"Not at all," said Will courteously. "But Nick has suddenly developed a violent hurry to be gone. My wife is trying to pacify him, but she won't hold him in for long."
"Let us go!" said Olga. She took her hand from Noel's arm, but looked at him appealingly.
"All right," he said gruffly. "I suppose I had better go too."
"High time, I should say," observed his brother. "Good-night!"
Noel did not look at him or respond. He turned aside without a word, and left the room.
Max made no further comment of any sort, but Olga was aware of his green eyes studying her closely. Like Noel she avoided them. She shook hands hurriedly with Will, and went out to Nick and Daisy.
As Max turned to follow her, she heard Hunt-Goring's smiling voice behind him. "Good-bye, Dr. Wyndham! Delighted to have met you again—you and your fiancée. I have just been congratulating Miss Olga on her conquest."
Max went out as though the sneering words had not reached him, but his face was so grim when he said good-bye to Daisy that she felt almost too guilty to look at him. She held Olga to her very closely at the last, and saw her go with a passionate regret. Whether she had acted rightly or wrongly she did not know; but she felt that she had wrecked the girl's happiness, and the spontaneity of Olga's answering embrace did not reassure her.
CHAPTER XVI
THE GAP
"Now, my chicken, to roost!" said Nick.
He turned to give her his paternal embrace, but paused as Olga very slightly drew back from it.
They stood in the dining-room which they had entered on arrival. Max had lounged across to the mantelpiece, and propped himself against it in his favourite attitude. He looked on as it were from afar.
"Please," Olga said rather breathlessly, and she addressed Nick as though he were the only person in the room, "I want to ask you something before we say good-night."
"Something private?" asked Nick.
She put her hand to her throat; her face was ghastly. Her voice came with visible effort. "It concerns—Max," she said.
Max neither moved nor spoke. He was looking very fixedly at Olga. There was something merciless in his attitude.
Nick flashed a swift glance at him, and slipped his arm round the girl. She was quivering with agitation, yet she made as if she would free herself.
"Please, Nick!" she said imploringly. "I want to be strong. Help me to be strong!"
"All right, dear," he said gently. "You can count on me. What's the trouble? Hunt-Goring again?"
She shivered at the name. "No—no! At least—not alone. He hasn't worried me."
She became silent, painfully, desperately silent, while she fought for self-control.
Again Nick glanced across at Max. "Pour out a glass of wine!" he said briefly.
Max stood up. He went to the table, and very deliberately mixed a little brandy and water. His face, as he did it, was absolutely composed. He might have been thinking of something totally removed from the matter in hand.
Yet, as he turned round, the air of grimness was perceptible again. He held out the glass to Nick. "I think I'll go," he said.
"No!" It was Olga who spoke. She stretched out a detaining hand. "I want you—please—to stay. I—I—"
She faltered and stopped as Max's hand closed quietly and strongly upon hers.
"Very well," he said. "I'll stay. But drink this like a sensible girl!
You're cold."
She obeyed him, leaning upon Nick's shoulder, and gradually the deadly pallor of her face passed. She drew her hand out of Max's grasp, and relinquished Nick's support.
"I'm dreadfully sorry," she said, and her voice came dull and oddly indifferent. "You are both so good to me. But I think one generally has to face the worst things in life by oneself. Nick, I asked you a little while ago to fill in a gap in my memory—to tell me something I had forgotten. Do you remember?"
"I do," said Nick. Like Max, he was watching her closely, but his eyes moved unceasingly; they glimmered behind his colourless lashes with a weird fitfulness.
Olga was looking straight at him. She had never stood in awe of Nick.
"You didn't do it," she said in the same level, tired voice. "You put me off. You refused to fill in the gap."
"Well?" said Nick. His tone was abrupt; for the first time in all her knowledge of him it sounded stern.
But Olga remained unmoved. "Would you refuse if I asked you to do it now?" she said.
"Perhaps," he answered.
She turned from him to Max. "You would refuse too?" she said, and this time there was a tremor of bitterness in her voice. "You always have refused."
"It happens to be my rule never to discuss my cases with anyone outside my profession," he said.
"And that was your only reason?" A sudden pale gleam shot up in Olga's eyes; she stiffened a little as though an electric current ran through her as she faced him.
"It is the only one I have to offer you," Max said.
He also sounded stern; and in a flash she grasped her position. They were ranged against her—the two she loved best in the world—leagued together to keep from her the truth. A quiver of indignation went through her. She turned abruptly from them both.
"You needn't take this trouble any longer," she said. "I—know!"
"What do you know?" It was Max's voice, curt and imperative.
He took a step forward; his hand was on her shoulder. But she wheeled and flung it from her with an exclamation that was almost a cry of horror.
"Don't touch me!" she said.
He stood confronting her, hard, pitiless, insistent. Of her gesture he took no notice whatever. "What do you know?" he repeated.
She answered him with breathless rapidity, as if compelled. "I know that you made her love you—that when you knew the truth about her you gave her up. I know that you ruined her first—and deserted her afterwards for me. I know that you terrified her into secrecy, and then, when—when her brain gave way and there was no way of escape for you—I know that you—that you—that you—"
Her lips stiffened. She could not say the word. For several seconds she strove with it inarticulately; then suddenly, wildly, she flung out her hands, urging him from her.
"Oh, go! Go! Go!" she cried. "Let me never see you again!"
He did not go. He stood absolutely still, watching her.
But she was scarcely aware of him any longer. For her strength had suddenly deserted her. She was sunk against the wall with her hands over her face, sobbing terrible, tearless sobs that shook her from head to foot.
Nick started towards her, but Max stretched out a powerful arm, and kept him back. "No, Nick," he said firmly. "This is my concern. You go, like a good chap. I'll come to you presently."
"I will not!" said Nick flatly.
He gripped the opposing arm at the elbow so that it doubled abruptly.
But Max wheeled upon him on the instant and held him fast.
"Look here," he said, "I'm in earnest."
"So am I," said Nick.
They faced one another for a moment in open conflict; then half-contemptuously Max made an appeal.
"Don't let us be fools!" he said. "It's for her sake I want you to go. I'll tell you why later. If you butt in now, you will make the biggest mistake of your life."
"Take your hands off me!" said Nick.
He complied. Nick went straight to Olga. "Olga," he said, "for Heaven's sake, be reasonable! Give him a chance to set things straight!"
It was urgently spoken. His hand, vital and very insistent, closed upon one of hers, drawing it down from her face.
She looked at him with hunted eyes. "Nick," she said, "tell him—to go!"
"I can't, dear," he made answer. "You've made an accusation that no man could take lying down. You'll have to face it out now."
"But it's the truth!" she said.
"It's a damnable lie!" said Nick.
"Nick," it was Max's voice measured and deliberate, "will you leave me to deal with this?"
Olga's hand turned in Nick's and clung to it. "You needn't go, Nick," she said hurriedly.
"Yes, I'm going," said Nick. "You can come to me afterwards if you like.
I shall be in my room."
He squeezed her hand and relinquished it. His yellow face was full of kindness, but she saw that he would not be persuaded to remain. In silence she watched him go.
Then slowly, reluctantly, she turned to Max. He was standing watching her with fixed, implacable eyes.
"Well?" he said, as she looked at him. "Do you really want me to deny this preposterous story?"
She leaned against the wall, facing him. She felt unutterably tired—as if she were too weary to take any further interest in anything. Neither his denial nor Nick's could make the tale untrue.
"It doesn't make much difference," she said drearily.
"Thanks!" said Max shortly.
And then, as if suddenly making up his mind, he came to her and took her almost roughly by the shoulders.
"Olga," he said, "how dare you believe this thing of me?"
She looked at him and her face quivered. "You have never told me the truth," she said.
"And so you are ready to believe any calumny," said Max. His hands pressed upon her; his red brows were drawn together.
At any other moment she would have deemed him formidable, but she was beyond fear just then.
"If you would only tell me what to believe—" she said.
"And if I won't?" He broke in upon her almost fiercely. "If I demand your trust on this point—as I have a right to demand it on every point—what then? Are you going to give me everything except that?"
She shook her head. "No, Max."
"What do you mean?" he demanded.
She answered him steadily enough. "I mean that unless you can tell me the truth—the truth, Max," there was a piteous touch in her repetition of the words—"I can never give you—anything."
"Meaning you won't marry me?" he said.
Steadily she answered him. "Yes, I mean just that."
He continued to hold her before him. His face grew harder, grimmer than before. "And you think I will suffer myself to be thrown over?" he said.
That pierced her lethargy, quickened her to resistance. "I think you have no choice," she said.
Max's jaw set itself like an iron clamp. "There you show your absolute ignorance," he said, "of me—and of yourself."
"You couldn't hold me against my will," she said quickly.
"Could I not?" said Max.
Something of fear crept about her heart, hastening its beat. But she faced him unflinching. "No," she said.
He was silent; but she had an inexplicable feeling that the green eyes were drawing her gradually, mercilessly, against her will. Yet she resisted them, summoning all her strength.
And then she became aware that his hold had tightened and grown close. She awoke to the fact very suddenly, as one coming out of a trance, and swiftly, nervously, she sought to free herself.
Instantly his arms were about her. He gathered her to him with a force that compelled. He crushed her lips with his own in kisses so fierce and so passionate that she winced from them in actual pain, not sparing her till she sank in his arms, spent, unresisting, crying against his shoulder.
He made no attempt to comfort her; his hold was sustaining, but grimly devoid of all tenderness. Later she knew that he had fought a desperate battle for her happiness and his own, and it was no moment for relaxation.
He spoke to her at last, curtly, over her bowed head, "And you think—you dare to think—that I have ever loved another woman."
"I don't know what to think," she whispered, hiding her face lower on his breast.
"Then think this," he said, and there was a ring of iron in his voice, "that for no slander whatever will I hold myself answerable, either to you or to anyone else. I shall not defend myself from it. I shall not deny it. And because of it I will not suffer myself to be jilted. Is that enough?"
He spoke with indomitable resolution, but there must have been some yielding quality in the last words, for she suddenly found strength to lift her head again and turn her face up to his.
"Max," she said imploringly, "I believe I have wronged you, and I do beg you to forgive me.—But, Max, there is one thing that—for my peace of mind—you must tell me. Please, Max, please!"
She set her clasped hands against him, beseeching him with her whole soul. He looked down into her eyes, and his own were no longer stern but quite impenetrable. He spoke no word.
"I have always known," she said, faltering a little under his look, "always felt that there was something—something strange about—Violet's sudden death. Max, tell me—tell me—she didn't—make away with herself?"
She uttered the question with a shrinking dread that seemed to run shuddering through her whole body. And because he did not instantly reply, her face whitened with a sick suspense.
"Oh, she didn't!" she gasped imploringly. "Say she didn't! I—I think it would break my heart if—if—if—that—had happened."
"You must remember that she was not responsible for her actions," Max said.
Olga was trembling all over. "Then she did?"
He avoided the question. "Her life was over," he said, "in any case."
"Then she did?" Again sharply she put the question, as though goaded thereto by an intolerable pain. "Max," she said, "oh, Max, I could bear anything better than that! I don't believe it of her! I can't believe it!"
"But why torture yourself in this way?" he said. "What do you gain by it?"
"Because I must, I must!" she answered feverishly. "I dream about her night after night—night after night. My mind is never at rest about her. She seems to be calling to me, trying to tell me something. And I never can get to her or hear what it is. It's all because I can't remember. And sometimes I feel as if I shall go mad myself with trying."
"Olga!" Briefly and sternly he checked her. "You are getting hysterical. Don't you think there has been enough of this? If you go any further, you will regret it."
"But I must know!" she said. "Max, was it so? Did she take her own life?"
"She did not!"
Quietly he answered her, so quietly that for a moment she could hardly believe that he had given a definite reply. She stared at him incredulously.
"You are telling me the truth?" she said piteously at length. "You won't try to deceive me any more?"
"I have told you the truth," he said.
"Then—then—" She still gazed at him with wide eyes, eyes in which a certain horror gradually dawned and spread. "I am sure she did not die a natural death," she said with conviction.
Max was silent, grimly, inexorably silent.
She disengaged herself slowly from him. Her forehead drew itself into the old painful lines. She passed an uncertain hand across it.
As if in answer to the gesture he spoke, bluntly, almost brutally. "If you will have it, you shall; but remember, it is final. Miss Campion was suffering from a hideous and absolutely incurable disease of the brain which had developed into homicidal madness. She might have lived for years—a blinded soul fettered to a brain of raving insanity. What her life would have been, only those who have seen can picture. But, mercifully for her—rightly or wrongly is not for me to say—her torment was brought to an early end. In fact, almost before it had begun, a friend gave her deliverance. She died—as you know—suddenly."
"Ah!" With a cry she broke in upon him. "It was—the pain-killer!"
"It was." He scarcely opened his lips to reply, and instantly closed them in a single unyielding line. His eyes never left her face.
As for Olga, she stood a moment, as one stunned past all feeling; then turned from him and moved away. "So it was—your doing," she said, in a curious, stifled voice as if she were scarcely conscious of speaking at all.
He did not answer her. The words scarcely demanded an answer.
She reached the table unsteadily, and sat down, leaning her elbow upon it, her chin on her hand. Her eyes gazed right away down far vistas unbounded by time or space.
"It isn't the first time, is it?" she said. "You did it once before. I suppose—" her voice dropped still lower; she seemed to be speaking to herself—"as a Keeper of the Door, you think you have the right."
"Will you tell me what you mean?" he said.
She did not turn her head. She still gazed upon invisible things. "Do you remember poor old Mrs. Stubbs? You helped her, didn't you, in the same way?"
"I?" said Max.
The utter astonishment of his voice reached her. She turned and looked at him. "She died in the same way," she said.
"But—great heavens above—not with my connivance!" he exclaimed.
She continued to look at him, but with that same far look, as though she saw many things besides. "Yet—you knew!" she said.
He made a curt gesture of repudiation. "I suspected—perhaps. I actually knew—nothing."
"I see," she said, with a faint smile. "She just slipped through—and you looked the other way."
"Nothing of the sort!" he said sternly. "I did my utmost—as I have always done my utmost—to prolong life. It is my duty—the first principle of my profession; and I hold it—I always have held it—as sacred."
"And yet—you let Violet's go," she said.
He swung round almost violently and turned his back. "I will not discuss that point any further," he said.
She looked at him with an odd dispassionateness. She still seemed to be searching the distant past. "You never liked her," she said at last slowly. "And she was horribly afraid of you—afraid of you!" A sudden tremor of awakening life ran through the words. The stunned look began to pass. Again the horror looked out of her eyes. "She was so afraid of you that—when she went mad—she tried to kill you. Ah, I see now!" She caught her breath sharply—"You—you were afraid too!"
He remained with his back turned upon her, motionless as a statue.
"And so—and so—" Her eyes came swiftly back to the present and saw him only. The horror in them had become vivid, anguished. She rose and stretched an accusing finger towards him. "That was why you ended her life!" she said. "It was—to save—your own!"
He wheeled round at that and faced her with that in his eyes which she had never before seen there—a look that sent the blood to her heart. "By Heaven, Olga," he said, "you go—rather far!"
He came towards her slowly. There was something terrible about him at that moment, something that held her fettered and dumb before him, though—so great was her horror—she would have given all she had to turn and flee.
He halted before her, looking down into her face with a curious intentness. "You really believe that?" he said. "You can't conceive such a thing as this—utterly and inexcusably wrong as I admit it to be—you can't conceive it to have been done from a motive of mercy?"
She shrank away from him as from a thing unclean. The impulse to escape was still strong upon her, urging her to a wild resistance. She met the pitiless eyes that watched her like a creature at bay. "You never did anything in mercy yet!" she said. "There is no mercy in you!"
"Indeed!" he said, and uttered a brief, grating laugh that made her shudder. "In that case, I'm afraid I can't help you any further. I'm at the end of my resources."
Olga drew herself together with a supreme effort, mustering all her strength. "It is the end of everything," she said. "I can never marry you now. I never want to see you again."
He met her look implacably, with eyes that seemed to beat down her own.
"I have told you that I won't submit to that," he said.
She caught her breath with a convulsive movement of protest. Perhaps never before had she so clearly realized the ruthlessness of the man and his strength.
"I can't help it," she said. "I can never marry you. Even if—if we had been married, I could not have stayed with you—after this."
She saw his mouth harden to cruelty at her words, and instinctively she drew back from him; but in the same instant his hands closed upon her wrists and she was a captive.
"Doesn't it occur to you," he said, "that you are bound to me in honour—unless I set you free?"
He spoke with the utmost calmness, but her heart misgave her. She saw herself at his mercy, an impotent prisoner striving against him, vainly beating out her will against the iron of his. In that moment she realized fully that not by strength could she prevail, and desperately she began to plead.
"But you will set me free, Max! You wouldn't—you couldn't—hold me against my will!"
"Couldn't I?" said Max, and grimly smiled. "There is nothing whatever that I couldn't do with you, Olga,—with—or without—your will."
She shivered sharply and uncontrollably, not attempting to contradict him.
"And that being so," he said, "it is not my intention to set you free. There is no earthly reason why you should not marry me, and therefore I hold you to your engagement. That is quite understood, is it?"
His hold tightened upon her. She saw that he meant every word, and her heart died within her. Her strength was running out swiftly, swiftly. Very soon it would be utterly gone. She cast a desperate glance upwards, and made one last supreme effort. "But, Max," she pleaded, "I thought you loved me."
His face was set in iron lines, but she thought it softened ever so slightly at her words. Had she pierced the one vulnerable point in his armour at last? She wondered, scarcely daring to hope.
"Well?" he said.
Only the one word; but somehow, inexplicably, her heart cried shame upon her, as though she had put a good weapon to an unworthy use. She stood before him, trying vainly to drive it home. But she could not. Further words failed her.
"I see," he said at last. "You think out of my love for you I ought to be willing to give you up. Is that it?"
She nodded mutely, not daring to look at him, still overwhelmed with that shamed sense of doing him a wrong.
"I see," he said again. "And—if it would be for your happiness to let you go—I might perhaps be equal to the sacrifice." His voice was suddenly cynical, and she never guessed that he cloaked an unwanted emotion therewith. "But take the other view of the case. You know you would never be happy away from me."
"I couldn't be happy with you—now," she murmured.
He bent slightly towards her as if not sure that he had heard aright.
"Do you really mean that?" he asked.
She was silent.
"Olga!" he said insistently.
Against her will she raised her eyes, and met his close scrutiny. Against her will she answered him, breathlessly, out of a fevered sense of expediency. "Yes—yes, I do mean it! Oh, Max, you must—you must let me go!"
But he held her still. "You have appealed to my love," he said. "I appeal to yours."
But that was more than she could bear; the sudden tension snapped the last shreds of her quivering strength. She broke down utterly, standing there between his hands.
He made no attempt to draw her to him. Perhaps he did not wholly trust himself. Neither did he let her go; but there was no element of cruelty about him any longer. In silence, with absolute patience, he waited for her.
She made a slight effort at last to free herself, and instantly he set her free. She sat down again at the table, striving desperately for self-control. But she could not even begin to speak to him, so choked and blinded was she by her tears.
A while longer he waited beside her; then at length he spoke. "If you really honestly feel that you can't marry me, that to do so would make for misery and not happiness; if in short your love for me is dead—I will let you go."
The words fell curt and stern, but if she had seen his face at the moment she would have realized something of what the utterance of them cost.
But her own face was hidden, her paroxysm of weeping yet shook her uncontrollably.
"Is it dead?" he said, and stooped over her, holding the back of her chair but not touching her.
She made a convulsive movement, whether of flinching from his close proximity or protest at his words it was impossible to say.
He waited a moment or two. Then: "If it isn't," he said, "just put your hand in mine!"
He laid his own upon the table before her, upturned, ready to clasp hers. His face was bent so low over her that his lips were almost on her hair. She could have yielded herself to his arms without effort.
But she only stiffened at his action, and became intensely still. In the seconds that followed she did not so much as breathe. She was as one turned to stone.
For the space of a full minute he waited; and through it the wild beating of her heart rose up in the stillness, throbbing audibly. But still she sat before him mutely, making no sign.
Then, after what seemed to her an eternity of waiting, very quietly he straightened himself and took his hand away.
She shrank away involuntarily with a nervous contraction of her whole body. For that moment she was unspeakably afraid.
But he gave her no cause for fear. He bore himself with absolute self-possession.
"Very well," he said. "That ends it. You are free."
With the words he turned deliberately from her, walked to the door, passed quietly out. And she was left alone.
CHAPTER XVII
THE EASIEST COURSE
"I won't be a party to it," said Nick.
"You can't help yourself."
Bluntly Max made reply. He lounged against the window while his host dressed. The presence of the stately khitmutgar who was assisting Nick was ignored by them both.
"I can generally manage to help myself," observed Nick.
Max's mouth took its most cynical downward curve. "You see, old chap, this chances to be one of the occasions on which you can't. It's my funeral, not yours."
Nick sent a brief glance across. "You're a fool, Max," he said.
"Thanks!" said Max. He took his pipe from his pocket and commenced to fill it with extreme care. There was something grimly ironical about his whole bearing. He did not speak again till his task was completed and the pipe alight. Then very deliberately through a cloud of rank smoke, he took up his tale. "It is one of the most interesting cases that have ever come under my notice. I am only sorry that I shall not be able to continue to keep it under my own personal supervision."
Nick laughed, a crude, cracked laugh. "It seems a pity certainly, since you came to India for that express purpose. I suppose you think it's up to me to continue the treatment?"
"Exactly," said Max.
"Well, I'm not going to." Again Nick's eyes flashed a keen look at Max's imperturbable countenance. "I held my peace last night," he said, "because matters were too ticklish to be tampered with. But as to keeping it up——-"
Max thrust his hands deep into his pockets. "As to keeping it up," he said, "you've no choice; neither have I. It may be a matter for regret from some points of view, but a matter of the most urgent expediency it undoubtedly is. I tell you plainly, Nick, this is not a thing to be played with. There are some risks that no one has any right to take. This is one."
He looked at Nick, square-jawed and determined; but Nick vigorously shook his head.
"I am not with you. I don't agree. I never shall agree."
Max's cynical smile became more pronounced. "Then you will have to act against your judgment for once. There is no alternative. And I shall go Home by the first boat I can catch."
"And leave her to fret her heart out," said Nick.
Max removed his pipe, and attentively regarded the bowl. After nearly a minute he put it back again and stared impenetrably at Nick. "She won't do that," he said.
"I'll tell you what she will do," said Nick. "She will go and marry that wild Irish brother of yours."
Max continued to look at him. His mouth was no longer cynical, but cocked at a humorous angle. "I say, what a clever little chap you are!" he said. "Whatever made you think of that?"
Nick grinned in spite of himself. Disagree as he might with Max Wyndham, yet was he always in some subtle fashion in sympathy with him.
"I suppose she might do worse," he admitted after a moment. "He's a well-behaved youngster as a general rule."
"Given his own way, quite irreproachable," said Max "He's not very rich, but he's no slacker. If he doesn't break his neck at polo, he'll get on."
"Oh, he's brilliant enough," said Nick. "I suppose he can be trusted to look after her. He's full young."
"He'll grow," said Max.
A brief silence fell between them. Max continued to smoke imperturbably. There was not the faintest sign of disappointment in his bearing. He looked merely ruminative.
Nick was thoughtful also. He sat and watched his man fasten his gaiters with those flickering eyes of his that never seemed to concentrate upon one point and yet missed nothing.
"What are you going to do about Hunt-Goring?" he asked suddenly.
"Do about him?" Max sounded supremely contemptuous. He raised one eyebrow in supercilious interrogation.
"Well, he dealt this hand," said Nick.
"With Mrs. Musgrave's kind assistance," supplemented Max.
Nick made a grimace. "Who told you that?"
"No one." Max blew a cloud of smoke upwards. "You're not the only person with brains, Nick," he observed, with sardonic humour. "But look here! Your friend Mrs. Musgrave is not to be meddled with in this matter. You leave her alone and Hunt-Goring too! He's killing himself by inches with opium, so he won't interfere with anyone for long. And she will prove a useful friend to Noel if allowed to take her own way."
"You really mean to take this lying down?" said Nick.
"It's the easiest course," said Max.
"So far as you are concerned?" Nick abruptly turned in his chair; but his scrutiny was of the briefest. He did not seem to look at Max at all; nor did he apparently expect an answer to his query, for he went on almost immediately. "It's damnable luck for both of you. Old man, are you sure it's all right?"
There was no subtlety in the question. Nick had long since abandoned subtlety in his dealings with Max Wyndham, a fact which indicated that he held him in very high esteem.
Max's response expressed appreciation of the fact. He took his hand from his pocket and carelessly stretched it out. "I am absolutely sure," he said. "Make your mind easy on that point!"
Their hand-grip was silent and brief. It ended the discussion by mutual consent.
At once Max changed the subject. "Is that chap your khit or your valet or what?"
"He is all three combined," said Nick. "Why? Think I work him too hard?"
The Indian showed his teeth in a splendid smile, but said nothing.
"No, but where's the other fellow?" said Max.
"What other fellow?" Nick thrust his one arm with vigour into his riding-coat.
"The chap I saw here the other night—an old chap. I came along the verandah to tell you there was someone sneaking in the compound, and he shut the window in my face. I presumed he was head-nurse or bearer, or whatever you are pleased to call them in these parts."
"Oh, that fellow!" said Nick. "Quite a venerable old chap, you mean?
Rather scraggy—not over-clean?"
"That's the man," said Max.
Nick laughed. "Great Scott! You didn't seriously, think he was my bearer, did you? No, he's an old moonstone-seller who comes to see me occasionally. He's not so disreputable as he looks. I find him handy in the matter of bazaar politics, with which I consider it useful to keep in touch."
Max received the information with a nod. His green eyes were watching
Nick's lithe movements with thoughtful intentness.
"How long is this job going to last?" he asked abruptly.
"Heaven knows," was Nick's airy response.
Max was silent a moment; then: "You will send her away if it gets too hot?" he said.
Nick took up his riding-switch. "It's a tricky climate," he observed, "but I am keeping an eye on the weather. I don't anticipate anything of the nature of a heat-wave at present."
Max grunted. "Are you sure your barometer is a trustworthy one?"
Nick smiled. "I have every reason to believe so." He turned and clapped a kindly hand on Max's shoulder. "All right, old chap. Don't be anxious! I'll take care of her," he said.
Max looked at him. "You had better take care of yourself too," he said.
"Trust me!" laughed Nick.
There came a knock at the door, to which Kasur responded. It was Olga's ayah. A few whispered words passed between them, then the khitmutgar softly closed it and approached Nick.
"Miss sahib is tired this morning, and cannot ride with the sahibs.
She asks that you will go to her, sahib, before you leave."
Nick glanced at Max. "You had better come too."
But Max shook his head. "No. I'll be on the verandah if she wants me, but I don't think she will."
Nick went to the door in silence; but ere he reached it Max spoke again.
"Nick!"
"Well?" Nick paused as if reluctant.
Very deliberately Max followed him. They stood face to face. "You will remember what I have said," Max said, with slow emphasis.
"I'm not very likely to forget it," said Nick.
"And you will abstain from interference in this matter?" Max's voice was emotionless, but it had a certain quality of compulsion notwithstanding.
Nick's eyes darted over him. His whole frame stiffened slightly. "If you think I am going to bind myself hand and foot by a promise, you're mistaken," he said.
"I am only asking you to let matters take their course," said Max, unmoved.
"Circumstances may make that impossible," said Nick.
"They may. In that case, you are free to act as you think fit. But I don't think they will—and—damn it, Nick, it isn't much to ask. It's for her sake."
A tinge of feeling suddenly underran his speech. He flushed slowly and deeply; but he stood his ground.
As for Nick, he turned again to the door with his switch tucked under his arm. "All right," he said. "I accept the amendment."
He was gone with the words, almost as though he feared he had already yielded too far. Probably to no other man would he have yielded a single inch.
The interview had ended in a fashion extremely distasteful to him, yet he entered Olga's presence cheerily, with no sign of discontent.
"Hullo, my chicken! Not riding this morning? Haven't you slept?"
He sat down on the bed with Olga's arms very tightly round his neck, and prepared himself to make the best of a very bad business.
The night before he had soothed her in the midst of her distress with all a mother's tenderness, but by daylight he discarded the maternal rôle and resumed his masculine limitations.
"Come!" he said coaxingly to the fair head pillowed against his shoulder. "You're going to be a sensible kiddie now? You're going to forget all yesterday's nonsense? Max won't say any more if you don't. You've just got to kiss and be friends."
Olga little dreamed that thus cheerily he made his last stand for a hope which he knew to be forlorn.
She raised her head and looked at him with eyes that shone with the brilliance which follows the shedding of many tears. "It's no good ever thinking of that, Nick," she said, speaking quickly and nervously. "I've been awake all night, thinking—thinking. But there's no way out. I can't marry him. I can't even see him again. And, Nick,—I want you, please, to give him back his ring."
"My dear, you're not in earnest!" said Nick.
"Yes, yes, I am, dear. And I can't argue about it. My head whirls so.
Oh, Nick, why didn't you tell me when I asked you to fill in the gap?
It's such a mistaken kindness—if you only knew it—to keep back the
truth—whatever it may be."
Nick groaned melancholy acquiescence. "But can't you forgive him, sweetheart? Most women can forgive anything. And you never used to be vindictive."
"I'm not vindictive," she made swift reply. "It isn't that I want to punish him. Oh, don't you understand? He may have acted up to his lights. And even if—if he had been anything but a doctor, I think it would have been a little different. But he—he knew so exactly what he was doing. And oh, Nick, I couldn't possibly marry a man who had done—that. I should never forget it. It would prey on me so, just as if—as if—I had been a party to it!" A violent shiver went through her. She clung closer to him. The horror had frozen in her eyes to a wide and glassy terror.
"Easy, easy!" said Nick gently. "We won't get hysterical. But isn't it a pity to do anything in a hurry? You won't feel so badly in a week or a fortnight. Don't do anything final yet! Put him off for a bit. He'll understand."
But Olga would not listen to this suggestion. "I must be free, Nick!" she said feverishly. "I can't be bound to him any longer. Oh, Nick, do help me to get free!"
"My dear child, you are free," Nick assured her. "But take my advice; don't shake him off completely. Give him just a chance, poor chap! Wait six months before you quite make up your mind to have done with him. You'll be sure to want him back if you don't."
But still Olga would not listen. "Oh, Nick, please stop!" she implored him. "I've been through it all a hundred times already, and indeed I know my own mind. If it were to drag on over six months, I don't think I could possibly bear it. No, no! It must be final now. Nick—dear, don't you understand?"
He nodded. "Yes, I do understand, Olga mia; but I think you are making a big mistake. The horror of the thing has blinded you temporarily. You are incapable of forming a clear judgment at present. By and by you will begin to see better. That's why I want you to wait."
"But I can't wait," she said. "It—it is like a dreadful wound, Nick. I want to bind it up quick—quick, before it gets any worse,—to hide it,—to try and forget it's there. I can't—I daren't—keep it open. I think it would kill me."
There was actual agony in her voice, and Nick saw that he had made his last stand in vain. Yet not instantly did he abandon it. Once more he thrust past her defences, though she sought so desperately to keep him out.
"It's not for us to judge each other, is it?" he said. "Be merciful,
Olga! Don't you think there may have been—extenuating circumstances?"
She looked at him with quivering lips, and dumbly shook her head.
"Listen!" he said. "When Muriel and I were flying from Wara, I killed a man with my hands under her eyes. It was a ghastly business. I did it to save her life and my own. But—like you—she didn't look at the motive—only at the deed. And in consequence I became a thing abhorrent in her sight. She didn't get over it for a long time. But she forgave me at last. Can't you be equally generous? Or don't you love him well enough?"
Olga's hands clasped one another very tightly. She answered him under her breath. "I expect that's it, Nick, I don't love him any more at all. It has killed my love."
"Then you never loved him," said Nick with conviction.
She made no attempt to contradict him. Only her strained white face seemed to implore him to torture her no further. He saw it, and his heart smote him.
"I hate to hurt you, my chicken," he said. "But, dear, you're making such a hideous muddle of your life. I hate that even worse."
She flung her arms about his neck; she pressed her lips to his yellow face. "Darling Nick, never mind about me, never mind!" she whispered. "I am doing simply what I must do. I can scarcely think or feel yet. Only I know that I must get free. It isn't that I'm hard. It's just that I have no choice. Your case was different. You had to do it. But this—" her words sank, became scarcely audible—"Nick, could anything extenuate—this?"
"God knows," said Nick. He paused a moment, then added: "I sometimes think, if the whole truth were known, there would be an extenuating circumstance for every mortal offence under the sun."
She did not argue the point. She seemed beyond argument. "Very likely," she said. "But really I have no choice. You see, we were such friends—such friends. And then she loved him, while he—he had nothing but a professional interest for her, till he found her case to be hopeless, and then he lost even that. That's what made it so horrible—so impossible. If he had loved her—even a little—I could have understood. But as it was—Oh, Nick, don't you see?"
Yes, he did see. It was useless to reason with her. She was like a captive bird beating wild wings for freedom and wholly unable to gauge its awful desolation when won.
For the second time he had to own himself beaten. For the second time he withdrew his forces from the field.
"Well, dear, I'm sorry," was all he said, but it conveyed much.
When he quitted her presence a little later he carried with him the ring that Max had given her and a brief and piteous message to her lover that he would not try to see her again.
Max received both in grim silence, and within half an hour of so doing he had gone.
CHAPTER XVIII
ONE MAN'S LOSS
"Oh, damn!" said Noel.
He had made the remark several times before that morning, but he made it with special emphasis on this occasion in response to the news that his brother was waiting to see him.
Hot and cross from the parade-ground, he rolled off his horse and turned towards his quarters. The animal looked after him with a faint whinny of hurt surprise, and sharply Noel flung round again.
The saice grinned, but was instantly quelled to sobriety by his master's scowl. The horse whinnied again, and tucked a confiding nose under the young officer's arm.
"All right, old man! Here you are!" said Noel.
He fished out a lump of sugar and stuffed it between the sensitive lips that nibbled at his sleeve, kissed the white star between the soft brown eyes, whispered an endearing word into the cocked ear, slapped the glossy neck, and finally departed.
His face resumed its scowl as he entered the room where Max sprawled in a bamboo chair with his feet on another and the petted terrier of the establishment seated alertly on his chest. Max smiled at sight of it and stretched forth a lazy hand.
"Excuse my rising! I daren't incur this creature's displeasure."
Noel took the creature by the neck and removed it. Max's hand remained outstretched, but that he ignored.
"What have you come for?" he demanded gruffly.
"I should have said, 'What can I do for you?'" observed Max to the ceiling. "If you are thinking of having a drink, perhaps you will allow me to join you."
Noel went to the door and grumpily yelled an order. After which he jingled back, unbuckled his sword, and flung it noisily on the table.
Max turned his head very deliberately and regarded him.
His scrutiny was a prolonged one, and Noel finally waxed impatient under it. "Well, what are you staring at me for?" he enquired aggressively.
With a sudden movement Max removed his feet from the second chair and sat up. "Sit down there!" he said.
The words fell curt and sharp, a distinct order which Noel obeyed almost before he knew what he was doing. He dropped into the chair and sat directly facing his brother, a kind of surly respect struggling with the evident hostility of his expression.
His dog, feeling neglected, sprang on to his knees and licked his sullen face.
Max uttered a short laugh that was not unfriendly. "Oh, stop being a silly ass, Noel!" he said. "What on earth do you want to quarrel with me for? It's the most unprofitable game under the sun."
Noel sat stiffly upright, holding the dog at arm's length. "It's no fault of mine," he said.
His eyes were obstinately lowered in a mule-like refusal to meet his brother's straight regard. He looked absurdly like a schoolboy brought up for punishment.
Max considerately stifled a second laugh. "All right, it's mine," he said. "And I've come to apologize. Understand? I've come to make unconditional restitution of my ill-gotten gains. I'm just off to Bombay, to shake the dust of this accursed country off my feet, and to leave you in undisputed possession of the spoil. How's that appeal to you, you sulky young hound?"
Noel's eyes shot upwards at the epithet, though the supercilious good-humour of its utterance made it somehow impossible to raise any furious protest.
The entrance of his servant with drinks helped very materially to save his dignity. He pulled the table to him without rising and began to pour them out.
"Lemon?" he asked briefly.
"No, thanks. I'll have a plain soda. And if you've no objection we will thresh this matter out at once as I have to be off in ten minutes. I suppose you took in what I said just now?"
Noel held out a glass to him, his brown hand not quite steady. "May as well be explicit," he said gruffly.
"Quite so. Then my engagement to Olga Ratcliffe is at an end. Is that plain enough for you?"
Again the boy's eyes glanced upwards, meeting the imperturbable green eyes opposite for the fraction of a second. "Really?" he said.
"Yes, really." Max took a slow gulp from his glass and set it down.
"Pleased?" he enquired.
Noel did not answer. His own drink remained untouched at his elbow.
"Whose doing is it?" he enquired.
"Hers."
"What! Doesn't she care for you after all?" There was a sudden quiver in the question that belied the studied calm of the speaker.
Max took up his glass and drank again. "She can't stand me at any price," he said.
"Then what have you been doing?" There was no attempt to disguise the fierceness of the query. Noel started forward in his chair with hands clenched, and his dog slid to the ground.
"Take it easy!" said Max. "I'm not going to let you into that secret. It wouldn't be good for your morals. Besides, there's no time to go into that now. All I want to say to you is that there's a clear road in front of you and the odds are all in your favour. Go straight and I believe you'll win!"
Noel leaned nearer. His face was a curious blend of eagerness and resentment. "Do you mean—you've found out—that she'd sooner have me after all?" he blurted out.
Max looked at him, and a queer, half-pitying smile curved his grim mouth. "Yes, I suppose it amounts to that," he said, after a moment.
"Oh, I say!" said Noel.
He got up abruptly, and walked to the end of the room. Coming back, he gave a sharp gasp as of one rising from deep water, and the next moment very suddenly he laughed.
"I say," he said again, speaking jerkily, "is it the sun—or what? I feel as if—you'd hit me between the eyes."
Max nodded towards the table. "Have your drink, boy, and pull yourself together! You haven't won her yet, remember. You've got some uphill work before you still."
Noel stopped at the table, and raised his glass. His hand shook palpably, and the smile on Max's face became almost one of tenderness. He watched him in silence as he drank, then lifted his own glass.
"Here's to your success!" he said.
Noel's eyes came down to him. They had the rapt look of a man who sees a vision. "Oh, man," he suddenly exclaimed, "you don't know how I worship her!"
And then abruptly he realized what he had said and to whom, and flushed darkly, averting his look.
Max got to his feet, and faced him across the table. "You've got to worship her always," he said, and in his voice there throbbed some remote echo as of an imprisoned passion deep in his hidden soul. "She'll need the utmost you can offer."
Noel looked back at him again, and the shamed flush died away. He leaned impulsively forward, suddenly, boyishly remorseful for his churlishness.
"Max! Max, old boy! I'm an infernal brute!" he declared. "I was actually forgetting that you—that you——"
"You're quite welcome to forget that," interposed Max grimly. He moved round the table, and clapped a friendly hand on the boy's shoulder. "I shall make it my business to forget it myself," he said. "But look here, don't be headlong! She isn't quite ready for you yet. I speak as a friend; go slow!"
Noel looked at him, and again the hot blood rose to his forehead. He gripped the hand on his shoulder, and held it fast. "I say, Max," he said, an odd sort of deference in his tone, "she doesn't know—does she—what a much better chap you are than I?"
The corner of Max's mouth went up. "Don't talk bosh!" he said.
"I'm not," persisted Noel. "You're doing what I hadn't the spunk to do.
I think she ought to know that."
Max's smile passed from amusement to cynicism. "Do you seriously think a woman loves a man for his good points?" he said.
"No; but you've no right to put her off with an inferior article," persisted Noel.
"My good chap, I! I tell you it was her own choice." Max almost laughed.
"But you care for her?" Noel's dark eyes became suddenly intent and shrewd, and the boyishness passed from his face. "See here, Max, I won't take any sacrifices," he said. "I may be a selfish brute, but I'm not quite such a swine as that. You care for her."
"Which fact is beside the point," said Max. His fingers suddenly answered Noel's grip with the strength of a restraining force. "If there is any sacrifice anywhere," he said, "it's not offered to you, so make your mind easy on that head. As I said before, she won't have me at any price. If she would, I shouldn't be here now. You see," again his mouth twisted, "I'm not so ultra-generous myself. But I don't see why we should both be losers, especially as you had half won her before I came along. So go ahead and good luck to you!"
He disengaged his hand and lightly slapped Noel's shoulder as a preliminary to taking his departure. But Noel, with a swift return to boyhood, caught him by the arms. "I don't know what to say to you, old chap," he said, quick feeling in the words. "You've made me feel like a murderer."
"My dear chap, what rot!"
"No, it's not rot! I've hated you like the devil. I'm beastly ashamed—beastly sorry. I'll do anything to atone—anything under the sun. Give me something to do for you, Max, old boy! I can't stand myself if you go like this."
He spoke impulsively enough, but there was more than mere impulse in his speech. Hot-headed repentance it might be, but it was the real thing.
Max stood still, faintly smiling. "My dear lad, there's nothing you can do for me that you won't do twice as well for yourself," he said. "I'm glad you care for her, and I'm not sorry you hated me for getting in your way. You might let me know when it's time to congratulate. That's all I can think of at the present moment—except, yes, one thing!"
"What?" said Noel.
Max's face hardened somewhat. "That fellow Hunt-Goring," he said. "He's the chap I told you of. Keep clear of him!"
Noel stiffened. "I should like to kill him," he said.
"Yes, but you can't. He's more than a match for you. He once had some hold over Olga—something very slight. I never bothered to find out what. But she has broken away and he is an enemy in consequence. Watch out for him, but don't fall foul of him! He won't worry you for long. He is taking opium enough to kill an ox every day of his life."
"Is he though? Well, no one will weep for him."
"Unless it's Mrs. Musgrave," observed Max drily.
"She doesn't like the bounder," declared Noel with conviction. "Look here; sit down again! I've seen nothing of you yet."
"No, I can't stop, thanks. I've said good-bye to everyone else, and time is up. Don't go and get smashed up at polo! If she doesn't want you now, she will very soon. Bear that in mind!"
Noel's dark eyes shone. "The only risks I'm likely to take would be for her safety. I wish to Heaven Ratcliffe could be made to see the danger they are in."
Max smiled a little. "I've been talking to him. We touched on that point. He knows—rather more on the subject than we do."
"But he makes light of it," Noel protested. "The place is infested with budmashes and he rather encourages them than otherwise. I myself kicked an old blackguard of a moonstone-seller—or so he described himself—off his premises only the other night."
Max broke into a laugh. "Did you though?"
"Yes. What is there to laugh at? Wouldn't you have done the same? And when I told Nick the day after, he described the old beggar as a friend of his."
Max was still laughing. "What a devil of a fellow you are! I've seen the old gentleman myself. I rather think he is a friend. How did he take the kicking?"
"Oh, I don't know. He cursed a bit and went. What's the joke, I say?"
Noel's voice was imperious. He was always somewhat impatient of matters beyond his comprehension. But Max turned the subject off.
"You're such a peppery chap—always wanting to fight someone. Well, I must be gone. You'll remember not to fight Hunt-Goring?"
"No. I shan't fight the brute unless he interferes." Noel followed him to the door and stood a moment. "I say, Max," he suddenly said, "was this affair Hunt-Goring's doing?"
"What affair?" Max spoke as one bored with the subject.
But Noel persisted. "Was it thanks to Hunt-Goring that this split with
Olga came about?"
Max faced about. There was a very peculiar smile in his green eyes. "Well," he said very deliberately, "I don't say Hunt-Goring's influence has been exactly a genial one. But that fact in itself would not have much difference. The main reason is the one I have given you. If you are not satisfied with that—then you will never be satisfied with anything—and you won't deserve to be." He held out his hand. "Good-bye, lad! And again—good luck!"
Noel wrung the hand. They looked each other in the eyes, and Noel spoke impulsively as his habit was, but with genuine feeling. "Good-bye, old chap! I hope you'll get to the tip-top of the tree and stay there." He added, seeing Max's mouth go down, "But I know very well there's a bigger thing than success in the world, and if I can ever help you to it—by God, old boy, I will!"
He said it hurriedly, expecting it to be received with irony. But there was no trace of cynicism left in Max's face as he gave him a final grip, and turned away with the one word: "Thanks!"
When he had gone, Noel returned to the room with sober gait, and paused in the middle of it to pick up his sword.
"I wonder if he cares much," he murmured half aloud.
He stood by the table with eyes absently fixed, going over in his mind the conversation that had just passed, recalling the leisurely, supercilious tones, the semi-ironical kindness with which his brother had revealed the situation. Why had he troubled himself to do so? For a space Noel wondered.
And then very suddenly the words, "You've got to worship her always," flashed through his mind. Those words were the key to everything. He realized that fully. And again he was conscious of shame. Yes, Max did care. That was beyond all questioning. He cared enough to do what he—Noel—had wholly failed to do. His love was great enough to efface itself, a form of love—the rarest and the highest—of which he himself was as yet incapable. He could stand between the girl and death without a second's hesitation; but he could not live and sacrifice his happiness to hers.
Again the hot blood mounted to his forehead and slowly sank again. And in those few moments Noel Wyndham stepped into manhood and faced his soul anew. If she loved him, he would marry her and give her all he had; withholding nothing. She should not be a loser because she had loved him better than Max.
He would give her a love as strong and as worthy. He would make her happiness his aim and his goal, his watch-word and his prize. No sacrifice should ever be too great for her. He would offer all he had.
No; never should she come to repent her preference—to regret the love she had refused. She had chosen him—the lesser before the greater; and she should not find him wanting. She should not be disappointed in him. Never, never now should his love fail her!
Impulsive as always, he lifted his sword and kissed the hilt with reverence. "So help me, God!" he swore.