CHAPTER VI
A Hard Man and Bitter
It was the next morning, and Nina's ayah sat on a chair in the passage, guarding the door of her mistress's room. To all comers she gave the same answer – her mem-sahib was sleeping after a night of wakefulness and must not be disturbed.
She gave it to Colonel Darling no less than three times – once before breakfast, once after, and again before he rode away for parade, his eyes bloodshot and his hands all a-tremble.
And all the while the room behind the door was as empty of life as a hatched egg-shell. For in the darkest hour of a gray dawn, closely veiled, Nina had stolen away with her ayah escorting, and had taken refuge with the Ramsays, who had a small bungalow within the hotel compound – the same hotel, be it added, which sheltered "Mr. Henry Scripps, Bombay."
Of course she told the Ramsays her story – or, which is closer to fact, a story. Some of it was truth, but it was neither all the truth nor nothing but the truth. She believed dissemblance necessary, and so she had no hesitation in dissembling.
Her main purpose was to escape for a while from Darling and his unanswerable questions, and in the meantime to obtain at all hazards an interview with Kneedrock. She hadn't the faintest idea what the viscount purposed doing, but whatever it was she must stop him.
She knew from what young Andrews had told her that he was masquerading under the name of Scripps. So as Scripps she spoke of him in relating her tale of embarrassment to her American friend, Sibylla Ramsay, while Sibylla's daughter, who should have been fast asleep, sat by and listened with apparently adult understanding.
She implied without actually saying so that she had once had a more or less violent flirtation with Mr. Scripps; that her husband knew of it, and that she feared the consequences of his present presence in Umballa. Therefore it was imperative that she see him and urge his departure at the very earliest possible moment.
She couldn't receive him in her own home, but she'd like to receive him in theirs; and she did hope they would not regard it as an imposition on their friendship and good nature.
"Well, I should say not," returned Sibylla. "I think it's just the loveliest thing. I'm mad over romance, Nina, you know. And this is so romantic."
"Do you mind if I peep at him, dear Mrs. Darling?" asked Jane, nervously gathering her kimono more closely about her slim limbs. "I know he's handsome from his name. It isn't beautiful. Men with beautiful names are always so disappointing."
"You may peep all you care to, my dear," said Nina, "but you mustn't listen. Otherwise I'd suggest that you hide behind the piano or under the sofa. May I write him a note, Sibylla, and bribe your maid to deliver it?"
"You may serenade him from my front veranda if you care to, dear, and I'll beckon him when he comes to his window. But if you think the note idea more discreet, adopt it by all means."
So Nina wrote the note and then sat in a fever of impatience until the dawn grew brighter and the hands of the watch on her wrist circled to a more reasonable morning hour.
She had recovered some measure of poise, but the experience of the night had left its marks upon her, and the uncertainty as to whether Kneedrock would come or refuse to do so, coupled with the prospect of the meeting, which she both longed for and feared, filled the waiting period with a nervous tension that fretted and rasped.
She had begged him to send her an answer, if only verbal. But the maid returned without so much as a syllable. And so her waiting in uncertainty was prolonged. Meanwhile she drank the black coffee with which Sibylla plied her with the assurance that its sustaining power was superior to her habitual tea.
At ten minutes to nine, by the watch on her wrist, just as the fourth cup had been placed in her somewhat steadied hand, the maid who had carried the note brought proof of its delivery by announcing that Mr. Scripps awaited Mrs. Darling's pleasure in the bungalow drawing-room.
Sibylla and Jane were both wonderfully pleased and excited, and Nina, who had expected this moment, if it ever came, quite to overcome her with emotional agitation, surprised herself with a calmly self-contained placidity which she naturally attributed to the stimulation of the caffein.
Even the shock of Kneedrock's changed appearance – for he was almost unrecognizably changed in the nine years since their parting – failed to disturb her inner tranquillity. Only her voice betrayed her. It quavered just the least bit as she spoke the old name.
"Hal!" No one but she had ever called him that.
For his part he husbanded his words. He had taken a place with his back to the mantel and stood there in unmoving silence with his hands clasped behind him – the one still bandaged, but the sling discarded – and his brow drawn with a half frown.
Nina put out a hand tentatively and drew it back when he continued motionless.
"Perhaps you did not wish to see me," she said, nettled.
"You might have thought of that before sending me your extraordinary message." Those were the first words he spoke.
"It would have made no difference," she returned, pausing by the piano and steadying herself by resting a hand on its top. "I had to see you, whether you wished it or not. If you had not come here I should have gone into the hotel."
"I can't for the life of me see what is to be gained by it," he protested.
"There may be nothing gained unless you will believe me."
It was scarcely possible that he could miss the pathos of the words, even if he missed the pathos in the tone. Yet his only answer was a cynical smile.
"I want you to know that the shot which hurt you was not intended for you."
Then he laughed cruelly. "No?" he questioned with feigned surprise. "Still, you must admit that your lover's habit of firing at random through drawing-room windows isn't a perfectly safe amusement at best. He's liable to pot some one, you know."
Her face was crimson. "He's not my lover," she denied indignantly.
"Pardon me. I judged only from what I saw. It was quite evident he was not your husband. I am curious, seeing that he is not your lover, or one of them, what privileges you reserve for them."
"I have no lover or lovers," she protested.
"Dear me!" he said with mock astonishment. "How dreary your poor life must be! I had fancied quite the contrary."
"It was I who told him to shoot," she confessed. "He shot at a bronze cobra in the corner."
"Then he's a worse shot than I thought."
"Oh, he hit the cobra, nevertheless. The bullet glanced."
"Yes," he agreed. "I know. It glanced at me and caught my hand. I suppose the possibility of such a thing didn't occur to either of you."
"I didn't want him to kiss me," she defended at some sacrifice of truth. "In another second he would have, and I told him there was a cobra in the corner to distract him. Besides I meant to frighten our khitmatgar. I thought it was he who was spying. And it happened to be you."
"Yes," he admitted calmly. "I came all the way from Melanesia to spy. But I'm rather a novice at it, and got winged the first time. Too bad, I say."
"Then I'm not sorry. You deserved it."
"At all events," he told her, "I saw enough to send me back. I'm not fitted for civilization. I prefer the real savage to the counterfeit. I infinitely prefer the original tigress with her stripes to the reincarnated creature with her soft hands and her rose-leaf cheeks."
She didn't hear the last. It was quite lost upon her.
"You – you are going back?" she questioned, her breath short.
"To-night," he told her. "I've had enough. I'll get the boat at Calcutta that brought me."
She tried to realize the situation,