The Tidal Wave and Other Stories Part 48

Hone would have foregone this part of the entertainment, but the colonel's wife was firm.

"People never know how to arrange themselves," she declared. "And I decline any responsibility of that sort. The Fates shall decide for us.

It will be infinitely more satisfactory in the end."

And Hone could only bow to her ruling.

Nina Perceval was the first to draw. Her card was the ace of hearts. She slung it round her neck in accordance with Mrs. Chester's decree, and sat down to await her destiny.

It was some time in coming. One after another drew and paired in the midst of much chaff and merriment; but she sat solitary in her corner watching the pile of cards diminish while she remained unclaimed.

"Most unusual!" declared Mrs. Chester. "Whom can the Fates be reserving for you, I wonder?"

Nina had no answer to make. She sat with her dark eyes fixed upon the few cards that were left in front of Hone, not uttering a single word.

He sat motionless, too, Teddy Duncombe, who had paired with his hostess, standing by his side. He was not looking in her direction, but by some mysterious means she knew that his attention was focussed upon herself.

She was convinced in her secret soul that, though he hid his anxiety, he was closely watching every card in the hope that he might ultimately pair with her.

The last man drew and found his partner. One card only was left in front of Hone. He laid his hand upon it, paused for an instant, then turned it up. The ace of hearts!

She felt herself stiffen involuntarily, and something within her began to pound and race like the hoofs of a galloping horse. A brief agitation was hers, which she almost instantly subdued, but which left her strangely cold.

Hone had risen from the table. He came quietly to her side. There was no visible elation about him. His grey eyes were essentially honest, but they were deliberately emotionless at that moment.

In the hubbub of voices all about them he bent and spoke.

"It may not be the fate you would have chosen; but since submit we must, shall we not make the best of it?"

She met his look with the aloofness of utter disdain.

"Your strategy was somewhat too apparent to be ascribed to Fate," she said. "I cannot imagine why you took the trouble."

A dark flush mounted under Hone's tan. He straightened himself abruptly, and she was conscious of a moment's sharp misgiving that was strangely akin to fear. Then, as he spoke no word, she rose and stood beside him, erect and regal.

"I submit," she said quietly; "not because I must, but because I do not consider it worth while to do otherwise. The matter is too unimportant for discussion."

Hone made no rejoinder. He was staring straight before him, stern-eyed and still.

But a few moments later, he gravely proffered his arm, and in the midst of a general move they went out together into the moonlit splendour of the Indian night.

IV

Slowly the boats slipped through the shallows by the bank.

Hone sat facing his companion in unbroken silence while he rowed steadily up the stream. But there was no longer anger in his steady eyes. The habit of kindness, which was the growth of a lifetime, had rea.s.serted itself. He had not been created to fulfil a harsh destiny.

The chivalry at his heart condemned sternness towards a woman.

And Nina Perceval sat in the stern with the moonlight shining in her eyes and the darkness of a great bitterness in her soul, and waited.

Despite her proud bearing she would have given much to have looked into his heart at that moment. Notwithstanding all her scorn of him very deep down in her innermost being she was afraid.

For this was the man who long ago, when she was scarcely more than a child, had blinded her, baffled her, beaten her. He had won her trust, and had used it contemptibly for his own despicable ends. He had turned an innocent game into tragedy, and had gone his way, leaving her life bruised and marred and bitter before it had ripened to maturity. He had put out the sunshine for ever, and now he expected to be forgiven.

But she would never forgive him. He had wounded her too cruelly, too wantonly, for forgiveness. He had laid her pride too low. For even yet, in all her furious hatred of him, she knew herself bound by a chain that no effort of hers might break. Even yet she thrilled to the sound of that soft, Irish voice, and was keenly, painfully aware of him when he drew near.

He did not know it, so she told herself over and over again. No one knew, or ever would know. That advantage, at least, was hers, and she would carry it to her grave. But yet she longed pa.s.sionately, vindictively, to punish him for the ruin he had wrought, to humble him--this faultless knight, this regimental hero, at whose shrine everybody worshipped--as he had once dared to humble her; to make him care, if it were ever so little--only to make him care--and then to trample him ruthlessly underfoot, as he had trampled her.

She began to wonder how long he meant to maintain that uncompromising silence. From across the water came the gay voices of their fellow-guests, but no other boat was very near them. His face was in the shadow, and she had no clue to his mood.

For a while longer she endured his silence. Then at length she spoke:

"Major Hone!"

He started slightly, as one coming out of deep thought.

"Why don't you make conversation?" she asked, with a little cynical twist of the lips. "I thought you had a reputation for being entertaining."

"Will it entertain you if I ask for an apology?" said Hone.

"An apology!" She repeated the words sharply, and then softly laughed.

"Yes, it will, very much."

"And yet you owe me one," said Hone.

"I fear I do not always pay my debts," she answered. "But you will find it difficult to convince me on this occasion that the debt exists."

"Faith, I shall not try!" he returned, with a doggedness that met and overrode her scorn. "The game isn't worth the candle. I know you will think ill of me in either case."

"Why, Major Hone?"

He met her eyes in the moonlight, and she felt as if by sheer force he held them.

"Because," he said slowly, "I have made it impossible for you to do otherwise."

"Surely that is no one's fault but your own?" she said.

"I blame no one else," said Hone.

And with that he bent again to his work as though he had been betrayed into plainer speaking than he deemed advisable, and became silent again.

Nina Perceval trailed her hand in the water and watched the ripples.

Those few words of his had influenced her strangely. She had almost for the moment forgotten her enmity. But it returned upon her in the silence. She began to remember those bitter years that stretched behind her, the blind regrets with which he had filled her life--this man who had tricked her, lied to her--ay, and almost broken her heart in those far-off days of her girlhood, before she had learned to be cynical.

"And even if I did believe you," she said, "what difference would it make?"

Hone was silent for a moment. Then--"Just all the difference in the world," he said, his voice very low.

"You value my good opinion so highly?" she laughed. "And yet you will make no effort to secure it?"

He turned his eyes upon her again.