It was something in Darling's expression that arrested him first; something that he couldn't just interpret. Afterward he told himself that it was a most singular combination of rapture and pain.
Then he, too, caught the echo of voices—women's voices—and, the next instant, one woman's voice rose clear above the chorus. It was Nina's.
CHAPTER III
The Cobra in the Corner
"My wife!" said Colonel Darling. And the way he said it was almost reverential.
The tone struck young Andrews dumb. His chance had come again. He should have said: "Yes? I had the pleasure of meeting her at Simla." But he said nothing at all.
In dead silence he followed his host to the front veranda, where he came plump upon Nina Darling and the Ramsays. That is to say, upon Mrs. Ramsay, who was an American devotée of Kipling on a pilgrimage to the shrines, and her daughter, Jane.
Mr. Ramsay, busy in Chicago or Milwaukee, or some other place in the States, was not in evidence, and had not been.
It was clear to Andrews that Colonel Darling was about to greet his wife with a kiss; but she forestalled it. She nodded to him perfunctorily; said: "Oh, there you are, Jack!" in the most matter-of-fact fashion; and turned away to stoop and caress the Irish terrier that was frantically pawing at her skirt.
A lump rose in Andrews's throat at sight of the rebuff. His hope was that the Ramsays hadn't noticed, for their eyes were on him at the moment, and their surprise at seeing him there was manifest.
Darling made to cover up the awkward moment by presenting him all around. Nina, whose astonishment at the meeting must have exceeded even that of her friends, took refuge in the chilliest civility.
From nothing that she said could her husband possibly gather that she and Andrews had so much as ever touched fingers before. And the Ramsays were quick to follow her lead.
Nevertheless, the situation was far from comfortable, and the young man got away at the very earliest opportunity.
Before he had reached the gate of the compound, however, the voice of the colonel caught him up.
"I say, Andrews," he called, "don't forget to bring over that new automatic pistol you were speaking of. I should like to have a look at it if you don't mind."
And this eleventh-hour reminder gave him the excuse which later, in his superconscientiousness, he deemed a necessity. More than ever now honor and duty bade him flee; but a more insistent impulse urged another and final talk with Nina.
For forty-eight hours he fought it, only to yield at the forty-ninth. Having made sure that Darling was safely housed at the club, he rode over to the bungalow with the excuse spoiling the set of his coat.
Nina saw it almost at once and spoke of it. For, the devil being good to him, he had found her at home and alone.
"I knew your nose was out of joint," she said, "but what under the sun has happened to your hip?"
"Oh, yes," he replied, taking the excuse from his hip-pocket and placing it on a table close at hand. "I brought it over for the colonel. He's rather keen about the new safety device and wanted to see it." And he looked a trifle sheepish as he asked: "Does he happen by any chance to be at home?"
"You may thank Heaven he isn't," she answered with a light laugh. "I'm never at my best when he is within hailing distance. And you didn't come to see him. I know that."
Then he looked more sheepish still.
"I dare say you've learned his habits in the last week, and you could have found him at the club, you know," she added.
His laugh was rather mirthless as he said:
"Of course. What's the use of pretending? I saw him go in before I started."
"Then you've forgiven me, I suppose. That is sweet of you."
"It's harder to forgive myself. I feel like a cur."
"I've known some very nice curs."
"But I don't feel like that sort," he insisted. "No, it's the sneaking, thieving mongrel that I—" He broke off suddenly.
She had sat down and he dropped into a chair facing her.
"I'll tell you," he went on. "I've been persuading myself that I owed you an explanation of my continued presence in Umballa and the narrowly averted embarrassment of two days ago. I've been trying to make myself believe that in that and that only lay my reason for wishing to see you again."
"And there was another reason?"
"There was another reason," he admitted. "I wasn't honest with myself. Gad! When a chap isn't honest with himself—"
"All men are like that," she told him. "The higher their ideals the less frankly honest they are with themselves. They just won't admit the old Adam in them."
"I haven't any will," he declared. "I haven't any pride."
She lay back in her chair, pleasantly amused.
"Of course you haven't," she said confidently. "I've taken them from you. It was very wicked of me, wasn't it?"
"Do you do that to—to all of us?" he asked seriously.
"I'm afraid I do," she admitted. "But quite unconsciously. I don't mean to. Oh, I never mean to."
"I've been trying to put you out of my mind, out of my heart. I've been trying to kill my infatuation for you; but I haven't even stunned it. When I thought I had my foot on its neck it went on binding me with stronger chains."
And at that she laughed aloud.
"You're too funny," she said. "When did you think you had the horrid thing down?"
"When I met your husband—and—and liked him."
"You did like him, then?"
"Very much indeed."
"What an odd taste! Those pale eyes of his have an uncanny effect on me. It's something that goes through walls and floors; and it makes me quite vicious. It brings out all the cat in me. I have an irresistible desire to claw and rend."
"It must have followed you all the way to Simla, that last night," said Andrews, dropping into a chair that faced her.
But Nina shook her golden head and her violet eyes slowly narrowed. He observed that in the dusk, for the room was in the semi-gloom of a single, red-shaded lamp in a far corner.
"No"—her voice was very low and purring—"I wasn't in the least catty then. I was sorry for you. I was, really; but it couldn't go on. You can see now that it couldn't go on."
"It might have gone on," he qualified, "if I hadn't met Colonel Darling."
"You seem to forget that I had met him already—am married to him."
"Yes," he said; "but with you it's different. You joy in hurting him; whereas I—why, I'd never have a moment's peace if I did anything that would give him pain. I know I shouldn't."
She pretended to be surprised; though, for some reason, she was not in the least.
"You're an odd boy," she drawled. "You mean that if I were to tell you now that I had changed my mind, and was quite ready to go away with you, you'd beg to be excused?"
He didn't answer at once. Candor bulked large in his character. Now that she put it that way he wished to be very sure. It was not a matter to