed, as the glow of evening waned, and earth-stars came out
along the water's edge.  She stirred softly, and sat upright,
clasping her hands; a trick she had when nervous.  But it was Nevil
who spoke.

"Such a silent little wife!  Dreaming?  Thinking of Sita?"

"No.  Of Lilamani."

"So was I!  Anything wrong with Lilamani?  Isn't she quite happy?"

Her eyes dwelt a moment on his moon-lit face.  Her own was half in
shadow.

"Dearest," she said softly, "why ask so strange thing?"

"Only because I wish it so tremendously; and because--well, when a
man stands at the summit of desire he's always half afraid of the
next turning.  You understand that--don't you?"

"Yes, too much.  But ... we have ... not to be afraid."  She drew a
deep breath.  "Nevil ... King of me ... have I leave to say all that
is in my heart?"

"Beloved, why not?  What is it?"

"Something I must ask.  Only--if it vex you----"

"Ask any mortal thing you please."

A pause.  Nevil, intent upon her shadowed face, let the boat drift at
will.

"It is only--these many days I have been waiting, hoping ... some
small word of greeting for new wife ... from England----"

"Lilamani!  Forgive me----!"

The pain and self-reproach in his cry told her all.  She leaned
forward, steadying her breath.

"Oh, Nevil!  Is it----?  You have not written?"

"No.  I have not written."

"Why?"

He merely saw the word; and his free hand covered both hers.

"Darling, how _shall_ I make you understand?  With you, in India, it
is so different.  You see, my decision about the painting upset them
a good deal at home.  I was honestly sorry.  But it had to be.  Then
came my marriage, which I knew they would not see--quite as I see it;
and I wanted no outside worries disturbing our first spell of
happiness.  But it was wrong of me to forget how my not writing might
affect you.  I fancied you would be too happy in these honeymoon
weeks to bother your head about strangers you had never seen."

"Oh, I am happy, beyond all dreaming.  But Nevil----.  Father of you,
sister of you--my own being like lost--how could I not wish----?"

His grasp on her hands tightened.  "I never thought of that, selfish
duffer that I am.  But truly, if they'd been a different sort I would
have written sooner."

"Different sort?  What is that?"

"Nowadays English, little wife!"  He smiled, longing to win her from
her anxious mood.  "My meaning is that I'm a kind of freak in my
family.  They're not much like me, any of 'em, except my youngest
sister, Christina, who might come out to us later on.  She has more
of my mother in her than the rest."

"How many--the rest?"

"Two brothers; a sailor and a soldier, besides Jane."

"And you also--very like your mother?"

"Very like.  And proud of it.  But I've always been out of gear with
my father and Jane.  They worship a godling called the Right Thing,
whose first commandment is 'Thou shalt respect the whole beaten
track, and nothing but the beaten track.'  And we're not exactly
respecting it--are we, Jewel of Delight?"

"No--I am afraid.  But ... you were meaning to write ... sometime?"

"Naturally.  I've been wondering this last week how much longer I
would be justified in keeping our sanctuary sacred from the touch of
outside things.  That's how I look at it.  Life is none too prodigal
of happiness like ours.  Are you in such a mortal hurry to admit the
world, the flesh, and the devil?"

"Oh, no--no!" she cried out with sudden passion.  "It was because I
thought ... it must be right, and----"

The small even teeth closed on her lower lip.

"And what?" he asked almost sharply.

"Not anything more."

"There was something.  I heard it in your voice.  You asked leave to
speak out all your thought.  As you love me, Lilamani, keep nothing
back."

"But it is such a small thing; a little private ache, because I had
feared, through your not writing, you began to be ... ashamed----"

The hands he held were crushed against his lips.  "I'll write
to-morrow," was all he said.

Then, releasing her, he gripped his sculls and the boat sped forward,
away from the thickly-clustered constellations of Cadenabbia and
Tremezzo, toward the lone twin lights that beckoned to them from the
farther shore, as yet untouched by the moon.

After a short silence Lilamani spoke.

"You did not sing to-night.  Will you--now?"

He balanced the sculls at her bidding; lifted his head and sang
softly, with tender inflections, the old Scots' ballad, so simple in
phrasing, so extravagant in protest:

  "My love is like a red rose that's newly sprung in June.
  My love is like a melody that's sweetly played in tune----"


So singing and so floating, star-encompassed above and below, the
watchword of the evening descended again upon them like a beatitude.
The voices of the outer world seemed far away and unreal: themselves,
and this their transient Eden, the sole realities.

The song ceased, and Nevil's oars plashed again, scattering stars.  A
few swift strokes carried them out of the moonlight into the shadow
of their hill.  Both were imaginative; both susceptible to the mood
of the hour; and, in that moment of passing, a little breeze of dread
blew chill upon their hearts.

As the keel grounded, Lilamani leaned forward, putting out a hand.
"Nevil," she began, then checked herself.

"What is it?" he asked, his ear quick to catch the trouble in her
tone.

"Not anything," she answered as before.

"Lilamani, is that true?"

"Nearly true.  Only some woman's foolishness, of ... perhaps...  Pity
to break so heavenly evening with 'perhaps'----"

"Wise one!" he commended, turning to moor the boat.  Sincerely he
hoped that her trouble was no more than "woman's foolishness."  But,
being man, he was grateful for the reserve or consideration that had
checked her impulse of speech.

Springing out, he drew the boat well in-shore; secured it; and
returning, leaned to her again.

"Is it still there--the foolishness?"

"No."

"Did you drive it away?"

"Yes.  Like it deserved."

"Don't let it come back.  This is our perfect hour.  Let us keep it
so."

Above them, from massed bushes of rhododendron and azalea, the
love-music of nightingales echoed his plea; and she sighed.

"Yes.  That I am feeling too.  Almost it is like enchantment.  One
little touch might break----"

"That's why I put off writing.  Must I now?"

"It is not for wife to command her lord," she breathed.  "But think
only ... dearest, your father----"

Without a word he lifted her in his arms and carried her up through
the fragrant dark, jewelled with aerial gold of fire-flies.

To both came the thought of that first time he had carried her thus,
in the rush and swirl of the storm, that had led them into this deep
heart of peace: and Lilamani, remembering all that his arms had told
her then, found to-night, in their enfolding pressure, an answer to
the question she could not bring herself to ask.




CHAPTER IV

  "Oh, I would be to thee
  As gentle as the grass above the dead,
  And have I been but darkness and a sword?"
                                    STEPHEN PHILLIPS.


It was the last of June; the last lingering hour of a radiant
evening.  Not often does the queen of months fulfil herself so
royally as she had done for these two, with whom the very gods seemed
to have fallen in love.  In the heavens a lazy light-filled cloud or
two, by way of reminder that tears must fall again some day.  On
earth increasing fervour of heat and fragrance of a million roses.
And over all brooded that spirit of peace, of a sanctuary enclosed,
peculiar to hill-girt lakes in the zenith of summer.

Even the passing flutter of holiday life on steamers and on hotel
terraces had ceased--for a time.  Lilamani basked and blossomed in
the heat like some exotic plant of her own land.  Nevil, less inured,
had suggested a move up to the Dolomites.  But she clung to her nest,
fearing to "break the enchantment" and waken the forgetful Gods.
They were growing a little superstitious about "the enchantment"; so
pathetically certain is human nature that the perfect moment is of
all things most fragile, most impossible to regain when lost.

In high hope, tempered with awe at their own daring, the
Ramayāna pictures had been begun.  Nevil had chosen for his
first venture, Sita in the forest hut; the scene being one of the
simplest, yet imbued with the thrill of approaching drama.  By now
the groundwork had been roughly blocked in; the forest hut, with
massed trees darkly looming; their black trunks and branches barring
the red glow of sunset fire.  Sita, in amber draperies and
lotus-crown, was as yet merely indicated; as also was the stealthily
nearing form of That Terrible, with staff and begging-bowl and matted
locks.  Rapello, Broome's stalwart young boatman, pressed into
service as model, had accepted with alacrity and repented at leisure;
consoling himself, for hours snatched from a promising courtship of
Giulietta, with reflections on the _Inglese's_ proverbial liberality,
and the honour of having his portrait painted by a genuine artist.
At moments when he looked particularly handsome and complacent, Nevil
had been tempted to let him see his "portrait"; and only the risk of
losing a good model had held the impulse in check.

Colour-books on India had been sent for, and Sir Lakshman, greatly
interested, had promised to do his share.  He was back in Paris now,
appreciably nearer.  Yet another week and he would be with them.
Father and husband under one roof!  Lilamani hugged the blessed
thought.  Could the most exigeant bride ask for more?

And while the last evening of June burned its heart out, the most
exigeant bride was curled up in Broome's big chair frowning at a slip
of paper, and chewing the point of her pencil in quest of
inspiration.  She was alone in the little chalet for the first time
in her brief married life.  Two hours ago an urgent message had come
from Cadenabbia.  Martino, prostrated by one of his worst attacks,
had begged his sister to send for Nevil Sinclair; and Sinclair had
gone, promising to return as soon as might be to the lone bird in her
nest.

The first hour she had spent in her shrine, praying Vishnu the
Preserver to save Martino's life.  Then for a space she had
worshipped the image of the Baby-God Krishna, that lived in her
sandalwood casket; dreaming shyly, yet with passionate hope, of the
day when the Shining Ones should vouchsafe her a Baby-God of flesh
and blood, to worship in its stead.  Then, because time lagged sadly
without her Light of Life, she had gone back into the studio, where
all things spoke feelingly of him: picture and easel; brushes and
palette, flung hastily aside; slippers and the holland coat in which
he worked.

Here the happy idea had come to her of completing a June love-song,
written in secret.  Then, if Signor Martino lived, she would surprise
Nevil with it on his return.  Grateful for the distraction, she
settled to her task in the hope of charming away a little restless
ache that tugged at the back of her mind like a spoilt child at its
mother's skirts.

Ten days since Nevil had written to Jane; leaving her to judge
whether Sir George's state of health made it advisable to tell
him--yet.  Ten days; and no answer, to Lilamani's knowledge.  But,
yesterday, she had seen a shadow in her lord's eyes, not there
before; and had longed to ask--yet dared not.  Now, in her hour of
loneliness, they tugged at her afresh--the longing and the fear.
With the delicate passion of her own love-music she strove to banish
them; reading her small achievement through for the twentieth time,
in hopes of capturing two spontaneous last lines:

  SONG: IN LOVE-TIME

  "As the new-blown rose at noon-day
    To the passion of the Sun,
  Yields the fragrance of her spirit
    To that All-compelling One--
  So, in ecstasy of giving,--mine to thee, O my King.

  "As the nightingale new-nested,
    In a rapture of delight,
  Coins heart-love into music,
    Through the star-enchanted night:--
  So the music of thy silence is to me, O my King.

  "As the full-blown moon at midnight,--
    (Lotus plucked from Sita's crown,)--"


How to make an ending?  How to put in best words that image of moon
in the lake was like image of him in her heart?  It was at this pause
that she had sought inspiration from her pencil-tip--and found the
missing couplet.  Yes.  That would please him.  With a half-smile she
set it down:

  "As the full-blown moon at midnight,
    (Lotus plucked from Sita's crown,)
  Sees, in darkly dreaming waters,
    His radiant image thrown:
  So thine image deeply dwells in heart of me, O my King."


Not so beautiful as she wished.  But if she put away the verse at the
back of her head for a while, new lines would come singing to her,
from the Beyond, and that at the most incongruous moments, even as
they had come while Audrey discoursed of carbons, and _pro-tems_, and
other invisible bogies whose names she had joyfully dismissed from
her mind.  Poor kind Audrey--so full of knowledge, so empty of true
heart's riches--had written more than once from England and seemed
content with her barren "way of the brain."  Well--to each the good
they craved; and to herself that good had been given in fullest
measure.

Then, springing from her chair, she went over to the writing-table,
with intent to slip her love-song inside his blotter---"for a
surprise."

Opening it, her eyes fell upon a letter just begun.  Half a dozen
lines only; and her quick brain seized them at a glance:


"DEAR JANE,

"I am quite at a loss how to answer your confoundedly sisterly letter
of congratulation!  You brandish your zeal for the honour of our
house like a two-edged sword.  As for the unspeakable brother you
have hacked into little pieces, I can only say----"


What--what could he only say, this priceless husband who, on her
account, had been "hacked into little pieces"?  Would hard words from
his people make him angry or sorry?  Would they ever ... make him
regret...?

There sprang the question she had refrained from asking on that
evening whose watchword was Peace.  Now the blow had fallen: and he
had said no word.  Yet she had seen the shadow of it in his eyes.
Rigid, almost without breathing, she stood scanning those few lines,
in the dear familiar hand, while the blood stole slowly from cheeks
and lips, back to her stunned heart and froze there...

But the moment's merciful numbness could not last.  A new and
poignant question stabbed her back to an agony of sensation.  What
had she said, this "Jane," who must be called "sister"?  What manner
of blows had she dealt with her two-edged sword?

It was plain that Nevil did not mean her to know.  And yet--she must
know.  The rebel strain in her--overlaid by happiness and wifely
devotion--uprose again with power; the fighting spirit of her race
that bids even its women-folk set honour and self-respect above the
duty of self-subjection and makes the _purdahnashin_ of Rajputana
more of an entity than her of Bengal.  For his sake, to keep
stainless the honour of his name, she could and would defy all
things--even himself.

But the letter----!  It came yesterday.  His eyes told her that.  If
it were not utterly destroyed, she intended to find and read it; not
staying to consider was it right or wrong.  Once or twice she had
chidden him gently for his casual, untidy ways.  Now they alone gave
her hope of success.

With fingers that trembled and pale lips compressed, she felt in the
pockets of his holland coat, caressing it with her cheek the while,
as if to ask pardon for intruding upon its privacies.  Not there.
She drew a breath of relief.  And yet--it must be found.

Drawers, the blotter, other pockets were shrinkingly invaded.  Then
her glance fell upon the waste-paper basket--and she knew.  Its
plethoric state proved that it had not been lately emptied.  The
letter was there.  Yet she hesitated.  Something seemed to turn over
inside her.  Must she ... dared she ... push her quest so far?

The next instant she was on her knees among fragments of transient
words that yet have power to wreck the happiness of a life.  She had
not seen Lady Roscoe's writing.  Broken sentences must be her guide.
Straightening a severely crumpled morsel of paper, the words
"Bramleigh Beeches" caught her attention.  Ah--this was it----!

Then--with a sharp cry, she dropped the paper as if it had stung her,
and kneeling upright pressed both hands tightly over her eyes.

But the words she had seen danced in letters of flame upon the
blackness.  "A native mistress at Bramleigh Beeches!  Half-caste sons
to carry on the name of which we are so rightly proud----"

Tremulous no longer, but with a tragically steadfast deliberation,
she straightened out four other fragments of the same paper, the same
writing; badly crumpled all.  He had been angry, then.  A gleam of
comfort in that.  The four fragments pieced themselves into a
half-sheet.  Evidently not the whole letter.  But she could find no
more; and this would suffice.

It did more than suffice.  For it was a large half-sheet; and, in
spite of crumpling, easy to be read.


"DEAR NEVIL (it ran),

"You have _surpassed_ your own record!  I could not bring myself to
write sooner, and now--what on earth can one say?  Your last
bomb-shell was bad enough, though I always had a lurking belief
things would end so.  _But this_!  Had you no thought for the future?
A native mistress at Bramleigh Beeches!  Half-caste sons to carry on
the name of which we are so rightly proud!  In my opinion father
would be justified in cutting off your inheritance; even in cutting
you off with a shilling!"

Lilamani puckered her brows over the cryptic utterance.  Was that
what Nevil meant by hacking him into little bits?  None was by to
enlighten her; and, still with her tragical steadfastness, she read
on:

"When estates are free, it seems only common-sense that they should
go to the fittest.  In our case, George, without question.  Compare
his sound satisfactory engagement and your own crazy marriage!  Even
if the girl had been English, the whole affair is fatally precipitate
for an inflammable man like you."  Inflammable?  Precipitate?  More
dread-sounding words without sense.  Yet those that followed were
cruelly clear; and in reading she bit her lip till it bled.  "But a
_native_!  Who in their senses could dream of your picking one up on
the Riviera, where you might so easily have picked up a presentable
American heiress, who would have been of some use to the estate.
Certainly I shall say nothing to father yet.  In his present state of
health I believe the shock might kill him.  When he is stronger you
can tell him yourself.  As for you, _your_ real punishment will come
later, when you wake up from your infatuation--it _can_ be nothing
else--to find yourself tied hand and foot for life----"

Here the sheet ended; and the girl-wife was thankful that the rest
could not be found.  In that last broken sentence she saw her own
death-warrant: no less.

Pushing the pieces from her, she rose and paced the room; the dear
room, almost alive with the presence of him who must be freed from
the impending dilemma, when he should wake up from infatuation....
Another strange word.  What ... exactly ... did it mean?

Mechanically she sought her dictionary and turned the pages with
hurried nervous fingers.  Ah, there it was.  No mist of tears blurred
the small print.  "A foolish passion, beyond the control of reason
and judgment."  She formed the words with her lips, frowning a
little, as if to bring back her mind from a long way off.  Her hands
were steady when she laid down the book.

Fresh confirmation--that was all--of the resolve that had brought the
tragical steadfastness into her eyes.  Child though she was, and
passionately in love with life, there could be no struggle; no
hesitation.  To her clear, uncomplicated mind, it was all so
heartrendingly simple.  Sooner than shadow of stain upon his family,
his name, obliteration of herself beyond recall.  The detached
stoicism of centuries dominated her; blinding her to side issues;
impelling her toward the inevitable end.

She stepped out on to the balcony that the peace of evening might lay
its balm upon her anguished heart.  But to-night there was no peace
even here.  To her overstrung fancy, Nature's self seemed imbued with
the spirit of Jane Roscoe.  Black against the sky's clear amber, the
great kindly hills loomed stern and forbidding.  The placid lake
cared not one iota whether it should bear on its bosom a radiant
Lilamani or hurry a desperate one into the next-door House of Life.

Twilight was fading into dusk.  Earth stars glowed here and there.
Shadowy boats moved upon the darkening water.  One of them might be
his.  Why, oh why was he so long in coming?  For the first time in
her short, sheltered life a great horror of loneliness overwhelmed
her; and she fled back into the study like a hunted thing.

Her few words of farewell came with a strange spontaneity, simple as
speech: "Beloved--By chance I saw your letter in blotter.  By purpose
I found that of your sister, and read--because I _must_ know truth.
Now I go, that the way may be clear for honour of your house.  At
first you will grieve.  But that will pass.  There are many women of
your own land better for wife than your Lilamani.  Good-bye."


Without tear or tremor she folded that pitiful scrap of paper; and
set it on his blotter, together with her love-song and Jane's mangled
half-sheet.  Then--with wide eyes and slim hands clenched, she stood
as if smitten to stone.

He was coming!  One of those boats had been his.  Reprieve?  Alas,
no.  Merely the added anguish of enduring his touch, his glance,
before...

The door was flung open, and he hurried towards her.  Still she did
not move.  His hands were on her shoulders.  His voice seemed to come
from far away.

"Dear little wife.  A shame to leave her alone so long!  But poor
Martino was in a bad way when I got there.  He's better now; and I
believe he'll pull through this time.  I knew you wouldn't grudge him
an hour or two of my valuable company!"

"Oh, no ... I am glad----"

Her tone betrayed her, and he brought his face nearer, searching hers
in the dim light.

"Lilamani--you don't sound glad.  And why were you standing there
like a little statue in the dusk?  Tell me."

"It is hard to tell."

"Why?  Has anything gone wrong?"

"Yes.  I have seen ... I have read ... that letter of your sister----"

"Good God!" he cried in a fury of dismay.  Then he remembered.  "But,
my dear, you must be dreaming.  I tore it up on the spot."

"Yes.  Only--it is still there.  I found it--one half-sheet.  Oh, how
shall I ever call name of sister, woman who wrote such cruel thing!"

"You poor darling!"  He drew her closer.  "But what possessed you to
go ferretting it out like that?  How on earth did you know it was
there?"

She hesitated.  The anger in his tone was more against the
circumstance than against her.  But she was in no mood to make
distinctions.

"I--I saw first your own few lines in the blotter.  Then--then I was
looking everywhere, because--I had to know full truth----"

"Not if _I_ didn't wish you to.  If I'd meant you to see that letter
I should have shown it to you myself.  But I'd have died sooner!  And
can't you see that it was wrong and dishonourable to go hunting among
my private papers when my back was turned----"

"Oh no--not say that!"  She shrank from his touch that was robbing
her of courage.  "Only ... when I had seen yours----"

"What devil's luck led you to see mine?  Of course, I ought to have
been more careful.  But you don't meddle with my writing-table as a
rule.  What on earth took you there to-day?"

She covered her face, and for the first time her voice lost its
steadiness.

"If you will speak more gently, and leave off from hurting me--with
your eyes----"

"My darling!  I wouldn't hurt you for the world.  It's you who have
hurt yourself so cruelly in spite of the pains I was at to spare you.
That's what makes me angry; that and Jane's egregious effusion----.
But tell me--what took you to that wretched blotter?"

"Only I wanted to put inside, for a surprise--some verses I had
made----"

"Verses?  Let me see them."  He moved swiftly to the table, thankful
for the welcome change of subject.  "Where are they, little wife?"

But she sprang past him, and snatching at the paper, crumpled it in
her hand.  "No.  Not now."

"Why not now?"

"Oh--it is all different----"

"It is not all different.  You made those verses for me?"

"Yes."

"Then they are mine.  I want them.  Give them to me at once!"

The half-playful note of command hurt more than all.

"But not to read--yet," she pleaded, so earnestly, that he must needs
humour her, puzzled and distressed though he was.

"Very well, if you really wish it, we'll read them together later to
take the taste of all this out of our minds."

Together!  The word was like a javelin flung at her.  But he, all
unwitting, proceeded to smooth his crumpled treasure on the table,
and so caught sight of her note.

"Hullo!  What's this?" he said.

And she, with a quick-drawn breath: "That--you may see now."

Then, with the soft rush of a winged thing, she sped past him--out,
and down into the night.

For a moment, knowing her shy ways, he fancied she had merely slipped
into her shrine, and drew nearer the window to decipher his note.
One hurried glance enlightened him.  With an oath he crushed the
paper into his pocket; and, turning, beheld her, flitting like a pale
moth, through the dark of the garden.

"Lilamani, stop!  I command you!" he shouted.  "I'm coming down."

Then he sped after her, clearing the short flight of stairs almost at
a bound.  He believed her capable, at such a crisis, of carrying out
her fell purpose in defiance of his command; and those few moments of
poignant fear lit up his whole consciousness as a searchlight
illumines a night of stars.  Deeply and honestly as he loved her, he
had not known how terribly dear she was to him--till now.  So much,
at least, Jane's letter had achieved----

"Lilamani!  Stop, for God's sake!" he shouted again, once he was
clear of the house.  But she fled on....

When he came up with her, she was clambering on to a rock, whence she
could jump straight into deep water.

Swiftly his arms closed round her from behind, drawing her down to
his level.  Desperately, and in silence, she fought for freedom;
submission of wifehood swept aside by the fierce resolve not to spoil
his life.  Her delicate body seemed animated with superhuman
strength: and he, hoping to soften her tearless passion of
resistance, tried to win possession of her lips.  But she turned her
head away sharply; speaking at last, between quick-coming breaths.

"Go, go--leave me!  Hard now--but afterwards--"

A swift shudder convulsed her; and, lest he notice it, she began
struggling afresh.

"Beloved--have you quite lost your senses?" he cried, a sharp ring of
fear in his voice.

"It is possible.  So much better--that I go.  But not say--beloved."

By sheer force he held her to him.

"I shall say it.  Because it's true.  And you _shall not go_."

No fear in his tone now; but the deep strong note of command, that
called to the primitive deeps in her: nor called in vain.  He felt
her tense limbs relax--ever so little; and pressed his advantage home.

"Lilamani, conquer your madness, and listen to me.  Is it lip-service
when you call me lord of your life?"

"Nevil!  It is truth--from my heart."

"Then you have no right, no power to fling away that most precious
gift against my wish; and to sacrifice my life as well----"

"But no.  With men it is otherwise.  Afterwards--because of
others--you would be grateful for courage of that Lilamani----"

He closed her lips with his own, and felt the whole of her melt into
yielding softness at their touch.

"I will not hear such things," he said, and drew her to a rough seat,
still holding her cautiously, as one holds a prisoned bird, lest her
madness return.  "Besides," he urged in tender reproof, "don't you
know that it is very wrong to take your own life--for any reason?"

"No, not so--with us; by right motive," she answered with rare
steadiness, for all the turmoil in her breast.  "Also, to us, death
is not such great matter.  Only passing on--to next-door House."

"But think--in that next-door House you would find no Nevil."  He
felt her tremble and was glad.  "You would leave him here, alone, not
able to finish his great pictures without Sita.  Did you think of
that?"

"N-no----"  The word was disjointed by a sob.

"And would you make a sister of mine," he went on, drawing her closer
still, "though she did write harsh, abominable things in her
bitterness and vexation--would you make her virtually a murderer in
my eyes--and in the eyes of God?"

That last thawed the frozen fountains of a grief too deep-seated for
tears.  With a broken cry she clung to him as one drowning to a spar.

"O King of me!  Forgive ... forgive...!"




CHAPTER V

  "Her strength with weakness is overlaid,
    Meek compliances veil her might,
  Him she stays by whom she is stayed."
                          "True Woman."--C. ROSSETTI.


They spent a long evening in their balcony, watched over by the
wistful stars.  There was much to talk of now that she knew all: and
their happiness, snatched from the verge of extinction, had a new
depth and consciousness, that is the guerdon of pain shared and
conquered.

So far as might be, Nevil expounded Jane, and the remoteness of her
view-point from his own; an assurance that was balm to the hurt soul
of his wife.  He bade her, for his sake, forget those unjust, ugly
words that the writer would surely regret when she knew his Lilamani.
But she answered truthfully that were impossible.  She could only
promise not to let them poison her thoughts or embitter her spirit.
And he knew of old the value of her given word.

Her love-song, with its musical cadences, at once delighted him and
wrung his heart.  That Jane's unvarnished candour should have struck
sharp on that impassioned outpouring, infuriated him afresh.  But she
should not have the satisfaction of provoking him to a retort.
Silence would at once annoy her and convince her that, for him, the
subject was outside the pale of discussion.  In the meantime, with
the dear dark head against his shoulder, the cool clinging hand at
rest within his own, he would fain forget the existence of Jane and
all her works.  The high encompassing heavens, the passionate
jubilance of nightingales, thrilling up through the dark, weaned him
from thought of trivial things; stirred within the body of his
manhood, the pulse of the Divine....

When it came to "good night," they whispered that the enchantment was
not broken, after all: whispered it, lest the Gods hear and snatch
away the precious thing.

But it seemed that the Gods were sleeping, or on a journey.  For
three unclouded days they rowed and read and painted at will.  Sita
and Ravān emerged from their background of hut and forest.
Sita, more especially, grew in beauty and power with each fresh
sitting; nor did Nevil Sinclair guess how much he owed to his wife's
trick of identifying herself so innately with Rāma's queen
that a sense of approaching tragedy weighed upon her heart; while, in
her misty imagining, That Terrible stood for Jane Roscoe and her
two-edged sword.

Three unclouded days: and upon the fourth day, fell a bolt from the
blue.

Breakfast was not long over.  Lilamani sat on Sita's stool, ready for
the morning's work, and her husband stood at his easel, when there
came a telegram from England that took all the healthy colour out of
Nevil Sinclair's face.

"My God!" he groaned under his breath; then, sinking into a chair
beside the writing-table, pressed a hand over his eyes.

The flimsy, yellowish paper slipped unheeded to the floor and lay
there, harmless-looking as a dead leaf, till Lilamani, treading
softly, picked it up and read the curt summons twice over, in a
stunned bewilderment, before the sense penetrated--and the pain.

"Father has had a stroke.  Serious.  Come immediately."

What a "stroke" might mean, she did not know.  But two facts were
plain: grave illness, and Nevil's instant departure--with or without
her?  Which would it be?  For answer, she had only the leaping
hammer-strokes of her heart.

A second or two she stood, while all things seemed smitten into a
sudden unnatural silence.  Then, softlier still, she drew near her
husband.

Feeling her nearness, he looked up; and she saw the brave blue of his
eyes veiled in tears.  The pang that smote her was not all grief: it
was the birth-pang of that mother-tenderness which is the diviner
half of woman's love for man.  To the Eastern wife it is
impermissible till actual motherhood add a cubit to her stature; and,
with a thrill at her own presumption, Lilamani Sinclair slipped a
hand round her husband's head, drawing it close into the softness of
her breast and cradling it there, as though he were indeed her son.

"The dear old man.  Always such a tower of strength," Nevil said at
last, without looking up.  "When Jane wrote that he was not quite
himself, one never thought--of _this_.  God knows I've been a
disappointing son to him.  But I felt sure--if only he could see
you----  Well, there's hope still----"  He drew himself up, brushing
the mist from his lashes.  "Time's everything.  I'll wire to Jane and
we must start to-night."

"We?"  The word was little more than a breath; and her eyes, quick
with love's clairvoyance, dwelt on his.  "Were you really
meaning----?  Is it not better--in such time of trouble--not to make
more...?"

"But Lilamani!" He gathered her close.  "How on earth can I leave you
here--alone?"

"'Can' is always making a way, when there is 'must'!" she answered,
smiling bravely.  She had seen a ghost of indecision in his eyes, had
heard it in his tone.

"But there's no 'must,'" he persisted, love and chivalry conquering
his suspicion that she spoke truth.  "You're my wife; and I'm proud
of the fact.  Even Jane couldn't be otherwise than decent to you--at
a time like this.  As for the dear old man--he needn't know till he's
fit to see you himself.  And if----  There's no 'if.'  And there's no
'must' either--is there--now I've made things clear?"

He was talking valiantly against his own conviction.  She saw it too
clearly: saw that, for all his dread of parting, her presence now at
Bramleigh Beeches would but serve to pile anxiety upon anxiety, pain
on pain for the husband who was her all.

"Perhaps not 'must,'" she admitted wistfully.  "Yet still--because of
your father ... better to go alone.  Also for me--it is too
soon--meeting Lady Roscoe--after that letter----"

"You're right.  It _is_ too soon!"  He spoke with sudden heat.  "Too
soon for me, if it comes to that.  But this is no time for
squabbling; and of course--if you're not there....  I believe you're
right, little wife.  Better have the wrench now than risk spoiling
everything by taking you home at the wrong moment.  But you shan't be
left alone.  I'll wire to your father.  Lucky he's in Paris.  Shall I
ask him if he can come at once, or take you along to join him?"

"No--not that!"  She shrank from so complete a break.  "Tell him
'Come soon.'  He will.  Somehow, he will.  For his Lilamani."

"But at soonest he can't be here before to-morrow night.  Twenty-four
hours.  You--who have never been alone in your life!  I should be
haunted by the thought of you...."

"No--oh no.  You must believe I am brave Lilamani for your sake.
Signor Martino and his sister will be kind; and in the evening time I
will write you longest letter you ever had!"

Smiling, he pressed her hands between his own.  Then they must needs
forget themselves and each other in telegrams, time-tables, and
flying orders; hateful, merciful trivialities that thrust themselves
in between the anguished heart and the too nimble imagination, the
terrible second self that stands outside the picture--watching,
pitying, recording, and so intensifying emotion.

The telegrams written, Barnes must be told.  Barnes was Sinclair's
valet; faithful, but of late, mildly remonstrant.  He received the
news from home with a decorous air of sympathy due to any trouble
that shadowed the prospective owner of Bramleigh Beeches, even if he
had "married beneath him, in a manner of speaking."  Mrs. Sinclair's
taste for cookery was suspicious--to say the least; and--he wondered,
discreetly, how much they knew "at home."  Well--he would soon find
out now: and, on the whole, though that there Miss Juliet was a
"taking piece, and pretty well up on the balcony-trick," he could do
with a few weeks' return to British Bass and an honest cut off the
Sunday joint.

In the meantime, he advertised his sympathy by an elaborate lightness
of tread and a voice pitched half a tone lower than usual.
Discovering that the journey was to be a single affair, he patted
himself on the back for "a knowing bird."  It was a hole-and-corner
business.  He had suspicioned as much from the first.  Peculiar, when
you came to think of it; but there hadn't bin no letters with the
Bramleigh postmark addressed to Mrs. Nevil Sinclair so far as he
knew.  The young master wasn't quite such a fool as that amounted to.
Trust him.  A courtesy marriage: he, Horatio Barnes, would have took
his Bible oath; only that the lady's father was obviously "in
it"--whatever "it" might be.  But then--Lord love you!--when it come
to heathens, however well-turned out, there was always dark
possibilities in lurk; as he had gleaned from certain of the young
master's books.  For Barnes was a bit of a scholard in his own
esteem.  He had read of Japanese and Burmese marriages, in which
parents were quite agreeable to a temporary arrangement.  The notion
occurred to him now: and he chuckled inwardly at his own astuteness.
You never knew when an odd bit of reading might nip in handy.  At all
events--mum was the word.  A bat in daylight could see as much.  And
mum it should be for him till the lay of the land seemed to justify
speech: which he didn't go for to suppose it would.

Thus Horatio Barnes, moving like Agag, between the portmanteau and
the chest of drawers: while Nevil Sinclair, stunned and miserable,
gave not a moment's thought to the inferences a valet might draw from
his latest move.  He only saw that Lilamani was right; astonishingly,
beautifully right, as she was apt to be in matters seemingly outside
her ken.  By some instinct of the spirit, that took the place of
worldly wisdom, she had seen more instantly than he the impossibility
of arriving at such a crisis with an unacknowledged wife, in the face
of Jane's unacknowledged letter.  For himself, eyes and judgment had
been blinded by grief, by chivalrous consideration, and the natural
desire that he had of her.

And how long would he be gone?  Neither dared approach that question
till Sir Lakshman's answering telegram forced them back upon a topic
too painful for gratuitous talk.  When it came, Nevil--still pale and
shaken--was mechanically swallowing a biscuit and a glass of sherry,
while they talked in the jerky, unnatural manner of those about to
part; carefully avoiding each other's eyes.  Only yesterday, at
tea-time, they had been behaving like two children; she, perched
lightly on his knee; and he, insisting that she should "bless" each
cake he ate by daintily biting off a corner herself.  Only yesterday!
It seemed a week away.  Now he swallowed unblessed morsels without
tasting them, and handed Sir Lakshman's answer to his wife.

"He'll be with you this time to-morrow.  Thank God for that much," he
said without looking at her, while he fumbled at the clasp of his
cigarette case.  "I suppose--I hope to goodness he can stay--till I
come back."

"How soon is that?" she whispered, folding the paper into diminishing
parallelograms with minute care.  "One week--or two?"

"Impossible to tell, little wife."  He had lighted his cigarette now
and coming nearer laid a sustaining hand on her shoulder.
"Everything depends--on him.  But you may trust me to come straight
back to you the first moment I honestly can."

"Yes--yes.  But so long as they are needing you--please stay..."

At this point they were interrupted by Agag with another telegram
from the stationmaster at Lucerne; and once more the hateful,
merciful actualities cleft them apart.  Sinclair blessed his wife's
tearless composure even while he marvelled at it in one so young, and
withal so passionate, as he had discovered her to be.  But the
Eastern temperament is a thing of extremes.  Either it will beat the
breast and wail unrestrainedly upon the least provocation, or it will
endure to the utmost with a stoicism almost sublime.  Much hangs on
caste.  In Lilamani Sinclair, inherited instinct forbade the
indignity of uncontrolled outcry or lament; and his pain, his need of
small services, eclipsed all thought of--afterwards.

But there came the dread inevitable moment when the last label was
writ, the last key turned in its lock, and they two stood alone in
her shrine, dumbly, acutely aware that here was an end--not of their
love, but of that sublimited phase of it that comes once only, and by
no means to all.

To Nevil came also a sudden unreasoning fear of the lake.  It was too
soon to leave her--too soon.  True, her madness was past; yet, in
their after-talk, he had discerned at the heart of it, a deep,
underlying idea that at once lifted it above a mere desperate impulse
and made it the more liable to recur.  The oppressive sense of
Death's imminence, of life's instability, that was upon him,
quickened his dread.

"Lilamani," he said hoarsely, gripping her two hands with a force
that was pain, "I _can't_ leave you alone here, even for one night,
unless you promise me, by whatever you hold most sacred, not to
let--that madness of yours come back.  Think of me--of the Sita
pictures, of--of Jane, if the Devil tempts you to imagine that I
could ever--oh, it's impossible!  But give me your sacred word, and
drive the ugly fear out of my heart----"

"Lord of my life," she answered, a thrill of passion in her low tone,
"I promise ... by most sacred thing of all ... that gift I shall one
day give you----"

A faint tremor here: and he--with an inarticulate sound--gathered her
into his arms; held her so, for one measureless moment; then,
whispering "God keep you, little wife," drew her down and out into
their sun-filled garden.

The waiting boat received him.  He waved as it pushed off.  She waved
back, achieving a smile.  Then--he was gone; gone into the vague,
unknown world of actualities: and for many minutes she stood where he
had left her, straining to keep his boat in view through the mist
that gathered in her eyes.




CHAPTER VI

  "Life struck sharp on death makes awful lightning."
                                        E. B. BROWNING.


Cherton is the station for Bramleigh; a small station with a small
shelter on the "down" side.  When Nevil Sinclair alighted--heart-sick
and travel-sick, after interminable hours of ceaseless, and almost
sleepless, rushing through space--it was raining, uneffusively, yet
persistently, as it can rain in July.  The clouds hung low and
positive, here thinned to a whitish-grey, there heavy with unshed
tears.  No bustling wind threatened to interrupt their superfluous
zeal for earth and trees and new-mown hay already saturate to
repletion.  They wore a settled, sullen look, as if they meant to
stay there on and off for days.

Sinclair, followed by Barnes, hurried under the shelter and commanded
a fly.  It arrived out of space, with the leisurely dignity of its
kind; and, for Nevil, that four-mile drive in a superannuated
brougham, smelling at once stuffy and damp, almost broke the back of
his endurance.  Yet it was his own doing that he had not been "met"
by the landau and the greys.  In wiring from Paris his probable hour
of arrival, haunting thoughts of his father had impelled him to add
"if wet don't send."  For at that time the evolving motor had not
quite changed the face of the landscape, and the stench and snort of
one was as smoke to the eyes and vinegar to the teeth of the dear old
man.  By way of protest, he emphasized the sanctity of his greys and
their driver: a faithful tyrant of twenty years' service.  Hence
Nevil's impulse of consideration.  And it was just such endearing
acts of graciousness--foreign to Jane and George--that had gone far
to keep his first-born supreme in the father's heart, for all his
tiresome perversity in matters of greater moment.

And now, while Nevil leaned back uneasily in the brougham-that-was,
watching dejected hedges and tearful trees trail past him through the
rain-blurred landscape, he found himself praying, instinctively,
incoherently, to the dim God of his boyhood that he might, at worst,
be granted living sight and sound of the father he had disappointed
and deceived, before the Great Silence fell between them for ever.
No wire awaiting him in Paris seemed to augur possible improvement.
But he had been travelling for eight hours since then; and eight
minutes would suffice ...

While his ark of safety, lurching through the pillared gateway,
rumbled on between drenched battalions of cypress and fir, Nevil
Sinclair held thought suspended.  One last lurch, and the house
loomed into view; flat-fronted, creeper-covered, with short wings at
either end: the east wing culminating in a tower.  Familiar, every
line and corner of it: yet now--tragically unfamiliar.  For as Nevil
leaned out into the rain a dozen sightless windows attested the
futility of that broken prayer.

Sir George Sinclair was dead: and the spirit of the place, the
spirits of unnumbered Sinclairs, who had lived and died there, called
mutely on Sir Nevil to rise up and reign in his stead.  But in that
first shock of realization, he was simply a son bereft of a
father--hard to please or understand, yet honestly beloved, in the
queer, shamefaced fashion of his race.

Barnes, with eyes discreetly lowered, opened the brougham door; and
at sight of him a jarring thought intruded on Nevil's misery.  The
man must be warned not to speak of the Como establishment.  It was a
detestable necessity; implying, as it did, a slur on Lilamani's fair
name from which his every instinct shrank.  Yet, hateful or no, speak
he must.

"Look here, Barnes," he said under his breath, "no chattering about
my private affairs in the servants' hall--you understand?"

Distaste lent an unusual curtness to his tone; and Barnes infused
into his own a hint of mild reproach.

"That might ha' gone without sayin', Sir Nevil," he answered, still
considering the wet gravel; and the new-made baronet winced.  He
could have struck the man for his glib change of address.  But
instead, he hurried forward into the dim hall, smitten by a sudden
acute fear that, by some unforeseen chance, his marriage had become
known; that, he, Nevil, might even be responsible----  He could not
complete the hideous thought.  Nor could he dismiss it, till he
knew----

But in this stronghold of the conventions all must be done decently
and in order.  Through the dimness came Madgwick, butler and
major-domo, a small, shrewd-faced man, with kindly eyes and a
suspicion of red about his eyelids.  Nevil, frank and friendly always
to those who served him, shook hands in silence with the pillar of
the house.

"Wish you could ha' got here sooner, sir," Madgwick muttered huskily.
No glib change of address for him.  "Her la'ship's waiting tea for
you in the dining-room."

He led the way and Nevil followed into a lofty, oval space--lit by
skylights and ringed by a gallery--known as the large hall.  Though
not the smoking-room proper, it had been the dead man's favourite
"den"; and his spirit clung about it in the faint, familiar smell of
leather, tobacco, and dogs.  Two setters rose from the hearthrug to
greet Nevil; their tails, at a melancholy angle, wagged mere
recognition.  They missed the cheerful voice and heavy tread of their
master, and the sensitiveness of humanized animals told them
something was wrong.

As Nevil stooped to caress them, the dining-room door opened;
Madgwick obliterated himself, and Jane looked out.

"That you, Nevil?"

"Yes."

She came forward to meet him; a feminine counterpart of Sir George;
square-cut and decisive; with strong, blunt nose, cleft chin and a
lower lip that would obviously "stand no nonsense" from woman or man.
Though only five years older than her brother, she looked more, was
more, in fact, from having lost, too early, if she had ever
possessed, the elasticity of youth.  Plain, at her best, she looked
plainer than usual in an old black dress, hastily donned; her brown
hair brushed well off an uncompromising brow; her eyes, like
Madgwick's, betraying the weakness of secret tears.  In spite of
mutual grief, that unanswered letter hung between them like a bared
sword.

There was a perceptible moment of embarrassment as they clasped
hands; an embarrassment that would have proved more awkward, but that
Jane distrusted emotion, and had not kissed her brothers since she
came of age.  Determination not to let grief master her, increased
her natural air of assertion as she scrutinized Nevil's tired face
and the dumb anxiety in his eyes.

"Poor boy!  You look fagged out," she said.

"Yes.  I got no sleep."

"You came straight through, of course?"

"Yes.  I couldn't possibly have got here sooner."

"We were afraid not.  Yet--one hoped.  He--he seemed to want you."

"_Did he?_"  She had not the key to his suppressed eagerness.  "I
wish to God I could have been here.  When--when was it over?"

"About an hour ago."

"Only an hour?"  He bit his lower lip to steady it, and she turned
back to the dining-room.

"Better have some tea before we talk any more," she said, forcing the
common-sense note.

"A brandy and soda.  No food, thanks," he answered, following her.

"Nonsense!  There are sandwiches--and scones.  I kept them hot----"
She lifted the dish from the grate, where a wood-fire crackled and
sputtered in defiance of July.  "Makes the room a shade less dismal,"
she explained, setting the chicken before him and returning to warm
her hands; for they were cold.  "It's been raining steadily for three
days."

There was a pause.  Lady Roscoe, still warming her hands, tried to
ignore a recurrent ache in her throat; while her brother obediently
swallowed sandwiches that tasted like shavings, and threatened to
choke him.

Then, leaning suddenly forward, he said huskily: "Jane--what was
it--that upset him?  A shock?"

"Yes.  Speculation.  A big failure."

"Thank God!"  He spoke under his breath; but with such fervour of
relief that she rounded on him sharply.

"Nevil!  Are you quite mad?"

"No.  I was afraid--by some chance, he might have heard--that it
might have been----"

"No.  It's not as bad as that.  You're responsible for enough as it
is."

She turned back to the fire.  She heard Nevil push aside his plate
and empty his tumbler.  Then, without looking round, she spoke again.

"If you really thought it might have that effect on him, how could
you bring yourself----"

Nevil's hand came down upon the table.  "We don't want to quarrel at
a time like this, Jane.  The thing's done; and I shall never regret
it."

"Never's a long word.  You are sure it's binding--legally?"

"If it were not, I should at once take steps to make it so.  That's
enough."

The quiet note of command surprised Jane.  Being of the downright,
athletic type, that observes little and reflects less, except on
matters of practical moment, it did not occur to her that love and
husbandhood had naturally made her irresponsible brother more of a
man.  But man or no, Jane Roscoe was in the habit of going her own
way.

"Well, I'm glad you had the good sense and good taste to come by
yourself," she remarked, ignoring his last two words.

"The good sense was not mine.  It was hers," he answered with
repressed heat.  "Nothing but her own express wish would have induced
me to leave her alone.  Luckily her father could come."  He lit a
cigar.  "But Jane--about the speculation--the failure?  D'you know
any details?"

"No.  One knew he speculated, of course.  But not on such a big
scale.  He was writing to you when--when the stroke came."  She drew
an envelope from her bag.  "I didn't read the letter.  Perhaps it
explains."

He held out his hand for it, a strained hunger in his eyes.  But Jane
saw only the outstretched hand.  For her, eyes were not windows of
that heavenly stranger, the soul.  They were features in the human
face.  She knew when they flashed anger, or held tears.  The finer
shades of expression escaped her.  And, while she stood pondering on
matters practical, which Death emphasizes rather than sweeps aside,
Nevil was reading his father's last words to him, shielding his face
from view.

"My dear Boy," wrote Sir George, ten minutes before his hand was
stricken powerless.  "It's bad news I have to tell you, and I'm not
much use on paper.  Never was.  Often as I've rated your unpractical
disregard of money, I'm thankful for it now.  It may help to soften
the blow.  My own regard for the 'dirty shekels' has pushed me deeper
into the hell of speculation than any of you have guessed.  I took to
it, like dram-drinking, when your mother died, and I've kept on at it
ever since.  Bigger ventures each year.  The luck lured me on.  That
and my ambition to put you into Parliament with a small fortune at
your back.  Money's everything these days, and when I'm gone I should
turn in my grave if you couldn't keep the old Place going in the old
style.

"Well--you knocked Parliament on the head, and now a parcel of
muddle-headed fools in South Africa have robbed you of the fortune I
was scheming to leave you.  Don't be too down on your old father,
boy.  I've had a black time of it, these five years, since the luck
deserted me.  This last plunge was a desperation stroke.  But I took
the soundest advice available and worried myself half crazy over it.
You must believe that, old boy.  It was kill or cure--"

The word that followed was a meaningless scrawl.  Nevil set his teeth
and breathed deeply, while all the letters on the page ran together
into one blur.  But he mastered himself and looked up.

"Jane--it's awful.  What he must have suffered--these last months!"

Lady Roscoe nodded.  "I told you something was wrong.  If you had
come home--he might have spoken."

Nevil winced at that.

"Too late for 'if's,'" he said a trifle hurriedly.  "Besides--how
could one imagine----  It looks like a bad business.  But this
doesn't explain much."  He held it out to her.  "Let me have it back.
George here?"

"Yes.  Hal couldn't get away.  But he hopes to come--later.  Gee's
gone into Bramleigh--on business.  He's good at doing things.  But
you must take your right place now, Nevil."

"Of course."

He frowned.  He was tired, jarred, unstrung.  She would have liked to
put a hand on his shoulder, to take the edge, if might be, off her
cruel letter.

But it is the penalty of those who are afraid of emotion, that at
rare moments of true feeling they are tongue-tied, prisoned in the
fortress themselves have built.

So Jane Roscoe mechanically re-read the address on her father's
letter, and Nevil Sinclair pushed back his chair with a sigh.
"Where's Christina?" he asked.

"Kit?  She's back from Germany.  Arrived this morning: just in time.
Nevil"--she hesitated between pain and embarrassment--"won't you come
up--to his room?"

"Yes--yes----"  There were light steps in the large hall.  "That must
be the Kitten," he said in a changed tone.  "I'll see her first."

And as Christina entered, Jane passed out.

They were as little alike as sisters could well be.  Slim and fair as
her brother, Christina had the Nevil eyes and brow where imagination
sat enthroned; though tempered by a modified edition of the Sinclair
mouth and chin.  She was three-and-twenty, fresh from studying music
in Germany; well up in modern theories and philosophies, but a tyro,
as yet, in the greater philosophies of the heart and of life.
Christina she had been baptized.  Kit she was called; the longer
name, however beautiful, having small chance of survival in a century
dominated by the snippet, the postcard, and the monosyllable.  Harold
became Hal, and even George had been reduced to "Gee."  Nevil, who
was artist enough to object, had always been thankful that his own
name triumphantly withstood the "potting" process.

At sight of him Christina gave a little cry.

"Oh, Nevil, my dear, I never knew you had come!"

As he rose, she flew to him, and cried a little on his shoulder,
while he patted her head.

"Such a comfort to have you," she murmured between two sniffs.
"Jane's so hard.  I know she's miserable.  But she wears chain-mail
under her clothes, and makes one feel a hysterical fool if one breaks
down."  She lifted her head and saw tears in his eyes.  "Oh,
Nevil--it was awful!  He--he never knew me; and--I almost wished--I
had come too late.  Am I a despicable coward?"

"No, no," he said, recalling his own sensations at Monte Carlo.  "It
is a natural shrinking.  I quite understand."

"You always do."  She dabbed her eyes with an ineffectual wisp of
lawn, already saturate, and regarded him lovingly.  "I can hardly
believe it's a whole year since I said good-bye to you at Dover.  Yet
you look older, graver; and I'm glad you've taken up art in earnest.
It's a sort of 'rainbow bridge,' joining the prose and poetry in us,
isn't it?"

Nevil nodded.

"But you've been a fiend about writing," she went on, pressing his
arm.  "Not a letter worth speaking of in the last three months."

"Sorry, Christina.  But we were both busy studying, weren't we?" he
answered, looking thoughtfully at an impish blue flame that spurted
from the crevice of a log.  Then, because Christina was his sister
every way, truth must out.  "Besides, two months ago--I got married."

"Nevil!  You--married?"  Eager curiosity gleamed through her tears.
"But what on earth made you keep it so dark?"

"Well--there were difficulties----" he said uneasily, still studying
the flame.  Then thought of Lilamani shamed him, and he looked his
sister in the face.  "The truth is--I've married a beautiful Indian
girl of eighteen.  A Hindu.  I wouldn't let her change."

"Good heavens!  And you never told anyone?"

"Only Jane.  She's furious, of course."

"Not--not father?"  Voice and eyes were lowered.

"No.  I knew it would upset him.  I was waiting----"  He bit his lip.
"Look here, Christina--I had to tell you.  But we won't talk of
it--yet.  When--when all's over, I must announce it.  Then you shall
hear more----  Are you horrified?" he added hastily.

"N-no.  I'm sort of stupefied with amazement.  But it's so romantic.
So interesting.  I want to hear lots more."

"You shall.  Later on.  I'm going up now----"  She shut her eyes and
shivered.  "Sit you down there, old girl," he said tenderly, "and try
to read."

"Oh, I can't read.  Nevil, you are a dear!  Come back soon."

"All right."

Through the large hall he went, into the lesser one, and on up the
broad staircase with reluctant feet.

He had felt the fact so far: not realized it.  He dreaded the
realization, that grew with every step through the unnatural silence
of the house.  The dear old man!  It seemed incredible, even in the
face of overwhelming proof.  Instinctively the human soul rejects the
fact of death, that seals the door of the charnel-house yet opens a
window towards infinity.  Mind and senses assert glibly: "Dust thou
art----"  The soul, unconvinced, whispers: "If in this life only we
have hope----"  And between both the heart of man swings like a
pendulum, now this way, now that, inclining always toward the larger
view; realizing, in moments of lucid vision, that the impersonal
force men call death is not merely the King of Terrors, but the King
of Life, which, without that inexorable shadow at the crossroads,
would be shorn of half its meaning and more than half its glory.

Nevil Sinclair--man of misty beliefs and clear intuitions--had
recognized this aforetime.  To-day, mounting the staircase of
Bramleigh Beeches, he recognized only that he had lost his father: a
loss no faith in immortality could lessen or make good.

As he neared the door, Jane's black, square figure retreated down the
passage.  For a second or two he stood looking after her.  Then he
softly turned the handle and went in----.




CHAPTER VII

  "A man's foes shall be they of his own household."
                                          ST. MATTHEW.


It was over.  Everything was over: formalities, letters of
condolence, wreaths and crosses, the thud of falling earth on Sir
George's last sleeping-place, the dismal trail of carriages, the no
less dismal crowds of villagers about the old church and graveyard.
All the dreary panoply of woe, that is gall and wormwood to the real
sufferers, boasts one justification only.  It is a clumsy fashion of
showing respect to the dead.  Let the living endure it as best they
may.

Sir Nevil Sinclair, the worst man on earth for public functions, had
endured it with a fortitude and tact approved even of Jane: but this
afternoon--pacing the vast lawn, where twin-cedars made a fragrant
drawing-room--he was undeniably thankful to be "through with it all."
Summer, having got over her fit of ill-temper, was once more a thing
of sweetness and light.  Rainbow sparkles flashed from every leaf and
petal; and all the birds were out after their harvest of worms.

Ten days, now, since he had left Como and his girl-bride.  More like
a month, it seemed; so absolute, so abrupt had been his change of
atmosphere and surroundings.  The "longest letter he ever had"
reposed in his breast-pocket and a second had arrived that morning,
brimful of sympathy for his loss.  Brave letters, both; though
beneath the surface cheerfulness, he discerned the ache of love and
longing, to which his own heart throbbed passionate response.  For
the sake of his father it had been possible to leave her.  But now
that father was gone, he grudged every hour of his truancy.

And yet----!

A new sense--dormant hitherto--had been sending up green shoots
through the dark and pain of this past week; the sense of possession,
inherent in his race.  For the mere title he cared little; for the
house--with its insistence on minor tyrannies, domestic and
social--less than he ought.  It was the good earth herself, the good
great trees of her begetting, the wide spaces of heather, beyond the
pine plantation, that climbed up and up behind stables and
kitchen-garden: it was these that he rejoiced to have and to hold, to
shield from the desecration of promiscuous building that is fast
converting the Queen of Home Counties into a suburban paradise.

More than all Nevil loved the beeches that had given the place its
name.  Beyond a rose-garden that flanked the east wing, sprang and
outspread the gracious symmetry of their trunks and limbs, grey and
dull silver, dappled with mosaic of pale lichens, robed and crowned
with satin-bright cascades of a million leaves.  In May their emerald
carpet was alight with sheets of bluebells; in early autumn brown
with beech-mast, flecked with scarlet of moss-cups and fungi; and at
all times patterned with every conceivable shade of green.  Temple
and storehouse of squirrels, song-birds, pigeons, and
pheasants--religiously preserved by Sir George--the noble wood
stretched on and up a bold sweep of rising ground; ending, as the
pine plantation ended, in wind-swept spaces of heather, gorse, and
broom.

And it was his own: all his own.  Magic words that no democratic zest
for parcelling out the earth in snippets will ever rob of their deep
significance.  But for Nevil Sinclair the legitimate joy of ownership
was marred by revelations brought to light during a long morning with
Reynolds, the family lawyer.  He had taken his client through Sir
George's papers the day after the funeral and had made the whole
situation painfully clear to the new baronet, whose heritage was but
a fraction of the well-ordered estate left by his grandfather, Sir
Robert; an early Victorian politician of simple tastes and rigid
sense of duty.

Hard not to censure the dead while those revelations were in
progress.  Not that Sir George had been wilfully extravagant or
careless of the old place, that was nearer and dearer to him than his
God.  But the Sinclairs had never been men of wealth; and from early
days of possession "things" had gone against him; a phrase
conveniently comprehensive and vague.  Blind to moral and spiritual
values--with the complacent blindness of a certain sturdy British
type, that sees life in clear-cut unlinked fragments--he had
determined that his sons should not be "hampered" by the pinch that
makes character.  Their allowances had been more liberal than the
estate could afford.  Nevil, in particular, with his artist hobbies
and zest for travel, had been a costly item.  But from year to year,
pride and generosity combined had withheld Sir George from telling
the truth.  Then, in the loneliness following upon his wife's death,
had come the temptation--inspiration he had deemed it then--to mend
matters by gambling discreetly on the big scale.  It was the one weak
point in a shrewd, level-headed, if limited, nature.  Secretly
indulged in, it had exacted penalty to the uttermost, and poisoned
the whole.

Pitiful beyond speech, it seemed to Nevil--and to Jane, the crowning
irony--that the poor old man should have lost his life in straining
after a fortune for which the son cared little; while the heritage,
for which he did care, was flung on his hands shorn of its immemorial
dignity: one-third heavily mortgaged; the rest a costly burden hard
to maintain on the dwindled income left to him out of the wreck.
There remained, also, his pictures, and Martino's prophecy of leaping
into fame.  How wise, beyond expecting, had been his undutiful
decision!  Jane herself must admit that; if not now, at least by the
summer's end, when the Ramayāna series would be near
completion.  A special exhibition of them, should the subject happen
to "catch on," would at least help towards paying off the mortgage
that withheld him from full mastery of his own.

But here a fresh dilemma tripped him up.  Clearly it seemed his duty
to remain at home for the present, to inaugurate in person the new
_régime_.  And behind the sense of duty lurked a natural longing to
share this new possession with Lilamani, to install her here as
Queen.  Yet he had given his word to her, and to her father, that
this more critical phase of her transplanting should not be hastily
carried out; and well he knew that the time was not yet ripe for her,
or for Jane, the unappeased; possibly the unappeasable.

For although the public ordeal was over, the private ordeal had yet
to come.  Not until this morning had she reverted to the subject of
his marriage.  Throughout the week he had discerned a touch of
sisterly fellow-feeling beneath her chain-mail.  But the revelation
in her father's last letter rankled sore; and this morning, when she
requested a word or two with Nevil after breakfast, there could be no
mistaking the repressed hostility in her tone.  She supposed that
since he had married to please himself, and was thoroughly satisfied
with the arrangement, he would now see fit to announce the fact.
Distressing though it was, to conceal it any longer might give a bad
impression; and it had occurred to her that this afternoon, when they
would all be together for tea in the large hall, would be a suitable
time.

"A detailed confession of what you are pleased to consider my
delinquency, in full family conclave?  Is that the programme?" he
asked, frowning, and looking out across the lawn where a solitary
blackbird pranced and piped, serenely indifferent to everything but
worms.

"Put it that way, if you like," she answered with composure.  "I
merely meant it would be as well that you should tell your news in
person, before the boys and Uncle Bob go away.  I haven't even
mentioned it yet to Ned."

"Very considerate of you!" said Nevil in an even tone.  "Ned" was
Lord Roscoe, a milder, less formidable person than his wife; and
Nevil, seeing her determination to make things hard for him, denied
her the satisfaction of knowing how well she was succeeding.

"I'm quite ready, when they are," he had concluded casually, as he
left her.

And now--he knew that they were ready; very much ready--and that he
was not.

They had been marshalled into the large hall, nine of them; for the
Sinclairs were a clannish family, and those who did not live in or
near London had stayed on a few days at Jane's request.  While he
flagrantly kept them waiting, Nevil pictured them all discussing him
in subdued tones; mildly curious; and thankful, in secret, for
something fresh to think of; though none but Christina would honestly
have confessed the fact.

From all save her he anticipated disapproval, if not hostility.  She
and he had sat up till midnight in the study one evening and had
talked it all out.  He had shown her the big carbon photo of his
portrait and converted her into a hot partisan.  But of the rest
there was little hope: his two brothers, well-groomed, conventional
types of the professions they adorned; George's fiancée, Phillippa
Weston--commonly called Phil; Miss Julia Sinclair, cultured, within
due limits, and devoted to good works; Sir Robert Sinclair, a leading
light of the Foreign Office, lately retired, and his wife, Lady
Margaret, daughter of a Scottish peer, mannered, suave, unimpeachably
correct.  Beyond these remained only Jane herself, Lord Roscoe--a
sound Conservative, though too purely a student and a philosopher to
approve his wife's vehement party-spirit; and Jeffrey Moss, Vicar of
Bramleigh, a second cousin once removed.  For the Bramleigh living
was in the Sinclairs' gift, and it behoved them to "keep it in the
family."  Nevil suspected that Sunday's casual invitation for Tuesday
had been given with this event in view; a suspicion that did not
allay his repressed irritation or facilitate the task in hand.

Not all his loyalty to Lilamani could make so public a confession,
other than distasteful to a man of Nevil's temperament.  His very
insight put him at a disadvantage.  He understood these Sinclairs far
better than they understood him.  He could see the thing through
their eyes; could gauge to a nicety their half-nervous,
half-resentful attitude towards the abnormal, more especially when
that particular devil entered into a pillar of the house.

He drew out his watch and whistled softly.  In common decency he
could keep away no longer; and passing through the great domed
conservatory, he entered the large hall.

Sir Robert--thick-set and slightly convex, with clipped beard and
pince-nez perched at an inquiring angle--dominated the hearth-rug, by
instinct, though no fire justified his attitude.  The rest made
dismal black patches about the room; and Jane stood at the heavy
gate-leg table, dispensing tea.  Her eyes challenged Nevil's as he
entered.  He returned her look without flinching; greeted the Vicar
and joined Sir Robert on the hearth-rug.

"Well, my lad, we've been wondering what had come to you," said the
leading light of the Foreign Office; and a heavy hand on Nevil's
shoulder, acutely reminiscent of Sir George, sent a pang through his
son's heart.  "Where've you been--eh?"

"Strolling round the place.  Taking things in," Nevil answered in a
level tone, so unusual with him that Christina looked up; and Sir
Robert remarked, as one who makes a discovery:

"A goodly heritage, boy."

His nephew nodded absently, one hand stroking and twisting his
moustache, a gesture Christina knew of old.

"Tea, Nevil?" from Jane.

"Please."

He roused himself; fetched it, and made room for his cup among a
crowd of small bronzes on the mantelpiece: pheasants, dogs, foxes,
and others.  They had been a weakness of his father's; and most of
them were his own boyish gifts.

While he displaced them thoughtfully, an under-current of talk
revived between Lord Roscoe and the Vicar, George and Miss Weston.

Then fell the question he dreaded.  It was Sir Robert again: Chairman
of the Committee, thought his disrespectful nephew, in half-amused
irritation.

"Well, Nevil, what's the great secret you've got up your sleeve?
Jane's been making us curious.  Good news, I hope.  We need it."

"The best possible news, so far as I'm concerned," Nevil answered,
not without a hint of defiance.  Dread confession as he might; to
apologize, even remotely, for Lilamani, was an insult nothing should
induce him to offer her.  "The fact is--while I was abroad I got
married."

"The devil you did!"  Sir Robert's amazement rippled round the room
in a broken murmur.  "That's news indeed!  Nothing like marriage to
check your craze for continental life.  Money--I hope?  The Place
calls for it.  But what have you done with the lady?  She ought to be
here."

"She ought; I admit; if the circumstances were normal.  But--they're
not."

"Eh--what's that?  Not normal?"  Sir Robert peered distressfully over
his nippers at the two girls.  "What the deuce have you been up to
now, Nevil?  Don't tell me you've married a variety actress, or a
foreigner?"

"I suppose you want the truth," Nevil said, sipping his tea.  "My
wife happens to be an Indian girl; a Hindu of very good family,
cultivated, beautiful----"

"But--but--good Lord!  A native!  Good Lord!"  Sir Robert broke in
testily, his dismay echoed by minor explosions from Harold and
George; while Miss Sinclair dropped her knitting with a gasp.  She
rather prided herself on being broad-minded; had lately called on two
Romanists in her neighbourhood, and found them "really quite
estimable people--up to their lights----"  But a Hindu!  And poor
George's son----!

"Perhaps--a converted Hindu, dear Nevil?" she ventured, dreading an
outburst from her hot-tempered brother at a moment when even raised
voices jarred her sense of fitness and decorum.

"No.  She's not converted.  Nor likely to be," Nevil answered bluntly.

"But, dear boy, surely it would be possible to----?  Our good Jeffrey
is so convincing; and Hindus, I have always heard, are remarkably
intelligent and open to reason----"

"Yes, Aunt Julia.  My wife is quite remarkably intelligent."  A spark
of the Sinclair temper flashed in Nevil's eyes, and lent an edge to
his quiet tone.  "She knows the Bible better than some of us do; and
religion means a great deal more to her than to the average
Christian----"

"Come, come, Nevil!  No blasphemy----" Sir Robert interposed with
repressed heat.

"Blasphemy, Uncle?  I am stating a fact; and I want to make it clear
that there will not be any call for Jeffrey's good offices, when I do
see fit to bring my wife home."

"You mean to bring her _here_, then?  A heathen Lady Sinclair, under
your father's roof?"

"Certainly.  In time.  What else?"

"The devil knows what else!  Thank God George has been spared
_this_," he added, lowering his voice.  Then he swung round sharply.
"What do you think of your brother's madness, Jane?"

"I have told Nevil quite frankly what I think," said she.  "Outside
his own infatuation, there can be no two opinions on the subject."

But such arrogant assumption of certainty was too much for Christina,
who, for Nevil's sake, had repressed herself valiantly so far.  Now
she leaned forward, defiance in her eyes.

"There _can_ be two opinions, outside infatuation.  Because there's
mine.  I don't want to seem impertinent, but I never thought you
would all be so narrow-minded, so insular----"

"Be quiet, Kit," sharply, from Jane.  "You _are_ impertinent; and
your opinion goes for nothing."

"Doesn't it, indeed?  I'm not so sure," quoth the nineteenth-century
rebel, less easily quenched than her of the eighties.

In vain she tried to catch Nevil's eye.  He had half turned his back,
and was rearranging the small bronzes, seemingly indifferent to the
tea-cup tempest.  But Christina knew better.  She longed to hit out
furiously at them all; or to get up and throw her arms round his
neck.  But again she knew better.

"More tea, George?" came the voice of Jane, the inexorable.

Captain Sinclair handed his cup, and Lord Roscoe went quietly out.
As a peace-loving man, family dissensions offended his taste, and a
certain look in Jane's eyes was always a signal for retreat.  A
glance over his shoulder drew the Vicar after him.  Lady Margaret,
bored and a little disgusted, followed in their wake.  Phillippa
glanced tentatively at her lover, who was scowling into his tea-cup;
and she, being young and curious, kept her seat.

Then Sir Robert--seeing that nothing remained but to accept the
lamentable fact--said with less heat: "Well, Nevil, your minor
eccentricities have been a joke to this one.  But since you've tied
yourself for life to an Asiatic, there's no more to be said.  A civil
marriage, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"And may we be allowed to know your immediate plans?"

"I must return to Italy as soon as things are more or less in order.
Probably the end of this week."

"And shut up the Beeches?"

"Why not?  But as George is on leave, he might as well put in his
time here and see to things a bit.  Jane, I know, considers him a
good deal fitter for that sort of thing than myself."

"Thanks, old chap.  Awfully good of you."  George's tone suggested
sarcasm.  "Leave you free to devote yourself to the enchantress--eh?"

"I'm hard at work on a series of pictures," Nevil answered,
addressing his uncle and ignoring the thrust.  "I hope to exhibit
them this winter.  I've done one since my marriage of which Signor
Martino thinks very highly."

"The picture you wrote of?" asked Jane.

"No.  That was her portrait.  I gave it to her father."

"H'm."

This was more than Christina could stand.  "He's got a ripping big
photo of it upstairs," she broke out eagerly.  "You ought to see it.
Nevil, really they ought.  Mayn't I fetch it?"

"Yes, if you like," he answered indifferently, chilled to disgust by
their reception of his news.

Miss Sinclair glanced up, mildly expectant:

"Dear Nevil, I am so glad there is a picture----"  Devotion to the
entire family tree, even unto the remotest tips of its many branches,
was a part of her creed.  Hindu or no, by some means she must manage
to assimilate this new niece.

Christina reappeared in no time, lifting her trophy high, for all to
see, and a murmur of reluctant admiration went round the room.

Miss Sinclair held out a hand.  "Let me look at it closer, dear.  My
sight is not what it was."

She looked closer and her brown eyes grew wide.  "Why, Nevil, she is
really beautiful!  And this is your work?"

"Yes."

"No wonder your Italian friend thinks well of it.  Remarkable.  Look,
Robert."

"H'm.  Very good-looking.  Quite life-like.  You've come on
extraordinarily, Nevil, I must say."

"Yes.  Thanks to my wife.  Leseppes, the great French painter and
critic, expects me to make a name.  Lucky--as things stand--that I
did take up art seriously.  Bramleigh Beeches needs the shekels, eh,
Jane?"

"Very much so.  If they ever come in," she answered, her gaze fixed
searchingly on the new Lady Sinclair's face.  "This is promising.
Very.  It's your staying power I doubt."

Without further comment, she passed the picture on to George; who
glanced at it half in disdain; then whistled softly.

"My word, but she's a beauty!  Trust Nevil!  What age, old chap?"

"Eighteen," said Nevil, jarred by a savour of the stable in his
brother's tone.  But George, serenely unobservant, added, with the
experienced sagacity of four years' service in India: "M', yes.  From
seventeen to twenty native girls are about as alluring as they make
'em, even the commoner sort.  The deuce of it is they're middle-aged
by thirty.  Run to flesh, and----"

"Damn you, shut up!" Nevil flashed out, losing control of himself at
last.

"Nevil--dear!" she protested in dismay; and Christina, snatching away
the photo, muttered wrathfully: "Upon my word, George!  You are a
beast!"

"Sorry, Nevil," the delinquent remarked grudgingly.  "I was only
telling you the truth."

"It's not the truth--altogether.  The--the premature ageing is
chiefly the country; their feeding; their way of life.  It doesn't
follow that Lilamani----"

"Lila--which?" from Harold, who had been more amused than otherwise
by what he privately dubbed "a family scrap."

"Lilamani," Nevil repeated with quiet emphasis, and was thankful that
just then Sir Robert emerged abruptly from his reflections.

"Look here, my dear boy.  I'm still in a fog.  You haven't told us
yet how this incredible affair came to pass."

"Another time, Uncle Bob," replied Nevil, unfeigned weariness in his
tone.  "I've had about all I can put up with at a sitting."

At that Jane rose, decision in every square inch of her.

"If you don't mind, I'll ask you to go now.  Nevil and I must finish
talking this out alone."

"Quite so, my dear; quite so," fussily, from Sir Robert.  "Whatever
you think best."

And they went.

Then Jane turned to her brother.

"Now, Nevil."

"Well?  What?"

Both spoke quietly; yet it was as if a pair of duellists had
unsheathed swords.

"How can you talk calmly of returning to Italy this week, when you
know quite well that your rightful place is here?"

"Of course it is.  If there were not very good reasons for my being
elsewhere--just now.  My rightful place, if it comes to that,
is--with my wife."

"And she refuses----?"

Nevil smiled, in spite of himself.

"If you knew her, even slightly, you wouldn't ask such an absurd
question.  It is I who refuse to bring her here--yet.  In the first
place, if Martino isn't quite misguided, the set of pictures I am
working at should be worth more to Bramleigh Beeches than my presence
here this summer; and I want to get them done, or nearly done, in the
right atmosphere.  Then----" he hesitated.  "You may as well have it
straight.  I refuse point-blank to bring my wife to her future home
till I have clear proof that she will be decently received by you and
all the rest of them."

It was Jane's turn to hesitate.

"What--precisely do you mean by that?" she asked without looking at
him.

"I mean kindly, affectionately.  Just as you would receive Miss
Weston if George were in my place."

"My dear Nevil, there's a difference!  You ask a good deal----"

"I don't ask.  I am stating conditions."

"And suppose the conditions--fail to satisfy you?"

"I am supposing," he answered coldly, "that my relatives, even if
narrow and prejudiced, are at least human beings; that they
will--later, if not now--give the woman, who is to fill my mother's
place, a fair chance of proving that she too is human, lovable,
admirable----  Good Lord, Jane," he broke out, maddened past
endurance by her chill antagonism.  "If I'd married a Hottentot or an
American negro, I could excuse you.  But I presume even you will
acknowledge that there's some racial connection between Indians and
Europeans, which makes all the difference in the world."

Jane drew herself up.

"Of course I see that, Nevil.  I may be prejudiced.  I'm not
ignorant.  It's quite bad enough, in any case.  But after all--we
gain nothing by recriminations.  And as this child of eighteen will
be virtually the head of the family, we can but make the best of her."

"Make her _feel welcome_," Nevil corrected, with emphasis.  "Write to
her before she comes."

"Yes.  If you wish it.  One can say the usual polite things.  Kit, at
least, can say them honestly.  Does she read English with ease?"

"She's as well-read as Christina."  He drew out his letter-case and
handed her--not without reluctance--Lilamani's June Love-Song.  "She
wrote that."

Jane read it, with raised brows: evidently impressed; though so
unrestrained an outpouring of "sentiment" was, in her view, almost
indecent.

"Talented.  And very devoted," she said in a changed tone, handing it
back.  "I'll write to her, Nevil--later on, as nicely as I can."

But her brother, though mollified, was still sore from the
afternoon's ordeal, which was her doing.

"It's just as well you should write her a decent letter or two,
Jane," said he with a direct look, not to be misread.  "Considering
all things, you owe that much, at least, to her--and to me."

For once in her life Jane Roscoe was quite put out of countenance;
and before she could recover herself--Nevil was gone.  Four days
later he left for Italy: for Lilamani, and the Ramayān
pictures--and peace.




CHAPTER VIII

  "In two little rooms my heart divides,
  Joy, wide awake, in one resides,
  While slumbering Sorrow in the other hides.
      Oh, Joy, sing gently in thy glee,
      Lest Sorrow wake through hearing thee."
                                              HEINE.


The Lake of Como in July is only for the native born; or for banished
Lilamanis, who rejoice alike in the heat and the absence of vagrant
humanity.  But for all Sir Lakshman's fatherly indulgence, that
fortnight had seemed to the bird with one wing the longest two weeks
in her life.

While irate and bewildered Sinclairs were passing their parochial,
though not unnatural judgment upon her, she lay alone in the night,
wondering sore whether "That Terrible" were trying to wean her lord
from his "foolish passion beyond control of reason."  His letters
were full of tender devotion: but when night came, the spirit of Jane
prevailed.  That haunting sentence pricked her like a thorn left
under the skin, and would continue so to do till time should prove
things definitely one way or another.  But by day she smiled bravely,
because her father must not guess; and, as often happens, in sowing
courage, she reaped happiness--of a kind.

Sir Lakshman, intent on distracting her thoughts, had lured her into
excursions up and down the Lake, and even across to Lugano.  Then, in
the quiet of their chalet, they had enjoyed an informal reversion to
the "studies" of early days, peculiarly welcome to the man, who by
rights, should have been back in India weeks ago.  But the lure of
the West, that grew in him with the years, was intensified now by the
wish to remain within reach of his child.  Stifling the voice of
conscience, therefore, he had secured leave for a longer stay, and
had written smooth things to Mataji, who tyrannized triumphantly in
his absence, yet hated, with a vitriolic hate, the unseen power that
took him oftener and oftener from her side.  And, in a sense, she was
justified of her hate: she--mother of his sons, controller of his
household, guardian of his immortal soul, whose after-fate he
imperilled year upon year by these futile journeys across the "black
water," with its mysterious power to defile.  Loyal though he was to
his own Motherland, the Big Mother drew him, as she draws all who
drink of the well of knowledge; drew him into the vortex of that
unresting flux, which, while satisfying desire--of mind and body, if
not of soul--recreates it at every turn.  Multiplicity of
desire--that is the Alpha and Omega of our mercurial civilization,
that runs ceaselessly to and fro, in quest of fresh stimulant, fresh
satisfaction of a hunger that grows by what it feeds on.  Hence the
insidious danger of Western education for the keen brain and sensuous
nature of the East.

After the dazzling complexity and movement of Paris and London, the
fundamental simplicity of Indian life beneath all its barbaric
splendour, is apt to lack flavour; and though, in a sense, discontent
may be divine, it does not touch all spirits to fine issues.
Unhappily for awakening India the average result hitherto is sterile
dissatisfaction; time and money spent out of the country; home duties
left undone.  That the exceptions are most often brilliant
exceptions--doubly endowed, with the wisdom of the East by heritage,
and the knowledge of the West by acquisition--does not disprove the
critical nature of the ordeal.  Sir Lakshman--himself a brilliant
exception--was yet, in some ways, a less satisfactory working force
in the great native state he served, than men of half his ability
whose hearts and minds were not torn between opposing interests and
beliefs.  As a husband, also, he wearied increasingly of the
dissonance inherent in a house divided against itself: a dissonance
that makes the home-life of the "England-returned" one of the saddest
features of a progress-at-any-price age.  But, when all is said of
drawbacks and dissonance, there remains the existence of a real
Indian renaissance, working, like all true growth, from within
outward, to what ultimate end who shall prophesy--as yet?

In Sir Lakshman's home, the daughter after his own heart had been the
main redeeming feature; and, bereft of her, he came near to dreading
return.  The fortnight she found so long had, for him, been all too
short.

It was over now.  To-night the man who had robbed him of his treasure
would return to claim his own.  To-morrow he supposed he must be
gone.  But Lilamani would not hear of that.  Nevil would surely have
much to ask him of the Ramayāna pictures.  He need not think
to escape so easily!

Would she not like to go over and meet her lord, he asked, the little
station of Menaggio--or even at Lugano.  But she shook her head; eyes
darkly shining; and he understood.  This meeting, after long absence,
was a thing too charged with sacred emotion to take place anywhere
but in their garden of dreams.  Let her have patience, only a little,
and he would come in the Hour of Union--their veriest hour; even as
the sun, husband of earth, descends after the day's work to meet her
at the time of sleep.

And so it was.  In the Hour of Union, he came.  Sitting on the
balcony they sighted the little white boat afar off.  She fluttered a
handkerchief, leaning over the rails; and he, standing up recklessly,
waved his hat.

Down she sped into the garden, and there awaited him in a shadowed
corner near the bench where he had won her back to life and love.
She heard the keel kiss the shore; saw the slim, alert figure--dark
now, because of his loss--hurrying up the slope with long strides.

Then, as he sighted her--his low call: "Lilamani"; and her throbbing
answer:

"King of me.  I am here."

The rest was sacred to themselves and the unheeding stars, that
trembled into life one after one, while they two lingered, heart
against heart, humanly loath to let the good minute go.

"Darling, did it seem so long?"

"Endless ages--to me, waiting.  For you it was different.  So much to
think, to do--to suffer."  She stroked the dark sleeve of his coat.
"But now--all is past.  Come in the little nest.  Father will be
waiting us.  He is saying he must go to-morrow.  But we will not push
him away first minute, will we?"

"Of course not.  He likes the picture?"

"Yes.  He is so pleased over all.  Not sorry now for trusting me to
English husband!  Oh--and Nevil, he will tell you--such a plan!  I
hope you agree."

"Something to do with you?"

"Yes, yes.  With all three."

"Come on then.  Let's hear it.  I couldn't refuse you anything
to-night--Lady Sinclair!"

But having brought father and husband together, she left them "to
talk the plan" at leisure.  She herself had inevitably some
mysterious dish on hand in honour of her lord's return.

Sir Lakshman greeted his son-in-law with genuine, if restrained
friendliness, and regret for his loss; regret privately increased by
a natural anxiety as to its effect upon his daughter's immediate
future.  They spoke for a while of Sir George, of the crippled
estate, of Nevil's prospects as artist and landowner.  Then came the
crucial question.

"You ought now to remain in England, and look after this home of your
ancestors?"

"Yes---I believe I ought," Nevil answered, pensively twisting his
father's signet-ring.

"Then you came back only to fetch Lilamani, and other belongings?"

Nevil's direct look put the Hindu out of countenance.

"Sir Lakshman, I gave you my word."

"H'm.  The word of an Englishman.  I should have known.  But
remember, Nevil, I have had dealings with all kinds of humans.  Even
the Englishman is not immaculate!  And men of all races, desiring
some great gift, are ready for big promises that afterwards they may
conveniently forget."

Nevil smiled.

"True enough.  But I think you may trust me, sir.  Not that I'm any
better than the rest.  Only--I love my wife a deal too well to run
risks with her happiness."  He flushed awkwardly in making the
confession; adding, yet more awkwardly: "A man doesn't speak of such
things.  But I do want to give you confidence in me."

"That I have more and more; especially since these days spent alone
with her.  And--your family----?"

Nevil, not unprepared, looked steadily out of the window.

"My elder sister will write and make her welcome--and be good to her,
though they won't have much in common.  My younger sister--more like
myself--is longing to know her.  My brothers are seldom at home.
They all admired her picture.  Then--there is Mrs. Despard----"

"Yes.  That is good.  She understands like few of your race.  And you
mean to return--by what time?"

"Not till the summer's over--they're having a wretched one at
home--and my new picture's nearly done.  But what's the great plan
she spoke of that concerns all three of us?"

"Ah, that----"  Sir Lakshman's face lit up.  "Since I do not now sail
till September, I was thinking how delightful if you and she shall
come only to Egypt.  There we shall all spend a week together.  Then
I go on by next mail; you returning same time--if you will.  You have
seen Egypt?"

"No.  I should like it of all things, only----" renewed awkwardness
here--"I must think it over.  I believe we might manage."

But Sir Lakshman, guessing his thought, took him kindly by the arm.

"You do not quite take my meaning, Nevil.  It is not for you to
manage.  The plan is mine altogether.  My parting gift--you may call
it--to my child.  For her it will be greatest pleasure imaginable.
For myself--I need not say!  And you--with these bold pictures in
your brain--though Egypt is much different from India, yet how
excellent to feel for yourself the spirit--what you artists call
atmosphere--of the East.  Now--you will come?"

"Thank you, sir.  It'll be splendid.  Lilamani will love it, of
course----"  A minute prick of apprehension checked him.  Would she
love it more than he quite cared about?  How would it affect him to
see his Eastern wife among Easterns, even though not her own people?

He thrust the disturbing questions aside; and Sir Lakshman, not
enlightened this time, added: "Of course, in September it will still
be hot.  But that you would not mind?"

"Not a bit."

Vaguely disconcerted, he strolled over to his easel, and they talked
Ramayāna till the door of the shrine opened softly, and a
mother-o'-pearl Lilamani, with the buckles of Antibes on her shoes,
stood looking from one to the other with questioning eyes.

It was to Nevil she spoke.

"Have you planned the plan?  Is it real and true?"

"As real and true and delightful as you are, little wife!" he
answered, smiling; and in the quaint young fashion that he loved, she
clapped her small hands lightly, without sound.


Sir Lakshman stayed three days longer; and the pain of parting was
alleviated by visions of "the plan."  On the Sunday that followed,
Nevil asked a question that surprised his wife.

"Lilamani, would you mind much if I deserted you this morning, and
went to church?"

"To church?"  She could only regard him in open-eyed amazement; and
he smiled, a queer, half-sad smile, unusual with him.

"Well, darling?  Did you think your Christian husband was a rank
unbeliever?"

"Oh, Nevil!  Please not say such things.  But--I could not help from
wondering--did you ever----"

The words would not come; and he, slipping an arm round her, gently
kissed her cheek.

"Dear little saint!  I did--and I do," he assured her none too
lucidly: yet she understood.  "The trouble with our religion nowadays
is that, being a live thing, it is growing and changing its form like
all other live things: breaking through husks, throwing out new
leaves.  But the Church says: No.  The one ancient form must be kept
sacred from all change, like an embalmed mummy.  And in consequence,
many thinking Christians have little use for Church, however honestly
they believe in the things that matter.  You understand?"

"I do," she answered thoughtfully.  "Same with us.  It is always so
with priests.  Nevil--I would like to hear more."

"That you shall.  Another time.  It would need a long talk and rather
a deep one, if I'm to make things clear.  But you mustn't doubt my
belief in the Great Unseen; and now will you spare me to go and
worship Him in my own fashion?"

"Yes.  I am so pleased----"  She spoke without looking up; and there
fell a pause.

"Well--what more?" he asked, regarding her with a quizzical
tenderness.

"Only ... I am shy to ask ... is it quite beyond Possible ... that I
come also?"

"You?  My dear little wife!  Will you?"

"If--if it would not make shock to the Christian Peoples?"

"I think the Christian peoples might survive it!" he answered,
kissing her again.  "There won't be half a dozen at this time of
year."

"And I can hide all Hindu-ness with my cloak and hood.  Oh, Nevil--I
hardly believe!  I never thought----"

"No more did I!"  He pushed her gently toward the door.  "Hurry up,
little woman.  We've none too much time."

So Sir Nevil and Lady Sinclair rowed across to the little English
Church at Cadenabbia; and if the Christian peoples were pricked to
undue curiosity by the veiled and hooded, figure in a pew near the
door, the subject of their scrutiny was lifted beyond all
consciousness of the fact.  To-day the presence of others troubled
her not at all.  For to-day, by her husband's wish, she was
privileged to worship, with him, that Great One, that "Brilliance at
the core of Brilliance," whose diverse names and forms are but the
manifold garments of His revealing.

The handful of "Christian peoples," hypnotized by ceaseless
repetition, found the service, with its scanty music and unimpressive
sermon, a rather lifeless affair.  But to one privileged "heathen" it
seemed a thing of beauty and awe.  The church itself, plain and
unpretentious, like most of its kind abroad--had yet its pervasive
atmosphere of sanctuary, above all in the region of the
altar--shrine, she named it--where the white-robed figure, tall
candlesticks and sober embroideries were glorified by sun-rays
streaming through stained glass.

As for the simple hymns and chants--it was her first hearing of organ
music, and the deep-toned reverberations set all her sensitive nerves
a-thrill.  The hidden magician--bald and spectacled--chose for
voluntary a stately Largo by Beethoven; and Lilamani's hand, slipping
into her husband's, kept him seated till the last note shuddered
through the empty church.

Then they went forth into the blaze of noon, and rowed homeward, too
deeply and diversely stirred for common speech.  Only once he
intercepted her brooding gaze and asked, smiling:

"Well, does our fashion of worship please you?"

"Yes.  It is more simple--more solemn than ours.  It speaks to the
soul."

Her husband's smile had a touch of envy.  He had not found it so.

"Some day I will take you to a really great service in our Abbey," he
said; and the promise wafted her on a dream-journey that only ended
when the keel touched ground.

A small event; yet of no small significance in an experiment more
vital and far-reaching than they two, in their charmed seclusion, had
quite recognized as yet.  That first church-going led to others, at
intervals; led also to more intimate talk of the "big-little things";
a strengthening of links for the long after-strain of marriage.

For the rest, throughout the blazing stillness of July and August,
they dwelt in an atmosphere of ordered peace, as needful to artistic
achievement as emotion and experience to artistic conception.  And it
was just this absorption in a subject quite outside themselves that
saved them from those lavish overdrafts on the emotions that are the
peculiar danger of honeymoon conditions indefinitely prolonged.  They
talked Ramayāna, read Ramayāna, and lived
Ramayāna, without fear that either could weary of the
obsession.  Sir Lakshman's treasures from India supplied fresh fuel
for the divine fire, that burned clearer and stronger as the bold
pictures came to life under Nevil's hand.  Martino--vindictively
jealous of all who trespassed on his sacred sea and sky--could
rejoice whole-heartedly in the growing vigour and beauty of his
friend's work.  His monologues became more volcanic; his prophecies
more extravagant.  He spent more time in Nevil's studio than in his
own; now and again bringing a brother artist to confirm his verdict,
lest it seem mere partiality to the man who felt himself in the grip
of a power greater than he knew.

Outside the pictures, worked at day by day and dreamed of at night,
their only events were constant letters from Sir Lakshman and rarer
ones from the house of Sinclair.  Christina, zealous to atone for
Jane, wrote in genuine sisterly fashion to her "dearest Lilamani,"
regretting that she must be back in Germany by October, not to return
again for good till early spring.  And Jane wrote also; kindly--yet
with a difference, which "the Hindu child" was not considered capable
of detecting.  But she did.  She discovered, also, that, while she
had supposed herself to be obeying Nevil in regard to that first
letter, it had in truth so tinctured all her thoughts of Lady Roscoe,
that mere sight of the square handwriting awakened a fierce
antagonism, personal and racial, that boded ill for the days to come.
Between the formal phrases of welcome her quick spirit caught flashes
of the two-edged sword.  Yet, for Nevil's sake, she must seem
convinced; must even devise an answer, not too carefully studied,
lest he suspect.  What the writing of it cost her, he never knew.
Nor did he know how, when it was written, she tore Jane's compulsory
welcome across and across; then burned the pieces one by one in her
brick oven, holding them in her dwarf tongs; watching them curl and
blaze with a gleam of primitive hate in her eyes that her husband
must never see.  Could he have seen it, he might have thought twice
about taking his wife home at all.

As it was, Lilamani's answer pleased him; and the ardour of
work--that, for the moment, eclipsed all else--flowed over the
incident, as the rising tide over a rock that will rear its head anew
in the time of shallows.




CHAPTER IX

  "Naught is done that has not seeds in it."
                                    MORLEY ROBERTS.


For both husband and wife, as for Sir Lakshman, September arrived too
soon.  Not even the lure of Egypt could make Lilamani other than
loath to leave a corner of earth saturate with memories, sacred and
imperishable as her love itself: and to Nevil, as the time drew near,
there returned that faint prick of apprehension for which he hated
himself the more because he could not disregard it altogether.  But
Lilamani on the sea was a revelation enchanting enough to banish all
forebodings for a time; and present content was deepened by the
knowledge that--conceit apart--he had achieved a remarkable summer's
work.

In the seven weeks following on his return, three more pictures had
been added to Sita in the hut: her first pleading with
Rāma--that, as a portrait of Lilamani, excelled his study at
Antibes; the setting forth of the three; and the abduction of Sita by
Ravān.  The completion of each had bred a larger confidence,
a deeper understanding of the great subject chosen and inspired by
his wife: while into the fourth he had infused a strange mingling of
beauty and terror that at once amazed him and fired his ambition to
bolder flights.  A fifth picture, even, had been started: Sita,
broken with grief, in the garden of Asoka, while she-fiends, on guard
among the high enclosing bushes, leered at her through the dusk;
their hideous shapes, half human, half bestial, grimly suggested
rather than seen.  They had given Lilamani nightmares; and her
self-identification with Sita had so wrought upon her nerves, that
she was not sorry to escape from the haunting nearness of
Ravān and his myrmidons, for a time.

With Nevil it was otherwise.  To tear himself from easel and canvas
and the idea that dominated him was a greater wrench than he would
have credited six months ago.  But, in this crowning summer of his
life, a very rage of work possessed him; a spontaneous flow of
inspiration, not to be denied.  It was as if all the thwarted and
dammed up energies of those priceless years between twenty and
thirty, having at last found their natural outlet, would give him no
rest till they had atoned, in some measure, for achievement
stultified and opportunities lost.

Happily for Lilamani, she herself was the mainspring of her husband's
inspiration; while her absorption in his subject and her Eastern
capacity for long spells of stillness made her an invaluable asset to
his actual work.  And afar, on the horizon of his golden present, the
promise of the future glowed like a lamp.  In Egypt he looked to
imbibe large draughts of the colourful East; not in the
self-conscious, notebook-and-pencil fashion of the journalist, but
with all his creative fervour in abeyance, that the receptive
faculties might have full play.  Then, returning by Brindisi, they
would spend a last fortnight in their land of enchantment before
putting the Great Experiment to its ultimate test.

It had already been arranged that "Dreaming" should make its
appearance in the Goupil Gallery at an autumn exhibition of English
painters; and Martino looked that this picture alone should bring
Sinclair's name into notice among the elect; thus preparing the way
for his bold design of showing the Sita series independently when
complete.  Pamphlets, giving a brief outline of the Epic, should be
supplied to all-comers, with a special description of each chosen
scene; and Martino himself would brave the unspeakable English
climate that he might have the pride and pleasure of inaugurating the
Unique Event!  Even Leseppes, prince of egoists, had shown keen
interest in the new venture and promised a flying visit to Cadenabbia
before Sinclair left.


With such stimulating visions and a radiant Lilamani for company,
Nevil paid small heed to the whisper of apprehension during the brief
voyage from Brindisi to Cairo; and through the first few days of
varied and leisurely sightseeing, he strove loyally to convince
himself that all was well.  But upon the fourth day conviction went
to pieces.  Too late he recognized the wisdom of his instinctive
recoil from Sir Lakshman's plan.

Hitherto he had seen the East through Lilamani's eyes, veiled and
glorified by her idealism.  Now he saw it in the fierce unsparing
glare of its own sunlight; saw, too, how potently it drew and held
the woman who had renounced it for love of him.  True, it was not
India; and the familiar-looking folk in street and desert spoke an
unknown tongue.  But the East, Near or Far, has its own indefinable
atmosphere; and to Nevil Sinclair it was obvious that Lilamani drank
it in as though it were the breath of life.  An under-current of
suppressed excitement vibrated in her low voice, and glowed fitfully
in the brooding softness of her eyes.  Acute consciousness of it
pricked her husband to a not unreasoning jealousy, and even checked
in a measure his own ardour of enjoyment.

On the fourth day, in question, he found her standing at the window
of Sir Lakshman's private sitting-room, so absorbed in the street
scene below that his entrance passed unheeded.  He was almost at her
elbow when she turned with a startled sound; and though her lips
smiled a greeting, he saw the gleam of tears in her eyes.

"What is it, dear?" he asked.

"Not anything," she replied mendaciously, for she missed the note of
sympathy in his voice.

The touch of her fingers on his coat sleeve elicited no response;
and, after a second's hesitation, he said: "I'd sooner have the
truth, Lilamani.  You're not like yourself since you came.  It
excites you, upsets you, all this: perhaps--makes you regret----?"

"Oh, Nevil!  Could you think such a thing?"  Her fingers closed
sharply on his arm.  "Only--how can I help?--if it aches me
sometimes, with reminding of my own country, my own peoples.  Even
though I cannot know their language; still, by their colour and
movement--even by smell of shops and streets--all is speaking to me
in the language of my heart.  Have I made you understand?"

"Yes--yes.  It's only natural.  So long as it doesn't spoil your
pleasure, I am content."

But although he patted the hand that held him, his tone belied his
words, and he spoke looking down into the street, with its flow of
noisy, leisurely life, its blinding patches of light and clear-cut,
blue-black shadows.

A puzzled distress and the nearness of tears kept her silent; and he,
with a muttered plea of letters to write, went out, leaving her a
shade more puzzled, more distressed.

What was wrong?  What was the nameless shadow that had come between
them, dimming the radiance of her perfect week?  For the past two
days she had been vaguely aware of it; and now--his words, his
manner, so unlike himself.

She brushed away the disturbing thought as if it were a fly that
buzzed at her ear.  But even as the fly returns, after futile
circling, so the feeling came back, whenever some spontaneous
outburst on her part forced Nevil to a show of response.  Months of
the real thing made her fatally quick to detect the counterfeit; and
it saddened her beyond speech.

On the next night, when Sir Lakshman offered them another week at the
hotel after he left, Sinclair would not see the eager pleading in his
wife's face, while he thanked his father-in-law, and urged the need
of finishing the picture on hand before going home in October.  Yet
after all, touched by her loyal seconding of his refusal, he stayed
on three days--and regretted it.  There were moments of unreasoning,
yet invincible revulsion, when he could scarcely endure the sight of
those other Eastern women who, in a dozen trifling ways, so subtly
reminded him of his wife; robbing her, thus, of the unique quality
that was for him an essential part of her charm.  True, in happier
intervals, he had absorbed much and observed much that was invaluable
to an artist who aspired to interpret the East: but it was with a
sense of undiluted relief that he trod the deck of their
homeward-bound steamer and felt the hidden heart of it throb beneath
his feet.

Not so Lilamani.  Standing alone at the taffrail, while her husband
interviewed the head-steward, she drank in every detail of the
fast-retreating coast line, as if by intensity of looking she would
stamp it for ever on her brain--that fervent and colourful East which
spoke to her so feelingly in the language of her heart.  No denying
that this brief return to the atmosphere of her girlhood and the
subsequent parting with her father had brought home to her the
completeness of her own severance as nothing else could have done;
had stirred afresh the ache of longing drugged, of late, by happiness
almost beyond belief.

Yet did she not forget the price of return; the impasse from which
her husband's love had so miraculously saved her: and even had it not
been thus, regret were unthinkable.  To belong body and soul to Nevil
was, without question, the best fate that could befall a woman.
Only, at this moment of parting, a perplexing conflict of emotions so
perturbed her that when, at length, her husband came to her side, she
could not turn and greet him because of chill tears that crept down
her cheeks.

Nevil saw them, and for the first time they moved him to irritation
rather than pity.  His tone betrayed him.

"Crying again, Lilamani?  Wishing you could have gone on with your
father, I suppose, instead of having to come back with me?"

She winced and bit her lip.  "Unkind to speak so," she murmured
without looking round.

"I'm sorry.  But you provoke it.  You seem so heartbroken----"

"Not that.  Only--a little sad.  How can I help?"--then controlling
herself, she looked up at him, smiling mistily.  "But it is
foolishness.  And surely--we shall come again?"

He frowned.  "I don't know.  There won't be much surplus money for
pleasure trips just at present.  I've a big place to keep up, you
see, and precious little to keep it on."

"How pity," she said softly, not quite following the drift of his
last remark.

Again the vanishing coast line absorbed her; and he, still frowning,
regarded her delicate profile in a speculative silence.  Then he
turned abruptly away; and strolling down the deck, soon fell into
talk with the first officer.

Left alone again, the tears fell faster; till, in shame at her own
weakness, and fearful of discovery, though dusk had fallen, she
stumbled blindly down to their cabin--alone.  In crossing the
hatchway, she caught sight of Nevil and his companion pacing the
deck.  He saw her go.  She knew it.  But the minutes passed and he
did not come.  He was content to walk and talk with a stranger, while
she lay crying softly in the half-dark; not only because the East was
slipping farther from her with every throb of the ship's pulses, but
because the radiance of her wonderful ten days had been dimmed by a
shadow whose substance she could not divine.

So deeply and entirely had they lived hitherto in the world of
imagination and emotion, wherein their unity was complete, that she
scarce recognized, as yet, the possibility of serious divergence.
She only knew that for near a week they had been living in a tangle
of cross purposes which she was powerless to unravel; that now, for
the first time, her tears had moved him to vexation, and he had left
her to find her way about this strange ship alone: events of no mean
significance in the early stage of marriage.  But why?  What harm had
she done to cause this break in his unfailing tenderness; this first
real sense of apartness from him who was more than ever her all,
since India had claimed her father?  Only one answer suggested
itself.  Always, at such moments, that unforgetable sentence in
Jane's letter would prick softly, like a thorn left under the skin,
reminding her--"I am here."

By the time he came into the cabin, tears had ceased; and bending
down he kissed her flushed cheek; then, without a word, passed a
soothing hand over her hair.  She caught the hand and pressed it
passionately to her lips.  So, once again, comfort was restored--for
the moment.  Yet still--she did not understand: and therein lay the
seeds of tragedy.


Egypt once out of sight things readjusted themselves insensibly,
though the effect produced on Nevil could not be lightly shaken off.
There was no more jarring irritability.  But there were times when
his wife was still aware of that intangible barrier; times when he
was so absent and distrait that she felt as if the real Nevil had
slipped miles away from her and only the shell of him lay beside her
in the long deck-chair.  Once, when she ventured on comment, he had
frowned as if interrupted in a train of thought, and answered that
between digesting new impressions and heavy responsibilities ahead,
he had a good deal on his mind just then: which was true, though not
the whole truth, as she was quick to divine.

Thenceforward she kept silence.  But her thoughts were less easily
bridled than speech, and during that short return voyage, she found
herself too often at their mercy.  On most nights Nevil would take
her down to the cabin, and there leave her, while he himself returned
to pace the deck in troubled meditation; faintly, indefinably
alienated by a nameless something too elusive for definition; hating
himself heartily; yet temporarily at the mercy of his mood.  More
than ever was he thankful for the few weeks of seclusion in store for
them at Cadenabbia.  Both being hypersensitive to the spirit of
place, and of association, he relied confidently on these to restore
that completeness of harmony, of fusion, without which he scarce
dared contemplate the last great test of England and Bramleigh
Beeches.

In this reliance they were unconsciously at one.  Through the long
hours when she was supposed to be asleep, Lilamani lay listening,
instead, to the rhythmical swish-swish under her port-hole and the
heart-throbs of the ship that bore her, minute by minute, nearer to
the familiar peace of their sanctuary.  There at least she had
reigned supreme; there she had been essential both to his life and
work; the woman's incurable need.  There, surely, this shadow of
division, of disappointment, would pass.

Yes, it was disappointment; that she had decided; having arrived at
her own solution of the problem in those wakeful hours; a solution
characteristic of her race.  Six months a wife and yet no promise of
that other--the supreme gift, that should crown her first one, the
finding of himself.  For the Eastern woman, marriage means
motherhood, or an abiding sense of failure: and the least delay in
the fulfilment of her divine mission breeds a lurking anxiety lest
the worst befall.  Already it knocked softly at the door of
Lilamani's heart, and that it should visit her husband also seemed to
her the most natural thing imaginable.  He too had hoped.  He too was
disappointed.  And although his tender consideration forbade speech
he could not hide it altogether from one who loved and understood.

Thus she wove around his perplexing mood her primitive-womanly myth
that was leagues removed from the truth; and longed only for courage
to broach the subject, that pain might be lessened by sharing.  But
the mere imagining wrought her to such agony of shyness that she knew
speech could not be between them--as yet.  She could only wait--and
pray.  In the meantime she hoped great things from the spirit of
peace that dwelt in their balcony, their little white boat, and their
garden of dreams.  Absorbed once more in their joint enterprise, the
evil demons of vexation and disappointment must be driven out--if
only for a time.

And it was so.  The spirit of place and the very real love Nevil
Sinclair had for his wife achieved their perfect work.  The mood of
aloofness vanished as though it had never been; and again, as after
the lesser interruption of Jane's letter, the ardour of work flowed
on over the incident, blotting it almost out of memory.

Leseppes' promised visit proved a foretaste of triumphs to come.  He
applauded Martino's verdict; insisted upon hearing long extracts from
the Ramayāna; and covered Lilamani with confusion by
advertising his admiration with a frankness of gaze that in her view
amounted to insolence.  For himself, he enjoyed her embarrassment.
It added a provocative quality to her beauty; and to stare a pretty
woman into a crimson silence was a delectable amusement that never
palled.  But of this by-play his host was unaware.  He took good care
of that, and Lilamani was too shy to speak.

For Nevil, in truth, the artist eclipsed the man.  For him Leseppes
the prince of egoists, the reputed libertine, was submerged in
Leseppes the inimitable colourist, the godfather of his own lesser
gift; and the great man's words at parting exalted him as the praise
of no other living painter could have done.

"I tell you this, _mon ami_, and I speak from wide knowledge," said
he, wringing the younger man's hand in the effusive fashion of his
race--"those pictures of yours are unique, of their kind.  They have
the colour and sensuousness, the emotion and idealism of the East.
_Mon Dieu_!  They shall stir the blood even of those colossal
Philistines, your own countrymen!  I shall be over with Martino when
your exhibition opens."

It was a very elated husband and wife that drank "Success to Sita" at
dinner that evening.

"And it's all your doing--yours, my own little Sita Devi," he assured
her, silencing her protest, as it deserved.  "We'll block out the
Hanuman scene to-morrow.  I wish to God we could stay on here till
the whole thing was done!"

How passionately Lilamani echoed that wish she dared not confess.
Yet a flicker of hope gleamed in her eyes as she asked: "If you are
so much wishing, Nevil--could it not be?"

"'Fraid not.  Don't tempt me, sweetheart.  Jane would have a fit; and
there's a deal that needs my personal supervision.  No joke playing
the double rôle of artist and impoverished landowner.  But after all
its high time we started our real life together in our real home.
I've picked a capital room in the East Tower for the studio; and
we'll have one blessed fortnight all to ourselves before the new Lady
Sinclair takes the family by storm!"

Lilamani shook her head, smiling uncertainly.  "Lady Sinclair is
afraid----"

"Afraid?  Nonsense!  She is going to be an unqualified success all
round!"

His serene optimism stilled her qualms--for the moment at least.  The
date of their departure was fixed; and on a golden afternoon of
October the little white boat set out for the last time.  Lilamani,
crouched in the stern, elbows planted on the cushioned seat, watched
their chalet recede and dwindle till all outlines were blurred, and
in spite of herself a muffled sob betrayed her "foolishness."  This
time it did not move Nevil to irritation.  Balancing his sculls he
leaned forward and caressed her shoulder.

"Why break your heart over the good days gone, beloved?" he reproved
her gently.  "There are plenty more ahead; and we'll come back here
again, I promise you."

"Yes--yes; we must come back," she murmured, choking down her tears.
But young as she was, already she began to perceive that the scheme
of life does not admit of "coming back."  It is an eternal,
inexorable passing on.



END OF BOOK II




BOOK III

THE FRUIT



CHAPTER I

"Whom does love concern beyond the beloved and the lover?  Yet its
impact deluges a thousand shores."--E. M. FORSTER.


"Lilamani!  You're a moonbeam incarnate!  I don't wonder Nevil went
crazy over you; and if the rest don't follow suit--in their sober
Sinclair fashion--I shall disinherit them forthwith!"

Thus Christina, appraising her sister-in-law with Nevil's own smile
in her eyes.  It was evening; and the new Lady Sinclair stood before
her cheval glass at Bramleigh Beeches arrayed for the supreme ordeal
of her marriage: a dinner-party of fourteen, all members of the clan,
save two.

A special dress lately arrived from India had been set aside for the
critical occasion; and the pale golden sheen of it in the light of
two tall candles justified Christina's simile.  Unable to mourn for
her husband's father in "English fashion," she could only forswear
the least touch of colour, to the secret regret of Neville the
artist; though Nevil the man loved her the more.  He had explained
regretfully that gold was not mourning; and she that Hindu women wear
silver only on the feet; with the result that they had compromised in
borders and embroideries of palest gold like the new-risen moon.
To-night, the shimmery under-dress was shot with it; and through the
filmy _sari_ ran a network of gleaming threads, that, more closely
woven, formed the narrow border.  Only the vermilion caste-mark
glowed, as always, between her brows.  For jewellery--her father's
star, Nevil's pendant, and his last flagrant extravagance, a
bracelet-watch set in diamonds.

No beautiful girl so arrayed, and blessed with a wholesome share of
vanity, could feel other than elate; and gratified by Christina's
frank approval, she answered softly with her veiled blush:

"I shall be getting too much spoilt--if all were like you----"

"Oh, but they're _not_ like me, poor dears!"  Christina's equally
frank commiseration was far removed from conceit.  "And none of them
recognize their misfortune!  Still--Jane isn't half bad really;
straight and strong-minded and as common-sensible as a chest of
drawers.  She's fond of Nevil too--in her queer way; and probably
wants to be fond of you.  But the door of her heart is a bit rusty on
its hinges.  No doubt she'll just shake hands, and ask how you like
Bramleigh; while, if she had half an ounce of real mother-feeling in
her--which she hasn't in spite of two plain children--she would take
you in her arms and kiss you straight away."

A faint involuntary change came over Lilamani's face.

"That I should not like at all.  Though relation by marriage, I am
quite stranger--with Lady Roscoe."

"Lady Roscoe!  My dear, you _must_ call her Jane.  You call me
Christina."

"But how different!  Through many letters we became like sisters
before meeting; and for me, you could never be stranger.  You are too
like--like Nevil in a girl."

Even now, racial instinct made her shy of "taking her lord's name"
before others; custom impermissible for wife or husband among her own
people, as Christina had come to know.

"Does that make you love me very much, little Moonbeam?" she asked,
slipping an arm round the slender shoulders; and for an answer two
warm lips pressed her cheek.  "It was awfully good of Nevil to give
me this quiet time alone with you two before the influx of the clan,"
she went on, well content.  "And I half wish I could put off going
back to Germany.  But now I must fly and dress.  Are you going down?
Or will you wait here for your 'lord?'"

Lilamani did not miss the gleam of amusement in her eyes.

"Why do you make fun for that?" she asked simply.  "Does my
husband-worship seem to all English peoples--foolishness?"

"I don't know about all English peoples!  To me it seems rather
beautiful.  Rather enviable.  And I'm quite sure Nevil's in luck to
have picked up a wife who believes in that kind of foolishness.  At
the rate we're going, they'll soon be as extinct as the dodo."

Lilamani puckered her brows.  "Extinct--gone out, is it?  How pity?
But who is the dodo?"

Christina laughed.

"I give it up!  Ask Nevil, you angelic little anachronism.  Now go
down and knock the bottom out of my noble sister's condescension; and
_don't_ forget to call her 'Jane'!"

Lilamani's answering smile did not imply acquiescence.  But Christina
was gone; and soon--far too soon--Nevil would come to take her
downstairs.  There she would meet face to face the woman whose
poisoned shafts of speech still pricked her heart.  Knowing all, she
must yet appear unknowing.  She must endure the touch of hands; the
meeting of eyes; but the touch of lips--never!  For beneath her
surface gentleness throbbed the passionate, unforgiving heart of a
soldier race, strong to smite, swift to revenge.

With a last lingering glance at her own reflection, she smiled,
sighed, and sank into a chintz-covered arm-chair, heartily wishing
the evening well over.  And not this one evening alone; but the next
few days, which she must learn to call "week-end."  It was her first
dinner-party; and the mere crowd of strangers dismayed her, apart
from the fact that all were her husband's relations and friends;
curious, interested, or disapproving, even as those who had come in
carriages to "inspect her" and deposit bits of pasteboard on the hall
table.

Nevil had prepared her to the best of his ability; had sketched them
all for her, with touches of not unkindly humour; and had much to
tell her of two artist friends, Miss de Winton and Frank Norris, who
would come on the Saturday, and were eager to see the pictures
destined to establish the impression already made by "Dreaming," at
the Goupil Gallery.  Jane alone, Nevil had left to his wife's
imagination; merely remarking that she was a "good woman under
chain-mail," and that Lilamani must make allowances, for his sake.


And now--the time was at hand.  The "blessed fortnight" all to
themselves had melted like snow in a thaw.  Even then, they had only
been nominally alone; and she had found it hard to hide from Nevil
how the great rambling house and its retinue of servants oppressed
her.  Mrs. Lunn, Queen-Regent of the household--grown portly and
domineering in the service of her widowed master--filled Lilamani
with awe unspeakable.  Her scrupulously respectful bearing was
tinctured with too perceptible a pinch of condescension toward this
"heathen chit of a child, from goodness-knows-where," whom she, Sarah
Lunn, was called upon to serve.

"Enough to make poor dear old master turn in 'is grave; _that_ it
is!" she confided to Barnes over their nightly glass of wine in her
sanctum.  "If it wasn't but what I firmly believe he'd _feel_ it,
even where he is, I'd 'a' given notice the first day I set eyes on
her."

Barnes nodded in sympathetic comprehension.  The discovery that his
astuteness was superfluous had put a severe strain on his own loyalty.

"That's your magananimus sense o' duty all over, Mrs. Lunn!  An' Sir
Nevil he may be thankful.  Without you the old place 'ud fall to
racking ruin."  He sipped meditatively and shook his head.  "It's bin
a quare business all along.  At first I thought----"  No.  His
thoughts on the subject would scarce bear retailing to the
Queen-Regent of all the proprieties.  "Well--I _had_ me qualms.  Who
wouldn't?  But I own I _did_ give Sir Nevil credit for more good
sense than this 'ere fiasker amounts to."

"Good sense, Mr. Barnes?"  Mrs. Lunn's sniff expressed the
quintessence of contempt.  "You, with your experience, didn't ought
to be looking for good sense from a master that wastes his time
messin' about with dirty paints, instead of tramping or riding round
the old Place natural-like, with the dogs at his heels; a master that
can't even use 'is droring-room after dinner like a gentleman; 'e's
so set on them heathen pictures of his, and that musked-up room in
the Tower."

It was true.  The great drawing-room still languished, empty and
desolate, while the misguided pair spent their evenings in the
studio, with its friendly litter of books and painting gear; its
memory-provoking atmosphere of cigarette smoke and attar of roses.
For the artist in Nevil Sinclair, having survived the barren years of
discouragement, could challenge even the sacred obligations of
heritage.  It would not suffer the real man to be entirely overridden
by the thing possessed.

As for Lilamani, that sacred hour or two of isolation in the Tower
room had come to be the crowning-point of her day; a light toward
which she moved, with a deep and conscious yearning that pervaded her
every thought, her every act.  For she of the East lives in and
through the one supreme emotion with a singleness of soul scarce
credible to the many-faceted woman of the West: and despite Mrs.
Lunn's lamentations, "the old Place" inevitably absorbed more of
Nevil's time and attention than seemed good to a young wife little
used to rival interests that took him from her side.  For Nevil
Sinclair, temperament or no, was at core an Englishman true to his
breed, as Lilamani to her own.  Yet withal, they must contrive to be
true to each other.  There lay the pith of their problem.

There were mornings spent in the saddle with Thornbrook--land-agent
and confidential adviser; tramps through the beech-wood with Mills,
the gamekeeper; a visit from Reynolds; a call from a bachelor
landowner, who must be asked to lunch, and whose talk of bags,
coverts, and meets was pure gibberish to the "ripping little beauty,"
who sat with lids downcast, praying for his departure.  Worse than
all--just when she had secured Nevil to herself--were the superfluous
strangers--who "came only to look what queer kind of creature Indian
bride might be."  This conviction--which at once hurt her
sensitiveness and fired her pride of race--was proof against Nevil's
most tactful denials.  At this time he discovered in her a fund of
quiet, unreasoning obstinacy, unsuspected hitherto; and great was her
joy when, in pity, he revealed how she could frustrate "those
needless ones" by the magic formula "Not at Home."  Thereafter she
was insatiable--when he would permit; and her childish joy in
pronouncing the shibboleth made refusal seem sheer brutality.

Only one thing had failed them entirely: the one thing most like to
fail home-comers in an English autumn.

In place of Italy's passionate, unfathomable blue, a shifting
greyness hung low over the tree-tops; a reservoir, it seemed, for all
the tears of all the earth.  Most often Lilamani's great event, the
coming of the sun, could only be known by a stealthy, half-hearted
change from grey to a whitish pallor, through which, as daylight
grew, a moon-like disc peered, ghost-like; his passing, by a gleam in
the west, as it were a lifting of tired lids flushed a little with
weeping.  Then the slow onset of dark; renewed patter of raindrops;
the unresting murmur of wind-swayed trees.  Nevil Sinclair--sun-lover
though he was--could not know that for Lilamani these changed
conditions meant no mere deprivation of light and heat, but temporary
eclipse of the reigning gods of her Pantheon.  Instinctively her
excommunicate soul had slipped back into the primal nature-worship of
Vedantic times; satisfying thus her racial instinct for religion, and
the deeper human need of worshipping, through the medium of the seen,
that "Great Unfading, who unseen sees, unheard hears, unthought
thinks, uncomprehended comprehends."

And now behold temple and gods alike obliterate!  Only for a time,
she hoped; yet this fresh deprivation added not a little to the
difficulty and strangeness of the new phase of wifehood she was
called upon to fulfil.  She said little to Nevil; lest she seem to
disparage the cradle of his birth.  Only upon the fourth day of
weeping skies and whirling leaves she had asked half in joke: "Do sun
and moon nearly always keep purdah in your England?"

"Why, of course not!" said he, and the sympathetic note in his voice
assured her that he had not taken the question amiss.  "Wait till the
autumn gales are over.  Then you'll see!"

And the very next day, as if in ratification, behold the sun-god,
smiling genially, in a clear sky, flaked with drifting cloud.  She
must come for a walk, Nevil decreed, through the beech-wood and up on
to the moor.  It was sodden underfoot; and Lilamani, who had never
worn boots in her life, was chary as a cat about wetting her
silver-shod feet.  But Nevil--not to be gainsaid--assured her that
walking in the wet was an accomplishment all who aspired to live in
England must learn forthwith.  A pair of Christina's goloshes had
been unearthed; and for near two hours they had tramped, like a pair
of happy children, through the dominion over which they were king and
queen.  Through the stately beech-wood, already on fire with burnt
sienna and gold, with here and there the bronze gleam of a pheasant
among the leaves: then out on to the open moor, where the October sun
had awakened a host of midges, that danced like winged motes in his
beams; and, from tip to tip of the mummied heath-bells, undiscouraged
spiders had woven their gossamer snares, that swayed and lifted,
changefully iridescent, in the afternoon light.

Standing silent and entranced, with the sun in her eyes, the
mother-longing had stirred in the young wife afresh; conjuring up
visions of a day when children's voices--her sons and his--should
fill moor and wood with the divinest music on earth.  And he?  Did he
also dream and hope?  She stole a shy glance at him.  But his
thoughts had gone off on a journey of their own; and he did not see.

When at length his eyes sought hers, the transfigured light in them
thrilled him strangely.  But no word was said.

Returning, he had slipped an arm round her, secure in their vast
privacy; and they had walked home like lovers, oblivious of
everything in earth and heaven save themselves.  Then, all too soon,
the house closed over them; the house with its mute reminder of
responsibilities, "needless ones," the minor tyrannies of
possession--changing them into Sir Nevil and Lady Sinclair once more.

On the second clear day he drove with her to return the visit of a
"needless one" who plagued her with the two reiterate, unanswerable
questions that seemed a part of this particular ritual: What did she
think of England, and how did she like Bramleigh?  Then on to tea
with Helen Despard, in the rambling black and white oak-panelled
bungalow, that Lilamani loved at sight, like its mistress, and
secretly preferred to the spacious desolation of her own ancestral
home.  There was endlessly much to be said, when the men left them
alone: but alas, the adopted mother, on whose sympathy and help
Lilamani had reckoned, would not be long at hand.  The Despards
rarely spent a winter in England; and, like Christina, they would not
be back till early spring.  In this double deprivation, Lilamani saw
the malice of her outraged gods.  Yet how propitiate them without
offering or penance?  For her the problem was a serious one, beyond
her power to solve.


Thus, between work and play, between driven clouds and fitful
sunshine, their fortnight had evaporated.  In spite of interruptions,
the Token scene had progressed near to completion; and no longer, in
Nevil's opinion, could the crucial "week-end" party be postponed.

On Wednesday had come Christina--true spirit-sister, flower of purely
Western culture though she was.  This afternoon had brought Sir
Robert and his wife, with "Aunt Julia," who had kissed her, a little
nervously, and called her dear child, but had failed to set her at
her ease.  Then, before the arrival of the later train--bringing
George and "Phil," the Roscoes and Broome--she had pleaded headache
and fled to the solitude of her shrine, above the studio, arranged
exactly as in Italy.

Here, in one of her Yoga moods of receptive quiet, she had striven to
still the flutter of anxiety, lest in word or bearing she should not
satisfy her lord and those he loved: excepting only "That Terrible,"
whose secret antagonism, she felt convinced, would equal her own.
Nevil, divining her need, had not only refrained from seeking her
out; but had checked Christina's mistaken impulse of sisterly
kindness.

So, for an hour or more, there had been respite; the indefinable
refreshment of solitude and silence, and, by a merciful oversight of
the gods--a blazing sunset that fired all the west.  Slipping a shawl
round her shoulders, she had flung the window wide, and sat there in
a carven stillness, till eyes and brain and spirit were saturate with
the molten brilliance; till all sense of self was lost in that
miracle of fusion which only intense gazers know; till living light
faded to a dull orange-crimson that glowed beneath the curtain of
cloud like the heart of a forge seen through an open door.

Even now, so long after, the ethereal fire seemed to glow in her
veins.  But imagination makes cowards of the bravest--before action;
and detachment was hard to maintain when Nevil's footstep was at her
very door.

She rose as he entered and stood before him; breath suspended, eyes
veiled.  He had not been allowed to see the dress till now; and he
stood a moment, appraising her with a long look, felt even through
her sheltering lids.  Then he came quickly forward, took her in his
arms and kissed her with a lover's fervour on lips and eyes and brow.

"You are satisfied with your Lilamani?" she whispered, craving,
woman-like, the full meed of praise.

"More than satisfied.  She is inimitable.  Come."

Laughingly, he offered her his arm, and led her thus down the broad
shallow staircase.

Just outside the drawing-room door he felt her hand tremble, and
pressed it against his side.  "Be a plucky little wife, for my sake,"
he pleaded; and they went in.

Lilamani had an impression of a graceless figure, uncompromisingly
black, that turned as they entered, and stood still.  She heard
Nevil's voice say: "Well, Jane, here she is--the new Lady Sinclair!"
She felt a hand, harder than Audrey's, close upon her own; while
Nevil, fearing that his presence would only multiply embarrassment,
passed on to where the three elders were discussing the latest
evening paper, brought by George.

There was a moment's dead weight of silence between the two he left
behind.  Opposite as the black and white they wore, they had yet one
trait in common.  Both were too innately honest for surface
insincerities.  Lilamani--startled by the fierce flame of hate that
had leaped in her at the touch of hands--was smitten dumb; leaving
Jane, woman of the world, to hit the happy mean between rank
hypocrisy and truth.

"I'm so glad you're both really home at last," said she.  "We were
beginning to think we should never see you in the flesh!"  Her
attempt at lightness rang false; and the new Lady Sinclair's small,
polite smile was a little disconcerting.  But Jane Roscoe was not the
woman to be lightly put out of countenance.

"I suppose Nevil has shown you all round the dear old Place by this
time?" she asked conversationally.

"Yes; so much as possible in such uncomfortable kind of weather.
With sunshine it is beautiful."

Lady Roscoe nodded.  "Autumn's a bad time, of course.  Nevil should
have brought you home long ago."

"There was too much work in Italy."

"Was there?  I'm sure he could have done it just as well here.  Some
artist's fad about 'atmosphere.'  Simply an excuse.  He's
incorrigible over the Continent.  But now we've got him into his
proper place at last, we must keep him there.  We shall expect you to
use your influence!"

The soft mouth hardened ever so little.

"Best surely for--husband to do what he thinks right."

Her instinctive avoidance of Nevil's name gave an air of stiffness,
of sententiousness to her small remark; and Jane flashed out with a
touch of ungovernable asperity: "A good deal depends upon the
husband.  Some men have a convenient knack of thinking 'right' any
mortal thing they feel inclined to do at the moment."

Lilamani's brows went up a fraction of an inch.

"Have they?" she murmured with a laming indifference that effectively
tripped up the subject.

Another dead weight of silence.  Her eyes had wandered to the slim
figure on the hearth-rug, and Jane's chill antagonism was pricked to
active irritation.  What an insipid little fool the girl was!  And
why on earth had not Nevil insisted on a more decent show of
mourning?  She herself still abjured white, except at throat and
wrists.  By way of broaching the subject, she lightly fingered the
gossamer _sari_; and Lilamani needed all her self-control not to
shrink visibly from her touch.

"Very beautiful, indeed," she said, not without a shade of
condescension.  "You never wear black in India?"

"No.  Not custom.  It is too sad, and too ugly with dark skin.  So I
could only leave off from colour, though for me almost like breath of
life."

It was Lady Roscoe's turn to lift her brows.  She stigmatized all
such phrases as "artist's jargon," and supposed the child had caught
up, parrot-wise, scraps of her husband's tall talk.  She merely said:
"H'm!  I suppose you can live without it for a time--out of respect
for Nevil's loss?"

"But naturally.  What else?"  Lilamani made answer with such
transparent simplicity that again Lady Roscoe had an annoying sense
of disconcertion, of being politely set at arm's length by this mere
child, who, but for Nevil's madness, had no business to be reigning
at Bramleigh Beeches at all.

"I was suggesting thin line of black along this border," the soft
voice went on; "but--_he_ did not wish."

"H'm!" Jane remarked afresh, and on her lips that ungracious
monosyllable had an eloquence of its own.  "I can quite believe it!
He always _does_----"

But what he always did his wife never learnt; for at this point the
door opened to admit Cuthbert Broome, who came eagerly forward, his
sailor eyes agleam.

"Ah--there you are, my runaway bride of Antibes!" said he, enclosing
her hand in his great friendly grasp, while Lady Roscoe, to their
mutual relief, passed on.  "And here's my girl, Morna, dying to make
your acquaintance."

Morna Broome--tawny-haired and blue-eyed like her father--flushed up
to her eyebrows.  "It's all father's doing," said she.  "He's a great
admirer!  And his enthusiasms are so infectious."

"Yes.  That I remember well!" Lilamani answered, the morsel of ice at
her heart dissolving like magic in the geniality that breathed from
both.  "I cannot ever be thankful enough to your father for this most
beautiful summer in my first home."

She bestowed on the big man a look of melting tenderness, through
which laughter gleamed; and Broome nodded down at her, well content.
Jane, watching covertly from the hearth-rug, saw that look through
the distorting glass of prejudice; and misread it altogether.

"The harem type all over," was her thought.  "Shamming shyness with
_me_--her husband's sister.  But all smiles and sugar for a
man--though he's not one of US."

For Jane, like Aunt Julia, spoke the sacred pronoun in capitals.
To-night it was Lilamani's patent duty to ingratiate herself with
Nevil's People; and she would probably spend half the evening talking
Antibes with Broome!  Nevil should have coached her in advance.  Just
like his casual ways!

The three near the piano, joined by Christina, were soon engrossed in
easy, happy talk, the real Lilamani flashing out spontaneously, at
moments, in low laughter, and shy, playful sallies, to the further
confounding of Jane.  Nevil--after praiseworthy efforts to discuss
Egyptian unrest with Lord Roscoe--drifted irresistibly back to the
piano, leaving the five elders regnant on the hearth-rug: immemorial
throne of the British home.

Sir Robert had twice consulted his watch, a trifle ostentatiously,
when George and Phillippa sauntered in, serenely unhurried; and there
was only time for a brief introduction before Lord Roscoe offered
Lady Sinclair his arm.

Phillippa's first thought was an unconscious echo of Jane's: "The
harem type all over."  It is the brand wherewith the essential woman
is branded by an emergent minority; to which Phillippa Weston
pre-eminently belonged.  A good shot, a straight rider, and mistress
of a clear five thousand a year--she was, as Jane had written, a
"sound and satisfactory" family asset.  And if Jane's conviction plus
the thousands were, in a measure, responsible for George's fervour,
Phillippa had no inkling of the fact.  She had the modern girl's
tendency to admire her own sex; and Lady Roscoe stood scarcely second
to George in her esteem.  On one point alone were they at variance.
Jane was a passive advocate of women's right to vote; Phillippa an
active one.  But it was quite understood that the martyr's crown must
be foregone if she desired to become Mrs. George Sinclair: the which
she did as heartily as any unit of the unenlightened mass.  She was
woman enough also to note and resent the fact that George's glance
lingered unduly on his new sister-in-law, even while he gave his arm
to Morna Broome, who looked a trifle overgrown and rough-cut by
contrast.

As for Lilamani, bringing up the solemn procession on Lord Roscoe's
arm, she had thoughts for nothing but the lean, grave-eyed man, whose
over-punctilious politeness reduced her to monosyllables and murmured
platitudes; the more so because Jane, given over to Broome, walked
just ahead.

The hour that followed was one of undiluted misery for the
zenana-bred hostess of eighteen, condemned to sit through a
six-course dinner with a mixed party of strangers, who talked and
laughed incessantly while eating, and--worse still--had all of them a
covertly curious eye to their kinsman's bride.

Alone with Lord Roscoe, the veil of shyness might have been lifted.
But the noise and lights bewildered her, while Jane's proximity froze
all spontaneous speech upon her lips.  Broome--who had not the clue
to her discomfiture--did his utmost to dispel it, with small success.
Once or twice Nevil caught her eye and smiled encouragement across
leagues of chrysanthemum-decked table-cloth.  But he was so far off,
and That Terrible, with eyes that probed like gimlets, so
perturbingly near!  Lord Roscoe, scholarly and unprejudiced, had to
own himself disappointed; and Miss Sinclair, who found dear Edward's
conversation so stimulating, reaped the benefit accordingly.

It seemed as if dessert would never arrive!  But it did.  And with it
came the alarming recollection that it would be hers to make the
move, to catch Lady Margaret's eye.  From the moment the wine began
to circulate her mind became so concentrated on this achievement that
she could hardly hear what Cuthbert Broome was saying.

In the end it was Nevil who saw, and came to her rescue; and the
thing was done.  They were all filing out, the black-robed figures,
in the midst of which she gleamed like a ray of light; and Christina,
hanging back, slipped a sheltering arm round her as they went out.

George, holding the door open, smiled genially upon her; and,
returning, sat down by his brother.

"By Jove, Nevil, you've my hearty congrats!" he said under his breath.

"Thanks, old chap."

Nevil spoke without enthusiasm and glanced toward the other end of
the table.  But the elder men were discussing Sir George's cellar--an
engrossing topic; and George the younger went on, still in the same
confidential undertone: "Hindu or no, she's a jewel of the first
water.  You don't get a sight of her sort in India.  And perhaps it's
as well, for the peace of the community!  Alluring.  That's the word.
A woman all through as they still make 'em in the East; though we're
losing the art this side, worse luck."

Nevil--listening with amused indifference to the sort of comments one
expected from George--sipped his port and thought of Phillippa
Weston, who was none of these things.

But his brother's next words put indifference to flight.

"All the same, old man," he went on with a twinkle of jocose
sagacity, "when it comes to that type, the purdah has its advantages,
eh?  No risk of complications----"

Nevil straightened himself with a jerk.

"Damn your impertinence!  What the deuce do you mean?" he asked
sharply under his breath, and was grateful for a shout of laughter
from Broome.

"Oh, nothing, my dear chap, nothing."  George's tone was a
metaphorical pat on the shoulder.  "Can't you take a bit of chaff in
the right spirit?  You seem to have grown almighty touchy since your
marriage.  I'm a plain practical chap with a shrewd pair of eyes in
my head--that's all."

"Keep your shrewdness for your own affairs then."  Nevil's cooler
tone had a touch of incision, and leaving his chair he sat down near
Broome.

George, scowling across at him over the top of a lighted match,
reflected sagely that a few years with the Regiment would have done
old Nevil a power of good.  As it was, he half suspected his brother
of turning prig--most heartily hated word in the British language.
But Nevil Sinclair was neither prig nor Bayard.  He had the
fastidiousness of his temperament--and its susceptibility.  Did he
err, his heart must be involved.  It must be the woman, however
transitory.  For George the indefinite article sufficed: a radical
distinction.

Yet, in a sense, the younger brother's puzzlement was justified.  Six
months of marriage and steady work had wrought imperceptible changes
in Nevil Sinclair, as he himself was aware; though he scarcely
realized yet how much was due to the girl-wife who swayed him by the
very completeness of her submission, as only the true woman-spirit
can.  At this moment he was merely angry, and glad to be quit of
George, who--being deserted--took his own small revenge.

The opening flourish of a Chopin polonaise suggested the possibility
of quiet talk under cover of "Kit's fireworks"; and deliberately
extinguishing his cigar he went in search of amusement more congenial
than the dining-room could offer.

Phillippa, deep in shooting prospects with Jane, started and flushed
a little at her lover's entrance.  But George, incapable of finesse,
had eyes only for the thing he sought.

"Jove!  I'm in luck!" was his mental comment.  For his sister-in-law
sat alone on a settee near the grand-piano, over which Morna Broome
leaned, absorbed and envious.  Jane and Phillippa sat by the fire,
and Aunt Julia had taken Lady Margaret to her own room.

George made straight for the sofa, where Lilamani lay back with eyes
half closed, thankful for a brief respite from the need to "make
talk."  At his approach she looked up and smiled.

"I'm not disturbing you, am I?" he asked perfunctorily as he sat
down.  "And you don't mind talking a little while Kit makes that
unholy noise?"

"No," she answered untruthfully, as in duty bound; and he was content.

For a space he talked platitudes, one arm laid along the sofa-back in
casual brotherly fashion; while she murmured polite responses, seldom
raising her eyes.  Once during a softer passage in the music her
lifted hand pleaded for silence; and he sat watching her, wondering
whether, after all, he would have had Nevil's pluck when it came to
the point.  He began to believe he would.  The longer he looked at
her, the more firmly he believed it.  The conviction did not disturb
his placid affection for Phil.  It enhanced the pleasure of sitting
so close to this delicately alluring bit of femininity--that was all.
It made him want to bring a light into her eyes, colour into her
cheeks, to enforce some sort of recognition that she was talking to a
man.

Renewed crashing of chords gave him his chance.  He leaned nearer.

"Am I allowed to speak now--Lilamani?"

He paused before the name and pronounced it "Lilamarny."  She winced
and shook her head.

"Not say it that way, please."

"What way, then?  Teach me."

"Lilamani."  She spoke the word with a dainty crispness; the first
syllable slightly stressed, the second "a" almost a "u."

"It's a thundering pretty name, the way you say it," was his
masculine comment.  "And the meaning's prettier still.  Nevil told
us.  If I can't pronounce it to please you, let me call you Jewel
instead.  Comes more natural to an Englishman, and they couldn't
possibly have picked anything more appropriate."

Something in the tone, rather than the words, called up the slow,
veiled blush that had so charmed Nevil in early days.  He entered at
the moment with Broome; saw the blush, and noting his brother's
attitude, made straight for the settee.

George greeted him with imperturbable complaisance.

"We've been making friends--Lilamani and I."

"That's all right," quoth Nevil dryly; and drawing up a chair, sat
down beside his wife.

Talk languished; Christina's Polonaise crashed to its conclusion; and
George, seeing that no more blushes would be his, sauntered over to
the fire-place for consolation.  But Phillippa, on his approach,
became the more ostentatiously engrossed in Jane; and he, with a
resigned movement of the shoulders, returned to the dining-room, to
enjoy the smoke he had sacrificed, and await a probable game of
Bridge.

His last glance was not toward the fire-place but toward Nevil's
wife, whose eyes were upon her husband's face, mutely demanding was
he satisfied with his Lilamani--now?

His answering smile reassured her; though, in his heart, he felt she
had been over-successful in the wrong direction, and hoped for better
results on the morrow.




CHAPTER II

                          "Heaven's own screen
  Hides her soul's purest depth and loveliest glow;
  Closely withheld, as all things most unseen--
  The wave-bowered pearl, the heart-shaped seal of green
  That flecks the snowdrop underneath the snow."
                                                ROSSETTI.


The morrow brought its own fresh ordeal to the new Lady Sinclair;
added its own quota to the discovery, each day enforced more clearly,
that married life with Nevil, the rising artist, was one thing, and
married life with Sir Nevil Sinclair of Bramleigh Beeches, in the
stronghold of his fathers, was very much another.

Tea-time found Lilamani in the large hall presiding at the gate-leg
table over a bewildering array of Crown Derby tea-cups, and a purring
silver urn that carried its banner of steam.  More girlishly demure
than ever she seemed, in dead-white dress and _sari_ bordered with
palest grey; more "impossible" than ever also, in the opinion of the
elders, who had made an honest effort to "draw her out" by talking of
India before the kettle arrived.  Sir Robert, mildly pompous and
impersonal, had enlarged on the climate and the sport; Lord Roscoe
contributed a few polished and paralysing questions on India's
premier Native State; while Lady Margaret and Aunt Julia embarked
hopefully on the field of missionary endeavour.  A barren field, in
this case.

Not that Lilamani's answers were other than intelligent and polite.
But these Western elders, inured by now to the airy self-assurance of
their own young, felt checked and a little chilled by lowered lids
and deferential murmurs; not realising that this was her idea of
correct behaviour to the more venerable members of a husband's family.

The arrival of the kettle had been a welcome relief to all.  But soon
there would be other talk to make; fresh strangers to encounter.
Nevil and Christina had driven out to meet the new-comers; rank
Bohemians both; peculiarly distasteful to Jane.  Morna and her
father, after a short turn with Lilamani, had wandered on through the
burnished glories of the beech-wood.  George and Phil had gone for a
ride.  There had been a slight coolness between them all the morning,
much of which George had contrived to spend in Lilamani's
neighbourhood.  But fresh air and exercise readjusted things; and on
their return, the drive being empty, he had lifted his _fiancée_ out
of the saddle and kissed her soundly, on the lips.

"Oh--George!" she murmured, as he released her.  But he had turned
aside and was opening the front door.

It was George's way of making love.  Little of tenderness in speech
or tone; only an occasional kiss, half passionate, half shamefaced,
when heart or senses were stirred.  Phillippa did not altogether
approve.  But she wanted George--for several reasons; and one could
not accept a man piecemeal.

It was not so easy to accept his instant gravitation to the "harem
child" on entering the hall.  Mere masculine instinct, she assured
herself; and bore Nevil a grudge for giving him a chance to gratify
it.  But he had not gratified it for many minutes before wheels and a
stir outside announced Nevil and his friends.

Lilamani braced herself for renewed "inspection"; and her young
vanity craved the more distinctive setting of mother-o'-pearl or
almond-blossom _sari_; the golden gleam or armlets, belt and shoes.
She wearied of this eternal white and grey.  Its insipidity seemed to
infect her soul; its----

"Lilamani--here is Miss de Winton."

Nevil's voice roused her.  She started; smiled obediently, and held
out her hand.  It was retained for a second or more while its owner
regarded her leisurely out of long, level-lidded eyes.

"This is a great moment, Lady Sinclair," said Leslie de Winton in a
full contralto as leisurely as her gaze.  "I've been counting the
days and the hours ever since the invite came.  I've known this Nevil
of yours"--she grasped his arm--"how many years is it, old boy?"

He shrugged and laughed.  "I'm weak at arithmetic!  And I've lived a
lifetime this summer."

"Well--we'll say a lifetime then!"  Her eyes seemed reluctant to
leave his face.  "'We were boys together,' like Mr. and Mrs. Alphonso
Browne!  And I couldn't induce myself to believe in Nevil's _wife_
till I'd seen her in the flesh."

Lilamani had no immediate answer at command.  Something in the look
and tone of this mere stranger--little more than Audrey's age--who
laid hands on her man and called him "old boy" fired her with a hot
rush of anger.  But she kept her gaze steady, lest hesitation be
deemed shyness, and a delicate shade of sarcasm lurked in her
question: "Perhaps you are a little more able for believing it now?"

Miss de Winton, vaguely aware of something amiss, turned it off with
a laugh.  "Why, yes.  Very much so!  But even now, I can't manage to
believe in those pictures!  The Nevil _I_ know could never have
achieved the amount; let alone the unique subject."  Again her eyes
dwelt upon him with their odd look of veiled power.  "It seems that I
am here to meet a new Nevil as well as a new wife!  But I beg your
pardon, Noll"---this to Norris.  "It's your turn now.  Once _I_ get
into the middle of the stage I'm rather apt to stay there unless some
one kindly pushes me aside!"

Still unhurried, she moved on her way, shaking hands and talking in
the strong, deliberate voice that was almost a drawl; while Lilamani,
only half appeased, must endure the scrutiny of eyes the more
embarrassing that they were masculine, prominent and boldly
appreciative, under rough, irritable brows.  But for Norris the
drawing-room and the tea-table were unfamiliar mediums--"not being a
placard-painter," was his own explanation; and he had no platitudes
at command.

Having covered his small hostess with confusion by a look that
comprised her from caste-mark to shoe-buckle, he announced bluntly:
"Strikes me, Lady Sinclair, that you came over from India expressly
to do this lucky husband of yours a double service.  He's just the
Fate-favoured type that would get all the plums dropped into his
mouth, without any prelude of starving and agonizing such as we poor
devils have to grind through first----"

"Well, you shan't starve and agonize under my roof, old chap!" Nevil
interposed promptly, seeing that the speech was quite beyond his
wife's power to answer.

He would fain have set her at ease by a tender word or two, a hand on
her shoulder; but that he knew too well by this time how all her
"Hindu-ness" shrank from the lightest revealing of their hearts
before others.

"Give this ill-used pair some tea, Lilamani!" was all he could say.
"Unless you'd prefer drinks and cigarettes in the studio, Norris?"

No.  They voted for tea.  But Miss de Winton smoked a cigarette with
hers, and flicked her ash about the carpet, to Aunt Julia's amaze and
Jane's unspeakable disgust.

The family dispersed more or less during the interlude; and the
moment tea-drinking was over Leslie de Winton rose.

"Now then, Nevil, I'm in a most egregious hurry to be convinced of
the existence of these myths!"

"You look it!" said he, surveying with a smile her lazy length, that
held the same kind of power as her eyes.  "You'll tear me into
ribbons between you.  But you're more than welcome----"

He motioned her to the door; and as they went forward, he lingered a
moment to lean over his wife's chair.

"Aren't you coming too, Jewel of Delight?"

"Not now--please," she answered, and her eyes clung to his for one
appealing instant.

But as soon as he was gone, she lay back and closed them, simulating
weariness as a cloak for vague trouble and bewilderment of soul.
Weeks of monopoly had made the studio dear and sacred almost as her
shrine.  It was one thing to admit Christina, who was "Nevil in a
girl."  But to share it with strangers--the one, too openly intimate
with him; the other too likely to persecute her with his eyes, in the
fashion of M. Leseppes--was more than she would willingly endure.  It
began to dawn upon her that this trouble of the way men looked at you
must be an inevitable phase of unveiled life: a phase that made her
long for the cloistered shelter of the Inside as nothing else had
done yet.  Even George, brother and promised husband, was not above
reproach.

And to-day--fresh perturbation on her lord's account.  If it were
_dastur_ that the free women of England should behave with the
husband of another as this bold-mannered one behaved with
hers--Lilamani's, then, better a thousand times that wife should be
shut away where she might not feel the poison-pricks of
jealousy--fierce and primitive in this gentle creature even as her
hate.  But of what use to consider advantages?  The unveiled life was
of her own choosing; and must be accepted, good with ill.

At this point the insistent murmur of voices tangled her thread of
thought.  The room had fallen very still.  All who remained were
occupied with pen or book.  Only those voices came from the fireside,
where Jane and Aunt Julia discussed the recent misfortunes and
follies of a poor relation, Clara by name.  She lived, it seemed, at
a place called Gunnersbury, where rooms were few and small; and
servants either were not, or did little to earn their wages; since
this Clara appeared to have "everything on her hands" from cooking to
making the children's clothes, which she did badly enough, according
to Jane.  For there were children also in this abode of dinginess and
small space.  That one word enchained Lilamani's attention; and a
vision of children, who were also relations, redeemed the sordid
picture.  One had been ill.  So had Clara herself.  They spoke of the
ill one as "Nevil," and Lilamani's heart contracted.  It was her
foolish thought that no living woman, save herself, could be mother
of a man-child and call his name Nevil.  But the fact, though
disconcerting, quickened her sympathy for one so blest yet so
ill-fated.  She listened eagerly.  Aunt Julia was speaking now.

"Of course, dear, one _knows_ her capacity for muddling things almost
amounts to genius.  But then--these illnesses, with her income!  And
after all, she _is_ poor dear Richard's widow----"

"Which means you've been sending her another cheque.  Aunt Ju, you're
incorrigible!"

Disapproval lurked in Jane's half-playful remonstrance; and a hint of
apology in Miss Sinclair's reply.

"Only five pounds, dear, to help her take the child to St. Leonard's.
But the money has melted; and they've never been.  There were
difficulties----"

"There always are.  There always would be, with Clara, if she had a
thousand a year!"  This from Jane, with her touch of asperity.
"She's one of the patently unfit.  And really, Aunt Ju, you make
things worse by pauperizing her.  She knows quite well that whenever
a tight corner comes, a cheque will drop out of the sky.  If she
didn't, she might at least try to make some sort of provision for bad
times like these."

Lady Roscoe had never troubled herself to discover by a simple sum of
arithmetic what manner of provision for emergencies could be achieved
by a woman of gentle birth, doomed to feed, dress, and educate four
children on a bare two hundred a year.  Hers was the supreme handicap
of the unimaginative: utter inability to see life through other eyes
than her own.

Miss Sinclair, softer of heart and conscience, could only reiterate
her unanswerable argument: "After all, my dear, she is poor Richard's
widow."

And "Richard" having been first cousin to Sir George--though only a
degree less unfit than his wife--Jane could but acquiesce, and change
the subject; which spoilt everything.  Lilamani wanted to hear more,
or be left in peace to think of this unknown "Clara"; this woman of
her husband's family, who lacked space and money, and even food,
while she and Nevil were overburdened with useless servants, empty
rooms and more than sufficient money to fulfil their needs.  For
Nevil had said little to her of his own inability to make ends meet.
As head of the family, surely his duty was clear.  If relations were
in need or sickness, their place was at Bramleigh Beeches.  That was
her Eastern view.  For in India organized charity is not.  Each
family group is more or less responsible for its own.  Possibly Nevil
had not heard, or did not realize.  Children in the house--young
children!  Her woman's heart thrilled at the prospect.  Rising
quietly she slipped out of the room, and ran up to the Tower, that
she might think things out in her shrine.  But she reckoned without
Nevil's quick ears and keen desire of her.

At the sound of her light step without, he opened the studio door.

"Come and join the private view, Lilamani," said he.  "The pictures
are as much yours as mine.  And so I've told them!"

"However much you are telling it, they will never believe such
foolishness!" she made answer, laughing; reluctance dispelled by his
tribute.

"I'm not sure of _that_, Lady Sinclair," quoth Norris, regarding,
with quickened interest, her girlish outlines of face and figure.
"Personally, I'm inclined to score under the polite remark I achieved
downstairs!  This scene in particular, Sinclair, stamps you--places
you even more than the rest."  He flung a declamatory hand towards
the easel, where Nevil had just set up Sita in the Asoka Garden, with
its grimly suggestive background of fiends vigilant, and its
foreground of delicate beauty veiled and blurred with grief, as the
face of the moon by passing clouds.  "No man of our school could have
resisted such a chance--and the abduction gave you another--of making
your thrill the wrong way round.  Even a touch of bestiality wouldn't
have been amiss.  Degenerate or no, there's a certain chill down the
spine producible by vigorous, remorseless handling of the hideous
that leaves the more commonplace appeal to beauty miles behind."

For a moment, Nevil considered the matter, and his canvas; then shook
his head.

"I find more than enough of ugliness and terror in both scenes," said
he.

"Quite so.  You're not Leseppes 'god-son' for nothing.  But for all
he's left his mark on your work, you've the reticence, the delicacy
and mellow sanity of an older school.  You're not afraid of
simplicity; and it's clear you believe in beauty all along the line."

"Yes, thank God, I do."  Nevil glanced involuntarily at his wife.  "I
hope no school or movement or 'ism' will ever tempt me into deifying
the ugly and abnormal, even for the sake of your chill down the
spine!"

Norris laughed.  "For ever and ever.  Amen!  Eh?  Wait till you've
seen Leslie's latest.  But I doff my hat to the rising apostle of
sanity!  I can still admire work on your lines when--and only
when--it bears the clear stamp of personal vision, in addition to
such notable brushwork and force of colour.  Yes, my dear chap, in
spite of your confounded healthiness, I believe you'll do!  But as
I've leave to quarrel with a thing or two--look here----"

And securing the "apostle of sanity" by the arm he launched into a
tangle of minor technicalities that swept the talk far above
Lilamani's head.

Leslie de Winton, noting this, drew her aside.

"Let them wrangle it out between them, Lady Sinclair," said she.  "I
want to hear something more about this magical Epic, that seems to
have fired your husband as I've never seen him fired yet.  One knew
the name, of course; and Nevil has given us the bare bones of the
story.  What a big conglomerate thing it is!  And what an
uncomfortably high standard of wifehood it reveals.  Thank heaven,
our men don't set us on such heroic pedestals in these days!  And I
suppose even Indian ideals have come a shade nearer to earth in the
last thousand years or so?"

Lilamani, half puzzled, half repelled, could only shake her head.

"I don't quite know your meaning about nearer to earth.  Of course it
is difficult, always, for those not heroine-made to climb to such a
height.  But Sita is still ideal for all true Indian wives to-day."

"Poor misguided souls!"  The Englishwoman's genuine dismay set
Lilamani smiling in spite of herself.

"Not so misguided, nor so hardship as you think," said she.

"Not hardship?  My dear Lady Sinclair!  To be condemned to worship a
very fallible and human husband as god?  _I_ should say insult would
be nearer the mark!"

The daughter of Rajputs frowned.

"It is not 'condemned,' nor insult," she said, with a touch of heat.
"It is by nature, by religion----"

"Then it's high time nature and religion tried a change of programme!
Rare luck for you, isn't it, marrying into a saner and more
reasonable state of things?"

"I?  How you mean?  No difference with me.  I am still Hindu.  You
think by change of name and country the soul can change beliefs,
ideals, as if like clothes."

"I'm afraid I didn't think.  But then--good Lord----"  The incredible
conclusion dawned on her.  "You don't mean to tell me that Nevil
is--that if Nevil were to----"

"Please not say any more," Lilamani broke in hurriedly, the hot blood
surging into her face.  "It is not--I am not able for discussing so
sacred subject ... with strangers----"

To hide her confusion and check further speech she turned abruptly
toward the window; and Leslie de Winton's sallow face changed colour.
She was sorry to have trespassed on this quaint child's preserves:
but irrespressible amusement narrowed her eyes.  Nevil--most casual
and unheroic of men, whom no one but herself had ever seemed to take
quite seriously till now--

He turned at the moment, caught her smiling, and inquired innocently:
"What's the joke?"

"You are!" she answered, stepping closer and lowering her voice.
"You'll soon be invisible to us earth-worms--the rate you're going
up.  A baronet; a budding R.A.; and now I find that mere marriage has
exalted you into a 'sacred subject'!"

"Oh, hang it, Les.  Shut up."  Nevil frowned sharply and glanced at
his wife's figure in the window.  "It's not me.  You don't
understand."

Low as he spoke, Lilamani caught the words and the "small name" that
hurt her like a blow.  How little it might imply she did not stay to
consider.  She hated its owner; and was racking her brain for a
polite means of escape, when the leisurely voice remarked: "Well, so
long, Nevil.  It's good to be here again.  I must go now and
uncrumple my evening dress."

To Lilamani it seemed a miracle wrought in her favour.  It did not
strike her that an exchange of glances had sufficed; and that Leslie
had carried off the bewildered Norris by force, to explain "the joke"
in her own ribald fashion, outside.  She only knew, with a lift of
the heart, that they were gone.  What matter how?  She only stood
waiting, with young intensity of expectation, for the beloved
footstep, the beloved arm round her body.

And when these came, quietly, without speech, in the English fashion
she had learnt to love, she turned swiftly and hid her burning face
in the roughness of his coat.

He gave her a minute or so to recover herself, his left hand pressing
her head against its shelter.

Then:

"You must make allowances, little one," he said, "if some of them
_do_ trample unawares on your holy ground.  The sanctities are out of
fashion here, nowadays.  But Leslie's a good sort.  She meant no
harm."

"Is she--cousin, that you call her by that private name?" came the
muffled voice, shifting the issue in a manner so purely feminine that
the man smiled and pressed her closer.

"No.  She's no connection.  But we're very good friends.  She's bound
to be here pretty often; and I want you to like her.  She's a very
clever artist--and quite a good sort really," he repeated, feeling
the movement of negation under his hand.

Her speech confirmed it.

"'Good sort' your Lilamani doesn't know.  She is horrid woman.
Profane woman.  Not worthy for having a husband--or--or sons--ever!"

It was her supremest malediction, as Nevil knew by now.

"Poor Leslie!" said he, and his eyes grew soft with a passing memory.
"Worthy or not, the odds are against her having either--now."

He did not feel bound to add that at one time she had openly aspired
to become the future Lady Sinclair.  Even with the dear head against
his breast he had a momentary qualm in realizing that but for a
timely separation, at a critical juncture, his house of marriage
would have been builded upon sand and this pearl of womanhood would
never have been his.  Leslie, with her strong irregular features,
lithe body, and hint of power in reserve, had fascinated him
mentally, to the verge of obsession.  She fascinated him still.  But
this flower of the East, this very woman compact of fire and dew,
held every fraction of him prisoner in her softly-clinging hands.

"She mustn't be a hard-judging, narrow-minded Lilamani," he reproved
her in all gentleness.  "And she mustn't make foolishness about the
'private name!'  You didn't mind it with Audrey.  She's no cousin
either."

"No.  Yet not the same with her.  I can't tell--I feel----"  She
lifted her head in the effort to crystallize vague yet unerring
intuitions; and Broome's voice sounded at the door.

"You there, Nevil?"

Sinclair glanced at his wife.

"Yes--yes.  Him I love!" she whispered, freeing herself from his arm.

"Come on, old man," Nevil called out; adding, as the novelist
entered: "Here's an honour that you dreamt not of.  Lady Sinclair
loves you!"

"Oh, Nevil!  I didn't mean--how trouble you are!" she cried, in a
pretty flutter of embarrassment; and Broome, with genuine pleasure in
his eyes:

"Don't spoil such a charming confession, my dear.  I heartily return
the compliment."

Then, with one of those touches of the Southerner that so well became
him, he lifted her hand to his lips.

"I came to say," he went on, beaming at his astonished host, "that
Christina and Morna are having quite a concert in the drawing-room.
My infant sings rather nicely.  She's shy of performing after dinner,
as yet.  But I'd like you to hear her, if you've done with each other
_pro tem_."

Lady Sinclair crumpled her brow over that last.

"_Pro tem_?  That is what Audrey was calling something in the food."

Nevil burst out laughing.  "Proteids!  Not half a bad shot!  Poor old
Audrey's teaching didn't leave much of a mark."

"A girl to be reckoned with, though.  Character enough for two!"
Broome remarked with a twinkle, recalling the day of the storm.
"Heard anything of her since Antibes?"

"Yes.  She's in Scotland with her people.  We've asked her to look us
up when she comes in this direction."

He opened the door for his wife in speaking, and they went out.




CHAPTER III

  "Yet we are one;--
  One is the perfect sense of Eastern meaning:--
  Gold and the bracelet, water and the wave."
                                        LAURENCE HOPE.


Dinner that night was something less of an ordeal; though it would be
long before this puzzling fashion of entertainment could be anything
but distasteful to Lilamani Sinclair.  Lord Roscoe seemed a shade
less formidable; and in the drawing-room Jane made an honest effort
at friendly talk with Nevil's wife.  But not all that wife's devotion
could impel her to genuine response.  Wax in the hands of those she
loved, Lilamani had yet her share of the fighting spirit and fierce
pride of her race, that leaped in flame at every word or look from
this condescendingly dutiful sister of her husband, in whose heart
were poisoned arrows and a sharp sword.  So the effort proved barren
of result; and Jane, having done her duty, reverted to the faithful
Phil.

Again there was music for the younger ones; Bridge for the elders;
and clumsy attentions from George, whom she smiled upon sweetly as "a
brother."  But through it all she was acutely aware of Leslie de
Winton's tall figure in its elaborately simple grey-green sheath;
seldom far from Nevil's elbow.  Some lightning instinct whispered
that here was only the mask of friendship; and every time the
deliberate gaze rested on her lord's face, or the deliberate voice
"took his name," Lilamani's heart burned with a murderous resentment,
for which no one present would have given her credit; least of all
her husband, who believed he knew her by now.  And there was trouble
with Norris' eyes.  Not such barefaced persecution as that of M.
Leseppes; but sufficient to make this child of seclusion feel
strangely unsheltered and defenceless, even under her husband's roof,
shrine of all the sanctities to an Indian wife.

Altogether it was a time of puzzling complexities and strange
discoveries, that interminable week-end; the forerunner of many such.
That was the worst of it.  Nevil had explained that, at least while
shooting lasted, "the clan" regarded the week-end at Bramleigh
Beeches as its due; and little Lady Sinclair, with never a germ of
social or sporting instinct in her composition, must needs adapt
herself to a sacred form of ritual that seemed to take the place of
religion in the West.  There were moments of pure enjoyment with
Christina and Morna, or Broome; moments of half-fearful pleasure with
the over-appreciative George; and one blessed escape to tea with
Helen Despard, she and Christina alone.  Yet it was with unfeigned
relief that she received the last handshake; the last kiss on her
cheek.

They were gone--all gone!  It was as if a ton-weight fell from her
shoulders.  Christina would return in a few days to say good-bye.  In
the meantime, tea in the studio, and Nevil all to herself for hours
and hours!  He too was relieved.  She felt it in the air; though she
did not divine that at least a part of his relief was due to the fact
that she had not produced quite the effect he had hoped for.  He made
every allowance for difficulties no Englishman could fully
understand.  But he had sincerely hoped "things would go better next
time."

As for her, she wanted to forget that next time would ever come.  She
also wanted to talk of Clara, whose story, in outline, she had drawn
from Aunt Julia: a sordid, commonplace story of one of the world's
poor things, foredoomed to go under in the struggle for life.
Richard Sinclair, it seemed, had been an idle good-for-nothing.
Truth compelled Aunt Julia to admit the damning fact; while loyalty
prompted her to regret, in the same breath, that everyone noticed his
unfortunate likeness to his mother!  He had died--two years
ago--leaving his second wife in genteel poverty, with a young stepson
and four children of her own.  A feckless creature, it seemed, always
ailing; but devoted to the children; and the new niece's evident
sympathy had gone far to win Aunt Julia's heart.

Now--tea being over, and she, crouched on her low stool, arms resting
on his knees, while he smoked, the cherished plan found utterance.
Had he heard?  Had he realized?  Those others that he had invited
were well-provided as themselves.  But this poor woman, widow of
blood-relation, mother of sons, sick, in trouble ... and they, with
so many empty rooms----

She broke off uncertainly, for Nevil had opened his eyes.

"My dear little wife--what are you driving at?  D'you want 'em all
_here_?"

Her smile, tremulously pitiful, was a lovely thing to see.

"I thought ... only natural, like in India--when you knew there was
trouble----"

"But there always is trouble in Clara's direction.  I'm awfully sorry
for her, poor soul; and I'd be glad to give her a helping hand,
though hardly to the extent of turning Bramleigh Beeches into a
_crêche_, overrun with unruly children----!"

Something in his tone brought her heart into her throat.

"Are you not caring very much--for children?" she asked, moving one
hand nervously up and down his knee.

He covered it with his own.  "Of course I'm fond of children.  Most
decent men are.  But Clara's are a harum-scarum lot.  She has as
little control over them as over anything else.  And what would the
great Mrs. Lunn say to such an invasion?"

The soft mouth took a line of decision: but Lilamani had to swallow
before she could speak.  The dimmest sense of disappointment in
him--her idol, was hard to bear.

"The house is belonging for you, not for Mrs. Lunn," she said,
looking intently at the long fine hand on his knee.  "And--he is
ill--that littlest one called by your name.  Aunt Julia was sending
money for a place called St. Leonard's.  But one cannot go without
all.  Oh, Nevil!" she looked up eagerly confident--"How easy to send
money for all!  You have so much----"

He looked deep into her eyes before replying.  Her appealing beauty
of soul and flesh moved him more, it is to be feared, than Clara's
need.

"I haven't 'so much.'  That's the difficulty.  This great house with
all its staff and hundreds of acres doesn't mean untold wealth
rolling in to keep it going.  It may sound queer to you, but I'm
almost as hard put to it as Clara to make ends meet."

"Oh, Nevil--dear lord!  But why then--have all these ... wealthy ones
... not in trouble?"

"That's a riddle not to be answered off-hand, little wife!  It would
take a deal of explaining; and I wanted if possible to shield you
from all contact with the sordid struggle between ways and means.  To
you money is nothing more than a name; and I should prefer to keep it
so as long as may be.  But you're such a stern moralist, you creature
of sweetness and light!  So imbued with the logic of your race that
it might save friction and misunderstanding if I make my position
clear once for all.  Only you must have patience with dull talk and
ugly words!"

At that, she drew herself up radiantly elate.  Here was privilege
indeed!  So rarely is an Indian wife admitted to a share in the
masculine side of her lord's existence; at least until she be mother
as well.

"No need for patience.  I am proud with all my soul that you are
wishing me to share.  I know I am stupid for such things.  But I will
try to understand."

It was not so easy, strive as she might.  For a quarter of an hour
and more his quiet voice flowed on, leaving a very mixed train of
impressions in its wake.  The mortgage bewildered her beyond measure.
She saw it as an actual bogey, to be propitiated by means of money
doled out at intervals; a bogey that he might be rid of in time if
his pictures "caught on."  She understood his wish to try to keep
things going in the old way, for the sake of family honour, and that
sentence in his father's last letter.  She began to understand also
that there is no family system in England, as in India; no great
nexus of responsibility, which obviates the need for workhouse and
orphanage, since none of the blood can look for support in vain.

But one discrepancy puzzled her; and when all was said, she drew his
attention to it, not without hesitancy.

"Lord of me--you are seeming to forget ... there is my dowry also.
Not small.  Though how much, you know better than I----"

"Your dowry?  But my dear, it's your own, always and altogether.  Do
you suppose I would use it to keep up the estate or help my poor
relations out of the ditch they have dug for themselves?  I hope I'm
man enough to win through my own muddles, without coming down on you."

It took her a second or so to grasp his masculine and very British
point of view; then she challenged it straightway with her Asiatic
logic.

"Oh Nevil--dearest, what a foolishness!  Forgive me for saying that.
But think only--can there be any of me altogether my own when every
part is belonging to my lord, for this life and all lives to come?"
Lightly touching head and feet, she indicated the completeness of his
dominion.  "All great things, real things--life and body and
heart--you let me give without making this trouble of mine and thine.
How then talk of holding back so small a thing, like money.  That
your Lilamani will never understand if you explain up to night-time."

"Then my Lilamani must accept it without understanding!" said he,
drawing her close against him, till head touched head.

Still she shook her own with gentle obstinacy.  "It is foolishness
between wife and husband, this pretending of thine and mine;
especially when there is trouble."  Then her logic triumphed afresh.
"But Nevil--if mine, I can give where I please; even to relation of
yours.  For that you cannot refuse permission!"

He could not; and he gave it straightway, in the fashion she loved
best.

"But look here, darling," said he, when their lips were free for
speech.  "Unless I keep some sort of check on you, you'll be flinging
away the lot.  So listen to me and be sensible.  We'll send her a
cheque between us--say twenty pounds.  That will give them all a
month at the sea and help square the doctor.  Will that suit you,
Lady Sinclair?"

She nodded, beaming, and clapping her hands without sound.

"That is beautiful!  And after----?  Can they not come here ... ever?"

"Why, yes.  For a visit.  If you're so keen."

"I want ... oh, I want to hold that man-child ... called of your name
... in my arms," she whispered, a thrill in her low voice.  "You said
there must be family party for Christmas; and that is your feast for
worship of children.  Could it not be then?"

"M--yes.  A bit of a crowd.  But still--anything to please you.  By
the way, Ronald, the stepson--he's a good-looking boy of
twenty--wouldn't make half a bad model for Rāma.  I believe
my father had some scheme about training him up as agent to take
Thornbrook's place.  We'll have him down one week-end and see."

So the matter was settled, and the letter written; Lilamani leaning
over her husband's shoulder while he filled in the magic paper that
stood for twenty golden pounds, ten of them her own.  Not until next
morning was Nevil tripped up by the question--what would happen when
these unconstitutional doings should reach the ears of Jane?




CHAPTER IV

  "There is a bitter drop in the cup of the best love."
                                                NIETZSCHE.


It was a clear morning of sharp, white frost; the first of the year.
Lilamani's spirit sprang out of sleep with a sense of being suddenly
very much awake.  The window of the large old-fashioned bedroom stood
wide.  Nevil had all the strong young Englishman's faith in fresh
air.  And through the opening his wife caught a glimpse of tree-tops
dazzlingly arrayed.  Even lying in bed she was conscious of a new nip
in the air.

Curiosity at this rare sense of alertness tempted her to creep out of
bed--very gently, so as not to disturb her lord.  Slipping into her
quilted dressing-gown, she stood looking down at him in a rapt
adoration, undimmed by the manifold disappointments and difficulties
of this bewildering English fashion of life.  And the five weeks that
had elapsed since that first coming of the clan had held their full
share of both for husband and wife.

Three more week-end parties, each bearing a strong family likeness to
the first, had come and gone; and Nevil's confident hope that "things
would go better next time" had been scantily fulfilled.  His own
flexible nature had responded readily to the wholesome reaction from
six months of secluded, unswerving dedication to the twin lodestars
of his being--art and the woman.  For the moment, at least, he was
thoroughly enjoying his first taste of dispensing hospitality under
his own roof, and naturally desirous that the woman of his heart
should shine in the eyes of others even as in his own.  This, in a
limited measure, she did.  Her cool, perfumed apartness and
unmistakable high breeding gave to her beauty a distinctive quality
that men were quick to approve; though the women, with one or two
notable exceptions, were apt to label her "insipid" or "impossible":
the last, an unconscious tribute to her clear-eyed insistence on
essentials, which they believed themselves to have outgrown.  Thus
she still remained over-successful in the wrong direction and still
shrank from strange human beings in the mass, especially at
food-time.  More than all, her own enforced prominence--so unbecoming
in a young wife--distressed her soul and made her seeming shyness the
harder to overcome.

It is difficult for the West to understand the Eastern woman's
complete lack of social instinct; difficult also for a race inured to
the arrogant pre-eminence of its youth to realize how slowly, yet how
surely, she of the _purdah_ comes to her own: and it did not occur to
Nevil Sinclair that in these early days of marriage his young wife
felt herself more or less in her novitiate, one who must walk humbly
and possess herself in patience till the great consummation was hers.
But the consummation came not: and once again the haunting fear crept
in lest he regard her as a failure in respect of the supreme gift.

For the first few weeks his sympathy, with her fish-out-of-water
sense, had been unfailing.  But of late she had detected an
occasional undernote of irritation; and could but decipher his moods
by the light of her own lamp.  Only last night something had seemed
to vex him; and on her venturing to ask what was amiss, he had
answered with a touch of weariness: "Oh, nothing, of any consequence.
Things will right themselves in time."  Fervently she prayed that
this steadfast conviction of his might be fulfilled, while yet
remaining far from a clear understanding of all that fulfilment
implied.

In her view one event alone would work the miracle without fail.  And
now, standing at the bedside, lost in worship of the beloved
face--the vigorous brow, straight nose and tender mouth with its
endearing touch of the woman--pain and bewilderment gave place to the
rapturous certainty that some day, some day the son who should bear
his name and nature would lie warm against her breast.  And on that
day things would right themselves once for all.

One hand lay uncovered on the pillow.  Holding her breath, she
touched it lightly with her lips; then sped to the window, dread of
cold forgotten in the new wonder that met her gaze.

Out there, in the blue-grey dusk of dawn, the familiar garden lay
translated.  A world of enchantment--all crystal-white, pencilled and
stippled with delicate shadows, grey and sepia and black.  No leaf or
grass-blade, twig or pine-needle but wore its fairy garb of frozen
dew.  Crisp brown beech-leaves were silver-edged, and a group of
young birches reared plumes of diamond-dust against the pallor beyond.

A real, visible awakening of earth and sky had become almost an event
in the procession of tearful days that was called November: and
sudden longing seized her to escape, as a bird from its cage; to
stand alone in the midst of that enchanted world at the moment when
it would flash into many-coloured laughter at the kiss of the sun.  A
childish spirit of adventure stirred her pulses.  She would go.  They
might think what they pleased: "they" being Jane and George and Phil.
For it was Saturday, and a select party of "guns" had assembled for
three days' pheasant-shooting.

It took no time to slip noiselessly into her clothes, crowning all
with fur-lined cloak and hood, and a high, dainty pair of snow-boots,
the only form of boot she could endure to wear.  A cup of tea, made
in her shrine, fortified her against the cold.  Then she flew down
and out, unmindful of amazed glances from the second housemaid, who
was shaking out the hall mat.

The garden slept in silver, softly still.  But the moment of
awakening was near.  Once outside, the novelty of it all and the pure
joy of freedom lured her on.  She craved the wide spaces of the moor,
the scrunch of frozen heather underfoot.  A short cut up through the
pine plantation soon brought her out into the open; eyes alight and
blood astir with rapid movement.  Stepping to the edge, she sat her
down upon a rock overlooking the valley where Bramleigh nestled; grey
church tower and groups of dull red cottages only half awake, their
trailed pennons of smoke tilted southward by a light breath from the
north.  Plunged knee-deep in misty hollows, the pine woods on the
farther rise stood dreaming, their sharp tops fretted upon a toneless
sky, that only at its zenith achieved a hint of blue.

Still as any tree among them all sat the lone small figure in the
purple cloak, while behind those dreaming woods the benign smile of
morning grew wide and wider.  Quietly, without pomp and flare of
cloud-pageant, the God of Light slipped up over the edge of the
world.  Trillions of diamond-sparkles from furred ling and gorse
flashed back the mild light of him.  And it was day.

Lilamani sat on, yogi-fashion, letting that mild light baptize her
also and chase away the greyness that had entered into her very soul.
Even on this wonder-morning of fairy raiment and keen sweet air she
was aware of something lacking; of stirrings deep down in her
primitive, passionate nature that found no response in this gentle
dimplement of moor and field; these half-tones and blurred outlines;
this pastoral, emotionless peace.  Her Eastern soul craved colours
more vivid, stronger lights and shadows, a Nature more fiercely,
radiantly athrob with the pulse of life.  The memory of a certain
blazing Egyptian sunset--crimson-red as though the heart of heaven
were laid bare--smote her almost with a pang.  Here in England the
heart of all things, and even of most humans, lay hid so deep, that
at times she dared to wonder was it there at all.

Loyalty might refuse to admit the fact; but, in truth, the whole
atmosphere of her husband's country--that she had so ardently desired
to love for his sake--chilled and repressed her sensitive spirit,
that had blossomed in the sunshine and close comradeship of Italy.
There the essentials had been their bread and wine of life.  Here
non-essentials triumphed; and she, having small talent for these,
began to feel herself a futile, ineffectual thing beside these
vigorous Englishwomen who could carry guns, talk politics,
literature, art with fluent ease, and treat their men-folk with scant
respect.  Was it possible that he would ever feel the same----?

The desolating question produced a physical shiver; a reminder that
in her absorption she had sat still too long.  The warmth of walking
had subsided.  Hands and feet were bitter cold.  Foolishness again!
She ought not to have sat down at all.  For the last few days there
had been uncomfortable symptoms, and Nevil had feared she was "in for
a cold," that distressing and unbecoming ailment which seemed almost
as persistent a feature of English life as the rain.  Now he would be
vexed again; the more so because she had forgotten that breakfast was
earlier on shooting days.

Luckless Lilamani!  A fit of sneezing shook her.  She ran across the
open to regain her lost warmth; and on reaching the pine plantation
entered a new realm of faery delicately aquiver with sun-smitten
mist; the breathing of earth made visible, like her own, by the chill
air.  Bathed in it, the slender pine-stems showed almost black, their
eastward rims painted clear golden, their shadows barring the ground,
where moss-cushions gleamed like great emeralds dropped by Sita in
her flight.  And at intervals, through the stillness came the soft
flutter and rush of a breakfast-hunting bird.  Hard not to linger and
worship afresh; but duty lent wings to her feet: and she sped on.


They were all in the dining-room when she entered--flushed, and a
little short of breath.  Jane had made tea and was dispensing it.
Lord Roscoe stood over the fire, airing _The Times_.  George and Phil
were discussing the merits of a new gun she had given him.  Young
Ronald Sinclair and Captain Shadwell of George's regiment were
helping themselves at the sideboard.

A polite murmur greeted her appearance, and Nevil shook his head at
her without severity.  "Not a very wise Lilamani!" he whispered, as
she slipped past him to take her rightful place.

Jane, resigning the tea-pot with reluctance, muttered pessimistically
of pneumonia and advised ammoniated quinine.

"_Much_ more sensible if you drove out to lunch with the guns instead
of running about alone at unearthly hours," she concluded sagely.

"Yes--perhaps," murmured the gently persistent renegade with a
half-smile at the characteristic remark.  "Sensible" was the keyword
of Jane, even as health was the keyword of Audrey, and _dastur_ of
Mataji.  But at thought of Mataji, her heart contracted strangely;
and she forced herself to join in the general talk.

Breakfast over, there was bustle of departure, and a few seconds
alone with Nevil in the dining-room.  He was not vexed, it seemed.
But if anything, a shade more tender than usual.

"Take good care of yourself, little girl," he said, kissing her.
"Don't mope.  And you might do worse than try that quinine!"

"Very well; if you wish," she agreed meekly; conscious of burning
eyeballs and rasping throat.

In the large hall Ronald Sinclair contrived a parting word with her.
It was not his first visit, and she had a sisterly affection for the
boy, strengthened by the fact that an occasional turn of the head and
shoulders recalled her husband.  Wasn't she coming out to lunch, and
wasn't she well? he asked with frank, boyish dismay.  How rotten!  It
would just spoil everything.  But he daresayed he'd get back early.
"I'm not much of a hand at shooting," he added by way of excuse.
"And I'd far sooner have a quiet talk with you."

"I would like it also," she agreed, smiling, unaware of the vigilant
eyes of Jane, who had already noted and resented her disturbing
effect even upon the sound and satisfactory George.  Now it was to be
Ronald Sinclair.  Really Nevil was a fool!  Further proof of it had
lately come to her ears.  For the past few weeks she had been too
busy organizing an Emigration League and shooting the pheasants of
political friends to keep abreast of family news.  But she had heard
of Clara's windfall now: and finding Aunt Julia innocent, had come
down, determined to impress on Nevil, for his own good, the fatal
mistake of establishing that sort of precedent with poor relations;
Clara, above all: a determination strengthened by Lilamani's evident
predilection for Clara's stepson.


When they were gone a great silence fell; a great emptiness.  No one
to speak to; nothing to do, for the next five or six hours at least;
unless Ronald returned soon after lunch.  And she hoped he would.
Since pheasant-shooting had become an obsession, there had been many
such lonely days; and for the first time since her marriage there
awoke dim longings for that life of the Inside, where the daily round
did not hang entirely on the ways and whims of a man.  In Italy there
had been work and comradeship, and certain small duties which she had
insisted on performing for her lord.  But here----!  Work was, for
the time, in abeyance; and comradeship no less.  In this unlovely
craze for slaying beautiful birds by the score, she had no wish to
share; and even the smallest duties were taken out of her hands by
silent, ubiquitous servants, whom she had almost grown to hate.

To-day incipient illness darkened her despondent mood.  The promise
of the morning had not been fulfilled, without or within.  Her cold
was decidedly worse; and by now the sky was overcast.  A brisk wind
from the west lashed the windows with fine rain.  Lilamani sighed.
There seemed no end to this English sky's capacity for tears.  Having
completed a long letter to Mrs. Despard, she lunched alone in her
shrine; cooking the meal herself, as always on shooting days; let the
tyrants belowstairs think what they would.

The lunch post brought two letters: a welcome interlude.  One from
her father; one from Audrey.  But neither contained cheering news.
Her father wrote that the chances of getting home next spring were
far from certain.  At best he could only hope for a flying visit; and
she must not count too much on that.  Audrey's was a belated answer
to Lilamani's invitation for Christmas; a week, at least.
Disappointing here also.  Audrey wrote with sincere regret.  For
Lilamani's sake she had forced herself to live down the dread of
seeing these two as man and wife.  But there had been illness at
home, and much nursing; and now she herself had "gone all to pieces."
The doctor prescribed a long rest if she hoped to be fit for India in
the spring; and directly it was possible she would go straight out to
Antibes.  She would try for a night or two at Bramleigh on her way
through----

Antibes!  Antibes!  Headland of blessed memories.  Every nerve in
Lilamani ached for the glowing warmth and colour of it all; the
laughter of the sun upon that sapphire sea with its foam of diamonds;
and his strong, warm kisses on her face when she lifted it to him
shielding her eyes.  Lying there on her couch by the rain-blurred
window, half-thinking, half-dreaming, she fell into a light doze,
from which Madgwick's knock roused her with a start.

Young Mr. Sinclair was in the drawing-room, said Madgwick, and sent
to ask was her ladyship at leisure?

Yes.  Her ladyship would come at once; though burning eyeballs and
chilled limbs made her wish she had been left to sleep on.

His young concern at sight of her, his protective airs of budding
manhood, were very engaging, slang or no.  He was a tactless duffer
to have disturbed her.  A cold made you feel so rotten; and it was
stunning of her to come down.  Just like her sweetness!  But, having
come, would she please lie there--he dragged the Chesterfield half
across the hearth-rug--and not trouble about him any more than if he
were the fender-stool!  He sat down on it forthwith and produced a
silver cigarette-case; her gift.

"Just one.  You're not rigid about it, are you?"

"Oh, no."

"And you don't want to hear how many brace we shot?"

"No--please."

The delicate wrinkling of her nose emphasized her recoil from all
thought of the beautiful slaughtered birds; and he drew her on
instead to talk of her own country, its legends, ideals and beliefs.

From the first she had felt singularly at ease with this sympathetic
young cousin, whom she treated frankly as a brother; there being
small distinction in her own land between the two.  In truth, she
admitted to him a closer intimacy than George; first because of his
youth, and second because, for all his frank admiration, he never
troubled her with his eyes.

While they sat talking dusk drew on, peopling the great dim room with
restless lights and shadows from the blazing wood fire, worshipped by
Lilamani only a few degrees less than the sun.  She was feeling
soothed and rested; headache almost forgotten; when an unmistakable
step sounded without and Lady Roscoe came briskly in.

"No lamps!"  Her surprise was tinged with irritation.  "We expected
to find tea all ready.  Why on earth are you two moping in the dark?"

"Not moping," Lilamani answered, a faint note of challenge in her
tone.  "I had a headache.  It was pleasant; and I forgot the tea.  I
am sorry.  Please to ring, Ronald."

He obeyed, and moved towards the door; anxious, boy-like, to escape
"ructions" that seemed to lurk in the militant tone of Cousin Jane.
Directly the door closed on him, she spoke.

"He's not half a sportsman, that boy.  A great mistake to have him
always idling about the house.  I shall tell Nevil.  Quite easy to
find some young fellow on the spot, who would come in now and again,
and do just as well."

Lilamani roused herself and sat upright.

"No.  You are mistaking," she said, with unwonted decision.  "Others
would not suit, like Ronald.  And we are so glad for chance to help.
He--Nevil, is thinking to train him for land-agent here, like his
father wished."

"Agent, is he?  That's the first I've heard of it.  Nevil seems
remarkably solicitous for Clara and her contingent all of a sudden.
Or is it you that are so keen, because she happens to have a
good-looking stepson?"

The question was unworthy of Jane.  But sport had been poor, and she
was annoyed at finding no tea; or she might have refrained.  The
thrust glanced harmlessly aside.

"Yes.  I am liking Ronald very much.  But especially I am glad to
help because of that smallest son--godson you call ... of Nevil's
name----"

Had Lady Roscoe been in another rank of life she would have sniffed.
As it was, her smile had more than a hint of scepticism.

"That's all very well, my dear.  Very charming in theory.  But if
Nevil is still such an infatuated fool that he will dash off
twenty-pound cheques to order whenever one of Clara's chronically
sick offsprings needs a change----"

She broke off short, for Lilamani had sprung up and stood confronting
her; anger smouldering in her eyes.

"That is unkindness and untruth!  He--he is not like ... what you
say; and you shall not speak such rude words of him to me!"

Jane, though hardly less amazed than Balaam on a memorable occasion,
was by no means nonplussed.

"Your wifely airs and graces are quite thrown away on me, child,"
said she with her exasperating air of condescension.  "It strikes me
the rudeness is on your side; and I shall say precisely what I please
about my own brother.  For it's true."

"Not true!" Lilamani flashed back fiercely.  "It is simply ... you
cannot understand such big feeling.  You said same thing before----"

"I?  What d'you mean?  I've never mentioned the subject."

Lilamani, realizing her slip, went hot all over.  "What do you mean?"
Jane persisted, angered at her silence.

"It's pure invention on your part.  Just to make mischief, I suppose."

"Not invention."  Lilamani's tone had grown suddenly cool and
restrained.  "Only--being angry, I made mistake.  I was
forgetting----"

"What, pray?"

"I ... cannot explain."

"Very mysterious!  Perhaps 'won't' would be nearer the mark."

At that Lilamani's head went up.

"You are right.  Better to speak truth.  I will not explain.  That is
all."

Then--startled at her own temerity, she went swiftly out through the
morning-room, avoiding the large hall.

Even as she went, Madgwick appeared.

"Lamps, please.  And tea in the large hall," said Jane.

Nevil crossed him in the doorway, and looked quickly round.

"Hullo!  Where's Lilamani?"

Jane made an ungracious movement of her shoulders.

"Gone off in a fit of temper----"

"Temper?  She?"

"Yes.  Is it news to you that she has one?  Is she always butter and
honey with you?"

Nevil ignored the question.

"Ronald says that she's not at all well.  What did you say to upset
her?"

"Merely commented on your latest bit of folly about Clara, and she
flew out at me furiously.  I suppose one may express an opinion about
you to your divinity, who seems peculiarly unwilling to bestow any of
her butter and honey on me----"

"My dear Jane--that's all nonsense!"

"My dear Nevil, it's a fact.  I've been as decent as I could to her
for your sake; and at least she might be moderately pleasant in
return.  It can't be----" she eyed him with sudden keenness.  "You
weren't mad enough to show her my first letter?"

"Oh, Lord, no!"  He fairly flung out the denial; thankful for the
sheltering dusk.

"Then it's sheer whim, and you should give her a good talking to.
One reads that Indian wives are paragons of obedience.  But yours,
under all her surface sulkiness, seems no better than a spoilt child;
and you, in your blind infatuation, are laying up a bad time for
yourself----"

"Look here, Jane"--Nevil's voice had a touch of her own
decision--"you don't understand Lilamani.  Never will.  I do: and
there's an end of the matter.  She's my wife----"

"She is also mistress of the dear old Place, worse luck, and the
possible mother of future Sinclairs.  Though I tell you frankly, it's
my fervent hope that if children must come of this crazy marriage
there may at least be no son----"

"For God's sake, keep your fervent hopes to yourself!" Nevil cried
out sharply, white-hot anger in his eyes: and turning on his heel he
went out, leaving her to put her own construction on his flash of
wrath.

All things considered, it did not displease her.  She took it for
indication that her shaft had gone between the joints of his harness
and touched the one weak spot in his seeming blind content.  She was
sorry to have hurt him.  But, on the whole, he deserved it.  Upon
which righteous conclusion, she went in search of tea.




CHAPTER V

"Weak souls are apt to lose themselves in others; whereas it is in
others that the strong soul discovers itself."--MAETERLINCK.


It was Christmas Eve.  The empty rooms and silent passages of
Bramleigh Beeches were alive with footsteps and voices and the high
clear music of children's laughter.  All the pulses of the staid old
house seemed athrob with the immemorial spirit of the day: that
child-spirit of loving and giving that shines, like a star fallen on
a dust-heap, through all the cynical indifference and vulgarization
of our sophisticated age, even as it shone in the Bethlehem Manger
near two thousand years ago.  Lilamani's eager interest in all that
concerned this "Great Birthday and festival of children-worship" made
her husband the more desirous to show her the traditional English
Christmas at its best.  Hence his readiness to invite Clara, that the
child element might be supreme; as indeed it had been ever since the
coming of the "contingent."  Rather more so than Nevil cared about.
But he had said little, and devoted himself strenuously to his first
big, complex picture--the meeting between Rāma and Sita in
the hour of victory.

And now the days of fevered activity, of secret preparation, were at
an end.  In the morning-room a home-grown Christmas tree, bedecked to
the last parcel, the last tinsel star, stood alone in the dusk
awaiting its brief apotheosis on the morrow.  Windows, doorways, and
portraits of distinguished Sinclairs, bore their yearly burden of
evergreens starred with the living scarlet of holly, the moonlike
pallor of mistletoe.  George had not failed to catch and kiss his
alluring sister-in-law under the great bunch in the large hall with
results that plunged the simple-minded soldier in amazement and
dismay.  She had thrust him fiercely from her, cheeks and eyes
ablaze, rubbing the desecrated waxen lobe of her ear as though an
insect had stung her: and it had needed much soothing and explaining
from Nevil--who rejoiced not a little at his brother's
discomfiture--to restore peace.  Only in Phillippa's memory the
pin-prick rankled.  Not the kiss itself, but his desire of it, his
exceeding readiness seemed to justify a fundamental doubt of her
lover that at times threatened to wreck the "sound and satisfactory"
engagement altogether.

By now the clan was assembled in force; Sinclairs, by blood and
marriage, sixteen in all.  No outsider save Leslie de Winton; her
advent the one bitter drop in Lilamani's present cup of content.
Yesterday had brought Nevil's crowning surprise: Christina, home on a
brief holiday at her brother's expense; an extravagance Jane herself
could not cavil at.  For promise of success was in the air.  Even she
could doubt it no longer.  Cultivated London was manifestly impressed
by the picture at the Goupil Gallery.  Captious and contradictory
critics concurred in recognizing that Sir Nevil Sinclair was no
longer to be dismissed with the kid-glove applause due to a gifted
and titled amateur, but dealt with faithfully as an artist very well
worth watching.  Better still, in Jane's regard, had been rumours of
a purchaser; an art patron with a discerning eye for new talent and a
long purse.  A week ago rumour had crystallized into fact.
Negotiations were in progress.  Hence his wire to Christina.

And to-day, sitting alone in his studio, smoking the pipe of
reflection while daylight ebbed, he found himself looking back upon
the casual, aimless amateur of ten months ago as upon another Nevil
Sinclair in another life.  Ten months; an infinitesimal fraction of
man's allotted time on earth; yet into them had been concentrated
more of real living, feeling, thinking, and doing than he had known
in the ten years that were as stepping-stones to his appointed goal.
The surprise of it all smote him afresh in meditative moments like
the present.  Almost it seemed as if the instant he set eyes on the
Arabian Nights' Princess in her balcony, the current of destiny had
changed its course.  Through her and the love that was her genius, he
had found not merely himself, but a new world and new values.  Yet
now--when promise of achievement crowned the twofold joy of love and
possession, the one shadow in his sunlight was just this small
passionate woman who filled so great a space in his life.

It needed no word of complaint from her, no glaring social failure or
open clash with Jane to convince him that her new rôle was as
ill-suited to her as she to it.  Six weeks of shooting and
shooting-parties had tried her sorely; and Ronald Sinclair's boyish
devotion had cost her more than one jarring scene with Jane, though
she had not grasped as yet the underlying implication.

He in his fashion had been tried by return visits to the "needless
ones."  But what would you?  He was not the man to send her forth
alone in quest of the British matron on her native hearth-rug; and in
the course of these dutiful peregrinations from tea-table to
tea-table Nevil Sinclair had perceived more clearly than his wife
that not even his own prestige as one of the county could reconcile
Bramleigh to the fatal Hindu-ness of his girl-wife.  For Bramleigh,
being High Church to its kid-glove finger-tips, was disposed to be
more zealous in the manner of correct genuflexions and the strict
keeping of holy days than in fulfilling the law of love.  The former
is so much simpler and leaves such a gratifying after-glow of
self-righteousness; while the unloved brother is too often unlovable
to boot.  At best Nevil foresaw kindness tempered with condescension
such as the Rajput spirit of his Lilamani would not brook: nor his
own Anglo-Saxon one either, if it came to that.

The only result, so far, had been a sparse crop of invitations to
dinner; and once or twice, in a dutiful mood, he had suggested
acceptance.  Lilamani had looked pathetic and submissive; Nevil,
thankful to spare her, when feasible, had refused.  For himself, he
was glad enough not to go.  But, at this rate, what of the future,
for her?  In the summer there would be Helen Despard and, when
possible, Christina.  Outside these two, if she could not have him,
it seemed that she preferred to be alone.

The modification of their own close comradeship had been no less
unwelcome to him than to her; but his masculine nature saw it as
inevitable, if he were rightly to fulfil himself as artist,
landowner, and husband.  The Italian conditions had a perfection and
fitness all their own.  They could be renewed; and should.  But they
were manifestly incompatible with the demands of the moment.  Even
when the shooting obsession gave place to a renewed zest for work,
there was much in the complex picture now on hand in which she had no
part.  The crowded background, being new to him, brought fresh
faculties into play; while his fastidious eye for grouping and the
thematic use of colour made him untiring in regard to preliminary
studies, the groundwork of all fine achievement.

At this time the week-end brought artist friends in place of "guns."
With these Lilamani had seemed more at her ease; and Nevil himself
had frankly enjoyed picking up the threads of his lapsed friendship
with Leslie de Winton.  Apart from the stimulant of talk with a
fellow-worker on totally different lines, he found Leslie's comments,
whether of blame or praise, singularly illuminating.  Once or twice
the two had sat up talking in the studio till near midnight; while
Lilamani lay throbbingly awake with murder in her heart.  Her
complete silence, since that first protest, deceived her husband into
the belief that she had accepted the friendship for what it was
worth: and he enjoyed it accordingly while the mood for mental
stimulant was upon him.

At this time he would have dearly liked a short spell in town.  But
to leave Lilamani was as yet unthinkable; and to take her there
hardly less so.  By way of experiment he had suggested spending two
nights with Broome before Clara came; Mrs. Broome being away.  He had
baited the suggestion with the promise that on Sunday she should hear
a service at the Abbey, and on Monday buy Christmas presents to her
heart's content in a shop full of Indian arts and crafts.  For in the
"gift-buying" phase of the Great Birthday, she could and would take
her full share; investing it, in true Eastern fashion, with a
sanctity rarely dreamed of by professing Christians; and Nevil had
need of all his authority to save her from spending every penny she
possessed.

As for that service, in the dim, richly-toned twilight of the Abbey,
it surpassed her most exalted imaginings.  Kneeling beside her
husband at its close, in awe-smitten ecstasy, while sonorous organ
music vibrated through all her sensitive frame, the innately
religious heart of her cried out like Festus, "Almost thou persuadest
me to be a Christian."  Not to be at one with her husband in so great
and vital a matter hurt her more keenly than he ever guessed; while
yet the ancient wisdom of her race warned her that, if change so
radical could be genuinely achieved, it must neither be forced nor
hurried.  And on that morning, in the hush that fell upon her soul
when the music ceased, something within whispered that in due time
the change would come--as come all great living changes--slowly,
imperceptibly, like the opening of a flower.

Yes; the great church, the great shop were wonderful exceedingly;
each in its own fashion.  But London itself--a monstrous fog-blurred
phantasmagoria of life and death, laughter and tears--that was
another matter altogether.  Driving from Waterloo Station through
mean streets, grimed with past fogs and seen through the ochre veil
of a present one, she had clung to her husband's arm as to a
life-belt in mid-ocean, shrinking close against him, frightened,
repelled.  To her vivid fancy it seemed that they fared through some
hideous fashion of Hell, through which lost souls in their hundreds
surged aimlessly to and fro.

"Oh, Nevil, is all this noise and ugliness your so great city?" she
had ventured, after looking for improvement and finding none.

"Only one unsightly corner of it, at a very unbecoming time of year!"
he had explained, smiling.

"And do people really live here, who have choice to live otherwheres?"

"Yes.  Hundreds.  Wait till you see Broome's house.  London's not
half so black as she looks at first sight, little wife."

"Not----?"  A sudden fear seized her.  "But you--would you ever----?"

"No--I've no such deadly designs!" he hastened to reassure her.  "Of
course, I'd enjoy an occasional month or two in town.  But I promised
your father I would never keep you here long, or ask you to live
here."

Her sigh of relief spoke volumes.

"Ah, wise one!  He knew how the wings of my soul would become
crushed--broken in so nightmare a place."

The two wonder-days that followed were days not readily to be
forgotten.

None the less, on Monday she sped joyfully back to clean air and grey
skies.

"Like a bird escaped from the snare of the fowler!" Nevil had said,
laughing as he lifted her from the landau; while in his heart he
relinquished forthwith the desired fortnight in town.  He would
devote himself instead to the completion of his big picture by the
end of the year.


It was close on completion now; and, though far from faultless, he
saw that it was good.  Yet, as he sat smoking in the dusk, a shadow
clouded the native serenity of his eyes and brow.

The past week had been a trying one.  Neither Clara herself nor
Clara's children were attractive specimens of their kind; and
Sinclair was fastidious to a fault.

Mrs. Lunn wore her air of resigned martyrdom with ostentation.  "They
childer," she confided to her ally, Mr. Barnes, "with their 'can'ts'
an' 'wont's' an' their ever-lastin' muddiness are a deal more trouble
in the house than twenty normals.  An' the way her ladyship fags
after 'em, ill or well, gits me altogether."

It "got" her husband also, after another fashion.  Almost he could
forgive these undisciplined intruders on his peace, for the sake of
the new Lilamani their presence brought to light.  Her twofold joy in
their mere youth, and in her own opportunity for service, was a
lovely thing to see.  All the true womanly charm of her--dimmed of
late by vain strivings to be the thing she was not--shone out with
fresh lustre when seen against the right background.  But man, though
reputed more reasonable than woman, is nothing if not--well, let us
say human; and the sudden preoccupation of this new Lilamani in
things other than himself gave Nevil Sinclair the first real twinge
of jealousy he had known.  In her zeal to give the overtaxed widow
some measure of rest she spent herself without stint.  For, as usual,
Clara was ailing, even after her month at the sea; and within three
days of their coming, Cissy, aged five, developed tonsils and a
temperature, to Nevil's disgust.

Lilamani, armed with a confused jumble of Audrey's teaching and
Mataji's primitive skill, begged leave to nurse the child: and
Clara--amazed at this heaven-sent heathen cousin-in-law--murmured oh,
no, she really mustn't; while devoutly hoping that she would.  Nevil
remonstrated in private.  Lilamani looked pathetic; and won the day.
Nevil, half angry, half adoring, had carried Ronald off to the studio
and devoted himself to studies of Rāma for the ordeal scene;
while Lilamani did what she could for her fractious disobedient
charge.

Between Cissy and Christmas parcels and the privilege of bathing Baby
Nevil every night, it had been a hard week.  And though the spirit
rejoiced in service, flesh rebelled.  That first cold had led to a
second, which left her curiously tired, with a small dry cough that
broke her sleep and stirred vague apprehensions in her husband's
heart.  But Cissy revived; and Nevil welcomed the influx of the clan
that would merge Clara's contingent in the general crowd.

More than all he welcomed Christina, whose love and understanding of
Lilamani came within measurable distance of his own.  It was his hope
that her tact and good temper might serve to mitigate friction with
Jane.  The latter had scarce been three hours in the house when some
disparaging comment upon Clara had fired Lilamani to hot retort; and
there had followed as near an approach to a scene as good breeding on
both sides would permit.  Nevil, for once, had spoken sharply to them
both, and been at odds with himself ever since.

Discord, whether in sound, colour, or human relation jarred the whole
nature of the man; and it was this increasing antagonism between wife
and sister that clouded his brow to-night; the more so since he was
honest enough to recognize that Lilamani herself, though never the
aggressor, was the more implacably hostile of the two.  Jane's
friendliness was a rough-cut jewel at best; and her not very gracious
attempts to proffer it had been barren of result.  Mercifully, she
had never reverted to the letter; had in fact almost forgotten it;
while every sentence lived poignantly in Lilamani's brain.  If only
she had trusted him and left those cruel words unread, it was at
least conceivable that all might have gone well in time.  Devoted as
he was, he could not quite exonerate her from blame, though always he
blamed Jane more for the writing of them; and his own unthinking
carelessness most of all.

Is it one of life's inimitable ironies, or proof conclusive that
accident is not--this growth of tragedy from the chance-flung seed of
careless unthinking acts?  There were moments when it maddened Nevil
Sinclair to contemplate all that those half-dozen lines left in his
blotter had brought to birth; and to-night he bethought him of an
appeal to his wife.  Hitherto he had stood aside of set purpose.
Even the name of Jane was tacitly avoided between them.  But the
season, with its insistence on peace and goodwill, seemed to pave the
way for speech; and an innate strain of loyalty to the sister he
could not love impelled him to do what lay in his power.

The odd thing was that he could by no means foresee the result.  At
least he knew where to find her at this time of evening: and rising,
squared his shoulders as one resolved not to countenance defeat.




CHAPTER VI

  "Mine ear is full of the murmur of rocking cradles;
  'For a single Cradle,' says Nature, 'I would give every
      one of my graves----'"
                                        ROUMANIAN BALLAD.


The door of the day-nursery stood ajar; his own day-nursery, the one
room in the house where the spirit of his mother seemed still to
linger.  He had grudged it not a little to Dick's unruly offspring.
But well he knew how she would have approved, both the act of
fellow-kindness and her who had urged it--that fragile-sweet wife of
his, who, for all her gentleness, seemed rather to set her impress on
others than to take colour from the enveloping influences of the West.

As he neared the door a low crooning reached him; broken wordless
music, and gurglings of baby laughter.  He guessed her alone with the
"man-child called of his name," whom she had longed to hold in her
arms; and, promising himself a glimpse of her unseen, went forward
lightly, without sound.  A gentle push when he reached the door; and
a long pause while he stood on the threshold scarce daring to
breathe; the artist entranced, the man inly and deeply stirred.

At the far end of the great dim room she sat, in a mellow zone of
light from the green-shaded lamp on the table at her side.  A flannel
apron shielded her silken daintiness; and on it lay the two-year-old
boy in all his pristine rosiness and roundness, kicking out dimpled
legs and stretching up eager hands to the glitter of gold and glass
dangled above him just out of reach.  Rapt, entranced, Lilamani
leaned over him, brow, cheek, and delicately aquiline nose outlined
in light; the curve and tinting of her lifted arm a picture in
itself.  Released from strict mourning, she wore her night-sky _sari_
of betrothal, and the great wood-fire woke quivering points of light
in breast-girdle and armlets, rings and shining shoes.

A Madonna true to type, was the man's thought.  Some day he would
paint her thus, with the mother-worship in her eyes.  And the
child----?

A sudden pang smote him.  Jane's voice proclaiming her fervent hope
came to him, startlingly clear, across the intervening weeks.  Jane,
for whom he had come to speak, could find it in her heart to wish--to
hope----.  Now as then, white-hot wrath flamed up in him.  And
yet----?  Had he himself----?

"Oh Nevil--I did not hear----!"

An unconscious movement had betrayed him; and her low voice put
questionings to flight.

"Sorry if I startled you," he said, smiling.  "I may come in?"

"Dear lord--what need to ask?"

She glanced from him to the child, and the colour flooded her face:
part shyness, part emotion.  It was the first time he had sought her
out in these regions.  That unworthy twinge of jealousy forbade.
Even to-night he would scarcely have come, but for Jane.  Well, at
least he owed her one unforgetable moment; and such return as he
could make was very much at her service.

With an undersense of treading on holy ground, he went forward and
stood beside his wife.

"A bonny little chap," said he, looking down at the jubilant creature
that rollicked on her arm.  "You'll miss him when he goes."

She nodded; then glanced up at him, softly content.  "You were
wanting me?"

"Am I ever doing anything else worth speaking of?" he asked with a
sudden access of lover's ardour, that quickened every pulse in her
body; and catching his hand that hung near, she pressed it to her
lips.  Even after nine months of marriage this was still almost her
only spontaneous form of caress.  There fell a silence.  Two cinders
clinked on to the hearth, and the small Nevil chuckled at some
private joke of his own.

"I was meaning--did you want me for special reason?" she said.

"Well--yes.  I'd like a talk in the studio before dinner."

"I also.  I will come."

Deftly and quickly she slipped on the small night-things, untied her
apron and rising, stood before him with the other Nevil clinging
about her neck, his petal-soft cheek against her own.

"Just one minute for putting him in bed," said she.

"No--no!" in commanding tones from the embryo lord of creation,
jigging up and down like a thing on wires; and she pressed him
closer, her lips caressing his hair.

"Little Auntie says yes, O Princeling.  And not to cry," she told
him, a hint of authority in her cooing tone that the child never
heard in his mother's and instinctively obeyed.

Then she passed on to the night-nursery, with the rhythmical grace of
movement that was hers, and the man stood looking after her with very
mingled feelings at his heart.  It annoyed him that he must needs
dispel her mood of mother-tenderness with sententious talk of Jane.
He wanted simply to make love to her, to enjoy their rare moment
alone; wanted it still more when she sped back to him with flying
draperies, and slipped a hand through his as they went.

Till the studio door closed upon them neither spoke.  Then it was the
woman, softly solicitous.

"Dearest, what now?  Something troubling you?  Difficult to say?"

And he, pressing the fingers he still held: "Little witch!  How did
you know?"

"From your eyes; from your touch of hand," she answered simply.
"True?"

"Yes, true.  Better speak straight and be done.  It's about Jane."

Chin and brows went up ever so slightly, and the gleam that recalled
her father lightened in her eyes.

"You are still vexed for that?  I am sorry.  But how to help being
angry?  She has no kind feeling when there is trouble.  Her heart is
little and dried up like a nut.  Oh, forgive that I speak like that
of your sister!  But it is truth.  Pity that we must talk of her at
this so happy time."

"A pity indeed.  I own I shirked it, as you realized before I spoke.
And yet--isn't this 'so happy time' just the right moment, Lilamani?
My dear little Hindu wife has been so eager to share the spirit of
our Christmas festival; and the core of it is peace and goodwill.
Could you choose a better time than this for trying to think more
kindly of her?"

"I?  Oh Nevil--it is _she_----!"

"Lilamani, ask yourself--is it _only_ she?"

The blue eyes, that were her heaven, looked straightly, almost
sternly into her own; a look that steeped the whole of her in one
burning blush.  Yet she returned it bravely while he went on: "I know
her manner is often brusque and disagreeable to the verge of
rudeness, and yours never.  She is hard, unimaginative, everything
almost that you are not.  But in her own queer fashion she did try,
just at first, to be friendly with you, for my sake.  Did you ever
try to make a shadow of response?"

"No," she answered very low, her voice steady as her gaze; and for
the unadorned directness of that denial he admired her the more.

"Isn't the door of your heart bolted and barred against her?"

"Yes.  How shall it be otherwise--ever?"

"But, my darling!"  His dismay held a note of reproach: "You--the
soul of tenderness--how can you be so implacably unforgiving?"

"In our belief there are things it is not good to forgive.  Insult to
great race of my father, and cruel wound to you, lord of my life.
Only by chance was it that in my madness I did not go from you,
leaving you without Sita for your so great pictures.  Can inmost
heart of me ever forget--ever forgive?"

The very quietness of her tone intensified its primitive fierceness
of conviction.  Before it, he stood speechless, half in amaze, half
in admiration.  Here was no pretty child to be coaxed into good
behaviour; but a woman with all her woman's heart on fire of such
strong love and hate as are the heritage of her emotional race.

Capturing one small clenched hand he drew her nearer.  "Not an easy
task," he said gently.  "But you have never tried.  Won't you try
now, Lilamani, for your lord's sake--and for the sake of the Great
Birthday we shall keep to-morrow?"

"Oh, Nevil!"  She drew a deep breath.  "Easy to make such promise
with the lips.  But how to keep?  Loving and hating are not any more
to be commanded than sun or sea."

"No; but at least controlled," said he of the West, using the
key-word of his race.  "And you have to remember this, little wife,
that although Jane may be harsh and prejudiced, the real trouble on
your side springs from your having read a letter you were never meant
to see----"

She started.  "You are still thinking I did wrong by that?"

"In a sense--yes.  But it was a great temptation; and I blame myself
more than all.  I hardly realized then what a proud, fiery-hearted
little woman I had to deal with.  But unhappily, the thing's done.
You know what Jane must never guess that you know; and it follows
that you must either be more forgiving or be constantly misjudged by
one who is already prejudiced, and who is, after all, my sister.  I
don't want things to come to such a pass that she shall feel herself
unwelcome in my father's house; and this incessant friction hurts me
even more than it hurts either of you.  So you see, it is for my sake
I ask you not to go on cherishing anger, but to give your own tender
heart a chance.  Will you try?"

For a long minute she stood silent and very still, but for the
quickened rise and fall of her breast.  Even now he did not feel sure
of her answer, till she unveiled her eyes.

"King of me--I will try," she said gravely; and the concession was a
bigger one than he realized.  "I cannot promise for succeeding.  But
because your wish is like command to me, I will try."

Then, with a swift, enchanting transition from Indian to English
wife, she lifted her lips for the reward that was her due.

"Now--shall we have a quiet time here till dinner?" he asked, his arm
still round her.  "Or have you a hundred more things to do?"

"Only to fill three small pair stockings in my shrine."

"Santa Claus, masquerading in _sari_ and spangles!" he said, smiling.
"Are the contents a sacred secret?  Or may I come too?"

"Come too."

But as he opened the door of her room, she flew past him with a
little cry: "Oh, I had forgot----!"

The lid of her sandalwood casket stood open, and she closed it
swiftly as he came up.  Never yet had he seen its contents; and
knowing her a creature hedged about with reserves, had refrained from
question.  But the last few minutes had brought them very near
together; and now, obeying his natural impulse, he spoke.

"Shall I ever be allowed to see the treasure hidden in your holy of
holies, little wife?  I have often wondered what it might be, and
when you would think me worthy----"

"_You_?  Oh, dearest--that was never my thought!  It is only----  How
to explain?  Indian wife has always some private god for worship; not
speaking his name to any, even to her husband.  But now--I am trying
also to be English wife.  There comes no priest between us, as often
in India.  And--if you are really wishing----"

"I am wishing very much----" he said quietly; and she, with head
reverently bowed, lifted the lid.

It has been said that to overhear the prayer of a man is to know him;
and Nevil Sinclair, looking down upon the tiny blue image of
Babyhood, gold-crowned, with gilded lute and scroll, had a sense of
overhearing the most intimate prayer of his wife's heart.  The
primitive simplicity of it moved him beyond speech; and it was she
who broke the silence, speaking softly with lowered eyes.

"That is Krishna.  Him you have read with me in Bhagavad Gita.  That
colouring of blue--like sea and sky--is for symbol of infinite.
Scroll is for symbol also, meaning the Gita; and lute because he was
humbly born among cow-herds, by river Jumna, even like your Christ in
that manger.  For us he also is Holy Child, Healer of World-disease,
Shepherd and Lord.  Indian mothers are calling this Baby-image their
Gopala, little cow-herd; and to him we pray always for desire of the
heart----"

A pause.  Her own heart's desire and secret fear trembled on the
verge of utterance.  Never in their most blessed moments of intimacy
had she felt quite so near to him she worshipped; so certain that he
would understand.  Secure in that certainty, she found courage to
speak on.

"To him I pray also for the coming--of that other, too long delayed.
And though yet he is not seeming to hear, surely there will come
promise soon."  Her voice dropped a tone; and she spoke as one who
consoled him for lack of that which he needs must crave.  "Then you
can no longer feel--I am useless wife----"

"Useless!  You--my Sita, my main source of inspiration!  What put
such a notion into your head?"

"Nothing put.  It is natural," she answered quietly.  "I am--oh, so
glad for the pictures.  But they cannot always be.  And then--what
use for wife who cannot command servants, or shoot with gun, or make
all kinds of talk for dinner-table, unless--by giving of that great
gift----"

She could say no more.  His arm was round her; his lips against her
cheek.

"My darling, you must never think such foolishness again.  And as
for--the other----  All in good time.  Why, you're still almost a
child yourself----"

"I am _not_!  I am woman!" she cried out with sudden vehemence;
contradicting him flatly for the first time and half withdrawing
herself from his clasp.  And he, looking back on the past half-hour,
knew that she spoke truth.

"You are.  Very much so.  I spoke thoughtlessly," he admitted,
smiling.  "But still--it's full early to be troubling your head about
it.  And if it's me you're concerned for, you may set your mind at
rest----"

"You mean, you do not--you have never----?"  His attempt at
reassurance chilled her strangely.  He seemed suddenly very far away.
"In all these months you have not thought--have not wished----?"

"Is that very dreadful of me?" he asked, drawing her closer; puzzled
to know what was wrong.  "I suppose the truth is I've been so well
content with my Sita Dévi and the splendid field of work she has
opened up for me, that there has hardly been space for other wishes,
other hopes----"

"Nev--il!  Nev--il!  Are you there?"

The voice was Leslie de Winton's; and Sinclair felt the small shiver
with which his wife released herself.

"Go now.  They are wanting you," she said hurriedly, as the call came
again.

"Yes, yes--I'm coming," he answered impatiently.  Then, to her: "No
quiet time, after all, I'm afraid.  But remember, little wife, you're
not to brood about me.  I'm in no hurry to share you with anyone; and
quite content with things as they are."

He was gone; and she stood alone beside the open casket, his final
reassurance sounding ironically in her ears.

Nine months married, and neither thought nor desire of fatherhood had
been his!  That which was, for her, the sum and crown of marriage,
was for him a mere side-issue.  He was in no hurry for that greatest
gift it was her one desire to give.  With no Indian husband could it
have been so.  It was the first time she had compared him thus with
one of her own race; had recognized with piercing clearness that on
this supreme subject they must needs speak and think in different
tongues, spiritually; be their hearts never so close entwined.  True,
the Hindu sees in his son not merely the torch of life passed on, but
the prime factor in that complex transaction, the future welfare of
his own soul.  Yet even an English husband, for whom wife and son
have less of spiritual significance, must surely crave the certainty
of an heir to carry on his name; the more so when there are broad
lands and an ancestral home, that must otherwise go elsewhere----.

At this point memory flashed a paralysing sentence through her
brain--a sentence branded there six months ago, and lightly overlaid
with happier things: "A native mistress at Bramleigh Beeches!
Half-caste sons to carry on the name of which we are so rightly
proud----"

It was as though a scorpion had stung her.  Could it be--that he, her
King, shared, even in a small degree, his sister's racial recoil from
mixed blood, even of the best?  In the deep of his heart did he dread
rather than desire the price of possession?  It would be like him to
feign jealousy of that other, sooner than let her guess----.

Dismay flowed over her like the waters of a cold and bitter sea.  All
strength seemed to go out of her.  Outlines wavered.  She swayed a
little where she stood.  And yet--she could not, she would not so
much as harbour the thought.  Loyalty forbade.  Nonetheless, did she
foreknow that the hideous thing would return again and yet again to
torment her, whenever the way of life was hard or the wheels of being
low.

Already it shadowed her joy in this great festival of
children-worship.  And as she closed the casket two tear-drops
splashed the Baby image of Him on whom all things are threaded "as
gems on a string": that Blessed One, too preoccupied, it seemed, with
the troubles of the orthodox to heed the secret cry of her heart.




CHAPTER VII

  "Life is stronger than a single soul."--HERRICK.


Rain and wind; wind and rain; rattling at blurred casements, lashing
and battering the patient trees.

Lilamani Sinclair, sick in body and soul, lay listening to the
unwearied rush and patter of it in the premature dusk of a February
afternoon; till it seemed as though the downpour beat upon her bared
nerves, and the wind blew chill through her heart.  Now and again the
hard dry cough--born of that first cold and never quite
dispelled--shook her unmercifully, and drove shafts of pain through
her head.  Otherwise she lay motionless, with closed eyes, acutely
aware of alternating cadences in the storm without; while images and
sensations drifted to and fro in her brain scarce coherently enough
for thought.

Nominally, she was resting in obedience to doctor's orders, enforced
by Nevil.  But true rest implies peace of mind--a condition neither
doctor nor husband could ensure: and true rest had been far from
Nevil Sinclair's wife these many weeks.  Morning and night she felt
unaccountably tired--mind, body, and soul; unable to feel strongly
about anything, even about the pictures, her one supreme link with
the artist and the man.  They were nearing an end now; the last one
already on the easel; the private view fixed for the first week in
March.  Rejoice though she might in this his great consummation, for
her it meant a break beyond which she could see nothing plain, save
that he must needs embark on others in which she would probably have
no share.  And she--with no life of the Inside, and small taste still
for the mixed social life of the outside--how would it be with her
then----?  Unless--unless----?

But no beacon of promise gleamed in that direction.  Nor could she
hope and pray with the same whole-hearted fervour since the cruel
instant of illumination in her shrine.  Loyally though she strove
against that haunting suspicion, the pain and dismay that had
engendered it still acted like a bruise under the skin.  How long ago
it seemed, viewed across the grey stretch of half-hearted illness and
yet more half-hearted convalescence that lay between.

Yet, pain or no, that Christmas fortnight showed like an oasis in the
winter's uphill stretch of effort, that seemed to progress at the
rate of three steps forward and two steps back: effort to play her
part as Lady Sinclair, more especially at the dinner-table; effort to
ignore sudden sharp attacks of nostalgia; to still the mother-longing
with its attendant fear; to conquer her jealous hate of Leslie de
Winton and the seemingly established antagonism of Jane.  For Nevil's
appeal had been over-long delayed; and though his wife religiously
kept her word, such shy tentative advances as she could bring herself
to make had, as often as not, passed unregarded.  Nor were matters
made easier by a disturbing spell of friction between George and
Phil, which Jane shrewdly guessed to be less unfounded than it
seemed.  That episode of the mistletoe had rather stimulated the
man's admiration than otherwise.  But, since Phillippa had her pride,
and he his modern remnant of chivalry, Lilamani's name was tacitly
avoided by both.  Lady Roscoe did not doubt for a moment that the
disturbance would fizzle out in time.  Phillippa's reasonableness and
George's good sense were surety for that.  None the less she hardened
her heart against the unconscious offender; and Lilamani's reluctant
hand knocked, almost unheard, upon a closed door.

Happily, after Christmas, meetings had been less frequent.  The
obsession of the pheasant gave place to the obsession of the fox, and
the three carried the light of their countenances elsewhere.  But
there seemed no evading the malice of the gods.  Less of Jane brought
more of Leslie de Winton, who infuriated Lilamani by an almost
proprietary enthusiasm for a subject peculiarly her own.  The
intrusion of Janes and Phils, Uncle Bobs and Aunt Julias was as
nothing to the renewal of an intimacy so clearly congenial to Nevil
that his wife could only keep the door of her lips and suffer the
more.

January and February had been months of strenuous work, interspersed
with Bohemian week-ends that had brought Mrs. Lunn near to despair.
But for Leslie weekends had not sufficed.  While the Ordeal scene was
in progress she had frankly begged leave to stay "the clock round,"
and her critical, conversational presence in the studio had made
this--the crowning picture of the group--an ordeal indeed.  Above all
things Lilamani enjoyed the atmosphere of quiet while her husband
worked.  How could she lose herself in Sita and Sita's tragedy, as
she loved to do, while the slow, strong voice jarred on her nerves,
and the deliberate gaze brooded now on her, now on her lord?  If the
physical energy of her sister-in-law had made her feel ineffectual,
how much more so did this artist woman's breadth and vigour of brain,
that matched and challenged the brain of the man; that also, in some
subtle fashion, made the things of the heart seem childish, the
things of the spirit shadowy and unreal.  Worse than all, the dread
conviction grew in her that here was her lord's true mate of his own
race.  Did he not guess it now--yet, at any moment, there might come
the knowledge that would wake him from his "foolish passion outside
control of judgment."  And then--then?  An end of Lilamani.  That was
certain.  She would not survive, by so much as five minutes, the
death of his love.

So passionate a drama of jealousy and pain at work within; and
without a smiling acquiescence that did not altogether deceive her
husband.  At the week's end he had apologized, half in jest, for the
infliction, adding: "I know you're not quite in tune with Leslie; but
it's been a real help having her.  I find her extraordinarily
stimulating.  Always did."

And she--marvelling how he could stand so blindly on the threshold of
knowledge: "If help to your work, you must not trouble for me."

"I must and I do," he had answered gravely.  "Though you did have
Ronald to balance things a bit!"

The words were ordinary enough to be scarce worth noting, save for
the veil of constraint, new as it was unwelcome, that too often of
late had hovered between them: so slight a thing, that natures less
sensitive had hardly felt it.  The trouble was that neither seemed
able to brush it aside.  Perhaps Lilamani had yet to learn that
overmuch self-suppression, however heroic, is good neither for man
nor wife, in the more equalized marriage of the West.  She could and
did hide from her husband her remittent attacks of home-sickness, her
secret jealousies.  But she could not altogether hide their effect
upon her spirits; and at this time an underlying sense of discord
jarred their daily life; saddening her, irritating him.  For in the
last white-heat of inspiration the artist dominated the man; a
passing dominion essential to true creative achievement.

Now it was he who would fain have recaptured the conditions of their
life on Como; and behold a tired, listless Lilamani--at moments even
a little fretful; her inner self seeming to keep _purdah_ from her
lord.  Small wonder if he gravitated toward the only other woman in
any degree able to supply his need.  At this time all thoughts, all
interests that did not concern the pictures were apt to be ruthlessly
swept aside.  Only deep down, even in the most strenuous hours at his
easel, lurked the ache of anxiety about his wife's health.

Her first winter in his country without a climate had been a
singularly unlucky one.  A drenching November and open December had
given place to bitter weeks of black frost with interludes of snow;
and now February seemed determined to outvie March in the matter of
gales.  That early morning escapade and the severe cold which
followed it had left seeds of chest trouble, unnoticed at the time.
The excitement of Christmas, following upon over-much zeal in Clara's
service, had culminated in a fresh chill.  Pneumonia supervened; and
slight though the attack was, she had never quite rallied.  Doctor
Ransome, fussy and good-hearted, if not a brilliant specimen of his
kind, wrinkled his brow in growing puzzlement over this child of an
alien race, who would have none of the stethoscope, obviously
resented his questions, and in secret watered the evergreens under
her window with his favourite tonic.  His faith in that tonic was
invincible as his faith in the British Constitution; and seeing it
fail, he had muttered vaguely of hysteria and nervous depression,
change of air and scene.

This morning he had spoken straightly to Sir Nevil in his wife's
hearing, bidding him get her out of England as soon as might be, and
keep her out of it till spring's smiling treachery was overpast.
Lilamani's heart leapt at the words.  She forgave the old man his
questions and his chest bogey forthwith.  But the worried frown on
her husband's brow held her silent.  Just at present, he had said,
leaving England was impossible.  He would see what could be done.

Now, while she lay listening to the swish and patter without, their
talk came back to her, and a sudden conviction glowed in her like a
star.  India--India!  There lay the one certain cure for mind, soul,
and body.  To her own home and people she could not go.  But India
was a great land and a wide.  The mere sight and smell and feel of
the country would instil new life into her veins.  Only ten days now,
and her father would be with them for three little weeks.  Then--if
they could all return together----!  If Nevil would but allow----!

She started.  His step was on the stair; his hand on the door.  Now
for courage to broach her daring request.  The coincidence of
inspiration and opportunity lit a spark of hope in her heart.

But at sight of his face it went out.  The clear blue of his eyes had
the veiled, tired look not uncommon after long hours at his easel;
and the set of his brows bespoke irritation near the surface.
Listlessness flowed over her again like a Dead Sea wave; and she
waited for him to speak.  He came close and stood looking down at her.

"Well, little wife, it strikes me you've been mooning up here quite
long enough.  Rested--are you?"

"Yes.  A little."

Disappointment lent an added weariness to her tone; and he sighed.

"Only a little.  What's come to your natural sparkle, Jewel of
Delight?  Sometimes I think you're overdoing the sofa business.  Do,
for my sake, try and pull yourself together instead of drifting
limply like a bit of seaweed.  You must know how it spoils everything
to have you lying here day after day, a mere shadow of your true
self.  Here's the great end we've both been working for almost in
sight; and really sometimes it's hard to believe you care----"

"Oh Nevil--dear lord!" she broke in, her lips a-quiver.  "Your heart
_must_ know, how I am caring.  Only some days there seems no life in
me--for anything.  You said once not ever to think--I am useless
wife.  But now----"

"Look here, Lilamani--I've told you that's all nonsense, and you must
believe it.  If you let yourself be hag-ridden by such foolish
notions, you'll end in becoming worse than useless."

"Oh, forgive!  It is only--I am ill----"

He caught the appealing hands held out to him and knelt at her side.

"Yes.  You _are_ ill, in some vague mysterious way.  I'm hanged if
old Ransome seems to know what's wrong.  Perhaps a specialist----"

She shrank into her cushions.

"No, no.  Not any more doctor-people, please!"

"But, my dear, you must be reasonable.  How can there be any peace of
mind for me till we get you right?  And your father--what will _he_
say if he thinks I've married you only to kill you by inches----"

"He is too wise to think any such thing.  He will understand how it
is difficult at first for Indian-born when all is so cold--so grey.
Oh Nevil----" the concern in his eyes gave her courage to speak.
"There is one thing that can make me a new Lilamani, better than all
doctors and medicines.  It is--when father is going back to
India"--she caught her breath--"if--if we could only go too----"

"India--India?" he repeated the word in amazed iteration.  The idea
was more than a surprise.  It was a shock.  It recalled too vividly
that one experience of the East which he had no desire to repeat.  It
also awakened a new fear.  His grasp on her hands tightened.

"Lilamani, tell me truthfully--is home-sickness at the root of it
all?"

He did not see that the question was a temptation hard to resist.

"If--if it is ... then _can_ we go?" she breathed, scarce able to
hold eagerness in check.  But the set of his lips gave answer before
he spoke.

"My dear little wife, can you seriously ask that?  Heaven knows it's
hard to refuse you anything, especially at present.  But just
consider--with this great house on my hands----  I thought I made my
position pretty clear to you before Christmas."

"Yes--yes."  She bit her lip to steady it.  "Only I was hoping--money
from that picture----"

"Most of it went to help clear the mortgage.  The rest to meet
Christmas expenses and the cost of starting our little exhibition."

She hesitated; then spoke without looking up.  "But for such a thing
as this--my own money----"

"You've been spending that too freely, as it is, on Clara's
children--to say nothing of your own expenses.  You don't realize
what it costs to dress a Lilamani in mother-o'-pearl and night-sky
_saris_, still less what it would cost to take her out to India----"

She sighed.  "Then--then father?  He would so gladly----"

"My darling, you are tantalizing yourself to no purpose," Nevil
checked her with a touch of impatience.  "India's impossible--for a
dozen reasons.  You must just be plucky and accept the fact."

"You mean--you do not wish----"

She could get no further.  Tears streamed down her cheeks, and sobs
shook the whole of her slight frame.

In a moment her husband's arms were round her, his lips on hers.  "My
little one--my poor little one!  Is it as bad as all that?  Didn't
you realize, when we married, that most probably--you would never see
India again?"

"Y--yes."

"And did you mind so terribly--then?"

"N--no."

"Yet now--has England, and the whole life here, been such an utter
failure?"

"No--no!" she clung to him, quivering.  "Only--I could not help for
hoping.  But--if you do not wish----"

"I wish above everything to get a well and happy Lilamani back again.
I'm so hedged around at present.  But the first minute it's possible
we'll get you out of this."

Her light fingers caressed the hair at the back of his neck.

"Perhaps--Egypt?"

"No.  I think not.  Give me time to turn things over in my mind, and
I'll do the best I can."  He kissed her again with lingering
tenderness.  "Now I'm going to dry your eyes, and carry you down to
the studio.  I've done with Rāma for the present, and
Broome's there waiting to lift you out of the flames."  Broome had
volunteered his services as fire-god, to the delight of both.  "It's
an ordeal by water that my Sita has to win through--eh?"

She laughed and nestled closer, while he dabbed her eyes with his own
handkerchief.

"Your Sita is not worthy for going through fire.  She is not enough
heroine-made."

"Quite enough to suit her husband!  So she need not trouble her
foolish head about that.  Now then--ready?"

"Yes.  But--will he have to hold me in arms again?"

"Once more.  I haven't got all the lines right yet.  You mustn't
mind.  He's as old as your father."

"I am willing for anything to help your pictures.  It is only ... I
don't like ... other kind of arms."

"No more do I.  We're agreed on that point!"  And he gathered her up
in his own.

Outside the studio door she insisted upon being set down; and Broome,
looking keenly from one to the other, decided that a plain fact or
two must be submitted to Sir Nevil Sinclair before they parted that
night.  Ronald had gone home after another dream-week in the paradise
that held his Peri.  But not until the Peri had been carried off to
bed did the novelist get his chance.

Nevil, returning to finish the evening in the studio, found his
friend standing squarely on the hearth-rug; pipe between his teeth,
smiling determination in his kindly eyes.

"Light up, my son, and don't use language if I touch you on the raw,"
said he without preamble.  "Broome on the Responsibilities of the
Married State may prove worth listening to."

"Oh, Lord!" groaned the other, only half in joke.  "Responsibilities
were never my strong point.  How the deuce have I been shirking them
now?"

Said Broome, shifting his pipe to the corner of his mouth: "Thy
question bewrayeth thee.  It tacitly admits a prick of conscience.
As for mine--the Puritanical thing will give me no peace till I've
said my say."

"Fire away, then."

Nevil sank into a chair and opened his cigar-case with a leisured air
of detachment less deceptive than he believed.  The shock of that one
word, India, and his wife's unusual paroxysm of grief had so deeply
perturbed him that he had no mind to speak of it even to Broome,
unless in self-defence.

"Well?" he queried, looking up and throwing his match into the grate.

"_Is_ it well, Nevil--there's my question?  Is it well with that
exquisite, porcelain wife of yours, who has sacrificed all that
really counts for her on the altar of marriage, and has given you,
not herself only, but"--he waved a hand round the studio walls--"a
new kingdom?  Have you asked yourself yet, point-blank, how it seems
likely to work out, this unique experiment of translating a love-bird
from the tropics into a British barn-door fowl?"

Nevil frowned.  "No.  I've not," he answered bluntly.  "First,
because I've no use for a British barn-door fowl; second, because
even the amount of adaptation that is essential must take time.
Though I admit things don't look as promising as they might."

"My impression exactly.  The obvious dissonance with Lady Roscoe is
more than unlucky.  And how about the good folk of the neighbourhood?"

Nevil shook his head.

"I thought not.  Between religion and the Island Pharisee business
there's little hope, in the country, for a human product not measured
in our own workshops and cut out to pattern.  London's another
matter.  Fish of every shape and colour have a chance in her seething
ocean of nationalities and types."

"Yes.  If the fish can live out of water.  In London, I believe
Lilamani would die outright."

The older man brooded a moment over that statement.  Then: "Hasn't it
struck you, Nevil," said he, "that the same process may possibly be
going on here--at a reduced rate?"

Nevil Sinclair started and paled as if under a blow.  "Good God,
Broome! you don't think----?"

Broome's hand closed firmly on his shoulder.

"Forgive me, old man.  I didn't mean to give you such a shock.  But I
see now it's just as well I spoke.  You've been blinding yourself to
the obvious; metaphorically bidding everyone and everything stand
aside till the last touch is laid on, the white fervour of
inspiration spent.  Oh, I know it all down to the ground, my dear
chap.  I've sinned in much the same fashion myself before the birth
of every blessed book that bears my name.  The Lord our God is a
consuming fire, jealous of every impulse but the impulse to
create--and all the rest of it.  I don't deny we're bound to feel
that way if the divine spark is alight inside; and our belongings too
often pay the price.  But yours is a very special case, Nevil.  Your
love-bird of the tropics is dependent on you for almost everything,
in a way that no English girl would be; and ... well ... May I say
what I think?"

Nevil nodded, without looking up; and, while Broome spoke on, the
formation of a glowing cave between two blocks of coal photographed
itself upon his brain.

"I think," said the novelist with a quiet deliberation not devoid of
feeling, "that of late your wife has grown too light and too
transparent even for a porcelain Princess.  Dr. Ransome must know
better than I can the state of her lungs.  But it's my belief that in
spite of a devotion to yourself that is little short of worship, she
is eating her heart out, in secret, for the light and warmth and
colour which are quite as essential to her health of mind and body as
fresh and cold water to yours.  I may be wrong----"

Nevil looked up quickly, decision in his eyes.

"Quite the reverse, old man.  You're most confoundedly right."

He paused; shirking further speech; then went resolutely on.  "I
suppose you saw that she seemed rather upset when I brought her down.
Well--she had just told me, for the first time, that the one certain
cure for her would be a spell of India.  Seems she had a notion we
might go out with her father.  I can't tell you the shock it gave me
to know the craving was there."

Broome brought his teeth together with an audible click.  "And you
refused?" he asked quietly.

"My dear chap, could I do anything else?"  Unstrung by the
recollection, he rose and paced the room.  "Look at my position.
This exhibition just coming off.  The estate on my hands and that
millstone of a mortgage round my neck!"

"Quite so.  Yet--on the other hand, there's your wife's health in a
precarious condition.  The trip she craves would be a certain cure;
and the house difficulty's not insuperable.  You could let for the
summer."

"At a month's notice!  And--the deuce of it is I've not the smallest
wish to leave the old Place just now.  I never guessed what a grip it
would get on me once I handled it myself.  But that's beside the
mark.  The truth is"--he swung round sharply, hands plunged in
pockets--"there's a bigger obstacle behind.  I never meant to speak
of it to a living soul.  But you've such a confounded way with
you----!"

For half a minute their eyes held silent conference.  Then Broome
spoke.

"Well--what is it now?  Sit down, my son, and keep yourself in hand."

Nevil obeyed to the letter; and it was Broome who paced the room with
meditative deliberation, finally coming to a standstill before the
first picture of the nine--Sita clinging to her lord, imploring
devotion in her gaze.

When all was said that Nevil Sinclair could bring himself to say, of
Egypt, of that nameless alienation, and the struggle to win free of
its insidious taint, Broome came slowly back; laid an extinct pipe on
the mantelpiece, and sat down opposite his friend.

"I see," he said gravely.  "And--in a measure--I understand.  Poor
Lilamani!  It's a serious complication.  You're really afraid a
repetition of that might wreck everything?"

"I'm hanged if I know.  I can't picture such a thing.  All I'm
certain of is that--as yet, I shirk the risk, for both our sakes."

Broome nodded feelingly.  "But the fact of her ill-health remains.
If it can't be the East, it must be the South, and that speedily."

"Yes.  She has my promise."

"Good man.  As for the Beeches, a highly desirable 'let'--for whose
respectability I'll go bail--is sitting not ten feet from you at this
moment."

"By Jove, Broome!  D'you mean it--honour bright?"

"As bright as you please!  Name your terms."

"Oh, as to that--a nominal sum----"

"Nonsense!  I intend to pay a good fair rental.  Since, by some queer
accident I managed to catch the long ear of the public, I've been
raking in more than one man has any right to possess."

"Glad to hear it.  As for me, I'd be thankful to hand over to you at
any price, instead of to a stranger."

"So I thought!  And the sooner the better.  Why not Antibes?  Miss
Hammond's there.  Get her father to go too; and you add to the sweet
influences of light and warmth the greater one of happy association."

"Capital!  We'll tell her to-morrow.  I want to see her looking
different before Sir Lakshman arrives----"

"M--yes.  It would be advisable."

Something in his tone made Sinclair eye him closely.  "What are you
thinking now?"

"Merely wondering what he will say to it all.  When fathers love as
he and I do their intuitions become extraordinarily keen."

"I don't know about saying.  But if he really thought she was
unhappy, I believe he'd be capable of knifing me straight."

At that Broome's big laugh broke out.  "No fear, my dear boy!  But
melodramatics apart, I anticipate some plain speech between the two
of you if she looks like this.  In fact, the way things are going
now, it strikes me you will soon have to consider seriously how far
you are prepared to vindicate your great experiment by meeting
sacrifice with sacrifice on a bigger scale than you have contemplated
yet.  It's the ultimate test; and in your complicated case, may prove
a severer one than you realize."

Nevil watched the roof of his glowing cavern crumble.  Then he drew a
long breath.  "I'm beginning to realize it now," he said slowly; and
the coals fell together with a soft crash.

Broome reached for his pipe.  The artist rose, and going over to his
unfinished picture stood before it lost in thought.




CHAPTER VIII

  "Love leaps higher with her lambent flame
  Than Art can pile the faggots."
                                  E. B. BROWNING.


The seventh of March in the year of grace 189- stands out as a
red-letter day in the annals of the house of Sinclair.  For on that
day Sir Nevil--long tacitly written down failure and renegade from
historic traditions--made triumphal entry into the kingdom of his
choice.  Not the type of kingdom precisely befitting a Sinclair.
But, before the day was out, Jane, Lady Roscoe, could perceive that
her brother stood on the threshold of a unique success.  And success
is the golden calf of the West; worshipped indiscriminately whether
it spring from an inspired group of pictures or a patent hair-wash.

All practical arrangements for the private view had been made by
Cuthbert Broome, that Sinclair might not be obliged to leave his
wife, or bring her to town a moment sooner than need be.  It was
Broome also who offered house-room to Sir Lakshman, Martino, and
Leseppes; Nevil and Lilamani feeling bound--sore against their
will--to accept the dutiful invitation of Jane.  On such an occasion,
her brother's rightful place was in Grosvenor Square.  Mr. Broome,
whose unwarrantable offer to "rent" the Beeches still rankled, was
welcome to do all the rest.  The which he did.  A small gallery in
Leicester Square had been chartered; Ramayāna pamphlets
printed, and invitation cards dispatched to a picked number of
artists, art-critics, relations, and friends, bidding them to the
said Gallery, where Sir Nevil and Lady Sinclair would be At Home,
from three to five.


They were At Home there now.  Eighty or so of London's social and
intellectual elite sauntered, paused or sat about in groups; the
low-toned murmur of talk merged in the subdued harmonies of an
invisible string band.  Those who had ears to hear discerned in the
music--carefully chosen by Nevil himself--a subtle fitness to the
epic drama present before their eyes: a drama that evolved from the
heart of a nation not yet arrived at self-consciousness; and for near
two thousand years has retained its power to mould the characters and
ideals of a race still unpractical enough to set soul before body,
heart before head.

Straight out of the thin, fugitive spring sunshine and keen wind, the
unresting clamour of London streets, they had stepped, these complex
men and women of the West, into an atmosphere charged with the
idealism and the passion, the subtlety and barbaric simplicity of the
ancient East.  Individuals, egoists, products in varying degree of
the modern competitive struggle for existence, they found themselves
drawn into the core of India's greatest love-story, builded upon a
twofold ideal of duty, fulfilled to the uttermost; of the Queen to
her lord; of the King to his people.  For although no magic of line
and colour could portray the mutual recrimination, the spiritual
tragedy of the aftermath, Lilamani had recounted it in the pamphlet,
writ by herself, in her own quaintly characteristic English;
desiring, above all, that none might miss the typical Eastern
culmination, wherein every silent hour of Sita's undeserved
banishment speaks, louder than words, the wife's acquiescence in her
husband's will.

Along the western wall were ranged six full-size panel pictures, the
more arresting for their simplicity, for the entire subordination of
effective superfluities to one supreme idea--the proving, through
ordeal upon ordeal, of a pure and noble soul.

One only, of all the six, held more than two figures; and in
each--whatever its outstanding qualities of emotion, workmanship,
colour--the eye rested inevitably on Sita's face.  Sita regally
arrayed, pleading for her rightful share in the fulfilling of the old
King's vow: Sita (Princess no longer) in primitive coat of bark,
stepping with subdued elation through Dandak forest; Rāma,
the path-finder, going before; Lakshman, soul of chivalry, following
after.  Sita, alone in the forest hut, amber-robed and lotus-crowned,
awaiting the brothers' return; all her listening, longing soul in her
eyes, while the stealthy ash-smeared figure creeps near through the
dusk.  Sita, terror-struck, yet fighting for dear life, in the
ogre-king's embrace.  Sita prostrate in the fiend-haunted garden, "a
pool with all her lilies dead": and at the last Sita, revived in
heart and hope, bestowing on the monkey-general her token of
unsullied wifehood--the jewel that was her father's wedding-gift.

In these six scenes, linked together by Lilamani's printed record one
phase of the Epic stood revealed; while upon the eastern wall three
larger and fuller canvases portrayed the culmination of Sita's
proving after the defeat and death of Ravān.  In these three
scenes--poignant, terrible, triumphal--played out against the living
background of Rāma's victorious army, Nevil Sinclair proved
himself master of the more complex grouping, the larger theme, while
yet the queenly, appealing figure of Sita remained supreme.  Here,
too, the subdued colouring of the earlier pictures gave place to an
appropriate effulgence of barbaric splendour, an orchestration of
regal harmonies, red and purple and gold.

It was the first of these three--the meeting of husband and wife
before two assembled hosts--that drew and held the elite of the art
world among Sinclair's guests.  Here, murmurs of criticism, or
appreciation, died into the higher tribute of silence; and here
again--for all the fine portrayal of Rāma's mute
denunciation and Lakshman's pain, the tense expectancy of waiting
hosts--it was the figure of Sita, royally dight in crimson robe and
wreath, that stirred heart and imagination and checked the futilities
of speech.  Unveiled for the first time,--proud yet visibly
shrinking--she stood, one woman alone in a world of men, with eyes
for none but Rāma; and in those eyes the dawning of a tragic
recognition that here was no kingly welcome, but insult such as no
true Indian wife could endure and live.

"Believe it or not, _mon ami_, that one canvas alone would suffice."
It was the voice of Leseppes, low and confidential, in Sir Nevil
Sinclair's ear; and grasping his arm, the great man drew him away
from the charmed circle of silence.  "Did I not tell you--I, myself?
I am not one that looks through tinted glasses.  What I said in
Cadenabbia--you remember?  'You shall stir the blood even of those
colossal Philistines, your own countrymen.'  See them now before that
picture--even those that have all the dictionary of art in their
finger-ends.  Proof enough that you have moved something bigger than
the brain.  Your father-in-law is satisfied, h'n?"

"Yes.  Oh, yes."

The restraint of the Englishman was strong upon Nevil in this his
hour of atonement for the locust-eaten years; and the Frenchman as
much elate with his own perspicacity as his pupil's justification
thereof.

"_Bein_!  How else?  To me it seems that within this hundred feet or
so of space you have presented the very essence of that India to
which you owe your inspiration, together with your wife."

And it was so.  The critical eye of the Frenchman saw plainly that
here was no mere triumph of anecdotal art, scorned by an
impressionistic age.  Sinclair had imbibed the spirit of the
Ramayāna through the spirit of his wife.  In these his
pictures, as in the Epic itself, the story, with all its subtle
analysis of motive, its barbaric opulence of colour, served as
background, merely, for the proving and revealing of a woman's soul,
triumphant in purity and renunciation: twin kernels of the Hindu
faith.

Not the pictures alone, nor the haunting minor music, but the whole
long room, was imbued with the glow and glamour of the East.  Costly
rugs and hangings, quaintly carven chairs inlaid with ivory, on the
temporary dais where Lady Sinclair received her guests, had come over
from India with Sir Lakshman, that the harmony of the subject and
setting might be complete.  By Lilamani's wish gold was everywhere
the prevailing colour: and she herself--in the midst of sober black
coats and the half tones of early spring--flashed like a living ray
of sunlight: all gold, from veiled head to shining feet; save for the
aquamarines on her breast, and the gleam of sapphire and emerald in
the minutely-jewelled border of a _sari_ the most regal she had ever
worn.

For the sake of Nevil and that dear father, from whose keen insight
little could be hid, she had made a last determined effort to shake
off the paralysing listlessness that clouded her clear spirit and
hung like a weight upon her limbs.  In a measure will had triumphed.
But the strain and the supervening excitement had taken their toll of
her; so had three days in London, though no longer an ochreous
nightmare of lost souls.

To-day her heart veered between overwhelming shyness and overwhelming
pride.  The unnatural brightness of her eyes, the dusky glow in her
cheeks, illumined her like a lamp.  Yet Sir Lakshman, listening
courteously to Lord Roscoe's polished turns of phrase, found eyes and
mind wandering incessantly to the small regal figure in the
throne-like chair.  For him, no passing illumination could gloss over
the fact that she was thinner.  The fine lines of nostrils, nose, and
brow were just perceptibly sharpened, and purplish brown shadows
ringed her eyes.  Was she well?  Was she happy?  Or had this notable
young Englishman, with the acquisitive instinct of his race, taken
all--devotion, inspiration, fame--and given little in return?  To
such questions her lightly-closed lips would vouchsafe him no answer.
That he knew.  In eleven months of marriage his child had become
woman, and he must needs accept the veil between.  None the less,
before returning to India, he would make very sure----.

"It is remarkable--most remarkable, in a poem of that era, the
mingling of purely epic and barbaric qualities with an insight, a
psychological subtlety peculiarly modern----"  Lord Roscoe's
well-bred voice at his ear reminded him that now was not the moment
for anxious brooding over the daughter of his heart.

For the moment she sat alone, glad of a brief respite even from the
friendly volubilities of Martino, who had gone off, on compulsion,
with two brother-artists to give his opinion on a disputed point.
For an hour and more she had endured an unceasing flow of small talk,
compliments, bewildering intellectualities and genuine enthusiasm
that set her head buzzing and left her hands uncomfortably cold.
Here, in this vast, seething London, always agape for some new thing,
was no sign of Bramleigh's nervous shrinking from the unorthodox, the
unusual.  Artists, art-critics, minor planets of the social system,
all were eager for more than a passing word or two with the living
Sita, who, until quite lately had been "a genuine _purdahnashin_."
Glad for Nevil's sake, she had yet found this avalanche of
appreciation a little overpowering.  It had left her small chance of
talk with her real friends, whose joy in Nevil's achievement almost
equalled her own.

From her too-prominent seat of honour she sought them out in the
thinning crowd below.  Broome on a centre seat, beaming alternately
at Morna and Christina, who talked eagerly across him.  Clara, in the
flowing grey gown that was her own gift, nervously pleased and
important, clinging to the arm of Rāma, who obviously longed
to escape.  Lilamani did not guess how the longing concerned Sita and
a cup of tea; nor how Clara, in her foolish pride, had been
chattering of two sonnets discovered in her son's rooms, that also
concerned Sita, minus the cup of tea.  Nevil she spied with Leslie de
Winton, in the group Martino had joined, before the terrible scene of
Sita's abduction; considered by some of the younger men the finest
thing in the room.  Lady Roscoe, on the other hand, pronounced it
repulsive and unnecessary; tried not to be aware of it, and failed
altogether.  Look where she might, uncomfortable sensations assailed
her.  The "native element" jarred; and there was far too much
primitive, unvarnished emotion in the air to suit her taste.  It was
more than satisfactory, of course, to feel that at last, by some
mysterious accident, Nevil, the impossible, stood on the threshold of
distinction.  But satisfaction was marred by private worries; and the
whole atmosphere of the place set her Philistine bristles on end.  A
set of vigorous hunting pictures would have been infinitely
wholesomer and pleasanter, infinitely more in keeping with the name
of Sinclair, than this theatrical farrago of abductions and ordeals
by fire!

She had avoided the dais so far; but Lilamani caught sight of her
now, in sober purple and ermine, standing with Phillippa near the
Hanuman scene, deep in earnest talk that clearly did not concern the
picture before them.  Once or twice they glanced in the direction of
George, who stood at the opposite end of the line, hands clasped
behind him, gazing abstractedly at the upturned face of Sita pleading
with her lord.

To Lilamani, George still seemed little more than a friendly big dog
to be patted and smiled upon because he belonged to her husband; and
George absorbed in a picture was a contradiction of terms.  She
amused herself now with speculating on the nature of his thoughts
that must surely have drifted miles away.  It did not occur to her
that he was absorbed in no picture, but in the face and figure of a
woman rendered almost living by the magic of Nevil's brush.

Possibly her thought drew him, as thought will.  Certainly he turned;
and seeing her alone made straight for the dais.

"Great luck catching you like this even for a minute," he said with
his Sinclair directness.  "I thought I should never get a look in.
I'm nobody to-day!"

"How nonsense!" She smiled indulgent reproof as at a child.  "You are
just so much 'George' as other days!"

"But you're not a bit the same Jewel.  In that ripping frock you look
more than ever like a Princess out of a fairy-tale.  And I tell you,
that first picture's a stunning portrait.  I must get old Nevil to
have it photographed for my benefit.  Now--do come and have a cup of
tea."

"Very well."

But as she rose, behold Jane confronting them, with the militant
gleam in her eyes that Lord Roscoe had learned to respect.

"One minute, George.  Phil's had enough of this.  She wants to
exchange some books before going home."

George's scowl emphasized the likeness between brother and sister to
a remarkable degree.

"And I'm one of the books she wants to exchange--eh?" he asked, with
a gruff attempt at a laugh.  "Phil's quite capable of facing a
librarian without an escort; and I didn't suppose she'd be keen on
mine to-day."

"My dear boy, don't talk nonsense.  Go and call a hansom.  She'll be
ready in a minute."

"Oh well--if it's General Orders----!  But I don't suppose she's in a
mortal hurry; and I want to give Jewel some tea."

"George----!"  Lady Roscoe remonstrated sharply under her breath;
then checked herself and stood on guard, while two cups of tea and
two sandwiches were swallowed in comfortless haste.

Lilamani, puzzled beyond measure, was thankful when George put his
cup down and gripped her hand.

"Sorry I'm obliged to run off like this; and a thousand
congratulations on a stunning good show.  I couldn't have believed
old Nevil had it in him.  But he's had all the luck going, this last
year."

His eyes lingered on her a moment in open defiance of Jane.  Then he
was gone: and, in the silence that fell, Lord Roscoe's even voice
could still be heard drawing abstruse comparisons between Homer and
his contemporary, Valmiki, hermit and singer, who enriched the
national life of India by the story of Rāma and his Queen.

Lilamani spoke first.

"Anything gone wrong--with George?"

"Yes.  He's making a fool of himself all round.  But we can't talk of
that here."

Lady Roscoe scrutinized her sister-in-law for a few seconds, and
decided afresh that her dress was far too conspicuous for good taste;
then she added in the tone of schooled friendliness Lilamani knew too
well: "You're beginning to look fagged, my dear.  If you want to be
fresh for the dinner to-night, and fit for travelling to-morrow,
you'd better come straight home in the brougham with me.  All the
best people have gone.  Kit can very well play hostess for Nevil's
artist friends, and give you a chance to lie down before you dress.
I know you're glorying in it all.  But be sensible, for once, and
come away with me."

Command lurked beneath the conciliatory flow of words, and
Lilamani--puzzled and a little reluctant--felt too tired to resist.

"I am quite ready for being sensible for once!" she said, forcing a
smile.  "If he is really not needing me."

"Come and ask him yourself."

"Very well."  Crossing over to Sir Lakshman she touched his arm.  "I
am going now, Father--for a little rest."

"Very wise, my child.  You look to need it," he answered, laying a
hand over hers and deliberately searching her face.  "We meet again
soon--for this great dinner!"

And she passed on.  The great dinner--given by Broome--was to be a
private one at the Carlton; a gathering of choice spirits to give
Nevil and his wife a hearty "send-off" and drink long life to the
Ramayāna Exhibition.

They found Nevil in the thick of an argument with Martino on the link
between motive and art.  He commended Jane's wisdom, while privately
wondering at it.  Lilamani wondered also; the more so that her
over-sensitized nerves divined hostility in the air.  But not until
they reached the drawing-room door and she turned to escape did the
true inwardness of Jane's manœuvre come to light.

"Don't run away at once, Lil.  I want a talk with you first," said
she; and Lilamani winced, as always, at the anglicized mutilation of
her name.

"I came home for rest," she objected, without her usual spirit.

"Well, I won't keep you long.  But it's important.  There's tea in
there.  One never gets any worth speaking of in a crowd like that."

Clearly resistance was useless.  When Jane meant to have her way she
usually had it.  Nor did she waste time in beating about the bush.
An arm-chair and a cup of tea were the limit of her concessions to
Lilamani's weakness.  Her speech was straight and plain.

"Of course it's about George.  You asked what was wrong.  But you
must know as well as I do----"

Lilamani started, and set down her cup.

"I?  How do you mean?" she asked blankly, and Jane's vexation flashed
out.

"My dear innocent!  I suppose you're aware that he admires you?"

The frank statement fired Lilamani's cheeks.  "I know he is very
kind--almost like real brother.  Only sometimes he ... he troubles me
with his eyes.  But if you are so bad of heart to think ... because
of that ... he..."

"For goodness' sake, child, give me a chance to speak.  George is a
gentleman and a Sinclair.  I'm not suspecting him of anything more
serious than a passing fascination for a new type; and that's hard
enough on Phil.  But she's most reasonable; most sensible.  And
though Nevil says I 'make friction,' I'd have let things alone if
George hadn't been fool enough, yesterday, to talk airily about
running over to Antibes for Easter.  Phil says she told him plainly
that if he went their engagement would be at an end; and they've
scarcely spoken since----"

"But Jane----!  How to break so sacred thing?"

Lady Roscoe waved aside the futile question.

"This isn't a treatise on racial customs.  Still--you can take it
from me that, in England, we've good sense enough to consider an
unsuitable marriage much more disastrous than a broken engagement.
But this one is not unsuitable; and it shan't be broken off if I can
help it.  Women may be over-plentiful.  But not girls like Phil, plus
five thousand a year."

Lilamani did not quite see the connection of this last.  The whole
subject jarred her fastidious sense of reserve; and she could not be
expected to perceive that it really was rather trying, for Jane, to
find this insignificant Hindu child upsetting the whole of her sacred
Family.

"I hope there will come no such trouble," the Hindu child murmured,
with a touch of constraint.

"Hoping's no use.  I want facts.  Has he mentioned this last bit of
folly to you?  Have you encouraged the idea?  Perhaps--with your
queer 'sisterly' notions, you've been asking him to come----"

"I--oh, what are you saying?  What shall I, who am wife, have to do
with coming and going of--other men?"  She rose abruptly; pulses
hammering at her temples and in her throat.  "With us it is insult to
make any such suggestion; and for--for other kinds of foolishness,
how can _I_ help----"

"That's for you to answer.  I know _I_ could"--which was true enough.
"No right-minded woman fascinates men promiscuously without knowing
it; and if you go on at this rate, there'll always be trouble."

"At what rate?" Lilamani murmured blankly; and Jane, extinguishing
her with a glance: "Don't ask childish questions, but listen to me.
It's not only George.  There's Ronald writing sonnets to your
eyebrows--or some such foolery--by way of being violently original.
But Nevil's to blame for that.  I'm only concerned for George.  If he
talks to you of coming out----'

"He will not talk," Lilamani retorted with sudden anger.  "He is not
like you think.  Only friend.  But now all that is spoilt, by your
saying such things.  I do not wish even to see him----"

"My dear Lil, do sit down.  Heroics are futile and bad form."

Jane spoke more placably, perceiving she had gone too far.  But
Lilamani shook her head.

"I am tired, and do not wish to hear any more.  If you have more to
speak you can tell it to Nevil----"

"Nevil, indeed! much use talking to Nevil to-day about mere human
beings!  He'll be hopelessly in the clouds."

"Better that, than to be in such ugly kind of mud as you have pushed
me in now."

"What nonsense, my dear.  That's just your Eastern trick of
exaggeration.  I'm a practical woman of the world; years older than
you; and when I see things going wrong in the family all on your
account, I have every right to speak.  If you were not so spoilt and
so unreasonable, you would take it in good part, and Nevil need not
be bothered at all.  But really you two haven't an ounce of common
sense between you!"

"For that I am glad and thankful from my inmost soul," Lilamani made
answer with heartfelt fervour of conviction; and was gone.


Alone in her room, she pressed cold fingers against her throbbing
temples and flaming cheeks.  Then flinging herself on the sofa, she
lay chilled and rigid with burning head; her thoughts a chaotic
mingling of Epic India, Nevil's triumph and her own renewed hatred of
Jane.  Foolish?  Perhaps.  But her health was far from normal.  It
had been a day of strain; and That Terrible's sacrilegious hand upon
her sanctities seemed more than she could endure.

At the approach of Nevil's footstep she sat upright--waiting.

From the rhythm of it she pictured him bounding up, schoolboy
fashion, three steps at a time; and his face, when the door opened,
confirmed her vision.  Dazzled by the day's triumph he saw nothing,
for the moment, but the radiant figure that throughout had been the
lodestar of his eyes and mind.

"Rested already?  Good!" was his cheerful greeting.  Then he came
quickly forward, closing the door.

"Oh, my Sita Dévi--it's been a supreme day!  And I've come to lay all
my laurels at the feet of the Queen.  You won't allow me near you in
public.  Now I claim atonement to the full!"

Laughing, he knelt before her and bowed his head upon the hands that
lay in her lap.

At the touch of them he started and looked up.  "Darling--you're
ice-cold.  And your cheeks are on fire.  I thought Jane took you home
to rest."

"Yes.  But first she was telling me cruel things--to me like
insult--how I am making trouble in your family; breaking betrothal of
George----"

"_You_?  So that was at the bottom of her sisterly concern.  I might
have known!  That engagement was of Jane's making.  If anything goes
wrong it's her look-out.  You--indeed!  Was she unkind?"

"No--no.  Only she is not understanding how, for Hindu wife--oh,
Nevil!  Rather would I go back in strictest _purdah_--even from
men-folk of husband's family----"

A fit of coughing shook her; and he, tenderly masterful, laid her
back among the cushions, covering her with a quilt.

"You stay there and shut your eyes _and_ your mind!" he commanded,
with a lightness he was far from feeling.  "Leave Jane and George to
me; and don't give the matter another thought.  That's _hukm_--d'you
hear!  I want you to be at your very best to-night.  Sir Lakshman
seems bothered about you as it is; and we don't want fresh trouble in
that quarter----  Oh, confound it all!" he broke out desperately.
"She might have let you alone, to-day, of all days, that ought to
have been one of unclouded happiness----"

"But King of me"--she clung to his hands--"I am happy in spite of
all.  Heart and spirit are singing in the air like birds.  Only this
stupid body, so strangely without life--like a flower faded and
thrown in the dust."

"A very brilliant and beautiful flower," he said softly, and passed a
slow, soothing hand over her from shoulder to ankles.  "It will never
be thrown in the dust while I'm alive."

Her lids fell almost before he had ceased speaking.  Yet still he
stood over her, watching intently.

With the swift approach of sleep the whole delicate face relaxed its
tension.  Lips drooped at the corners, shadows under the lashes
seemed to darken; and the curve of the cheek was unmistakably less
perfect than on the day he sketched it first: significant trifles to
the eye of love.

A haunting remark of Broome's returned to trouble him.  "Of course I
know you must wait.  But the deuce of it is that you can't bargain
with the ghostly sisters to 'go slow' while an insignificant human
completes an insignificant fragment of his life's work."

Bargain or no--there remained a fundamental reliance on the Great
Unseen, strangely intensified by eleven months of union with this
Hindu wife of his: and leaning above her now the man's heart breathed
a broken prayer that she might not slip away from him on the
threshold of achievement.

Then he went softly out, bent on speaking his mind to Jane, with a
directness that for once should outrival her own.




CHAPTER IX

"O greying of my dawn, suspiring into rose: O grey veils of dusk,
that obscure the tender flushing of my dawn!"--FIONA McLEOD.


At a small deal table, set across the oval window of her third-floor
bedroom, Audrey Hammond sat writing.  It was the selfsame corner room
where they had all drunk tea with Signor Martino in the far-off
beginning of things.  And now--only four days ago, they had been
shocked and saddened by a letter from Broome announcing his death.
It transpired that sooner than miss Nevil's hour of triumph, he had
come straight from a sick-bed, in defiance of doctor and sister.  And
within two weeks the most murderous month in the English calendar had
done its work.

To-day, on the deal table that had once been sticky with his paints,
Audrey Hammond's books and papers, and a photo or two, were set out
with mathematical neatness.  Her hand moved steadily over the ruled
page.  The lines of her intent face had been graven deeper by a
year's leave that had brought her little of holiday or enjoyment,
much of struggle and pain.  She had believed the pain dead and
buried, the emotion that caused it atrophied by stern disregard of
its existence, until she met Sir Nevil Sinclair and his wife at
Antibes Station a week ago.  The night or two at Bramleigh had not
been achieved: and on that day of arrival she had discovered, as do
all who suffer, that though love and pain be buried never so deep,
they die hard--if they ever die at all.  For are they not twin seeds
of the tree of life?  And a seed, though it come not to fruition,
remains, for an incredible time, a vital spark in darkness.

Three days from now, the s.s. _Arabia_, outward bound, was due to
leave Marseilles, with Sir Lakshman and Audrey Hammond on board.
Only three days.  On the whole, Audrey would be glad when they were
over; still more glad to take up regular work again.  She was at work
now, completing an article on nerve crises for a semi-scientific
magazine; her fair hair neatly coiled and brushed back as of old, a
deep furrow of concentration between her brows.  She wore a blue
flannel dressing-gown and her bare feet were thrust into slippers.
For it was early, very early: a dawn of lucent stillness was stealing
over Golfe Juan after a night of sudden tempestuous wind and rain.  A
last lowering mass of storm-cloud low in the east threw all the bay
into gloom.  The near hills above Cannes loomed purple-violet.  Yet,
away in the north, day triumphed on far-off ice-fields and glimmering
peaks.

But Audrey Hammond's eyes looked inward rather than outward.  The
storm had banished sleep and left her at the mercy of importunate
thoughts: importunate, because--when not definitely in harness--they
were apt to fall back upon those two; the sole human beings who had
ever deeply and lastingly disturbed her equipoise, or, in her own
phrase, knocked her off her centre.

Lilamani, wife and budding woman, was still for her "the child" of an
earlier day; lovable and gently intractable as ever behind her
delicate, impenetrable veil of reserve.  This last Audrey understood.
She knew enough of the Hindu wife not to expect the sort of
confidences that might have been bestowed upon her by an English
girl-wife of nineteen.  On the whole she was thankful to be spared.
But she was not altogether happy about Lilamani; and she suspected
that Sir Lakshman was not happy either.  More than once he had asked
her searching questions about lungs and nerves; and Audrey, being
honest by nature, had not quite succeeded in setting his heart at
rest.  As regards individual suitability and devotion the marriage
was a manifest success; manifest enough to humble the pride of the
girl who, in secret, had believed herself the more fitting mate for
this man of her own race.  But in Lilamani's case the secondary
considerations of family and country counted for much.  How had she
fared with Lady Roscoe, and her large, yet, in a sense, narrow circle
of sporting and political friends?  What of the neighbours round
Bramleigh, and her position as mistress of a great house?

Little could be gleaned from Lilamani.  She grew restive under
questioning, and Audrey drew her own conclusions.  In the matter of
her health, this doctor-woman had less need to rely on question.  Her
quick medical sense detected incipient lung trouble and nerves
overstrung either from repression or strain; and conscience urged her
to speak a word of warning to Nevil before the last day.  No easy
task, even for one who had scaled the steeps of stoicism.  And yet
another vital discovery made speech more difficult still.

Lilamani's shadowed eyes, slightly sharpened features, and her
fainting fit on the night of arrival, indicated a hope that would
probably readjust altogether her state of body and mind.  She
wondered whether the child realized things yet; wondered still more
what, precisely, was Nevil's attitude toward this, the crux of
intermarriage between East and West.  She approached Lilamani's
husband discreetly, even in thought.  Since she could not think of
him dispassionately her scrupulous conscience bade her refrain from
thinking of him at all.  But on this particular point she had always
held strong opinions common to the majority of her race.  Her own
feelings apart, this, the inevitable consequence, had been her main
argument against the marriage: and, at the time of the engagement, it
had seemed to her quite in keeping with Nevil, as she knew him, to
snatch impetuously at the desire of his heart, without looking--or
perhaps without choosing to look--the more complex issues frankly in
the face.

But Nevil, as she knew him then, had seemed little like to develop so
swiftly into the restrained and purposeful Nevil of to-day.  The fact
that a year of marriage had wrought more perceptible change in the
man than in the girl-wife eleven years his junior was, for Audrey,
the most unique and interesting factor in the whole situation.  It
had been natural to wonder what would be the effect on Lilamani of
marriage with an Englishman and close contact with the ways of the
West; and lo, it was he who had taken colour from her.  His
hyper-civilized brain and soul appeared to have acquired not
inspiration only, but a new grip on all things, from contact with the
elemental strength and passion underlying her surface pliability.
Would Nevil, man and artist, have so developed, so triumphantly found
himself, after a year of marriage with her--Audrey?  On that
inadmissible question she sternly slammed the door; and fell back
upon her former wonderings.  Did the child realize----?  And did
he----?

One thing was certain.  For all her devotion, she had something very
much on her mind.  Something that concerned her husband; and, in her
present state, brooding was the worst of evils.  She would be certain
to exaggerate trifles, to distort simple facts.  If only she would
speak----!  Invariably Audrey's thoughts came back full circle upon
that paralysing "if"----


And, unguessed by her, the same refrain was, at that very hour,
disturbing the mind of Sir Lakshman Singh, who sat sipping his early
cup of tea by the open French windows of his first-floor room.  Far
better even than Audrey Hammond did he understand and appreciate the
wifely loyalties and reticences of his child.  But he argued that her
case was exceptional, that his own responsibility, in regard to the
great experiment, privileged him to fuller assurance than he had yet
received that she had not bought her heart's desire at too great a
price.  Finally, he knew that he could not leave her again
indefinitely till his doubts had been set at rest.  Not her reserve
alone, but her manner of evading question, drove him to mistaken
inferences, which might have been dispelled by more open speech.

This brief reunion, so ardently longed for, had proved singularly
disappointing on the whole.  He had spent ten days at Bramleigh and
five in London; had spoken little and noted much that gave him food
for anxious thought.  In spite of immense satisfaction at her vital
share in Nevil's success, and his frank recognition thereof, the
father's heart--jealous for his child's happiness--foreknew the
dangers inherent in overgenerous draughts of the headiest wine on
earth; the fatal human tendency to lose sight of the giver in the
gift.  And when sons came to them--how would it fare with her then?
Would the brave words spoken in the glow of desire hold good in face
of concrete facts?  Nevil was an excellent fellow and singularly
wide-minded: not a doubt of it.  Yet Sir Lakshman wondered very much.

But when all was said the one imperative anxiety overshadowed every
other--her health.  Too well he knew the heavy toll paid by his race
for the doubtful privilege of culture; the tale of promising young
lives cut short by the treacherous grey winters of the West.  Her
small dry cough and smiling listlessness pierced his heart.  They
worried Miss Hammond too.  That was plain.  Something more radical
was needed than two or three months on the Continent.  A winter in
India might very well work wonders.  She need not come to Hyderabad.
He would mention it to Nevil.  If need were, he would insist.

Soothed by the prospect of definite action, he emptied his teacup and
lit a cigarette.  Most certainly he must find or make opportunity for
a frank talk with his son-in-law before the day was out.

Lilamani came down looking a shade more fragile than usual.  She had
slept badly, she said, on account of the storm; and Sir Lakshman had
a moment of quiet unreasoning annoyance as he glanced from her dusky
pallor and shadowed eyes to her husband's clear-skinned virile face.
Health has, at times, a knack of appearing unsympathetic, even when
it is not.  For, though Sir Lakshman did not guess it, Nevil's secret
anxiety matched his own.

In the middle of breakfast he was called down to the telephone.  An
artist cousin of Martino's, passing through Nice, begged him to come
over for the day.  He accepted; and returning to Sir Lakshman's
sitting-room, announced his intention and his train.  The Indian
mentally relegated his straight talk to the after-dinner hour; a
propitious hour, when the dinner is likely to be a good one; and the
faintest possible shadow clouded Lilamani's face.  Her wakeful night
had culminated in a decision; and she too must wait till evening for
a chance of speech.

"You don't mind my running away, do you, dear?" Nevil asked later
when they had a moment alone.  "If you lie down this morning, you may
get back some of the sleep you lost.  And you've no lack of good
company for this afternoon.  I don't doubt Sir Lakshman's blessing me
for giving him a clear field!"

"Yes.  That is possible!" she answered lightly, though her smile had
the shadow of constraint that had troubled him for a week or more.

Questions as to what was wrong produced the invariable answer: "Not
anything," and immediate change of subject.  Some fanciful bogey no
doubt; and he had decided not to worry her till sea and sunshine had
more nearly wrought their perfect work.  "Go for a drive out
Esterelle way, you two," he suggested.

"Yes.  That I would like--better than all."

But the lost sleep was not recaptured: and when Sir Lakshman
unwittingly echoed Nevil's suggestion--in the hope of a confidential
talk, that should determine the tone of to-night's arraignment--she
baffled him by including Audrey in the plan.  It was not the first
time she had eluded him thus, since coming to Antibes; and whether
she did it of set purpose he could never tell.  For once he attempted
protest.

"I was not meaning Miss Hammond.  Do you want her specially to-day?"

Her grave smile hinted at reproach.  "Not more than other days.
Only--think how unkind, Father mine, leaving her in the cold.  And
she would so much enjoy to come."

She did enjoy it; more than Sir Lakshman, who left conversation
mainly to the women, and carried on a vigorous argument with Nevil in
his own mind.

After tea Lilamani slipped quietly away without a word to either:
and, as sunset drew on, Sir Lakshman wandered out alone to the rocky
headland, raging inwardly against the invisible Something that
debarred him from heart to heart communion with his Jewel of Delight.
The very name he so loved seemed a mockery now, in view of her pale
cheeks and trouble-haunted eyes.  Enforced repression, and a sense of
being baffled at every turn, stirred the primitive passions that burn
beneath the surface impassivity of the Rajput, and wrought him to a
mood of mind ill-befitting the delicate task of approaching an
Englishman on the subject of his wife.

But mere movement and the nameless influences of the hour were not
without effect; and he decided to make the round of the Cap before
going back to his room, where he hoped to find a vanished Lilamani
awaiting him in the dusk.  He had intended that she should share his
stroll, and enjoy with him, as of old, the evening pageantry of sea
and sky.  But the Gods were against him every way; and their glory
manifest in the heavens mocked him rather than consoled.  He walked
on, bathed in it, while the chill wind of doubt blew through his
heart.  Could it be that he had done wrong in granting her the thing
she craved?  If so, well--it was conceivable that he might forgive
himself; but never the man who had tempted him to her undoing.

He had reached the Cap now.  Fretted and caressed by the darkening
waters, it lay before him empty of the usual sunset strollers, who
were over at Cannes waging a Lenten Battle of Flowers.  No threat
to-night of coming storm.  The wind was sinking with the sun, and all
the west one still, clear lake of gold barred with flakes and strands
of dusky purple cloud.  Deeper purple still, the carven headland of
the Esterelles brooded darkly between a bronze-green sea and a molten
sky.  Beautiful past question: yet without her vivid, peculiar joy in
it all, mere beauty seemed to lack significance.

Suddenly Sir Lakshman stood still.  He was not alone after all.

Some distance ahead of him, under the lee of a myrtle bush, sat a
dark figure, huddled together, as if the head rested on the hands.
But the arms were not visible.  Their owner was cloaked and hooded.
The father's heart quickened, as he moved a step or two nearer.  Then
he knew.  She had come out after all; and had preferred to come
alone.  A trifling detail; yet it hurt the man as she had never hurt
him yet.

At the sound of his step she sprang up so swiftly that he hurried
forward, half-fearing she would evade him even now.

"Lilamani--my child!" he cried, slipping an arm round her.  "What has
come over you that you should run away like this, deserting your old
father when so few days are left for being together?  Why shut the
door of your heart against me--unless that you are unhappy----?"

"No--not that, Father mine.  Only some foolishness--through not being
well.  But you must please believe--whatever comes, your Lilamani is
happy--happy----"

And by way of confirming her statement she fell sobbing on his breast.

For a few minutes he soothed her without speech.  But the doubt and
trouble that seethed in him could no longer be repressed.

"A strange fashion of happiness, Light of my Life.  I know you would
not speak lies to me.  Yet neither will you speak all the truth.  You
would not even drive alone with me to-day, when I so greatly
wished----"

"To-morrow, dearest--to-morrow," she assured him, choking back her
sobs.  "We will ride on the sea, like old times.  You and I only.
Nevil will understand.  Then we shall talk more freely of--of some
things----"

"And why not to-night?" he asked, increasingly bewildered.

She shook her head without lifting it.  "Please not ask.  Please
understand."

The old childish formula smote him, and he held her closer.

"Take me back now," she pleaded; and still supporting her, he led her
along the path.  "Not any more Lilamani-talk," she commanded,
smiling.  But the doors being once opened the trouble of his mind
must out.

"Do you imagine one moment I shall make criticism or discussion of
your husband?" said he, quietly disregarding her behest.  "Am I not
Hindu also, and you the daughter of my begetting?  But I cannot
return to India, seeing you in this state, and knowing my child of
the sun must again endure the grey cold of English autumn and winter,
so fatal for our race."  He felt the small irrepressible shiver and
went rapidly on: "No daughter of Rajputs will cry out for trifles.
But, from my own heart, I know it is telling on you more than you
will confess.  So much was changed by the sudden death of Sir George.
That I understand.  Also success and many friends will make Nevil
more inclined for living in England than before.  But I shall suggest
that he must bring you to India, where he can make further study of
Eastern subjects on the spot----"

"No, not say that," she broke in with such decision that he came to a
standstill and looked searchingly in her face.  "Lilamani--what is
your reason?  More mysteries?  Or is it possible--you do not
wish----?"

"Oh, Father--Father!"  In the mingled reproach and longing of that
cry from her heart, he had all the answer he desired.  But she added
swiftly, lest he take self-justification for consent.  "We have
spoken of that already; and he says not possible.  Too far.  Too much
money, I think--he does not wish----"

"Leave all to me, child.  There is duty of husband to wife, as of
wife to her lord; more especially in the West.  Leave it to me."

His decision outmatched her own; and she, between secret longing and
innate instinct of submission to the masculine note of command, said
no more.




CHAPTER X

  "A man's whole victory over Fate begins with a question."
                                            PERCIVAL GIBBONS.


Except as regards the menu, dinner that night, in Sir Lakshman's
former sitting-room, could not be reckoned a notable success.  To
Audrey it recalled an earlier dinner, after the storm, when she had
counted the moments till she could escape.  But to-night she was less
concerned for herself than for "the child," whose eyes suggested
tincture of belladonna; the more so that two dusky patches of carmine
burned in her cheeks.

How much did she know of her father's intent?  A few words from him
before dinner had apprised Audrey of his wish to secure half an hour
with Nevil alone.  Lilamani would no doubt retire early, and he would
regard it as a favour if she left at the same time.  The man was
clearly too intent upon his purpose to leave anything to chance; and
Audrey, as was natural, fell to wondering what he meant to say, and
how Nevil would receive it, when she ought to have been coining talk.

Of the four, Nevil only was not obsessed by the sense of something
impending.  Yet even he gleaned a hint of it from his wife's face,
and the fact that she wore her mother-o'-pearl _sari_.  He had not
seen it for more than a week; and his eyes were not so "deaf for the
language of colour" as they had been a year ago.  He knew now that
she never wore that _sari_ in deeply-troubled or despondent moods,
and took its reappearance for a sign that the mercury was rising
within.  No doubt she had dismissed the hidden worry that hung
between them like a veil; and he was glad.

But, Lilamani apart, his natural serenity was clouded by much talk
with Carlo Martino of the dead Andrea, who, in spite of mortal
frailty, had seemed always too vividly, too passionately alive to go
down into the Great Silence, even for a space.

Though caring little for money, and rarely speaking of it, he had, it
seemed, left more behind him than a distinguished name.  But no form
of will had transpired, beyond a half-sheet of foolscap, folded and
sealed, bequeathing two incomparable sea-pieces "to Sir Nevil and
Lady Sinclair (Lilamani) for grateful remembrance of one summer,
not-to-be-forgotten, on Lake Como."  Nevil Sinclair had felt no shame
of the tears that ached behind his eyeballs when he looked upon that
half-sheet of paper, henceforth to be counted among his most
priceless possessions.

To-night the voices of the living were lost in the clarion call of
that dead friend who had bidden him cease from making glowworms with
his eternal cigarette, and from choking with earth that "spark from
the fire of God," which had since leapt up triumphantly in flame.
To-night his art, and all it stood for, shone full in his eyes as
when one looks toward the rising sun; while against the radiance of
it men and women moved as silhouetted shadows.  But for this, he had
surely lifted before now the veil, woven of worshipful, fanciful
tremors, that had shut him out of late from the inmost sanctuary of
his wife's heart.

Thus it befell that the thoughts of all were more active than their
tongues; and soon after coffee had been served, Lilamani rose to go.
She was tired, not having recaptured that lost sleep, she explained
vaguely to whom it might concern.  Then she kissed her father with a
heart so full of her husband that she missed the meaning pressure of
his hand.  In passing Nevil, her eyes said: "Come.  I have something
to say"; and he nodded a smiling assurance.  He himself had much to
say of Martino; and decided to join her when he had finished his
cigar.  A stroll in the moonlight, if she were not too tired, would
suit his mood.

Audrey went out with her, smiling to think how little Nevil guessed
at collusion; and at Lilamani's door they stopped.

"Am I to come in?" Audrey asked.  Her voice had a gentler note than
of old.

"Not to-night, please, dear Audrey.  I have reason."

She lifted her face to be kissed with so childlike a gesture, that
Audrey, guessing the "reason," felt a queer contraction of heart.

"You will never get back lost sleep or lost health, my dear," she
said, kissing the flushed cheek, "if you bury your troubles and brood
over them.  There's been one in your eyes all this week."

"Not trouble."

"Well, then--something else.  Can't you tell Audrey?  You said once I
stood in place of Mataji----"

For a second or two Lilamani confronted those quiet questioning eyes.
Then a hot blush submerged her even to the temples.

"I believe you know quite well, without any telling," said she,
studying the tip of her gold-embroidered shoe.

"I believe I do," Audrey answered gravely.  "And--is that all?"

"That is all--for now."  And Audrey kissed her again.

"He doesn't know.  She is afraid to tell him," was the older woman's
thought as she went slowly down to the central hall.  "And he----?  I
wonder----!"


His wife was wondering also, as she stood alone on the threshold of
her open French window, watching a tawny-golden moon disentangle
herself leisurely from the last of the tree-tops, and dissolve as
leisurely from orange-golden to the amber glow that puts the stars to
shame.  She had been wondering now for a week and more without
arriving at any definite conclusion, save that, for her father's
sake, she could put off speaking no longer.  Absorbed in her own
anguish of uncertainty--her unreasoning self-torment over the
unavoidable, intensified by ill-health--she had not realized, till
to-night, how wrong it was to keep silence when half a dozen words
might set her father's mind at rest.

And he--her lord--himself the giver----?

That there could be any shadow of doubt on such a matter, was to her
Eastern heart a calamity almost beyond endurance: her crowning
punishment at the hands of her outraged Gods.  Joy in the knowledge
that at last the great consummation was hers, had been strangled at
birth by the old serpent suspicion--scotched, not killed--that, in
the deep of his heart, her husband might be hoping to evade the full
price of possession; the stigma of passing on the Sinclair title and
estates to a son who had not pure English blood in his veins.  Not
unnatural; that she must needs admit.  Pride of race was an instinct
she could very well understand.  Yet, in such a case her heart cried
out that he had no right--no right----

A dry sob shook her; and covering her face she sank into a low chair,
set always near the threshold.

Before they left Bramleigh she had known how it was with her.  But at
that moment the fulfilling of her first gift had absorbed him to the
exclusion of all else.  Better wait, her heart had whispered, and
tell him after--at Antibes, where all things would speak to him of
those early days when father, family, country had weighed as feathers
in the scale against his great love and desire of her.

But, alas, waiting gave time for thought; and thought bred a host of
fears that grew and whispered and distorted themselves with a
fiendish versatility; speaking always in the voice of That Terrible,
whose unforgetable sentence was the germ whence they had sprung.  Had
this great hope of motherhood come sooner, no doubt she had accepted
it more simply and sanely.  But now, ill-health and strain and long
brooding on the one idea inclined her to see all things a little out
of their true proportion, till at moments she wondered if she would
ever find courage to speak at all.  Well she knew that, if her fears
were grounded, not all his chivalrous tenderness and reticence could
blind her to truth.  From such knowledge he could not shield her--he
could not!  One look into his eyes would suffice.  And if--if----!

Sooner death for herself and her gift, than that he should not deem
it the crown of all, was her desperate thought.  With a shuddering
sigh she let fall her hands.  Oh, when--when would he come?  His eyes
had said he understood; and with each moment of waiting courage waned.

Her room adjoined their dining-room, and the steady murmur of voices
through the wall recalled that earlier day, when her fate had hung in
the balance.  Suddenly the voices grew louder.  Was her father, in
sheer love for her, making fresh trouble on her account, just when
she had that to tell which might be deemed the greater trouble than
all?

A torment of restlessness took hold of her.  She rose and paced the
room, every sensitive nerve of doubt and suspense strained almost to
breaking-point.  Then she stood still again upon the threshold, and
saw how the moonlight seemed magically to be drinking up the shadows
along the wide path to the sea.  The brooding calm of it all drew her
with the potency of a command.  Again, as on that still morning of
frost, sudden longing seized her to be out there alone in the heart
of silence.  Surely there, if anywhere, peace and courage would
revisit her soul.  At least she would escape from those distracting
voices that might go on for another hour.

When nerves and imagination are overwrought, impulse seems the voice
of inspiration.  The garden called her.  She would go.  Already she
was fastening her cloak with unsteady fingers, thankful for the mere
relief of movement after the nervous tension of waiting.

Outside in the passage she started and stood still.  Through the
sitting-room door the voices sounded clearer; Nevil's raised this
time in manifest remonstrance.  Again, as on that night at
Cadenabbia, all thought of right or wrong was blotted out by the
imperative need to know; and again came punishment, sharp as the
stroke of a sword.

"My dear sir, I'd infinitely rather not," she heard Nevil say, with a
touch of impatience.  "I don't think you quite realize what a big
sacrifice you ask of me.  Last year, as I've explained, my position
was utterly different.  But now--with so many new interests opening
up, to lease Bramleigh Beeches and practically live abroad----!"

Lilamani heard no more.  She had no business to hear.  His anger at
Como came suddenly back to her.  And clapping both hands over her
ears, she sped like a thing pursued, down the shallow staircase,
through the empty public dining-room, out into the night----


And the two in the sitting-room, guessing nothing of danger to her
they loved, from tension of waiting and nerves at strain, continued
to weigh her fate in the balance, even as they had done a year ago,
in that very room, on a moonlit night of March.

Nevil's wish to join her, after a brief concession to politeness, had
been increased by a vague sense of disturbance, almost of antagonism,
in the air.  Too well he knew that Sir Lakshman had cause for
anxiety; nor did he look to part from him without rendering some
account of his stewardship.  But to-night, between thoughts of
Martino, desire of his wife, and an inspiriting review of his
exhibition in _Le Temps_, by Leseppes, he was not in the mood.
Moreover, he had all the Englishman's distaste for interposition,
however legitimate, between man and wife.

But as he rose Sir Lakshman put out a detaining hand.

"You will spare me another fifteen minutes, Nevil.  There is a
matter, not yet freely spoken of between us, that has been on my mind
all day."

Politely repressing a sigh, Nevil sat down again and prepared to
light a cigarette.  "Very well, sir; if it won't take too long.
Lilamani's waiting up for me, and she's tired."

"That I know too well.  And it is because of that--because every day
she is seeming a little more tired--that I must ask you plainly,
before leaving--is your heart satisfied about her?  Mine is not."

Nevil frowned thoughtfully at his empty coffee-cup, recalling his
talk with Broome.  This man had twice the right to speak; and yet...
Nevil felt perversely restive under the Indian's look and tone.

"She is in a very poor state of health," he answered with studied
quietness, "or we should not be here.  Are you implying anything
else?"

"No need to waste time in implying.  My child's welfare and happiness
are more than my own.  I am troubled--uncertain about many things;
and only straight talk will serve."

Nevil inclined his head.  "You shall have straight answers, I promise
you.  About her health I am as worried as yourself.  It's the one
grave drawback----"

"And you think to make it right by a few months on the
Mediterranean?" the other put in quickly.  "That is where you
mistake.  I know that specialist of London said no lung trouble yet.
But unless there is great care, great improvement of health--I tell
you, Nevil, it will come.  It is your country's backhanded fashion of
encouragement to pioneers of our race, especially when very young and
over-early developed.  Being myself responsible for permitting this
marriage, how shall my conscience not feel disturbed in seeing her
thus?  No criticism of you is in my thought, you understand.  And
yet--you cannot know as I do----"

"I know quite enough to make me confoundedly anxious," Nevil declared
with a touch of heat.  "You did permit the marriage, thank God; and
for her sake I've left England and my Place at a moment when I
particularly wanted to be on the spot.  What more would you have me
do?  You must consider that I am an Englishman, with peculiarly
strong ties binding me to the country----"

"That I do consider.  I also consider that you are husband of a woman
outside the ordinary.  Though her father, I think I have right in
saying there are not too many of her quality in India or otherwheres.
For love of you, she is facing many difficulties.  Is it good to make
them greater than must be?  When we spoke of such things in this same
room one year ago, you said, from your own impulse, that difficulty
of climate need not count, because you would be willing to live
chiefly abroad.  But now----"

He turned out his hands, Eastern fashion; and Nevil Sinclair leaned
suddenly forward, a spark of fire in his eyes.

"You infer that I have gone back on my word, sir?"

"My dear Nevil, I infer no such thing.  But in justification of
myself I repeat only what you said."

"Yes.  I did say it.  And I meant it.  But how on earth could I
foresee such big changes in so short time?  Then I was an amateur
artist; a cosmopolitan Bohemian, with no taste for loafing at home,
and no very urgent duties to keep me there.  Now my duties are
obvious and imperative: my father's place to fill as best I can, and
a big, heavily-mortgaged estate to keep going, as far as possible on
the old lines.  What's more, I have grown to love the Place in a way
I never thought possible.  As for my work, I'm an amateur no longer,
but an acknowledged artist--of promise--if no more----"

Sir Lakshman raised his hand.  "Consider one moment, Nevil, in
speaking of that last.  It has been my pleasure and pride to see that
no one is more ready to acknowledge how much of your so rapid success
is owing to Lilamani herself.  Ask your own heart then--does it
square with your British sense of fair play, that you reap all
benefit of these changes you speak of, while she must pay all the
price?"

"Of course not.  Surely you know me better than that."

"So I was imagining," the other answered with his grave smile.  "And
in such a case you will listen fairly to what I shall say.  A couple
of months here will not make Lilamani fit for facing your English
autumn and winter again so soon; and your friend Broome, if willing
for a longer lease, can surely be trusted to look after your
interests as if they were his own.  Why not, then, leave your estates
in his care--I do not say for always; but for a term of years, that
you may be more free----"

"My dear sir," Nevil broke in sharply, "I'd infinitely rather not.  I
don't think you quite realize what a big sacrifice you ask of me.
Last year, as I've explained, my position was utterly different.
But, now--with so many new interests opening up--to lease Bramleigh
Beeches and practically live abroad----!"

"Not even for the sake of bringing greater health and happiness to
that wife who has made, for love of you, a sacrifice bigger than
you--not being Eastern--can ever understand?"

Sir Lakshman drove home each word of his plea with a quiet, forcible
distinctness, that did not fail of its effect.  Nevil Sinclair
extinguished his cigarette stump, and for several minutes considered
the pattern of the carpet with profound attention.  The Indian,
determined to gain his point, found encouragement even in such
negative acquiescence.

"No harm, but rather benefit to your art," he went on, exchanging the
forcible note to one of persuasion, "from some years spent in other
lands than England.  And since you have done so well with Eastern
subjects, you will be the more able to combine closer study for
yourself with the light and warmth that are so needful for this child
of the sun you have taken to wife.  Better than all, give her a year
in India, Nevil----"

Lilamani's husband looked up quickly.  "No, not that, sir.  Not
India--yet."

From the moment Sir Lakshman began to speak he had known it was
impending.  Yet the actual word came as a shock.  So also did his
abrupt refusal to the man who had believed victory in sight.

"And why not India?" he asked, up in arms at once for his own
country.  "Surely----"

"Please don't think me unkind or unreasonable, sir, or take my
refusal amiss.  I can't explain myself.  But you must accept my word
for it that India's out of the question."

As if to clinch the matter he rose, braced his shoulders, and going
over to the open door stood there in a long silence, while the
opposing forces of passion and ambition, pride of possession and
worshipful devotion to her through whom he had found himself, clashed
within him mightily yet without sound.  Gazing abstractedly down the
pearl-grey path of radiance that ended in the ghostly glimmer of the
Mediterranean, he noted, with vague interest, a dusky speck that
moved from one pool of shadow to another, far away, down by the
balustrade where the rocks fell sheer to the sea.  That this moving
speck concerned him, even remotely, he did not dream.  Unthinkingly
he saw it vanish into the last of the shadows; and straightway forgot
it altogether.

Sir Lakshman, wondering and waiting in a pained suspense, never
removed his gaze from the significant-looking figure in the doorway.
If not India--what of the first proposition, unanswered so far?

The question was almost on his lips when Nevil Sinclair turned
abruptly and spoke.

"You're right, sir.  Absolutely right.  For the present, at all
events, Bramleigh Beeches must stand back.  There are difficulties,
of course.  It's a matter that can't be fixed up in five minutes.
But I shall not change my mind.  So you can set yours at rest."

Sir Lakshman let out a breath of relief.  "The Gods be praised!  I
have not believed in you without good reason, Nevil.  And I am the
more thankful for your decision because--not through any word from
her--I have a thought that more than her health is concerned."

Nevil nodded.  "Yes--yes.  I admit things have been difficult--for us
both, in many ways.  Surface things--that time will set right; but
still----  With me, as you are aware, her nationality simply doesn't
count.  She's herself; and God knows a man need ask no more of her.
But I can't make others see with my eyes all in a moment----"

He broke off with a start.  For the door opened suddenly; and Audrey
stood before them; a little pale, a little out of breath.

"Lilamani's not here?" she asked.

"No," from both men at once, and Sir Lakshman sprang to his feet.

"I looked in on her to say good night," Audrey went on.  "But her
room was empty.  D'you think--would she go out into the garden alone,
at this time of night?"

"Why d'you ask that?"  It was Nevil who spoke.

"Only because I saw someone in a cloak pass along the verandah about
ten minutes ago.  I thought no more of it till I found her gone.  But
I know she has something very much on her mind; and she has such
fanciful notions about things--the moonlight and the sea----"  Poor
Audrey floundered sadly out of her depth.  "At any rate--we might ask
the waiters.  It's possible----"

"Yes, indeed, it _is_ possible.  And other things--worse things, are
possible as she is to-night."

Sir Lakshman, knowing the women of his race, spoke with a strange
vehemence quite unlike himself.

"Go, Nevil, go!"  He gripped his son-in-law by the arm.  "Bring her
safe back with you, or--by God----"

Nevil did not wait to hear the rest.  He strode out, slamming the
door.  That speck moving from shadow to shadow came suddenly back to
him; and remembrance of a certain night on Como laid an icy clutch
upon his heart.

Audrey followed him out, leaving the distracted father alone.
Hearing her footsteps, Nevil turned and confronted her.

"Something very much on her mind, you said?"

"I thought so."

"Did she tell you what it was?"

"Not exactly.  There was no need.  I understood."  A pause: then, for
Lilamani's sake, Audrey found courage to add with deliberate,
unmistakable significance: "Nevil--can't you guess?"

Look and tone enlightened him.

"That?  Good God!" he exclaimed under his breath--and was gone.

Audrey stood still for many minutes looking at the empty space where
he had been, wondering what that fervent expletive might bode for
Lilamani's "great gift."




CHAPTER THE LAST

  "O very woman, god at once and child,
  What ails thee to desire of me once more
  The assurance that thou hadst in heart before?
  For all this wild, sweet waste of sweet, vain breath,
  Thou knowest, I know thou hast given me
      Life, not Death."
                                    SWINBURNE.


And out there in full moonlight, while the two men talked, the dusky
speck, seen of Nevil, moved restlessly to and fro in the open sandy
space, where no balustrade intervenes between sheer rocks and the sea.

Not even night and silence could baptize the soul of Lilamani
Sinclair with the dew of peace.  Fleeing from her overwrought self,
imprisoned within four walls, she found only that self, and none
other, here at the edge of all things.  None other: that was the
horror of it.  But there came another; a ghostly presence, unseen,
yet acutely felt, close to her shoulder, whispering insistently at
her ear.  And the voice was the voice of Jane.  One half of her mind
knew it for a product of nerves and imagination; the other half
shivered, at the chill nearness of it, like a naked soul in the winds
between the worlds.

And through all these importunate unrealities of sight and sound,
Nevil's voice, with its note of remonstrance, sounded clearer than
all.  "You don't quite realize what a big sacrifice you ask of me."
"Give up Bramleigh Beeches and practically live abroad----"

Oh, it was impossible, past thinking.  How could that dear
father--always so wise--make fresh trouble on her account, when
already she had made too much in this great English family.  Nevil
had told her nothing about his own bearding of Jane, save that she
need not distress herself over George, who could be trusted not to
fling away five thousand a year plus a woman who loved him.  His
parting with her had been awkward and constrained; Jane's, frigidly
polite; and her own secret wish had been that she might see neither
of them again.  They had rubbed the bloom off everything with their
"muddy thoughts."  For that last encounter with Lady Roscoe, striking
sharp on her joy in Nevil's triumph--and she peculiarly unfit for
emotional strain--had produced upon her an effect out of all
proportion to the cause; dashing her rudely to earth, just when her
wings had begun to flutter afresh; obscuring the worth of her first
great gift in renewed sense of her own unfitness, not for wifehood,
but for Lady Sinclairhood and all it involved.  Better for him by
far, whispered the malign voice at her ear, had he married his true
English mate--Leslie de Winton, who would have fulfilled the needs of
his art and of his great house no less; and--bitterest "and"--would
have given him sons of his own blood to carry on his distinguished
name.

Yet of his own heart and will he had chosen her--Lilamani; perhaps
without thought of sons or of great names.  And now--when she told
him, would he be glad in his inmost heart?  Or would he----?

Oh, what foolishness to torment herself thus for more than a week!
And yet--better uncertainty than a certainty she could scarce endure,
and live.  Had she been capable of pouring out her heart to Audrey,
much had been spared her.  But she was not so made; and it is written
that passionate love has a danger for natures over-sensitive and
reserved, unknown to the more volatile and expansive.  Yet had her
sole lapse from self-imposed silence--one shower of tears
unexplained, one cry from her heart--wrought this gravest
complication of all.

Instinctively her Eastern womanhood rebelled against the idea that
her lord should change his way of life in any degree on her account.
And her father--himself a Hindu--what possessed him to suggest such
madness?  Too well her heart knew the answer--love, sheer love, hard
pressed by secret fears.  For a week or more, whenever his eyes
rested upon her, she had seen that love in them suffering dumbly, and
yet had not found courage for speech.  Oh, coward, and self-thinking,
to spoil that dear father's last week with her, through fear of her
own pain.

And in two small days he would be gone.  The great sea, that brooded
and murmured below among the rocks, would turn traitor, even like the
moon to-night, and take him from her.  If only they two might go
also--they three, her heart whispered shyly, as she turned her steps
seaward and stood upon a grey slab of rock, gazing out across that
mysterious other-world which casts so strange a spell over dwellers
on land.

Softly still and dark, the wide waters slept beneath the stars, save
where moon-butterflies, in their thousands, made a shimmering path of
light.  The eternal wonder and glory of it was new every morning
every evening.  Yet to-night, for the first time, she hated it,
almost, that it divided her irrevocably from the dear, deserted
Motherland; that India, where no doubt could ever be how husband
would receive such news as she had to tell.

A verse from the English psalm-book she loved, spoke the cry of her
heart: "Oh, that I had the wings--the wings of a dove----!"  And with
evil intent that voice at her ear whispered of strong unclouded
sunlight, the still lakes and feathered palm-fronds of her own
Hyderabad.  The temple-bell, the familiar street cries and scents
assailed her with poignant vividness.  And through it all, as through
a brilliant veil, she saw the chill grey skies of her husband's land;
the great house, the ubiquitous servants, the "needless ones" for
ever at her gates!  By some fiendish freak of her distraught
imagination, Nevil seemed purposely to obliterate himself from the
picture----.

What did it mean?  What madness had come upon her?  Pressing her
hands to her temples she stood so, striving for self-mastery.  And
lo, another voice--a voice of temptation, from the great sea itself,
"Here is rest.  Here forgetfulness," murmured the lazy breakers that
lapped against her rock.  Like Eve in the old, old legend, this
daughter of lake and plain, seemed to have hid a wave of the sea in
her blood.  And now, wave called to wave, with alluring insistence.

A little foam upon the water; and the sea, that incomparable,
insatiable lover, would take into his deep heart the dream that was
her body, while the dream that was her soul passed on----

Startled, she stepped back a space; and the wonder grew and
strengthened in her--was this no temptation, but inspiration rather,
pointing the way, not so much to rest from her strange weariness, as
to freedom for him--her god among men?  No passionate impulse now--as
on that night by the waters of Como: but the innate desire of her
storm-tossed heart to win happiness for him at any cost to herself.
Would not Sita, model of wifehood, have done no less?  Sooner than
shadow of stain on her lord's name, or shadow of trouble on his
heart--an end of Lilamani----.

True, that night on Como he had been angered, desperate, hurt.  Yet
now--how different!  Then--she had much still to give.  Now, it
seemed she had given all that he had need of--from her; all that she
and none else could have given.  Must she then pass on; leaving that
other--(a red-hot shaft of jealousy here)--to give him those things
which were beyond her power----?

How should she tell?  How think clearly when thoughts and voices
buzzed in her brain like angry bees----!

Stepping again to the rock's edge, she stood looking down into the
waiting depths--stone still, as one who listens for a signal.

But there came no signal: only the alluring whisper of the sea.

With a despairing gesture she flung out her arms; swayed a little
backward; then forward----

"Lilamani--Lilamani--where are you?"

The call reached her just in time.  Almost miraculously she regained
her balance, and stood rigid, scarcely able to believe her ears.

The desperate note in her husband's voice stilled every tremor, every
doubt.  It was the signal.  The gods did not demand this twofold
sacrifice at her hands.

"Lilamani!"

The call came again, appreciably nearer.

"Come to me.  I am here," she called back; a ring of triumph in her
clear tones.

Two minutes later he sprang, a flying shadow, out of the massed
shadows behind--


For almost an eternity, it seemed to her, they stood, locked
together; his pulses hammering, his breath coming in short gasps from
the speed of his race.  The terror of that night on Como had been
his, increased fourfold by his lightning-flash of knowledge: and now
that he held her warm and living in his arms, emotion struck too deep
for any word of love, or of thanksgiving.  He did not even kiss her.
It was enough that he held her, almost crushed her against him,
forgetful for once of her fragility.  The pain of that mute
passionate embrace was pure balm to her heart; and when at last he
spoke, his voice had an under-note of sternness more thrilling than a
caress.

"I believe--I was only just in time?"

"Yes."  The word was a breath merely.

"You really would----?"

"Oh-h, not say it!"  She shuddered; and he gripped her closer.  But
the note of sternness deepened.

"Lilamani, when I left Como last year, you swore to me, by--the most
sacred of all things, that this madness should never come back.
How--dare--you break your promise?"

"Oh, Nevil!  I promised--for then.  Not thinking beyond.  But now--so
different.  I am no more needed for Sita; no more making sister of
you seem like murderer.  I am only making too much trouble in your
family, your home.  And to-night--passing the door, I stopped--I
heard----"

"_What?_"

"You were saying--true enough, how can you give up Bramleigh Beeches
and be living abroad, because of me.  Much too big sacrifice----"

"Think a moment, little wife.  Did I say 'too big'?"

"N-no.  You said 'what a big----'  But, dear lord, it was madness of
my father to speak such a thing.  It is not possible--not right--that
for one small woman such great sacrifice shall be made."

"Not even when that small woman"--his lips were close to her ear--"is
to be the mother of my son?"

At that word, heard for the first time, she drew a soft breath of
rapture.

"How--how did you know?"

"From something Audrey said--I guessed."

"And--you are wishing--that son, truthfully, in your heart?"

"I am wishing him truthfully, with all my heart."

A long pause, filled with the whisper of the sea; tempter no longer,
but prophet of peace.  Then she--taking courage in both hands,
determined to know all: "Nevil, have I been hurting my soul with pain
and doubt for nothing?  Did you wish him--just so much--from the
first?"

Freeing a hand, he pressed her head against his shoulder.

"Lilamani--if there is to be an end of doubt and pain between us, you
must have the truth," he said quietly.  "I did not wish him--just so
much--from the first.  For some time I simply put away the thought.
I had you.  That was enough.  Then--when we got home to the Beeches,
I began to realize--well, how much I was my father's son, after all.
It was a bad minute for me, little wife; and it came just when things
were so discouragingly difficult.  You remember?"

"How shall I forget?" she spoke quietly as he; all her quivering
sensibilities held in leash.  "And you were wishing--no children?"

"Not that.  Never that.  I thought--if we had daughters----"

"O-oh!"  Her low sound of dismay was Eastern to the core.  "And since
when--were you feeling different?"

"Since Christmas Eve.  When I saw you that night, worshipping that
other Nevil, who was no son of mine, a rage of jealousy flamed up in
me; and I knew--not quite then, but afterwards--that no narrow
prejudice of race could come between me and the need to see you so,
with a son who should be yours and mine."

"You are not wishing him daughter now?" she murmured in an ecstasy of
content.

"No indeed.  Shall I tell you just how I see him?"

"Please tell."

"You have given me a new spirit of understanding in so many things,
my Sita Dévi; and in this one above all.  Six months ago I confess I
shrank from the idea of a son handicapped by the stigma of mixed
blood.  But now--you being his mother--I refuse to admit the stigma.
I see him as one who will have the strength of his handicap, as one
doubly endowed with the best that two great races can give--the
spirituality of the East, the power and virility of the West; one
whose destiny it may be to draw these mighty opposites nearer
together by his own intimate love and understanding of both.  Is it a
good vision you have given me, beloved?"

She drew in a deep breath.

"Glorious past telling.  But it is not I that gave.  It is your own
so big heart, and----"

"Hush--listen again.  There is more----  You remember I told you once
India was impossible for us?"

"Yes?"

He heard the thrill of eagerness in that whispered question; and had
a fleeting instant of hesitation before committing himself
irrevocably to the inspired impulse of a moment.  Then he burnt his
boats.

"Well--I had no right to say that.  Nothing but my own selfishness
stands in the way of our going out there--later on.  Next time your
father comes home we will go out with him--we three.  For your sake,
and for the sake of all your inspiring love has given me, I promise
never again to grudge India her share in the heart of my son."

And she, laying both hands upon him, looked up at last--her face a
beatific vision, in the full light of the moon.

"Husband of me--you are ready for doing all this, only because
of--your Sita Dévi?"

"Only because of my Sita Dévi," he made answer gravely.  "But I also
ask a promise in return.  Never--while you live--must you let
to-night's madness conquer you again."

"No--no.  I promise for always in the name--of him that shall come
after."

And stooping, he sealed that promise with his lips.  Suddenly, the
wonder of it all, the incredible change in heart and hope and
outlook, swept over her with the force of a breaking wave.

"Oh, I am not deserving!" she cried out, half pushing herself from
him.  "All these things you will do, only for your little wife; and
I--I thought, I feared--oh, I have been a wicked, doubting Lilamani,
this long time.  But now--now----"

Swiftly she hid her face against him; and once more, as on the day of
betrothal, the deeps of his manhood were stirred by her passionate
murmur: "Live for ever, my lord and my king----!"



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