The Great Amulet Part 22

The restraint of his manner was infectious, as restraint is apt to be; and she was hampered by a prescience of things to come.

"I was awfully keen to go too," he said, as he obeyed her. "But perhaps it's just as well that I didn't get the chance, judging from . . . from what I hear."

"You shouldn't judge from what you hear," she murmured.

"Shouldn't I? But unluckily it fits in with . . . what I see. Miss Mayhew . . ." he pressed forward, his eyes searching her face, devout worship in the sincere blue depths of them. "Will you be angry with me, if I ask you a straight question?"

She shook her head.

"And will you give me a straight answer?"

"If I can."

"Is it true that you are likely to . . . marry Maurice?"

"Not that I know of." He took a great breath, like a condemned man who hears his reprieve.

"Then, may I still believe . . . what you told me at Lah.o.r.e?"

Her answer seemed an eternity in coming; for a plain 'yes' or 'no' were equally far from the truth. This boy of four-and-twenty gave her the restful sense of reliance and reserve force that she so missed in Maurice. But there was no art, no thrill in his love-making. It was direct and simple as himself. He never struck a chord of emotion and left it quivering, as Maurice had done many times.

"May I?"--he persisted gently.

"I still think you are . . . the best man I know," she admitted, without looking at him; and he flushed to the roots of his hair.

"But not the one you--care for most? It's that that matters, you know."

"Oh, I can't tell--truly I can't," she pleaded distressfully.

"Then I must just go on waiting."

"I wish you wouldn't even do that."

"I can only prevent it by putting a bullet through my head."

The quiet finality of his tone was more convincing than volumes of protestations; and she shuddered.

"Don't say such things, please.--You hurt me."

"I wouldn't do that for a kingdom. But it's the truth.--I go down on the fifteenth, you know."

"Yes.--I'm sorry."

"Are you? Then why--oh, I don't understand you!" he broke off in despair.

"I'm not sure that I understand myself--yet. It takes time, I suppose."

"Not when the right chap turns up, I fancy. But I'll give you as much time as you want. I have a year's leave due. Shall I take it, and go home?"

She looked rueful.

"A year is a long time. But perhaps that would be best. You might find--some one else there, who understood herself better."

"That's out of the question," he answered almost harshly.

"But at all events,--I'll go."

A prolonged silence followed this statement: and when he spoke again, it was of other things. Elsie followed suit: but the result was not brilliant. She endured the strain as long as she could; then inventing an excuse, she left him; though, to her surprise, it hurt her more than she could have believed a week ago.

That afternoon, during the progress of a hybrid gymkhana,--ranging from steeplechasing to obstacle races for men and natives,--the first whisper of current gossip reached Lenox's ears.

Standing behind a restless row of hats and parasols, he was watching with some interest the preliminary canter of a horse he had backed heavily, when Garth and Quita, deep in animated talk, pa.s.sed across the line of chairs, and a woman close to Lenox turned to her neighbour.

"That match is a certainty, Mrs Mayhew. Say what you like. I'm sure of it. I only wonder it hasn't been given out before now."

Mrs Mayhew shifted her parasol and inspected the retreating pair through her gold-rimmed pince-nez, as though, by examining their shoulder-blades, she could determine the exact state of their hearts.

"I don't quite know _what_ to think," she remarked with judicial emphasis. "I don't believe anything is a certainty where Major Garth is concerned. But if they are not engaged they _ought_ to be! I don't like that girl, though. She is much too independent for my taste; and engagement or no, she probably lets Major Garth make love to her. He would never have stuck to her for six months otherwise."

On the last words Lenox started as it a cold finger-tip had touched his heart. Such a thought had never occurred to him: and he could have murdered, without compunction, the small self-satisfied woman who had lodged the poisoned shaft in his mind.

Turning on his heel, he made straight for his tent, where a littered camp-table gave proof that the art of taking a holiday could not be reckoned among his accomplishments. Then he sat down by it and bowed his head upon his hands. To doubt his wife's integrity was rank insult. Yet he knew Garth's evil reputation; knew also that the suggestion would cling to his memory like a limpet, and torture him in the endless hours of wakefulness from which there was now no way of escape.

Enforced abstinence from tobacco and stimulants had told severely upon his nerves, appet.i.te, and health; and a foretaste of the sleepless night ahead of him tempted him to regret his hasty destruction of the bottle of chlorodyne, which had not been replaced.

Till dusk he worked without intermission; and, as if by a fiendish nicety of calculation, the evening mail-bag,--brought out by runner from Dalhousie,--contained the coveted parcel of tobacco, whose arrival he had alternately craved and dreaded throughout the past ten days.

Zyarulla set it before him with manifest satisfaction.

"Now will my Sahib taste comfort and peace again," he muttered into the depths of his beard, and having cut the strings of the parcel, discreetly withdrew.

For a while Lenox merely grasped his recovered treasure, feasting his soul upon the knowledge that here, within the s.p.a.ce of one small cube, lay the promise of sleep, peace of mind, oblivion. Then, with unsteady hands, he opened the tin: took from his pocket a briar of great age and greater virtue; filled it; lighted it; and drew in the first mouthful of aromatic fragrance, with such rapture of refreshment as a man, parched with fever, drains a gla.s.s held to his lips.

A great peace enfolded him: and no thought of resistance arose to break the enchantment. For the 'mighty and subtle' drug kills with kindness.

Coming to a tormented man in the guise of an angel of peace, it lures him, lulls him, and wraps him about with false contentment before plunging him into the pit.

While the holiday folk trooped into the long mess-tent, laughing or lamenting over the afternoon's vicissitudes, Lenox sat at his table in shirt and trousers, his pen devouring the loose sheets before him. He bade Zyarulla bring him meat, bread, and a cup of coffee, and deny admittance even to 'Desmond Sahib' himself. And throughout the night he worked, and smoked, and finally slept as he had not slept since the Bachelors' Ball.

Before dawn he was up, and out: a gun on his shoulder, field-gla.s.ses slung across his back. He had given orders for a party of beaters to be requisitioned, in his name, from the Rajah's camp; and Zyarulla could be trusted to see to it that he should not starve. All day he tramped and climbed, shot and sketched, to his huge satisfaction; and returning at dusk, repeated his programme of the night before.

His departure without a word of explanation had roused Desmond's anxiety.

He suspected a fresh supply of tobacco; and this sudden invisibility confirmed his worst fears. He spoke of them to his wife after breakfast: and for all her radiant hopefulness of heart, she had small consolation to offer him.

The 'week's' events had disappointed her grievously; for the deadlock between man and wife seemed complete.

"Truly, Theo, I don't know what to make of them both," she concluded desperately. "They are the most perverse couple that were ever invented.

Bened.i.c.k and Beatrice were turtle-doves by comparison! After this week I shall give them up in despair."

"Poor darling! They ought to mend their ways, if only out of consideration for you! Come on now and comfort your soul with tilting.