Phroso Part 31

'Yes, while you are here, my lord,' she said, with the most pitiful of brave smiles.

'As long as you want me, I shall be here,' I a.s.sured her.

She raised her eyes to mine, the colour came again to her face.

'As long as you are in any danger,' I added in explanation.

'Ah, yes!' said she, with a sigh and drooping eyelids; and she went on in a moment, as though recollecting a civility due and not paid, 'You are very good to me, my lord; for your island has treated you unkindly, and you will be glad to sail away from it to your home.'

'It is,' said I, bending towards her, 'the most beautiful island in the world, and I would love to stay in it all my life.'

Again the pleased contented chuckle sounded from the window over our heads. It seemed to strike Phroso with a new fit of sudden fear. With a faint cry she darted out her hand and seized mine.

'Don't be afraid. He sha'n't hurt you,' said I.

A moment later we heard steps descending the stairs inside the house.

Mouraki appeared on the threshold. Phroso had sprung away from me and stood a few paces off. Yet Mouraki knew that we had not stood thus distantly before his steps were heard. He looked at Phroso and then at me: a blush from her, a scowl from me, filled any gaps in his knowledge. He stood there smiling--I began to hate the Pasha's smiles--for a moment, and then came forward. He bowed slightly, but civilly enough, to Phroso; then to my astonishment he took my hand and began to shake it with a great appearance of cordiality.

'Really I beg your pardon,' said I. 'What's the matter?'

'The matter?' he cried in high good humour, or what seemed such. 'The matter? Why, the matter, my dear Wheatley, is that you appear to be both a very discreet fellow and a very fortunate one.'

'I don't understand yet,' said I, trying to hide my growing irritation.

'Surely it's no secret?' he asked. 'It is generally known, isn't it?'

'What's generally known?' I fairly roared in an exasperation that mastered all self-control.

The Pasha was not in the very least disturbed. He held a bundle of letters in his left hand and he began now to sort them. He ended by choosing one, which he held up before me, with a malicious humour twinkling from under his heavy brows.

'I get behindhand in my correspondence when I'm on a voyage,' said he.

'This letter came to Rhodes about a week ago, together with a ma.s.s of public papers, and I have only this morning opened it. It concerns you.'

'Concerns me? Pray, in what way?'

'Or rather it mentions you.'

'Who is it from?' I asked. The man's face was full of triumphant spite, and I grew uneasy.

'It is,' said he, 'from our Amba.s.sador in London. I think you know him.'

'Slightly.'

'Precisely.'

'Well?'

'He asks how you are getting on in Neopalia, or whether I have any news of you.'

'You'll be able to answer him now.'

'Yes, yes, with great satisfaction. And he will be able to answer some inquiries which he has had.'

I knew what was coming now. Mouraki beamed pleasure. I set my face. At Phroso, who stood near all this while in silence, I dared not look.

'From a certain lady who is most anxious about you.'

'Ah!'

'A Miss Hipgrave--Miss Beatrice Hipgrave.'

'Ah, yes!'

'Who is a friend of yours?'

'Certainly, my dear Pasha.'

'Who is, in fact--let me shake hands again--your future wife. A thousand congratulations!'

'Oh, thanks, you're very kind,' said I. 'Yes, she is.'

I declare that I must have played this scene--no easy one--well, for Mouraki's rapturous amus.e.m.e.nt disappeared. He seemed rather put out He looked (and I hope felt) a trifle foolish. I kept a cool careless glance on him.

But his triumph came from elsewhere. He turned from me to Phroso, and my eyes followed his. She stood rigid, frozen, lifeless; she devoured my face with an appealing gaze. She made no sign and uttered no sound.

Mouraki smiled again; and I said:

'Any London news, my dear Pasha?'

CHAPTER XIV

A STROKE IN THE GAME

I was glad. As soon as I was alone and had time to think over Mouraki's _coup_ I was glad. He had ended a false position into which my weakness had led me; he had rendered it possible for me to serve Phroso in friendship pure and simple; he had decided a struggle which I had failed to decide for myself. It would be easy now (so I told myself) for both of us to repose on that fiction of a good-natured device and leave our innermost feelings in decent obscurity while we counter-mined the scheme which the Pasha had in hand. This scheme he proceeded to forward with all the patience and ability of which he was master. For the next week or so matters seemed to stand still, but to a closer study they revealed slow, yet uninterrupted, movement. I was left almost entirely alone at the house; but I could not bring myself to abandon my position and seek the society of my friends on the yacht. Though reduced to idleness and robbed of any part in the drama, I would not forsake the stage, but lagged a superfluous spectator of an unpleasing piece. Mouraki was at work. He saw Phroso every day, and for long interviews. I hardly set my eyes on her. The affairs of the island afforded him a constant pretext for conferring with, or dictating to, its Lady; I had no excuse for forcing an intercourse which Phroso evidently was at pains to avoid. I could imagine the Pasha's progress, not in favour or willing acceptance, for I knew her fear and hatred of him, but in beating down her courage and creating a despair which would serve him as well as love. Beyond doubt he was serious in his design; his cool patience spoke settled purpose, his obvious satisfaction declared a conviction of success. He acquiesced in Phroso's seclusion, save when he sent for her; he triumphed in watching me spend weary hours in solitary pacing up and down before the house; he would look at me with a covert exultation and amuse himself by a renewal of sympathetic congratulations on my engagement.

I do not think that he wished me away. I was the sauce to his dish, the garlic in the salad, the spice in the sweetmeat over which he licked appreciative lips. Thus pa.s.sed eight or ten days, and I grew more out of temper, more sour, and more determined with every setting sun. Denny ceased to pray my company; I was not to be moved from the neighbourhood of the house. I waited, the Pasha waited; he paved his way, I lay in ambush by it; he was bent on conquering Phroso, I had no design, only a pa.s.sionate resolve that he should try a fall with me first.

There came a dark stormy evening, when the clouds sent down a thick close rain and the wind blew in mournful gusts. Having escaped from Mouraki's talk, I had watched him go upstairs, and myself had come out to pace again my useless beat. I strayed a few hundred yards from the house, and turned to look at the light in the Governor's window. It shone bright and steady, seeming to typify his relentless unvarying purpose. A sudden oath escaped from the weary sickness of my heart; there came an unlooked-for answer at my elbow.

'He acts, you talk, my lord. He works, you are content to curse him.

Which will win?' said a grave voice; and Kortes's handsome figure was dimly visible in the darkness. 'He works, she weeps, you curse. Who will win?' he asked again, folding his arms.

'Your question carries its own answer, doesn't it?' I retorted angrily.

'Yes, if I have put it right,' said he; there was a touch of scorn in his voice that I did not care to hear. 'Yes, it carries its own answer, if you are content to leave it as I stated it.'