Voices in the Night Part 50

'Not till after sundown, mayhap, and I must return then; and who can tell what may happen if it is left longer,' persisted Lateef.

'Let what may happen! The _daghdars_ will not kill thee--they are kind; and what is the ring, now, but empty honour, since there is no heir?

But the other is different. _Rahman-sahib_ is bracelet-brother. He hath been kind--we owe him this. Wouldst thou be even as Jehan, Lateef, willing to steal honour from any?' Never in her long life had Aunt Khojee been so obstinate.

'I care not, so Jehan doth not steal the ring,' muttered Lateef revengefully. 'Nay, sister, I will not go!'

She bent towards him and laid a wistful hand on his. 'But if G.o.d give him back honour, Lateef, should we hinder it?--we who have sinned also?

Not so, brother! Let Him decide; and for the rest, help _me_. Lo! for all her years, this is the first bond between Khojeeya Khanum, King's Daughter, and a man. Let her keep it faithful, unstained.'

Lateef gave an odd sound, some part of it being his thin musical laugh.

'Sure, sister, thou wouldst make a saint even of a kite-flyer!' he said lightly. 'So be it! I will go by way of the courtyard. Then if the kites be gone already--as I mis...o...b.. me--I will to _Rahman-sahib's_ with thy message; so to the turret--or wait till evening as thou sayest. 'Tis a chance either way; and mayhap, if I give G.o.d His will with Lateef whom He made, He may give Lateef his will with the kites he made! That is but fair, sister.'

'Yea, brother,' a.s.sented Khojeeya piously, not in the least understanding what he said. 'So it will come to pa.s.s, surely, since He is just.'

Thus it happened, an hour or two after this, when Grace Arbuthnot was once more standing beside her husband's office table, as she had stood a few weeks before with the telegram which withdrew the confidential plan of campaign in her hand, that a card was brought in to Sir George by the orderly. He put it on the table with a frown, ere looking at his wife again, and finishing his remark--

'Tear it up, my dear, and throw it into the waste-paper basket! Why should you worry about the thing? I only showed it to you to amuse you, and because it was a good example of the lies the natives will tell, the threats they will use--on occasion.'

Lady Arbuthnot, who was once more holding a paper in her hand, looked up from it. Her face was pale.

'I think you ought to inquire, George, I really do. If there is anything----'

'My dear child!' interrupted her husband impatiently, what can there be? Didn't I burn the thing with my own hands? You mustn't get nervous, Grace; I've noticed you have been so ever since--well! for some little time past. And, of course, all that about the pearls, and the loathsome imbroglio regarding them, is annoying. I should like to kick Lucanaster and Jehan Aziz and the lot! Anything more unfortunate at this juncture can scarcely be imagined; but there is nothing to worry about.' He laid his hand on her shoulder as he rose to touch the hand-bell. 'And now, my dear,' he added, 'I have to see Mr. Raymond--he has written "important" on his card.'

'Mr. Raymond!' echoed Grace, her face flushing, then growing pale again. 'Oh, George!' she paused for a moment, then spoke more calmly--'George! I want you to do something for me. I want you to consult Mr. Raymond about--about this matter--will you?'

Sir George stood rather stiff, and the placidly obstinate look came to his mouth. 'Mr. Raymond?' he echoed in his turn. 'Why on earth should Mr. Raymond know anything about it--unless you have been speaking to him?'

She had realised her slip before the suggestion came, a suggestion whose truth she was too proud to deny, even though her husband's displeasure at the thought was unmistakable. 'I _have_ spoken to him,'

she replied steadily. 'I told him your opinion as to the danger should the hints in the native press prove to have any foundation; and he quite agreed.'

'I feel flattered,' remarked Sir George coldly, as he sat down again.

'Perhaps, my dear, when you are ready to go, you will ring the bell.

Mr. Raymond may be in a hurry.'

Grace Arbuthnot's heart sank within her. A woman--especially a sensible woman--can hardly live for ten years in close and affectionate companionship with a man without having seen him at his best and his worst; and that the latter was the case with Sir George now his wife recognised instantly; albeit with a clear comprehension of the cause, which made her feel a pathetic regret that she should thus handicap a man, as a rule so just, so unbia.s.sed. And that, too, at a moment when much might depend on his being free from personal feeling; since Jack Raymond, she knew, would not have come lightly. Some woman might have fought against facts. Grace was too wise for that. She simply rang the bell, and pa.s.sed into her own sitting-room with that pathetic regret.

It seemed so pitiful after these long years to find antagonism in these two men; and yet what right had she to feel scornful? Was it not bitterly true that she herself could not forget?--not quite!

Seated at her writing-table, her head on her hand, she tried to argue the matter out with herself, and failed. Only this seemed clear. That once you admitted certain emotions to be inevitable, it was very hard to set limits to them. Surely, therefore, there must be a firmer basis than the conventional one; but what was it?

She roused herself, after a time, to the consideration that no matter how the state of tension between herself, her husband, and Jack Raymond came about--and that such a tension did exist, she was again too proud to deny--it must not be allowed to interfere with matters more important; and that it might do so was only too palpable; all the more so because those two, especially her husband, would be loth to admit the very existence of such a possibility.

Therefore, she herself must see and talk to Mr. Raymond. Nay, more! she must get him to do what her husband would not do: make inquiries concerning this threat of publishing some doc.u.ments if payment for it was not made, which was contained in the letter which--half unconsciously--she had brought away with her in her hand from the office.

She pa.s.sed out into the anteroom, told the attendant orderly that Raymond _sahib_, on leaving Sir George, was not to be shown out as usual by the office entry, but through the suite of reception-rooms, and then went thither herself to await and waylay him.

Being seldom used in the morning, these rooms leading the one from the other into a hall beyond, and so to the grand portico, were dim and silent, the jalousies closed, the great _jardinieres_, full of flowers, mysteriously sweet in the shadowy corners. And Grace herself, ready for church save for the bunch of flowers and lace that go to make up the headgear of a _grande toilette_, looked mysteriously sweet also in the curves of a cushioned chair. She suited the vista of rooms, so empty of trivial nicknacks, so restful in its perfect blending of comfort and beauty. Comfort, not luxury; beauty, not decoration. Cold in its marble floors, warm in its oriental embroideries, and, above all things, charming in both its scented chilliness and scented warmth.

Perhaps she knew that she suited it, and that it suited her, since the hope of this decides the disposition of furniture in most drawing-rooms. Perhaps, in a way, she calculated on this, also on the effect of memory, in reducing Jack Raymond to obedience, since it was in these very rooms, scarcely different even in detail, that the most part of those two happy years had been spent. Such unconscious calculations are quite inevitable when women hold, as they are taught to hold as sacred, the dogma that true womanhood should never permit manhood to forget that it is woman.

She certainly succeeded in this instance, and her words--'Oh! Mr.

Raymond, I am so glad. I want to speak to you so much'--brought the latter back into the past with a vengeance, as, inwardly cursing himself for having taken the trouble to come and warn Sir George of something he thought serious, he mechanically followed the orderly's lead.

She scarcely looked a day older; she certainly was more beautiful. And surely, the last time he had seen her in those rooms alone, there had been just such a scarlet hand of poinsettia against the cold marble above her head.

'You have been seeing my husband,' she began quite unconsciously, and he broke in on the remark with a curious little laugh.

'I have, Lady Arbuthnot; and I fear I have wasted my time; and his. The former is of little consequence, but the latter I regret.'

As she so often did, out of a blessed unconsciousness that her mental position towards him was quite untenable, she appealed at once to that past confidence.

'Don't be angry, please! I was afraid there might be--difficulties.

Sir George,' she smiled frankly, 'was in a very bad temper. I had just'--she broke off, realising that absolute confidence was impossible, then went on--'but you must not let that interfere with--with what you think advisable. And you do think with me, don't you? that it would be advisable to inquire whether--whether that unfortunate letter of mine----'

Jack Raymond, who had remained standing in impatient hesitation between his politeness and his desire to escape as soon as possible, stared at her.

'What letter?' he asked.

She rose too in sudden surprise, and they stood facing each other against that background of white marble and scarlet outspread poinsettia. 'Then it was something else,' she said; 'I thought it must be _this_.'

He took the letter she held out, and read it.

'It says nothing definitely,' she went on, 'but--but I think it must be that; don't you? If so, what ought we to do?'

The 'we' struck him sharply, and he asked, 'Have you told Sir George?'

'Told him?' she echoed, flushing a little. 'No! I wish, now, I had, at first; he--he would have faced the possible danger by this time. But now? now it is impossible, Mr. Raymond! I have thought it out thoroughly. It would be better to take the risk, if that is necessary.

But it need not be, if you will help me.'

He shook his head.

'Why should you not?' Her head was up, her beautiful face full of a faint scorn, her clear eyes were on his unflinchingly.

He met her look, as he always met a challenge, with almost brutal sincerity.

'Because I do not choose to--to stultify the last ten years; because I gave up all that sort of thing when--when I said good-bye to you--here.'

'And you would let that stand between you and--no! not between you--but between death and life perhaps for others; between order and disorder, anyhow. You think it important, I know----'

'Sir George does not,' he interrupted.

'What does that matter? You are as capable of judging as he; perhaps more so! Why should you be a coward? Why should you, who possibly--no!

probably--know far more of the ins and outs of the city than the regular officials?--Oh, don't deny it! Have I not heard them say, "Ask Raymond" this or that, and "Raymond will know," and have I not been glad--so glad that everything has not been spoilt! Why should you, I say, give up your own opinion? For it comes to that. What you came here to tell Sir George to-day, for instance; you must have thought it important, or you would not have come.'

'I came because I thought it my duty to acquaint the authorities with certain facts that had been brought to my notice. I have done so, and that ends it----'

'It does not end it! You and Sir George disagreed, you know you did, as to its importance. You still think you are right, and yet you yield to him--why?'

There was a moment's pause, and then Jack Raymond gave a hard laugh.