Captain Desmond, V.C. Part 13

"It is strange that you can speak so," she said, "when you must know, better than any one, what your leaving the regiment would mean--to Major Wyndham."

"Yes--I know," he answered quietly, and the pain in his eyes made her half regret her own daring. "The only two big difficulties in the way are my father--and Paul."

"_I_ see a whole army of others almost as big."

"That is only because you are always in sympathy with the man's point of view."

"A matter like this _ought_ to be looked at first and foremost from the man's point of view. The truth is, Theo, that you have simply appealed to me in the hope of having your own Quixotic notion confirmed. You want me to say, 'Yes, go; you will be doing quite right.' And--think what you will of me--I flatly refuse to say it!"

He regarded her for a few seconds in an admiring silence, the smile deepening in his eyes. Then:

"Don't you think you are a little hard on me?" he said at length. "It is not altogether easy to do--this sort of thing."

Honor made no immediate reply, though the strongest chords of her being vibrated in response to his words. Then she rose also, and stood before him; her head tilted a little upwards; her candid eyes resting deliberately upon his own. Standing thus, at her full height, she appeared commandingly beautiful, but in the stress of the moment the fact counted for nothing with either of them. All the hidden forces of her nature were set to remove the dogged line from his mouth; and he himself, looking on the fair outward show of her, saw only a mind clear as crystal, lit up by the white light of truth.

For an instant they fronted one another--spirits of equal strength.

Then Honor spoke.

"If I _do_ seem hard on you, it is only because I want, above all things, to convince you that your idea is wrong from every point of view. You have paid me a very high compliment to-day. I want you to pay me a still higher one: to believe that I am speaking the simple truth, as I see it, from a woman's standpoint, not merely trying to save you from unhappiness. May I speak out straight?"

"As plainly as you please, Honor. Your opinion will not be despised, I promise you."

"Well, then--is it fair on Evelyn to make her upbringing responsible for such a serious turn of the wheel? Would you give her no voice in the matter--treat her as if she were a mere child?"

"She is very little more than a child."

"Indeed, Theo, she is a great deal more. She is a woman, ... and a wife. The woman's soul isn't fully awake in her yet; but it may come awake any day. And then--how would she feel if she ever found out----"

"She never would----"

"How can you tell? Women find out most things about the men they--care for. It's a risk not worth running. Would she even acquiesce if you put the matter before her now, child as she is?"

"Frankly, I don't know. Possibly not. She isn't able to see ahead much, or look all round a subject."

"Shall you be very angry if I say that you haven't yet looked thoroughly round this one? The idea probably came to you as an impulse--a very fine impulse, I admit; and, instead of fairly weighing pros and cons, you have simply been hunting up excuses that will justify you in carrying it out; because, for the moment, Evelyn seems a little discontented with things in general."

The hard lines about his mouth relaxed.

"You _are_ speaking straight with a vengeance, Honor!"

"I know I am. It's necessary sometimes, when people are--obstinate!"

And she smiled frankly into his troubled face. "Oh, believe me, it's fatal for the man to throw all his life out of gear on account of the woman. It's putting things the wrong way about altogether. In accepting her husband, a woman must be prepared to accept his life and work also."

"But, suppose she can't realise either till--too late?"

"That's a drawback. But if she really cares, it can still be done. I am jealous for Evelyn. I want her to have the chance of showing that she has good stuff in her. Give her the chance, Theo; and if she doesn't quite rise to it, don't feel that you are in any way to blame."

"I'd be bound to feel that."

"Then I can only say it would be very wrong-headed of you." Her eyes softened to a pa.s.sing tenderness nevertheless. "Let the blame, if there is any, rest on my shoulders; and we'll hope that the need may never arise. Now, have I said enough? Will you--_will_ you leave things as they are, and put aside your impossible notion for good?"

The urgency of her request so touched him that he answered with a readiness which surprised himself.

"No question but you're a friend worth having! I promise you this much, Honor. I will think very thoroughly over it all, since you accuse me of not having done so yet! And we'll let the matter rest for the present, anyway. I'd like to get you both to the Hills as soon as possible. These Kresneys are becoming something of a nuisance. It's past my comprehension how she can find any pleasure in their company.

But she has little enough amus.e.m.e.nt here, and I'm loth to spoil any of it. She'll enjoy going up to Murree, though, sooner than she expected; and as Mackay insists on my taking fifteen days before getting back to work, I can go with you, and settle you up there in about a week's time. You'll see after her, for me, won't you, Honor? She's a little heedless and inexperienced still; and you'll keep an eye on household matters more or less?"

"Of course I will, and make her see to them herself, too; though it seems rather like expecting a flower to learn the multiplication table! She is so obviously just made to be loved and protected."

"_And_ kept happy," he insisted, with an abrupt reversion to his original argument.

"Yes--within reasonable limits. Now, sit down, please, and light up.

You've been all this time without a cigar!"

But the cigar was hardly lighted before they were startled by a confused sound of shouting from the compound;--a blur of shrill and deep voices, punctuated by the strained discordant bark of a dog;--a bark unmistakable to ears that have heard it once. Desmond sprang out of his chair.

"By Jove! A mad pariah!"

Lifting Rob by the scruff of his neck, he flung that amazed and dignified person with scant ceremony into the study, and shut the door; then, judging by the direction of the sound, hurried out to the front verandah, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a heavy stick as he pa.s.sed through the hall. Honor, following not far behind, went quickly into her own room.

Desmond found his sun-diffused compound abandoned to a tumult of terror. Fourteen servants and their belongings had all turned out in force, with sticks, and staves, and valiant shakings of partially unwound turbans, against the unwelcome intruder--a mangy-coated pariah, with lolling tongue and foam-flecked lips, whose bones showed through hairless patches of skin; and whose bared fangs snapped incessantly at everything and nothing, in a manner gruesome to behold.

A second crowd of outsiders, huddled close to the gates, was also very zealous in the matter of shouting, and of winnowing the empty air.

As Desmond set foot on the verandah, a four-year-old boy, bent on closer investigation of the enemy, escaped from the "home" battalion.

His small mother pursued him, shrieking; but at the first snap the dog's teeth met in the child's fluttering shirt, and his shrieks soared, high and thin, above the deeper torrent of sound.

In an instant Desmond was beside him, the stick swung high over his head. But a low sun smote him straight in the eyes, and there was scant time for accurate aim. The stick merely grazed the dog's shoulder in pa.s.sing; and Desmond almost lost his balance from the unresisted force of the blow.

The girl-mother caught wildly at her son; and prostrating herself at a safe distance, babbled incoherent and unheeded grat.i.tude. The dog, mad with rage and pain, made a purposeful spring at his one definite a.s.sailant; and once again Desmond, half-blinded with sunlight, swung the heavy stick aloft. But before it fell a revolver shot rang out close behind him; and the dog dropped like a stone, with a bullet through his brain.

A shout of quite another new quality went up from the crowd; and Desmond, turning sharply on his heel, confronted Honor Meredith, white to the lips, the strong light making an aureole of her hair.

The hand that held the revolver quivered a little, and he caught it in so strong a grip that she winced under the pressure.

"It would be mere impertinence to say 'thank you,'" he murmured with low-toned vehemence. But his eyes, that sought her own, shamed the futility of speech. "The sun was blinding me; and if I'd missed the second time----"

"Oh, hush, hush!" she pleaded with a quick catch of her breath. "Look, there's Rajinder Singh coming back."

"He must have seen what happened; and by the look of him, I imagine _he_ will have no great difficulty in expressing his feelings."

Indeed, the tall Sikh, whose finely-cut face and cavernous eye-bones suggested a carving in old ivory, bowed himself almost to the ground before the girl who had saved his admired Captain Sahib from the possibility of a hideous death.

But in the midst of an impa.s.sioned flow of words, his deep voice faltered; and squaring his shoulders, he saluted Desmond with a gleam of fire in his eyes.

"There be more things in the heart of a man, Hazur, than the tongue can be brought to utter. But, of a truth, the Miss Sahib hath done good service for the Border this day."

Desmond flung a smiling glance at Honor.

"_There's_ fame for you!" he said, with a lightness that was mere foam and spray from great deeps. "The whole Border-side is at your feet!--But what brought you back again, Rajinder Singh?"