"Who are you?" he demanded in his own tongue.
Her look of non-comprehension steadied him, at least outwardly, though it did not check the fierce, painful beating of his pulses. He repeated the question in pure though hesitating English.
"I am an Englishwoman," she answered at once, "and have lost my way. For hours—it seems hours, at any rate—I have been wandering hither and thither, trying to find my party, with whom I was enjoying an excursion. By some chance I came across this temple, and hoped to meet some one who might help me. You see, I am a stranger in this part of the world. I—I hope I have done no wrong?"
She looked at him pleadingly, but he ignored her question. It never occurred to him to doubt her explanation, or wonder at the unlikeliness of the chance which should have led her through the intricate paths to this hallowed spot.
"You are English?" he echoed. The fever in his blood was subsiding, but, like some great crisis, it was leaving him changed. It had swept him out of the world of languorous, enchanted dreams into a world of not less enchanted reality.
"I fear I am presumptuous," she began again; "but are you not the Rajah? If so, I am certain you must be very, very angry. For the Rajah—so I have been told—does not love the English."
She smiled again, meeting his unwavering gaze with a frank good-humor which for him was more wonderful even than her beauty. No woman—and for that matter, no man—had ever dared to look him in the eyes with such a laughing, fearless challenge.
"Yes, I am the Rajah," he answered. Then, after a pause, he added with great simplicity, "You are very beautiful."
She laughed outright, and the laugh, which rang like the peal of a silver bell through the vaulted chamber, filled him with a sudden sense of her danger. She stood with her back turned indifferently on the golden image, an Unbeliever whose shod feet were defiling the sacred precincts, an object, then, for hatred and revenge—not for him, truly. In his eyes she was still an emissary from Brahma, and thus in herself half sacred; but he knew well enough that such would not be the opinion of the few fierce priests who worshiped in the temple.
"You are not safe here," he said, with an energy which was new to him.
"Come!"
He led her hurriedly out of the sanctuary into the great entrance hall.
There he slackened speed and waited until she reached his side.
"For a foreigner it is not safe to enter the temple," he explained. "Had any one but myself found you, I could not answer for the consequences."
"They would have harmed me?"
"It is possible."
"That would have been terrible!" she said, glancing at him with eyes that expressed rather a daring courage than fear.
"Most terrible," he assented earnestly.
"Yet—you also, Your Highness, you have also the same reasons for anger. My intrusion, innocent though it was, must have been equally offensive to you."
"No," he said. "That is quite different."
He offered no further explanation, and together they passed out of the two immense gopuras into the evening sunshine.
"I will bring you to the gates which lead on to the highroad," he went on. "Thence one of my servants will conduct you back to the town, where I trust you will find your friends."
"You are most good," she answered gratefully.
They walked side by side between the high walls of cypress and palm. The path was a narrow one, and once his hand brushed lightly against hers. The touch sent a flood of fire through his young veins. He drew back with a courtesy which surprised himself. He had never been taught that courtesy toward a woman could ever be required of him. Of women he had heard little save that they were inferior, in intellect and judgment no more than slaves, and his curiosity had at once been satiated. He sought things above him—those beneath him excited no more than indifference. But this woman was neither an inferior nor a slave. Her free, erect carriage, steadfast, fearless eyes proclaimed the equal. So much his instinct taught him in those brief moments, and his eager curiosity concerning her grew and deepened. Every now and again his gaze sought her face, drinking in with an almost passionate thirst the fine detail of her profile, compared to which his dreams were poor and lifeless. Once it chanced that she also glanced at him, and that they looked at each other for less than a breathing space full in the eyes.
"I fear you are angry, Your Highness," she said earnestly. "I must have offended against your laws even more than I know."
"Why do you think I am angry?" he asked.
"You have scarcely spoken."
"Forgive me! That is no sign of anger. I am still overcome with the strangeness of it all. You are the first English person I have ever met."
She stood still, with an exclamation of surprise.
"Is that possible? I thought all Indian princes mixed with English people.
Many, indeed, go to England to be educated—"
"So I have heard," he broke in, with a faint haughtiness. "I am not one of them."
"Yet you speak the language so perfectly!" she said.
A gleam of naive pleasure shone out of his dark eyes.
"I am glad you think so. My—one of my ministers taught me."
They walked on again. Here and there she stopped to look at some curious plant—always a little in advance of him—so that he had opportunity to study the hundred things about her which confirmed his wondering, increasing admiration. Slight as she was, there was yet a gracefully controlled strength in every movement. In his own mind, poor as it necessarily was in comparisons, he compared her to a young doe he had once startled from its resting-place. There was the same fragile beauty, the same grace, the same high-strung energy. In nothing was she like the women painted for him by his father's hand—things for idle, sensuous pleasure, never for serious action.
Plunged in a happy confusion of thought, he had once more relapsed into silence, from which she startled him with a question evidently connected with their previous conversation.
"And so you have lived all your life in this lovely garden?" she said, looking up at him with a grave wonder in her eyes.
"All my life," he answered.
"You have never seen anything of the world?"
"Never." He felt the pity in her tone, and added, with a shamefacedness curiously in contrast with his former hauteur: "But I have read much."
"That is not the same thing," she returned. "No book could make you understand how wonderful and beautiful things are."
He looked at her, and for a second time their eyes met.
"You are right," he said. "Hitherto I have thought myself all-wise. I have studied hard, and I believed there was nothing I did not know. Now I see that there are wonders in the world of which I have never even dreamed."
Her glance wavered beneath the undisguised admiration in his eyes and voice. Then she asked gently:
"Now that you have seen, will you not leave your hermitage? Surely it is wrong to shut one's heart against the world in which one lives. There is so much work to be done, so much to learn, and you have been granted power and wealth, Your Highness. The call upon your help is greater than upon others."
His brows knitted.
"Do you hate us so?" she asked.
"Hate you?" he repeated wonderingly. "Why should I hate you?"
"Yet, from your tone, I judged that you had kept seclusion because intercourse with my country-people meant defilement," she said boldly.
A flush crept up under his dark skin.
"Those are things I can not explain," he said; "but they have nothing to do with hatred. I have heard much of the English heroes. Their deeds of daring and self-sacrifice have filled my heart with love and veneration. I know that they are the greatest and noblest people of the earth. I love great and noble people. I do not hate them."
"I am glad," she said.
They had reached the gates which opened out on to the highroad, and as though by mutual consent both came to a standstill.
"Your Highness has been most good to me," she went on. "I can find my way perfectly now. I am only puzzled to know how I should ever have lost it so much as to have wandered into your garden."
"Some sentry must have slept," he remarked grimly.
"But you will not punish any one?"
"Whoever it was, he was only the servant of destiny, like us all," he said. "No harm shall come to him." He paused, and then added with a slight effort: "One of the sentries shall accompany you."
"No, no," she answered energetically. "That is not necessary. I would rather go alone."
He pointed upward to the sky, whose blue was deepening into the violet shades of night.
"It will be dark before you reach your destination," he said. "Are you not afraid?"
She laughed merrily.
"Of what should I be afraid? There are no maneaters about here, as I understand. As for men, I am prepared to encounter at least six of them. Look!" She drew from the bosom of her dress a small revolver of exquisite workmanship, and held it out to him. "It has all six chambers loaded," she added.
He took the weapon, pretending to examine it; but his pulses had recommenced their painful beating, and he saw nothing but her face.
"Are all Englishwomen so brave and beautiful?"
This time she did not laugh at the simplicity of the question.
"Come and see," she answered boldly. He said nothing, and she went on: "At any rate, I must go now. My people will be very anxious, and I have so much to tell them. They will envy me the privilege I have enjoyed of seeing your wonderful gardens. I shall tell them how kind you have been to a foolish wanderer."
"If the gardens please you, they are always open to you," he said.
She shook her head sadly.
"I am afraid it is not possible. You see, I could not come alone. Propriety will forgive me this once, because it was an accident—a second time, and my reputation would be gone for ever." She held out her hand frankly. "So it must be good-by for ever!"
An instant he hesitated, torn between a deep ingrained principle and desire. Then he took the small hand in his own.
"It will not be good-by for ever," he said. "We shall meet again."
"I should be glad. We have been quite good friends, haven't we? But you see, you will be in a garden into which I may not enter, and I in a world which for you is forbidden ground. I am afraid there is no hope."
"Nevertheless, we shall meet again," he repeated.
"Why are you so certain?"
He smiled dreamily.
"Nothing in this world happens without purpose," he answered. "So much my books and eyes have taught me. We do not drift aimlessly into each other's lives. We are borne on the breast of a strong current which flows out of the river of Fate, and whether we meet for good or evil is according to the will of God. But of one thing I am sure: it must be for good or evil."
For a moment she said nothing. Her face was turned away from him, and when at last she spoke, her voice had lost something of its daring certainty.
"I hope, then, our meeting is for our good," she said.
"I feel that it is," he answered.
He led her past the bewildered, terrified sentry on to the grey, dusty highroad. It was the first time that his feet had crossed the threshold.
"I shall watch you till you are out of sight," he said. "Good-by."
"Good-by—and thank you!"
According to his word, he stood where she had left him, his eyes fixed immovably, like those of a bronze statue, on the slight, elastic figure, as it hurried toward the lights of the distant Station. When at last the purple mist had swallowed her from his sight, he looked up toward the heavens.
Just where the mist ended and the clear sky began, the evening star rose in its first splendor and shone through the dry atmosphere, signaling to its fellows that night was come. One by one others followed. As time passed, the moon in a cloud of silver lifted herself in stately progress above the black outline of the jungle and touched with her first beams the filigree minarets of the temple.
Nehal Singh bowed his head in prayer.
"Oh, Lord Brahma, I thank thee!"
A short-lived breath of evening air caught up the passionate murmur of his voice and mingled it with the rustling of the Sacred Tree whose restless, shimmering, silver leaves hung above his head. He understood their whisper as he listened. It was the accents of the god to whom he prayed, and all the poetic mysticism of his nature responded to the call.
"Oh, Lord Brahma, Creator, I thank thee!" he repeated; then turned, and with head still bowed, passed back through the high marble gates.
CHAPTER V
ARCHIBALD TRAVERS PLAYS BRIDGE
The ayah put the last touches to Beatrice Cary's golden hair, drew back a little to judge the general effect, and then handed her mistress the handglass.
"Is that well so, missy?" she asked. "Missy look wonderful to-night—wonderful!"
Beatrice examined herself carefully and critically, without any show of impatience. Only a close observer would have noticed that her eyes had the strained, concentrated look of a person whose thoughts are centered elsewhere than on the immediate subject.
"Yes, that will do," she assented, after a moment. "You have done extra well to-night. You can go."
"Not help missy with dress?"
"No, you can go. I shall only want you again when I come back."
The ayah fidgeted with the garments that lay scattered about the room, but an imperative gesture hastened her exit, and she slipped silently from the room, drawing the curtains after her.
Beatrice watched her departure in the glass, and then, turning in her chair, looked at the languid, exhausted figure upon the couch.
"Now, if you have anything to say, mother, say it," she said. "We are quite alone."
"I have a great deal to say," Mrs. Cary began, in a tone of extreme injury, "and first of all, I must ask you not to interrupt me in the way you did just now before the—the what-do-you-call-it?—the ayah. I can not and will not stand being corrected before my own servants."
"I did not correct you," Beatrice returned coldly. "I stopped you from making disclosures to ears which know enough English to understand more than is good for either of us, and whose discretion is on a par with that of our late friend, Mary Jane. It seems impossible to make you realize that English is not a dead language."
"You are very rude to me!" Mrs. Cary protested, in high, quavering tones that threatened tears. "Very rude! Beatrice, you ought to be ashamed—"
"I am not rude. I am only telling you the simple truth."
"Well, then, you are not respectful."
"Respectful!" The reiteration was accompanied with a laugh which brought into use all the harsh, unpleasing notes in the girl's voice. She turned away from her mother, and with one white elbow resting on the dressing-table, began to play idly with the silver ornaments. "No, I suppose I am not respectful," she went on calmly. "I think we are too intimate for that, mother. We know each other too well, and have spoken about things too plainly. People, I imagine, only retain the respect of their fellow-creatures so long as they keep themselves and their projects a haloed mystery. That isn't our case. There are no haloes or mysteries between us, are there?"
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Mrs. Cary declared plaintively.
"There are moments, Beatrice, when I think you talk nonsense."
"I am sure you do!" An ironical smile played an instant round the small mouth, then she went on calmly: "Let us put our personal grievances against each other aside, mother. Revenons a nos moutons. You were saying, when I interrupted you, that you were afraid of Mr. Travers. Why?"
"Why! You know as well as I do. I recognized him at once, and the sight of his face nearly gave me a heart stroke. Of course you remember him. He gave evidence against your poor, dear father when—"
Beatrice Cary held up her hand.
"That is one of the advantages of having discarded the mystery and halo," she said. "We do not need to go into any details concerning ourselves or the past. I know quite well to what you refer. To be quite honest, I did recognize him, only I did not let him see that I did."
"And then you ask why I am afraid!"
"I fail to see what harm he can do us."
"He can tell the truth."
Beatrice Cary rose and began to slip into the white silk dress which hung across the back of her chair.
"The truth!" she said meditatively. "That is something, mother, of which, I fear, you and I will never rid ourselves. It has chased us out of England and out of all possible parts of Europe; and, large though India is, it seems already to have tracked us down. It has a good nose for fugitives, apparently."
Mrs. Cary sat up, mopping her florid face free from tears of irritability.
"You will drive me mad one of these days!" she cried. "You laugh at everything. You laugh even at this, though it concerns our whole future here—"
"Excuse me for interrupting you again. I take the matter very much to heart—so much so that there are moments when I am thoroughly weary of it, and feel inclined to write on a large placard: 'Here standeth Beatrice McConnel, alias Cary, daughter of the—'"
"Be silent!" broke in the elder woman furiously. "Do you really want the whole Station to be taken into our confidence?"
"I am sorry!" with half-sincere, half-mocking contrition. "I am as bad as you are. But, as I say, there are times when I should like to shriek the truth in the world's face, and see what it would do. I don't think anything could be worse than our present life."
"If you did anything of the sort, I should take poison," Mrs. Cary declared.
"No, you wouldn't. We should move on to another continent, and try our luck there, that's all. It's the very futility of truth-telling which prevents me from experimenting in that direction. Perhaps, as you suggest, Mr. Travers will take the task from my shoulders."
Mrs. Cary rose to her feet and came ponderously over to her daughter's side. Her voice, when she spoke, was troubled with genuine emotion.
"Beatrice," she said, "I don't ask respect of you—I don't suppose it would be any sort of good if I did. You haven't any respect in you. But at any rate have some consideration for me. You needn't make my life worse than it is. It's no use your saying to me, 'Give up the money, and hide your head.' I can't. I never could hide my head, and at the bottom I don't believe you could either. It's the way we are made. Ever since I was a little child, and played about in my father's shop, I wanted people to bow down to me and respect me. I meant that one day they should. When I married they did—for a time at least. When the crash came, and—and all the shame, I just ran away from it. I couldn't have done anything else. Ever since then I have been trying to build things up elsewhere, and I had to have money for it. You can't blame me, Beatrice. You aren't any better. You always want to be first in your singing and your painting, you always want the best of what's going. You always want to be admired and successful in everything you do. You take after me in that." A note of curious pride crept into her voice. "So it's just like this, Beatrice—I can't live without position. I may not take poison, but I shall die all the same if I can't play a part in the world. All I ask is that you help me all you can. It's not much. I've been a pretty decent mother to you. You can't say that there was ever a time when I grudged you a pretty frock or a dance—" She stopped in her long speech, yielding to Beatrice's irrepressible gesture of impatience.
"You needn't have gone into so much explanation," the girl said, fastening a small diamond pendant round her white neck. "I know you and I know myself. As to my gratitude, I am fully aware of what I owe you, and am ready to pay. What do you want me to do?"
"Don't go against me."
"I haven't done so yet. I don't mean to. As far as I can recollect, I've pulled us both out of as many scrapes as you have landed us into," Beatrice replied.
"I know. That's why I want you to do your best now."
"To do what?"
"To keep Marut tolerable for us."
"I can't prevent Mr. Travers gossiping if he wants to."
A smile flitted over Mrs. Cary's fat face, robbing it of its good-nature and leaving it merely vulgarly cunning.
"You could if you wanted to."
"How?"
"Oh, you know! You have a way with men. You could shut his mouth."
Beatrice laughed outright.
"There are moments when you betray your origin in the most painful way, mother," she said cruelly. "A remark like that in Mrs. Carmichael's hearing, and we should find Marut too hot for us without any assistance from Mr. Travers."
"I'm sorry," Mrs. Cary apologized humbly. "It slipped out. What I meant was, that I am sure you could manage him. And you know you could, Beatrice."
Beatrice looked at her reflection in the glass. There was little feminine vanity in the glance—rather a cool judging and appraising, untempered with any personal prejudice.
"I suppose I could," she admitted.
"Won't you?"
"Would it make you very happy?"
"It would be my first moment's real peace since I saw Mr. Travers at the garden-party."
"Well, I'll do my best."
"You promise?"
"Yes, I'll promise if you want me to."
Mrs. Cary drew a deep sigh of relief.
"That's one thing about you, you keep your promises, Beatrice," she said.
"It is rather curious, under the circumstances, isn't it?" the younger woman returned, submitting to the mother's grateful embrace with an indifference which seemed to indicate more than an indifference—rather a stoic, smothered antipathy. When it was over, and Mrs. Cary had once more ensconced herself on the lounge, Beatrice shook her shoulders as though thrusting something intensely disagreeable away from her.
"In any case, it may be too late," she said, putting the finishing touches to her toilet. "If Mr. Travers meant to tell, he has probably done so already. I shall be able to judge by Mrs. Carmichael's hand-shake to-night."
"We must hope for the best," returned Mrs. Cary, with pious resignation.
The two women relapsed into silence. Beatrice hovered lightly about the room, collecting her fan, handkerchief and gloves, every now and again casting the same curious, unloving glance at herself in the long mirror. Presently she went to the window and pulled aside the muslin curtain.
"Some one is driving up the avenue," she said. "It's a dog-cart. I wonder who it is."
"A dog-cart!" Mrs. Cary repeated thoughtfully. "Now, who has a dog-cart in
Marut? Not many people, I fancy." A dull flush mounted her coarse cheeks.
"Why," she exclaimed, "I believe Mr. Travers has!"
Beatrice dropped the curtain back into its place.
"That would be a coincidence, wouldn't it?" she remarked, with a faint irony from which her tone had never been wholly free.
A minute later the ayah entered the room.
"Travers Sahib is here," she announced. "He asks if missy drive with him to the Colonel Sahib in his cart. Travers Sahib waiting."
Beatrice and her mother exchanged glances.
"Very well," Beatrice then said quietly. "Tell Travers Sahib I shall be delighted. Paul need not bring round the carriage."
The ayah retired, and with an undisturbed calm Beatrice proceeded to slip into her evening cloak.
"At any rate, he hasn't spoken yet," she said. "Fate seems to mean well with you, mother."
"It all depends on you, Beatrice," the other returned impressively.
"Do you think so? Well, I have half-an-hour's drive before me—tete-a-tete. I dare say I shall manage. Good night!" She patted her mother lightly on the hand as she passed her on the way to the door.
"Good-by, my dear. Do your best, won't you?"
"Haven't I been brought up to do my best?" Beatrice answered with a laugh.
She hurried on to the verandah which faced out on the drive, the ayah accompanying her with numerous wraps and shawls. Archibald Travers, who had remained seated, greeted her with a cheerful wave of the whip.
"Please excuse my getting down, Miss Cary," he said. "My horse is in a state of mind which does not allow for politeness. Can you trust yourself to his tender care?"
"I am not in the least nervous," she answered, scrambling up to his side, "and a drive through this lovely air is worth a few risks. I was dreading the half-hour alone in our stuffy brougham."
"I'm glad I came, then," he said. "I heard that Mrs. Cary was ill and could not go, but I was not sure whether you would care for it. There, are you tucked in all right? Can we start?"
"Yes, by all means."
He cracked his whip, and immediately the impatient chestnut sprang forward into the darkness. They swayed dangerously through the compound gates on to the broad, straight highroad.
Beatrice laughed with excitement.
"That was splendid!" she exclaimed, pulling her cloak closer round her.
"How well you drive!"
"You seem to enjoy danger," he said, with an amused smile.
"Yes, I enjoy it," she answered, more gravely. "It is the only flavoring which I have hitherto discovered in life. The rest is rather insipid, don't you think?"
"You talk like a man," he said.
"I have been brought up to be independent and fight for myself," she returned. "That sort of thing does away with the principal differences between the sexes."
As she spoke they dashed suddenly into an avenue of high trees through whose branches the moonlight played fantastic, uncanny shadows on the white road. Travers' horse shied violently, and for some minutes his work was cut out for him in pacifying the excited animal. When they were once more bowling smoothly over the open plain, he glanced down at the girl beside him.
She was smiling to herself.
"You have nerve!" he remarked admiringly.
"I have lots more when it is wanted," she answered, looking up at him. The light struck full on their faces, and they could read each other's expressions as clearly as if it had been midday.
"How much farther is it at the rate we are going?" she asked.
"Another twenty minutes."
"Another twenty minutes!" she repeated thoughtfully. "That is quite a long time, isn't it?"
He flicked his whip across the horse's ears.
"Yes, and I'm glad," he said. "Otherwise, I shouldn't have seen much of you. I happen to know that I am taking in Miss Caruthers to dinner, and dinner takes up most of the evening at these functions."
"You are taking in Lois Caruthers!" she said, laughing. "I know of some one who will be annoyed."
"Stafford, you mean?"
"And Lois herself."
He joined in her amusement.
"Yes, I suppose so."
"You have a good-natured hostess. I dare say the arrangement could be altered if you wished it."
"But I don't. They happen to be my arrangements, you see."
"Oh!" she ejaculated, somewhat taken back.
"On my left there will be Mrs. James, who, as you perhaps know, is stone deaf," he went on calmly. "On Miss Caruthers' right will be Mr. James, who from long custom never opens his mouth except to put something into it. Stafford will be right at the other end of the table."
"You are malicious," she said.
"Not a bit. I only go hard for what I want, that's all." He chuckled to himself and then went on: "I've confided to you my subtle underground plans—why, goodness knows. I'm not usually of a confiding nature. But really, Miss Cary, I feel as though I had known you all my life."
"We have already plotted together," she said. "Possibly that forms some sort of link between us."
He glanced down at her, and this time, as she did not return his gaze, he was free to study her calm, undisturbed profile.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed, half under his breath, "I don't blame the young fool for being taken in."
Her brows contracted sharply.
"Thank you. I suppose that is a compliment."
"It is meant for one. By the way, are you really sure of your success?"
"Perfectly sure."
"That's a good thing. We shall have the laugh over old Stafford and his grandmother's ideas if it comes off. All I fear is that the youth's impressionable mind may lose its impressions as quickly as it receives them."
"I don't think so. He did not seem that sort."
"Besides," added Travers, with a sudden drawl, "your face is not one that a man forgets easily, Miss Cary."
She stirred very slightly in her seat. It was the instinctive movement of a woman bracing herself secretly for a coming shock.
"Really?"
"Yes, really. That was what I meant to tell you the other day, but there was no fitting opportunity. I recognized you at once."
"And I you," she returned.
He whistled.
"So we recognized each other and didn't recognize each other. Rather a queer thing, eh?"
Again there was that scarcely noticeable stiffening of her whole body.
"I see nothing queer about it. We were both taken aback, and after the first shock we realized that to acknowledge a previous meeting was not to either of our advantages. You were ashamed; and I—well, you can guess my reasons."
"By Jove! You know, you really are plucky!" he burst out, with genuine admiration.
"Thank you. You have intimated that to me already, and, as a matter of fact, there is no question of pluck. I'm taking the bull by the horns because I must. Mr. Travers, I can't live in the same place with you and not know if you are going to explode the mine under our feet or not. I may have nerve, but I haven't got nerve enough for that."
"I see. You want to know whether I am going to gossip or hold my tongue.
Is that it?"
"Yes, that's it."
"Suppose I gossip?"
"I see no reason why you should be our enemy, so I don't mind admitting to you that it would spoil our plans."
"What may they be?"
"Firstly, to get clear of everything that has happened. We've tried to do that in different places all over Europe, without success. Something or somebody has always cropped up and driven us away. It was just as though every one least concerned in the matter had made up their minds to track us down. At last mother thought of India, and of Marut in particular. My father held a small post somewhere about here before we left for England, and we make out that it is tender associations and all that sort of thing. Of course, we might be found out any day, but perhaps people are not so curious out here, and it gives us a rest."
"Might I ask why you take all this trouble?"
"I was going to tell you. Because my mother wants what she calls position—she wants to mix with the best. We couldn't do that in England, for the reasons I have given you. As for me—I fulfil my destiny. I am seeking a suitable husband."
He drew in his breath in something that was not unlike a gasp.
"My dear Miss Cary, do you know what the world—particularly the woman world—would call you?"
"Does call me, you mean? Of course. An adventuress."
"To be quite frank, you've hit it. But I don't. I call you a jolly extraordinary and clever woman."
"Please don't pay me compliments," she said coldly. "My cleverness—if I have any—is not more than that of any hunted animal who seeks cover where best he can. As to my being extraordinary, I do not see that you have any reason to call me so. You might as well say that it is extraordinary when a weed springs up where a weed has been sown—"
"Or a flower," he interposed suavely.
She sank back in her seat, saying nothing. Her silence was a weary sort of protest.
Travers pulled out his watch with his free hand.
"We have only five minutes more," he said. "We are splendidly up to time. I tell you what, Miss Cary—you can eat Colonel Carmichael's dinner in peace." She looked quickly at him. "I mean that I shall hold my tongue. I don't know that I ever intended doing anything else. I am not responsible to society, and in any case, no direct blame for the past can attach itself to you. As it is, after your confidence, I give you my word that I'll do my best to see you through here. You deserve it, and I have always had a sneaking sympathy for the hunted fox and the much-abused weed. You can be quite easy in your mind."
"Thank you," she said without much warmth.
"I have only one condition—" he went on, and then hesitated.
"I was waiting for that," she said.
He laughed good-naturedly.
"You know me very well already."
"I know men," she retorted.
"Well, then, I have a condition. Please don't look upon me as a sort of blackmailer. If you don't choose to agree to the condition, you needn't. I shan't on that account go round gossiping about your affairs. At the same time, I expect you would rather drive a fair and square bargain with me than be in any way in my debt."
"You are quite right," she said quickly.
"My condition is merely this: I want you, if the time and opportunity ever present themselves, to lend me a hand with my plans. I confess privately to you I have one or two irons in the fire up at Marut, and that it is pretty hard work single-handed. You are a clever woman, say what you like, and your help would be invaluable."
"In what way?"
"I will put it as short as possible. You know, Miss Cary, I am not a rich man, but I have got some big ideas and one at least of them requires wealth to be carried out. I have every reason to believe that considerable mineral treasure lies buried under the native Bazaar in Marut, but I can do nothing unless some one comes to my assistance both with authority and money. The Rajah is the very man, if only I can get him interested in my project. Will you help me?"
"As I have gone so far I might as well go on," she assented indifferently.
"Thanks. Then there is something else—I want to marry Lois Caruthers."
Beatrice started and looked up at him as though she thought he might be joking. His face had indeed undergone a change, but there was something stern, resolute, almost brutal in the hard-set profile.
"Indeed? Will that not be more difficult? There is Stafford in the way, and Stafford—"
"Stafford must be cleared out of the way," he interrupted, with a cool decision which his expression partly belied. "I believe she is fond of him and he of her in a Platonic sort of fashion which might lead to marriage and might not. He is not the danger. There is a fellow, Nicholson, though—"
He stopped short and seemed for an instant to be plunged in his own thoughts.
"Who is this Nicholson?" she asked curiously. "I have heard his name constantly since I have been here. People talk of him as though he were a demigod. Why are you afraid of him?"
"Just because of his godlike qualities," Travers explained, with a laugh. "In earlier ages, no doubt, he would have been a god and among the natives he is one. In reality, he is an ordinary mortal blessed with an extraordinary influence. I believe he is a captain in some native regiment on the frontiers and has done grand work there. I heard today that he is coming down to Marut on leave."
"Oh—?"
"He was Lois' old playfellow," Travers added pointedly.
"And so you are afraid of him?"
"All women adore heroes of that type," he remarked without mockery or bitterness, "and when Nicholson appears I have a fair idea that Stafford and I will have to be content with the back seats in Lois' affections. You see, they were great friends, and moreover the Carmichaels have their matrimonial eye on him. So it's now or never as far as I am concerned."
"And Stafford—?"
He looked down at her with a jolly laugh.
"He must find consolation elsewhere. I thought he would do for you, Miss
Cary."
"Thanks!"
"Don't be ungrateful. Rich, good position, good family, worthy character, a trifle slow, not to say stupid—what more do you want?"
"You talk as though—"
"—As though he were being given away with a pound of tea? Well, so he is to all intents and purposes. One can do anything with an honest, pig-headed man like that if only one takes him the right way. He would suit you clear down to the ground, and if you will help me I will help you. Is that a bargain?"
They were now in sight of their destination, and he pulled his horse into a walk.
"Well, what do you say, Miss Cary?"
He tried to look into her face, but it was turned resolutely away, and all he could see was a grave profile which might have belonged to a much older woman.
"Well?" he repeated.
They were entering the drive which led up to the brightly lighted bungalow before she answered.
"It's a bargain then," she said. "I promise."
He pressed her hand with his left.
"That's all right," he said cheerily. "You won't find yourself overburdened. The case is just this: we're partners, you and I, with some good cards between us. Just at present it's my call, and your hand goes down. Do you understand?"
"Pretty well," she answered.
They pulled up at the open doorway, and flinging the reins to the waiting syce, Travers sprang to the ground.
"By the way, I believe you go in to dinner with Stafford," he remarked casually as he helped her to alight. "I hope you will get on well together."
CHAPTER VI
BREAKING THE BARRIER
The Colonel's dinner-party was Beatrice's first great triumph in the face of her enemies. They were all there and all armed to the teeth with spite and envy. There was, for instance, Mrs. Berry with her marriageable if somewhat plain daughter, and many more women besides to whom the beautiful girl was of necessity an unforgivable opponent. The more the men laughed at her quick and occasionally rather pointed observations, the more an obvious admiration shone out of their criticisms, the more determined the hatred became. Among themselves they had already fulfilled Travers' prophecy and had christened her "the Adventuress" for no other reason than that she was a woman with the same ambitions as themselves, but better accoutred for success. Truly, she had made no bid for their favor, choosing to stand alone and without their support; but even had she done so it would have been useless. She wore an enemy's color in her face, and keen, pitiless eyes had already probed into the innermost depths of her plans and found them dangerous.
In the middle of the dinner the Colonel broke the news that the whole of the English community had been invited by the Rajah to a reception in the palace grounds. He made the announcement with evident reluctance, and Beatrice was conscious that Stafford, who sat beside her, stiffened and frowned. The sense of opposition and disapproval on the part of the man whom she had set out to conquer put her on her metal, and with the verve and sang-froid of a woman too sure of her own power to know fear, she related her adventure in the temple. Her hearers listened, according to their sex, with amusement, curiosity and pious horror. Some were unreservedly delighted, others—such as the Colonel and Stafford—struggled between a certain admiration for her and a decided disapproval of her action and its results. Yet Stafford at least was a soldier before he was a conventionalist, and her bold, well-played comedy in the temple of Vishnu, told simply, but with fire and energy, could not fail to stir to flame the embers of his own daring. From that time he ceased to rivet his attention to the other end of the table, where Lois was sitting, and Beatrice was conscious that she had won the first move in the great game which she had set herself to play. The next day the whole Station was made aware of the startling change in the Rajah's attitude and the means by which it had been brought about, but no one, not even those who were disposed to judge the matter in its most serious light, guessed what passed within the palace previous to the sending out of the now famous invitation. For the greater part of the English community the whole thing was rather a bad joke, with the Rajah for its victim. That a pretty woman should have unbarred the gates which no other force, diplomacy or cunning had been able to stir was a matter for light, somewhat contemptuous laughter. Rajah Nehal Singh was nicknamed the Impressionable Swain. He and Beatrice Cary were linked together either in good-natured chaff or malicious earnest, and curiosity, thanks to the dullness of the season, strained itself in expectation.
Thus, beyond the marble gates the world laughed, and inside Life and Death had faced each other and for a moment hung in the balance.
It was toward the cool of the evening. Behar Asor and the prince paced slowly backward and forward in the chief entrance hall of the palace, plunged in a conversation which was to mark a final stage in their relationship toward each other. Both knew it, and on both faces was written the same determination—a determination curiously tempered and moulded by the character of the man himself. On Behar Asor's furrowed, withered face it was resolve, armed with treachery and all the hundred and one weapons of oriental cunning. Nehal Singh's head was lifted in calm, unshakable confidence. He had no need of weapons. He had seen his destiny, and the obstacle which would be thrown in his path would, with equal certainty, be thrown out of it. He felt himself extraordinarily strong.
His very surroundings seemed to fortify him with their splendor. Other parts of the palace bore the grievous traces of a past devastating race-hatred; crumbling pillars, images whose jeweled eyes had been made dark and lifeless by robber hands; broken pavements, defaced carvings—all these pointed to a period in human life which was gone for ever, a period of mad fanaticism and passionate clinging to the Old in defiance of the New. Here the New was triumphant. Hands still living had raised the mighty golden dome; the fountain whose waters bubbled up from the Sacred Tank within the temple was his own creation. The whole place became a sort of outward and visible sign of the New Life, New Era, which was opening out before him, and the old man at his side was nothing more than a relic, a piece of clinging wreckage. Yesterday he had been a wise man whose judgment and guidance was a thing to be considered.
But between Yesterday and Today there is occasionally a long night in which much may happen. A life may go out, a life may come in; a devil may become a saint, or a saint a devil; a man may swing from one pole of opinion to another, and this last is perhaps the easiest of all. For it does not require much to change a man's standpoint. A very little thing will make him turn on his heel and look at a piece of the landscape which he has hitherto chosen to ignore or despise, and probably acknowledge that it is finer than his hitherto obstinately retained outlook. A very little thing—like Columbus' egg—if one only knew just what it was! The little thing in Nehal Singh's life had been a woman's face. It shone between him and his old gods; it smiled at him from amidst the shadows of his imagination, beckoning him unceasingly to follow. And he was following—with the reckless speed of a man who had been kept inactive too long at the starting point of life.
"I am weary of all that has hitherto been," he told Behar Asor. "My palace has become a prison from which I must free myself. The very air I breathe is heavy with sleep and dreams. It suffocates me. I must have life—here and without."
"I understand thee too well," came the answer from compressed lips. "The curse is on thee. Thou wilt go among my enemies, and it is I, with my mistaken wisdom, who have opened thy path to them. It was I who taught thee their tongue, their knowledge, their law, that when the time came thou shouldst stand before them more than their equal. This is my punishment."
"It is no punishment. It is the will of God."
"The will of God!" The old man threw up his hands with a wild laugh that echoed among the pillars. "It is the will of the devil, who has been my curse and shall be thine! Ay, ay, look not at me! It is true. Thinkest thou that I have brought thee up in solitude without cause? Thinkest thou that I have hidden thee like a miser his treasure, in the dark, unseen places, for a whim? Son, I have suffered as I pray thou mayst not have to suffer, and I have within my heart a serpent of hatred whose sting I would thou couldst feel." He paused, biting his lip as though the pain he described was actual and physical. "Go not among the Unbelievers!" he continued vigorously. "Let not their shadow defile thee! For their breath is poison, and in their eyes is a deadly flame—or if thou goest, let it be with steeled breast and in thy right hand a sword of vengeance!"
"I can not," Nehal Singh answered impatiently. "Nor do I believe what thou sayest. This people is surely brave and good. I know, for I have read—"
"Read!" the old man interrupted, with another burst of stormy laughter. "What is it to read? To see with the eyes and feel with the body—that alone can bring true wisdom. And I have seen and felt! Callest thou a people 'good' who drink our hospitality and spit upon us—who hail us with their unclean right hand and steal our honor with their left?"
Nehal Singh stopped short.
"What meanest thou?" he demanded.
"I have a meaning!" was the stern answer. "I will tell thee now what I have never told thee before—I will tell thee of a young man who, like thyself, was fearless, impetuous, a lover of the new and strange, who went out into the world, and welcomed the White People as a deliverer and friend. I will tell thee how he flung down caste and prejudice to welcome them, drank in their Thought and Culture, trembled on the brink of their Religion. Already the path had been broken for him. His mother's sister had married out of her race—an Englishman—I know not how it came about—and their child followed in her steps. I will tell thee how the young man came to know this cousin and her husband, also an Unbeliever. How often these two became his guests I will not tell thee. He took pleasure in their presence, partly for his mother's sake, partly because the white race had become dear to him. They brought others with them, and among them an English officer. Hear now further.
"This young man had one wife, following the English custom—one wife more beautiful than her sisters, whom he loved as a man loves but once in life. In his madness, in spite of warnings of his priests, he gave her the freedom almost of an English-woman. Wheresoever he went she followed him; with her at his right hand he received his English guests; it was she who sang to them—" He ground his teeth in a sudden outburst of rage. "Mad, mad was I! Mad to trust a woman, and to trust the stranger! Son, the night came when my wife sang no more to me, and the stranger's shadow ceased to darken my threshold. Three years I sought them—three years; then one night she came back to me. He had cast her from him. She lay dead at my feet." His voice shook. "In vain I sought justice. There is no justice for such things among the White People—not for themselves and not for us. I drew my sword and in hatred and scorn as deep as my love and reverence had been high, I slew my way to the false devil who had betrayed me. Him I slew—and his pale wife I—"
"Who was this man?" Nehal Singh asked heavily.
"I know not. His name has passed from me. But the hate remains. For with that act of treachery he drew back the veil from my blind eyes, and I saw that they were all as he—bad, cruel, hypocrites—"
"Not all—not all!" Nehal Singh interrupted. He stopped by the splashing fountain and gazed dreamily into the clear waters. His own face he saw there—and another which was neither bad, cruel, nor hypocritical, but wholly beautiful. "Not all," he repeated. "You judge by one man. There are others, and it is those I will see and know, and—"
"I would rather see thee dead at my feet!"
"My father, I will judge them as I find them,"
Nehal Singh went on imperturbably. "If they be good and noble, I will serve and love them. If they be bad, as thou sayest—then thou shalt live to see me do thy will."
He heard a shrill cry, and his eyes, still fixed on the water, saw a hand that swept upward, the flash of steel falling swiftly through the sunshine. He swung round and tore the dagger from the nerveless hand.
"Thou dost wrong, my father," he said, with unshaken calm. "To learn treachery from treachery is a poor lesson. And thou canst not stay me. What I will do I will do. Do not cross me again."
The old man, who had shrunk back, gasping and staring, against the marble basin, pulled himself painfully upright.
"Ay, I did wrong," he said. "With my old hands I tried to forestall the sword of Fate. For, mark me, the hour will come when thou wilt curse thyself that thou didst stay my knife!"
He tottered slowly away, vanishing like a curious twisted shadow amidst the deeper shadows of the columns.
Nehal Singh watched him till he was out of sight, and then, snapping the dagger across his knee, flung the pieces into the water. They lay there, at the bottom of the marble basin, sparkling and twinkling in the sunshine. When he looked in, trying to conjure up once more the beautiful face, it was always the dagger he saw. It was always the dagger he saw when the memory of that short, violent scene came back to him—and it came back often, springing up out of his subconscious self like an evil, slinking shade that could never be wholly brought to rest. Yet he went on resolutely. One barrier had given way—one more remained, and he flung himself against it with a reckless determination which would have overcome any resistance. But there was none. The old priest who had been his guide and teacher welcomed him as he had always done, seated cross-legged at the edge of the Sacred Tank, motionless, rigid, like some handsome bronze statue of Buddha, whose eyes alone spoke of a fierce flowing life within. He bowed his head once in return to Nehal's greeting, but as he began to speak he interrupted him, and in a low, chanting voice uttered the last words he was ever heard to address to any living creature:
"Speak not to me, Son of the Night and Day, for the Spirit of the Holy Yog is on me, and his tongue speaketh through my lips. Behold, mine eyes see with his into the wells of the future—my heart stands still for fear of the things that are to be. I see a Holy Temple and hear the ring of Accursed Footsteps. I see a young man at daybreak, beautiful, strong and upright, and I see him stand beneath the high sun like a blade of withered grass. I see him go forth in the morning with laughter on his lips, and at nightfall his eyes run blood. A voice calleth him from the thicket, and wheresoever the voice calleth him he goeth. He standeth on the banks of Holy Ganges, and behold! the waters burst from their course and pour westward to the ocean. Behold, then shall he draw his sword against his people, and from that hour he shall serve them and become theirs. Then shall the doors of the temple be closed for ever, and the lips of Vishnu silent. Go forth, son of the Evening and Morning Star! That which is to be shall be till the stream of the Future ceaseth to flow from the mouth of Heaven!"
Nehal Singh listened to this strange, disjointed prophecy in perfect silence, his eyes following the fierce stare of the old Brahman into the oily waters of the Sacred Pool. Amidst the hundred reflections from the temple he seemed to see each separate picture as the monotonous voice called it up before his mind, and always it was his own face which shimmered among the shadowy minarets, and always it was a familiar voice calling him through the ages which whispered to him from the trembling leaves of the Bo-Tree as it hung its branches down to the water's edge.
"Tell me more, for thy words have drawn the veil closer about the future!"
His pleading received no response. The priest remained motionless, passive, indifferent, seemingly plunged in an ecstatic contemplation; and from that moment his lips were closed, and he passed his once loved pupil with eyes that seemed fixed far ahead on a world visible only to himself. Neither in his words or manner had there been any anger or reproach, but a perfect resignation which walled him off from every human emotion, and Nehal Singh went his way, conscious that the world lay before him and that he was free. The great dividing wall had turned to air, and he had passed through, satisfied but not a little troubled, as a man is who finds that he has struck at shadows.
Afterward he told himself that the walls had always been shadows, the links that bound him always mere ghostly hindrances, part of the vague dreams that had filled his life and bound his horizon. Now that was all over. The more perfect reality lay before him and was his. The dim figures of his childhood's imagination gave place to definite forms. And each bore the same face, each face the same grave goodness—that of the woman destined for him by Heaven.
CHAPTER VII
THE SECOND GENERATION
Thus it came to pass that after more than a quarter of a century the gates of the palace were thrown open, and strange feet crossed the threshold in apparent peace and friendship.
A crowd of memories flooded Colonel Carmichael's mind as he followed the guide along the narrow paths. There was a difference between his last entry and this—a difference and an analogy whose bizarre completeness came home to him more vividly with every moment. Then, too, he had been led, but by a dark figure whose flaming torch had sprung through the darkness like an unearthly spirit of destruction. Then, too, he had followed—not, as now, old and saddened—but impetuously, and behind him had raced no crowd of laughing pleasure-seekers, but men whose bloody swords were clasped in hands greedy for the long-deferred vengeance. He remembered clearly what they had felt. For a year they had been held at bay by a skill and cunning which outmatched their most heroic efforts, and now, at last, the hour of victory was theirs. He remembered how the thirst for revenge had died down as they stormed the marble steps. No living being barred their course. Stillness greeted them as they poured into the mighty hall, and a chilly awe sank down upon their red-hot rage as they searched an emptiness which seemed to defy them. It was the Colonel himself, then only a young captain, who had heard the piteous wailing cry issuing from a side apartment. He had rushed in, and there a sight greeted him which engraved itself on his memory for ever. The place was almost in darkness, save that at the far end two torches had been lit on either side of what seemed to be a throne—a beautiful golden chair raised from the floor by ivory steps. Here, too, at first all had seemed death and silence; then the cry had been repeated, and they saw that a tiny child lay between the high carved arms and was watching them with great, beautiful eyes. Around his neck had hung a hastily-written message:
"This is my son, Nehal Singh, whose life and heritage I intrust to my conquerors in the name of justice and mercy."
And he had taken the boy in his arms and borne him thence as tenderly as if he had been his own.
Since then twenty-five years had passed. The throne had been given to the tiny heir under the tutelage of a neighboring prince, and the spirit of forgotten things brooded over the wreck of the tempest that for over a year had raged about Marut. But the Colonel remembered as if it had been but yesterday. Others had forgotten the little child, but, perhaps because he had no children of his own, the memory of the dark baby eyes had never been banished from his mind. He caught himself wondering, not without a touch of emotion, what sort of man had grown out of the minute being he had rescued; but curiously enough—and typically enough of the contrariness of human sympathy—from the moment he caught sight of the tall figure advancing to meet him from the steps of the palace, all kindly, gentle feelings died out of him, and his old prejudice of race awoke. Possibly—nay, certainly—the child had had less need of sympathy than the man, but the Colonel's heart froze toward him, and his formal response to his host's greeting was icy with the unconquerable consciousness of the gulf between them.
Yet, for eyes unblinded by preconceived aversion, Nehal Singh was at that moment good to look upon. He was simply dressed in white, with no jewels save for a great diamond in his turban, and this very simplicity threw into strong relief his unusually well-built figure and the features to whose almost classical perfection was added a strength, a force of intellect which classical beauty is too often denied. Quietly and modestly, conscious of his own worth, ignorant and inexperienced of the world, he was utterly unaware of the stone barrier that his guests presented to his own open-hearted welcome. For him the whole of his past life concentrated itself on this moment when the gates of the Universe rolled back, and he advanced to meet the representatives of its Greatest People. He thought, in the simple, natural egoism of a man who has lived a life cut off from others, that they would understand this and feel with him.
What his own feelings were he hardly knew—perhaps among them, though unrecognized, was the faintest chill of disappointment. He had had no definite expectations, but his imagination had unconsciously been at work, and touched with its illuminating fire the sons of the heroes whose deeds had filled his quiet existence with romance, painting his picture of them with colors which the reality did not justify. Certainly the little Colonel had nothing either romantic or heroic in his appearance, and what was good and kindly in his bronzed face was hidden behind the mask of his racial pride.
His first words were delivered in a harsh voice, which betrayed only too clearly his real feelings, though Nehal Singh recognized nothing but its disagreeableness.
"Rajah Sahib, you have honored us with the wish to become acquainted with the English people dwelling in your State," he began, "and it is therefore my pleasure and duty to present to you the officers of the regiments—" He stumbled awkwardly, the strangeness of the situation, the direct and searching gaze of his host, throwing him completely out of whatever oratory powers he possessed. It was Nehal Singh himself who saved the situation.
"It is my pleasure to receive you," he said, in his slow, painstaking English, "and I am honored by the readiness with which you have complied with my desire to meet the Great People to whom my land owes so much. Though hitherto I have lived apart from them, I am not wholly ignorant of their greatness. I know, for my fathers and my books have shown me, that there is no other nation so powerful nor whose sons are so noble. Therefore I welcome you with all my heart as a brother, and if such entertainment as I have tried to prepare for your pleasure is not to your taste, I pray you to forgive me, for therein am I indeed ignorant."
For a few among the English party his words, spoken slowly and with a simple sincerity, were not without their charm. Yet, little as he knew it, he had succeeded in one short speech in touching two dangerous spots in his relationship to his guests—his ancestry and his equality. But here again his ignorance veiled from him what was written clearly enough on a dozen frozen faces.
"I should be glad to be made personally acquainted with each of your officers," he went on. "For men who serve under one flag should know each other well."
Colonel Carmichael obeyed, thankful for any occupation which saved him the necessity of replying; and one by one the solemn, unmoved faces came under Nehal Singh's eager gaze, bowed, and passed on. Each resented in turn the intense scrutiny of their host, and none guessed its cause. For them it was the insolent stare of a colored man who had ventured to place himself on an equality with themselves. They could not have known that he was seeking familiar features, nor that, as one after another passed on, a cold chill of disappointment was settling on a heart warm with preconceived admiration and respect. They could not have known that his unconscious presumption had hidden a real desire to find among them the hero to whom his man's worship of courage and greatness could have been dedicated. He was too young—and especially too young in worldly wisdom—to realize that the outside man is not of necessity the man himself. He merely felt, as each wooden face confronted his own, that here was surely no Great Man, no Hero. Only when it came to the civilians his eyes rested with some degree of satisfaction on Travers' well-knit figure and fresh-colored face. For the first time during the whole proceedings the prince smiled, and in turn received a smile.
The ladies had by this time arrived, and the presentations continued. There was no change in Nehal Singh's demeanor when he stood before Beatrice Cary—no change, at least, visible to the curious eyes that watched. If there was any hidden meaning in his expression during the brief instant that they looked at each other, only she herself could have read it; and this she apparently did not do, for her face retained its Madonna peace and dignity.
"I think Rajah Sahib and Miss Cary have already met?" remarked Travers, who was acting as master of the ceremonies.
"Yes, we have met," Nehal Singh answered, and passed on.
If any hesitation showed itself in his manner, it was before Lois
Caruthers. A swift shade of puzzled surprise clouded his features.
"You have been a long time in India?" he asked, after the first words of introduction. The question sounded as though he merely sought her affirmation to something he already knew.
"Almost all my life, Rajah Sahib," she answered. Possibly it was a natural shyness which made her voice sound troubled and nervous. She seemed to heave a sigh of relief when he once more moved on. Yet he had impressed her agreeably.
"Is he not handsome?" she said in an undertone to her companion, Stafford. "I think he is quite the handsomest man I have seen, and he has the manners of an Englishman. I wonder where he got them from."
"I don't know," Stafford returned. "These people have a wonderful trick of picking up things. At any rate he realizes Miss Cary's curious description—beautiful; though, with Miss Berry, I do not care for the word as applied to a man. He seems a nice sort of fellow, too, quiet and unaffected, and that is more to me than his good looks. It's rather a pity."
"What is a pity?" she asked, surprised.
"Oh, well, that he is what he is. Don't look so pained. It's not only my 'narrow-hearted prejudice,' as you call it. It's more than that. I'm sorry for the man himself. It all confirms my first opinion that it is rather bad luck."