The Great Amulet Part 44

And even _I_ could hardly have persisted in the face of that! So I determined to take the small risk with the big one. Dak bungalows seem to grow wild in India; and I thought there would surely be one here where I could get some sort of a bed."

"Dak bungalow, indeed! If there is one, _I_ won't help you to find it!" This from Honor, in a burst of righteous wrath. "So you may as well resign yourself to staying with us, whether you like it or not!"

"With you? Is it possible? I thought . . . But have you really a corner available? I could sleep divinely on the hearth-rug, I'm so desperately tired, and so relieved."

"Very well. That settles it. But I'll let you off the hearth-rug, even though you did fling Dak bungalows at my head! Captain Lenox is in Baby's nursery; and we can shut off the dressing-room for you, if you can manage with a chair-bed. It's quite safe. Everything has been disinfected. I believe Theo knew you were coming! Will that do?"

"Do? _Ma foi_, . . but how does one say thank you for such goodness?"

"One refrains!" Desmond remarked, handing her empty cup across to his wife.

Quita laughed.

"You are incorrigible!" said she. "But there is still this to think of. With your friends coming and going, how am I to be . . accounted for till I have seen . . Eldred? If I am Miss Maurice, _par exemple_, what am I doing in Dera Ishmael? And if not . . ? _Mon Dieu_, but it's an ignominious tangle. I'm as bad as Alice in Wonderland in the wood. I seem suddenly to have lost my ident.i.ty: and in my mad anxiety and impatience to get here I never thought anything about it till I was sweltering in that horrible barge this morning. Shall I live altogether in my room? It would be no more than I deserve."

"My dear, you'll do nothing of the sort." It was Honor this time, "Luckily for you, the Battery's in camp; and since Captain Lenox's illness there's been an end of my tea-parties. Our own people may be looking in now he's better. But for the next two days or so I shall simply be '_dawazar bund_.'[5] It needs no effort to develop a headache, or a touch of fever this weather. There's only Paul, and Frank, whom I couldn't shut out. May we just explain to them, more or less, how things stand?"

"But yes. Of course you must. And . . after all . . ."

She hesitated, flushing painfully.

"After all," Desmond came to her rescue, "it won't be so very long before the vexed question of your ident.i.ty is settled for good. Now I'd better go and speak to Paul. He may be turning up for tea, any minute; and that would be awkward for you."

As he reached the door at the far end of the room, Honor fled after him.

"Read those, dear," she said breathlessly, thrusting a letter and telegram into his hand. "They will account for this morning. I had bad news. But thank G.o.d it's all right now. I wired."

"And never told _me_?"

"You were so happy. How could I?"

"Then that was why you bolted?"

"Yes. I couldn't have kept it up for long."

"Well . . I've no time to scold you now," he said, looking unspeakable things at her. "Wait till I get you to myself, . . that's all!"

This short colloquy, carried on in an undertone, did not reach Quita's ears.

"What sort of a man is this Paul?" she asked as Honor returned to her chair. "I don't know his other name! Is he the sort that would be likely to understand . . our very incomprehensible position?"

Honor took a leather frame from the table beside her, and put it into Quita's hands.

"If you are any judge of faces, that's the best answer I can give you."

Quita scanned the picture abstractedly for several seconds.

"Yes. He'll do," was her verdict. Then she flung the thing from her; and burying her face in the cushions sobbed with the heart-broken abandonment of a child.

"Oh, what a blind fool I was to come!" she lamented through her tears.

"I don't believe he'll understand my madness. And if he doesn't . . .

he'll never forgive me!"

[1] Account.

[2] Scullery man.

[3] As Memsahib pleases.

[4] Any one there! Bring tiffin.

[5] Not at home.

CHAPTER XXI.

"Here the lost hours the lost hours renew."--Rossetti.

"It progresses, doesn't it?"

"It does more than that. It lives. You've transfigured it in these few days; and I like your knack of emphasising essentials without jarring the harmony of the whole. You ought to make your mark as a portrait painter in time."

"I've done so already . . more or less," Quita answered modestly, stepping backward, with tilted head, to get a better view of her achievement. It was the study of Lenox, which, for all her perturbation, she had packed as tenderly as if it were a live thing; and which alone had made life endurable for the past three days. Her easel had been set up in the dining-room, where she could work without fear of chance intruders, who gravitated either to the drawing-room or the study: and on this fourth morning after her arrival, she was standing at it with Desmond, who had looked in for a word with her before starting for the Lines. "If you were to go home now," she added, after a pause, "you would find the name Quita Maurice not quite unknown in artistic circles.

But they'll never see this, though it's going to be the best thing I've done yet; because . . ."

"Yes, naturally, . . because . . ."

"How nice you are!" she said simply. "One needn't dot the i's, and cross all the t's with you. Of course it's very incomplete still. A suggestive study is the most one can achieve from memory. So you mustn't judge it as a portrait,--yet. It's just a daring experiment that no right-minded artist would have attempted. But it's come out better than I thought possible. And I'm glad you like my work."

"I do; no question. I'm no critic, though; only a soldier, with a taste for most kinds of art. It's full of latent vigour; rugged without being rough, like Lenox himself. A fine bit of weathered rock, eh? I am only afraid that after feasting your eyes on this, the original may give you something of a shock at first sight."

"Is he so terribly changed . . in one month?"

"Well, think what he's been through. Concussion and cholera have knocked some of the vigour out of him; and he looks years older, for the time being. But you mustn't let that upset you. It's not unusual after cholera; and in a week he'll be looking more like himself again."

Then the truth dawned on her.

"Captain Desmond,--are you telling me all this because . . ?"

"Yes . . again, because . . . !" he answered, smiling.

"To-day?"

"As soon as you please."