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diff --git a/old/53036-0.txt b/old/53036-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 79f569d..0000000 --- a/old/53036-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7034 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of His Honour, and a Lady, by Mrs. Everard Cotes - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: His Honour, and a Lady - -Author: Mrs. Everard Cotes - -Release Date: September 12, 2016 [EBook #53036] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS HONOUR, AND A LADY *** - - - - -Produced by KD Weeks, Larry B. Harrison and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - Transcriber’s Note: - -This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. -Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. The few -instances of blackletter font in the front matter use the ‘~’ as a -delimiter. - -The few footnotes have been positioned directly following the paragraph -in which they are referenced. - -Please consult the note at the end of this text for a discussion of any -textual issues encountered in its preparation. - - - - - HIS HONOUR, AND A LADY - - - - - BOOKS BY MRS. EVERARD COTES - - (SARA JEANNETTE DUNCAN). - - ---------- - -=His Honour, and a Lady.= - - Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. - -=The Story of Sonny Sahib.= - - Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. - -=Vernon’s Aunt.= - - With many Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. - -=A Daughter of To-Day.= - - A Novel. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. - -=A Social Departure.= - - HOW ORTHODOCIA AND I WENT ROUND THE WORLD BY OURSELVES. With 111 - Illustrations by F. H. TOWNSEND. 12mo. Paper, 75 cents; cloth, - $1.75. - -=An American Girl in London.= - - With 80 Illustrations by F. H. TOWNSEND. 12mo. Paper, 75 cents; - cloth, $1.50. - -=The Simple Adventures of a Memsahib.= - - With 37 Illustrations by F. H. TOWNSEND. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. - - ------------------ - - New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. - -[Illustration: - - The situation made its voiceless demand. - (See page 33.) -] - - - - - HIS HONOUR, AND - A LADY - - BY - - MRS. EVERARD COTES - - (SARA JEANNETTE DUNCAN) - - AUTHOR OF A SOCIAL DEPARTURE, AN AMERICAN GIRL IN LONDON, - A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY, VERNON’S AUNT, - THE STORY OF SONNY SAHIB, ETC. - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - - NEW YORK - D. APPLETON AND COMPANY - 1896 - - - - - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1895, 1896, - BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. - - - - - - - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. - - -------------- - - - FACING - PAGE - - The situation made its voiceless demand _Frontispiece_ - - “She seems to be sufficiently entertained” 21 - - There was a moment’s pause 83 - - Notwithstanding, it was gay enough 150 - - “What do I know about the speech”! 215 - - She drove back 305 - - - - - HIS HONOUR, AND A LADY. - - - - - CHAPTER I. - - -“The Sahib _walks_!” said Ram Prasannad, who dusted the office books and -papers, to Bundal Singh the messenger, who wore a long red coat with a -badge of office, and went about the business of the Queen-Empress on his -two lean brown legs. - -“What talk is that?” Bundal Singh shifted his betel quid to the other -cheek and lunged upon his feet. This in itself was something. When one -sits habitually upon one’s heels the process of getting up is not -undertaken lightly. The men looked out together between the whitewashed -stucco pillars of the long verandah that interposed between the -Commissioner’s clerks and the glare and publicity of the outer world of -Hassimabad. Overhead, in a pipal tree that threw sharp-cut patterns of -its heart-shaped leaves about their feet, a crow stretched its -grey-black throat in strenuous caws, since it was ten o’clock in the -morning and there was no reason to keep silence. Farther away a chorus -of other crows smote the sunlight, and from the direction of the bazar -came a murmur of the life there, borne higher now and then in the -wailing voice of some hawker of sweetmeats. Nevertheless there was a -boundless stillness, a stillness that might have been commanded. The -prodigal sun intensified it, and the trees stood in it, a red and dusty -road wound through it, and the figure of a man, walking quickly down the -road, seemed to be a concentration of it. - -“That signifies,” continued Ram Prasannad, without emotion, “news that -is either very good or very bad. The Government _lât_ had but arrived, -the sahib opened one letter only—which is now with him—and in a breath -he was gone, walking, though the horse was still fast between the -shafts. Myself, I think the news is good, for my cousin—he is a writing -baboo in the Home Office, dost thou understand, thou, runner of -errands!—has sent word to me that the sahib is much in favour with the -_Burra Lat_, and that it would be well to be faithful to him.” - -“I will go swiftly after with an umbrella, and from his countenance it -will appear,” remarked Bundal Singh; “and look thou, worthy one, if that -son of mud, Lal Beg, the grain dealer, comes again in my absence to try -to make petition to the sahib, and brings a pice less than one rupee to -me, do thou refuse him admission.” - -Bundal Singh ran after his master, as he said. As John Church walked -rapidly, and the habitual pace of a Queen’s messenger in red and gold is -a dignified walk, the umbrella was tendered with a devoted loss of wind. - -“It may be that your honour will take harm from the sun,” Bundal Singh -suggested, with the privilege all the Commissioner’s people felt -permitted to use. The Commissioner liked it—could be depended upon to -appreciate any little savour of personal devotion to him, even if it -took the form of a liberty. He had not a servant who was unaware of this -or failed to presume upon it, in his place and degree. This one got a -nod of acknowledgment as his master took the opened umbrella, and -observed, as he fell behind, that the sahib was too much preoccupied to -carry it straight. He went meditatively back to Ram Prasannad in the -verandah, who said, “Well?” - -“Simply it does not appear. The sahib’s forehead had twenty wrinkles, -and his mind was a thousand miles hence. Yet it was as if he had lately -smiled and would smile again. What will be, will be. Lal Beg has not -been here?” - -John Church walked steadily on, with his near-sighted eyes fixed always -upon the wide space of sunlit road, its red dust thick-printed with bare -feet and hoofs, that lay in front of him—seeing nothing, literally, but -the way home. He met no one who knew him except people from the bazar, -who regarded their vizier with serious wonder as they salaamed, the men -who sat upon low bamboo carts and urged, hand upon flank, the -peaceful-eyed cattle yoked to them, turning to stare as they jogged -indolently past. A brown pariah, curled up in the middle of the road, -lifted his long snout in lazy apology as Church stepped round him, -trusting the sense that told him it would not be necessary to get out of -the way. As he passed the last low wall, mossy and discoloured, that -divided its brilliantly tangled garden from the highway, and turned in -at its own gate, he caught himself out of his abstraction and threw up -his head. He entered his wife’s drawing-room considerately, and a ray of -light, slipping through the curtains and past the azaleas and across the -cool duskness of the place, fell on his spectacles and exaggerated the -triumph in his face. - -The lady, who sat at the other end of the room writing, rose as her -husband came into it, and stepped forward softly to meet him. If you had -known her you would have noticed a slight elation in her step that was -not usual, and made it more graceful, if anything, than it commonly was. - -“I think I know what you have come to tell me,” she said. Her voice -matched her personality so perfectly that it might have suggested her, -to a few people, in her darkened drawing-room, as its perfume would -betray some sweet-smelling thing in the evening. Not to John Church. “I -think I know,” she said, as he hesitated for words that would not show -extravagant or undignified gratification. “But tell me yourself. It will -be a pleasure.” - -“That Sir Griffiths Spence goes on eighteen months’ sick leave, and——” - -“And that you are appointed to officiate for him. Yes.” - -“Somebody has written?” - -“Yes—Mr. Ancram.” - -His wife had come close to him, and he noticed that she was holding out -her hands in her impulse of congratulation. He took one of them—it was -all he felt the occasion required—and shook it lamely. She dropped the -other with a little quick turn of her head and a dash of amusement at -her own expense in the gentle gravity of her expression. “Do sit down,” -she said, almost as if he had been a visitor, “and tell me all about -it.” She dragged a comfortable chair forward out of its relation with a -Burmese carved table, some pots of ferns and a screen, and sat down -herself opposite, leaning forward in a little pose of expectancy. Church -placed himself on the edge of it, grasping his hat with both hands -between his knees. - -“I must apologise for my boots,” he said, looking down: “I walked over. -I am very dusty.” - -“What does it matter? You are King of Bengal!” - -“Acting King.” - -“It is the same thing—or it will be. Sir Griffiths retires altogether in -two years—Lord Scansleigh evidently intends you to succeed him.” The -lady spoke with obvious repression, but her gray eyes and the warm -whiteness of her oval face seemed to have caught into themselves all the -light and shadow of the room. - -“Perhaps—perhaps. You always invest in the future at a premium, Judith. -I don’t intend to think about that.” - -Such an anticipation, based on his own worth, seemed to him -unwarrantable, almost indecent. - -“I do,” she said, wilfully ignoring the clouding of his face. “There is -so much to think about. First the pay—almost ten thousand rupees a -month—and we are poor. It may be a material consideration, but I don’t -mind confessing that the prospect of never having to cut the khansamah -appeals to me. We shall have a palace and a park to live in, with a -guard at the gates, and two outriders with swords to follow our -carriage. We shall live in Calcutta, where there are trams and theatres -and shops and people. The place carries knighthood if you are confirmed -in it, and you will be Sir John Church—that gratifies the snob that is -latent in me because I am a woman, John.” (She paused and glanced at his -face, which had grown almost morose.) “Best of all,” she added lightly, -“as Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal you will be practically sole ruler of -eighty millions of people. You will be free to carry out your own -theories, and to undertake reforms—any number of reforms! Mr. Ancram -says,” she went on, after a moment’s hesitation, “that the man and the -opportunity have come together.” - -John Church blushed, through his beard which was gray, and over the top -of his head which was bald, but his look lightened. - -“Ancram will be one of my secretaries,” he said. “Does he speak at -all—does he mention the way it has been taken in Calcutta?” - -Mrs. Church went to her writing-table and came back with the letter. It -was luxuriously written, in a rapid hand as full of curves and angles as -a woman’s, and covered, from “Dear Lady” to “Always yours sincerely,” -several broad-margined sheets. - -“I think he does,” she said, deliberately searching the pages. “Yes: -‘Church was not thought precisely in the running—you are so remote in -Hassimabad, and his work has always been so unostentatious—and there was -some surprise when the news came, but no cavil. It is known that the -Viceroy has been looking almost with tears for a man who would be strong -enough to redeem a few of Sir Griffiths’ mistakes if possible while he -is away—he has been, as you know, ludicrously weak with the natives—and -Church’s handling of that religious uproar you had a year ago has not -been forgotten. I need not expatiate upon the pleasure your friends -feel, but it may gratify you to know that the official mob is less ready -with criticism of His Excellency’s choice than usual.’” - -John Church listened with the look of putting his satisfaction under -constraint. He listened in the official manner, as one who has many -things to hear, with his head bent forward and toward his wife, and his -eyes consideringly upon the floor. - -“I am glad of that,” he said nervously when she had finished—“I am glad -of that. There is a great deal to be done in Bengal, and matters will be -simplified if they recognise it.“ - -“I think you would find a great deal to do anywhere, John,” remarked -Mrs. Church. It could almost be said that she spoke kindly, and a -sensitive observer with a proper estimate of her husband might have -found this irritating. During the little while that followed, however, -as they talked, in the warmth of this unexpected gratification, of what -his work had been as a Commissioner, and what it might be as a -Lieutenant-Governor, it would have been evident even to an observer who -was not sensitive, that here they touched a high-water mark of their -intercourse, a climax in the cordiality of their mutual understanding. - -“By the way,” said John Church, getting up to go, “when is Ancram to be -married?” - -“I don’t know!” Mrs. Church threw some interest into the words. Her -inflection said that she was surprised that she didn’t know. “He only -mentions Miss Daye to call her a ‘study in femininity,’ which looks as -if he might be submitting to a protracted process of education at her -hands. Certainly not soon, I should think.” - -“Ancram must be close on forty, with good pay, good position, good -prospects. He shouldn’t put it off any longer: a man has no business to -grow old alone in this country. He deteriorates.” - -Church pulled himself together with a shake—he was a loose-hung -creature—and put a nervous hand up to his necktie. Then he pulled down -his cuffs, considered his hat with the effect of making quite sure that -there was nothing more to say, and turned to go. - -“You might send me over something,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I -won’t be able to come back to breakfast. Already I’ve lost -three-quarters of an hour from work. Government doesn’t pay me for that. -You are pleased, then?” he added, looking round at her in a half -shamefaced way from the door. - -Mrs. Church had returned to the writing-table, and had again taken up -her pen. She leaned back in her chair and lifted her delicate chin with -a smile that had custom and patience in it. - -“Very pleased indeed,” she said; and he went away. The intelligent -observer, again, would have wondered how he refrained from going back -and kissing her. Perhaps the custom and the patience in her smile would -have lent themselves to the explanation. At all events, he went away. - -He was forty-two, exactly double her age, when he married Judith -Strange, eight years before, in Stoneborough, a small manufacturing town -in the north of England, where her father was a Nonconformist minister. -He was her opportunity, and she had taken him, with private -congratulation that she could respect him and private qualms as to -whether her respect was her crucial test of him—considered in the light -of an opportunity. Not in any sordid sense; she would be more inclined -perhaps to apologise for herself than I am to apologise for her. But -with an inordinately hungry capacity for life she had the narrowest -conditions to live in. She knew by intuition that the world was full of -colour and passion, and when one is tormented with this sort of -knowledge it becomes more than ever grievous to inhabit one of its -small, dull, grimy blind alleys, with the single anticipation of -enduring to a smoke-blackened old age, like one of Stoneborough’s lesser -chimneys. There was nothing ideal about John Church except his -honesty,—already he stooped, already he was grey, sallow and serious, -with the slenderest interest in questions that could not express their -utility in unquestionable facts,—but when he asked her to marry him, the -wall at the end of the alley fell down, and a breeze stole in from the -far East, with a vision of palms and pomegranates. She accepted him for -the sake of her imagination, wishing profoundly that he was not so much -like her father, with what her mother thought almost improper -promptitude; and for a long time, although he still stood outside it, -her imagination loyally rewarded her. She felt the East to her -fingertips, and her mere physical life there became a thing of vivid -experience, to be valued for itself. If her husband confounded this joy -in her expansion with the orthodox happiness of a devoted wife, it -cannot be said that he was particularly to blame for his mistake, for -numbers of other people made it also. And when, after eight years of his -companionship, and that of the sunburned policeman, the anæmic -magistrate, the agreeable doctor, their wives, the odd colonel, and the -stray subalterns that constituted society in the stations they lived in, -she began to show a little lassitude of spirit, he put it down not -unnaturally to the climate, and wished he could conscientiously take a -few months’ leave, since nothing would induce her to go to England -without him. By this time India had become a resource, India that lay -all about her, glowing, profuse, mysterious, fascinating, a place in -which she felt that she had no part, could never have any part, but that -of a spectator. The gesture of a fakir, the red masses of the gold-mohur -trees against the blue intensity of the sky, the heavy sweetness of the -evening wind, the soft colour and curves of the homeward driven cattle, -the little naked babies with their jingling anklets in the bazar—she had -begun to turn to these things seeking their gift of pleasure jealously, -consciously thankful that, in spite of the Amusement Club, she could -never be altogether bored. - -John Church went back to work with his satisfaction sweetened by the -fact that his wife had told him that she was very pleased indeed, while -Mrs. Church answered the Honourable Mr. Lewis Ancram’s letter. - -“I have been making my own acquaintance this morning,” she said among -other things, “as an ambitious woman. It is intoxicating, after this -idle, sun-filled, wondering life, with the single supreme care that John -does not wear ragged collars to church—as a Commissioner he ought to be -extravagant in collars—to be confronted with something to assume and -carry out, a part to play, with all India looking on. Don’t imagine a -lofty intention on my part to inspire my husband’s Resolutions. I assure -you I see myself differently. Perhaps, after all, it is the foolish -anticipation of my state and splendour that has excited my vain -imagination as much as anything. Already, prospectively, I murmur lame -nothings into the ear of the Viceroy as he takes me down to dinner! But -I am preposterously delighted. To-morrow is Sunday—I have an irreverent -desire for the prayers of all the churches.” - - - - - CHAPTER II. - - -“Here you are at last!” remarked Mrs. Daye with vivacity, taking the -three long, pronounced and rustling steps which she took so very well, -toward the last comer to her dinner party, who made his leisurely -entrance between the _portières_, pocketing his handkerchief. “Don’t say -you have been to church,” she went on, holding out a condoning hand, -“for none of us will believe you.” - -Although Mr. Ancram’s lips curved back over his rather prominent teeth -in a narrow smile as he put up his eyeglass and looked down at his -hostess, Mrs. Daye felt the levity fade out of her expression: she had -to put compulsion on herself to keep it in her face. It was as if she, -his prospective mother-in-law, had taken the least of liberties with Mr. -Ancram. - -“Does the only road to forgiveness lie through the church gate?” he -asked. His voice was high and agreeable; it expressed discrimination; -his tone implied that, if the occasion had required it, he could have -said something much cleverer easily—an implication no one who knew him -would have found unwarrantable. - -“The padres say it does, as a rule, Ancram,” put in Colonel Daye. “In -this case it lies through the dining-room door. Will you take my wife -in?” - -In a corner of the room, which she might have chosen for its warm -obscurity, Rhoda Daye watched with curious scrutiny the lightest detail -of Mr. Lewis Ancram’s behaviour. An elderly gentleman, with pulpy red -cheeks and an amplitude of white waistcoat, stood beside her chair, -swaying out of the perpendicular with well-bred rigidity now and then, -in tentative efforts at conversation; to which she replied, “Really?” -and “Yes, I know,” while her eyes fixed themselves upon Ancram’s face, -and her little white features gleamed immobile under the halo which the -tall lamp behind her made with her fuzz of light-brown hair. “Mother’s -respect for him is simply outrageous,” she reflected, as she assured the -elderly gentleman that even for Calcutta the heat was really -extraordinary, considering that they were in December. “I -wonder—supposing he had not made love to me—if I could have had as -much!” She did not answer herself definitely—not from any lack of -candour, but because the question presented difficulties. She slipped -past him presently on the arm of the elderly gentleman, as Ancram still -stood with bent head talking to her mother. His eyes sought hers with a -significance that flattered her—there was no time for further -greeting—and the bow with which he returned her enigmatic little nod -singled her out for consideration. As she went in to dinner the nape of -Mr. Lewis Ancram’s neck and the parting of his hair remained with her as -pictorial facts. - -Mrs. Daye always gave composite dinner-parties, and this was one of -them. “If you ask nobody but military people to meet each other,” she -was in the habit of saying, “you hear nothing but the price of chargers -and the prospects of the Staff Corps. If you make your list up of -civilians, the conversation consists of abuse of their official -superiors and the infamous conduct of the Secretary of State about the -rupee.” On this occasion Mrs. Daye had reason to anticipate that the -price of chargers would be varied by the grievances of the Civil -Service, and that a touring Member of Parliament would participate in -the discussion who knew nothing about either; and she felt that her -blend would be successful. She could give herself up to the somewhat -fearful enjoyment she experienced in Mr. Ancram’s society. Mrs. Daye was -convinced that nobody appreciated Mr. Ancram more subtly than she did. -She saw a great deal of jealousy of him in Calcutta society, whereas she -was wont to declare that, for her part, she found nothing extraordinary -in the way he had got in—a man of his brains, you know! And if Calcutta -resented this imputation upon its own brains in ever so slight a degree, -Mrs. Daye saw therein more jealousy of the fact that her family circle -was about to receive him. When it had once opened for that purpose and -closed again, Mrs. Daye hoped vaguely that she would be sustained for -the new and exacting duty of living up to Mr. Ancram. - -[Illustration: “She seems to be sufficiently entertained.”] - -“_Please_ look at Rhoda,” she begged, in a conversational buzz that her -blend had induced. - -Mr. Ancram looked, deliberately, but with appreciation. “She seems to be -sufficiently entertained,” he said. - -“Oh, she is! She’s got a globe-trotter. Haven’t you found out that Rhoda -simply loves globe-trotters? She declares that she renews her youth in -them.” - -“Her first impressions, I suppose she means?” - -“Oh, as to what she _means_——” - -Mrs. Daye broke off irresolutely, and thoughtfully conveyed a minute -piece of roll to her lips. The minute piece of roll was Mr. Ancram’s -opportunity to complete Mrs. Daye’s suggestion of a certain interesting -ambiguity in her daughter; but he did not take it. He continued to look -attentively at Miss Daye, who appeared, as he said, to be sufficiently -entertained, under circumstances which seemed to him inadequate. Her -traveller was talking emphatically, with gestures of elderly dogmatism, -and she was deferentially listening, an amusement behind her eyes with -which the Chief Secretary to the Government at Bengal was not altogether -unfamiliar. He had seen it there before, on occasions when there was -apparently nothing to explain it. - -“It would be satisfactory to see her eating her dinner,” he remarked, -with what Mrs. Daye felt to be too slight a degree of solicitude. She -was obliged to remind herself that at thirty-seven a man was apt to take -these things more as matters of fact, especially—and there was a double -comfort in this reflection—a man already well up in the Secretariat and -known to be ambitious. “Is it possible,” Mr. Ancram went on, somewhat -absently, “that these are Calcutta roses? You must have a very clever -gardener.” - -“No”—and Mrs. Daye pitched her voice with a gentle definiteness that -made what she was saying interesting all round the table—“they came from -the Viceroy’s place at Barrackpore. Lady Emily sent them to me: so sweet -of her, I thought! I always think it particularly kind when people in -that position trouble themselves about one; they must have so _many_ -demands upon their time.” - -The effect could not have been better. Everybody looked at the roses -with an interest that might almost be described as respectful; and Mrs. -Delaine, whose husband was Captain Delaine of the Durham Rifles, said -that she would have known them for Their Excellencies’ roses -anywhere—they always did the table with that kind for the Thursday -dinners at Government House—she had never known them to use any other. - -Mrs. St. George, whose husband was the Presidency Magistrate, found this -interesting. “Do they really?” she exclaimed. “I’ve often wondered what -those big Thursday affairs were like. Fancy—we’ve been in Calcutta -through three cold weathers now, and have never been asked to anything -but little private dinners at Government House—not more than eight or -ten, you know!” - -“Don’t you prefer that?” asked Mrs. Delaine, taking her quenching with -noble equanimity. - -“Well, of course one sees more _of_ them,” Mrs. St. George admitted. -“The last time we were there, about a fortnight ago, I had a long chat -with Lady Emily. She is a sweet thing, and perfectly wild at being out -of the school-room!” Mrs. St. George added that it was a charming -family, so well brought up; and this seemed to be a matter of special -congratulation as affecting the domestic arrangements of a Viceroy. -There was a warmth and an emphasis in the corroboration that arose which -almost established relations of intimacy between Their Excellencies and -Mrs. Daye’s dinner-party. Mrs. Daye’s daughter listened in her absorbed, -noting manner; and when the elderly gentleman remarked with a certain -solemnity that they were talking of the Scansleighs, he supposed, the -smile with which she said “Evidently” was more pronounced than he could -have had any right to expect. - -“They seem to be delightful people,” continued the elderly gentleman, -earnestly. - -“I daresay,” Miss Daye replied, with grave deliberation. “They’re very -decorative,” she added absently. “That’s a purely Indian vegetable, Mr. -Pond. Rather sticky, and without the ghost of a flavour; but you ought -to try it, as an experience, don’t you think?” - -It occurred to Mrs. Daye sometimes that Mr. Ancram was unreasonably -difficult to entertain, even for a Chief Secretary. It occurred to her -more forcibly than usual on this particular evening, and it was almost -with trepidation that she produced the trump card on which she had been -relying to provoke a lively suit of amiabilities. She produced it -awkwardly too; there was always a slight awkwardness, irritating to so -_habile_ a lady, in her manner of addressing Mr. Ancram, owing to her -confessed and painful inability to call him “Lewis”—yet. “Oh,” she said -finally, “I haven’t congratulated you on your ‘Modern Influence of the -Vedic Books.’ I assure you, in spite of its being in blue paper covers -and printed by Government I went through it with the greatest interest. -And there were no pictures either,” Mrs. Daye added, with the -ingenuousness which often clings to Anglo-Indian ladies somewhat late in -life. - -Mr. Ancram was occupied for the moment in scrutinising the contents of a -dish which a servant patiently presented to his left elbow. It was an -ornate and mottled conception visible through a mass of brown jelly, and -the man looked disappointed when so important a guest, after perceptible -deliberation, decisively removed his eyeglass and shook his head. Mrs. -Daye was in the act of reminding herself of the probably impaired -digestion of a Chief Secretary, when he seemed suddenly recalled to the -fact that she had spoken. - -“Really?” he said, looking fully at her, with a smile that had many -qualities of compensation. “My dear Mrs. Daye, that was doing a good -deal for friendship, wasn’t it?” - -His eyes were certainly blue and expressive when he allowed them to be, -his hostess thought, and he had the straight, thin, well-indicated nose -which she liked, and a sensitive mouth for a man. His work as part of -the great intelligent managing machine of the Government of India -overimpressed itself upon the stamp of scholarship Oxford had left on -his face, which had the pallor of Bengal, with fatigued lines about the -eyes, lines that suggested to Mr. Ancram’s friends the constant reproach -of over-exertion. A light moustache, sufficiently well-curled and -worldly, effectually prevented any tinge of asceticism which might -otherwise have been characteristic, and placed Mr. Ancram among those -who discussed Meredith, had an expensive taste in handicrafts, and -subscribed to the _Figaro Salon_. His secretary’s stoop was not a -pronounced and local curve, rather a general thrusting forward of his -personality which was fitting enough in a scientific investigator; and -his long, nervous, white hands spoke of a multitude of well-phrased -Resolutions. It was ridiculous, Mrs. Daye thought, that with so -agreeable a manner he should still convey the impression that one’s -interest in the Vedic Books was not of the least importance. It must be -that she was over-sensitive. But she would be piqued notwithstanding. -Pique, when one is plump and knows how to hold oneself, is more -effective than almost any other attitude. - -“You are exactly like all the rest! You think that no woman can possibly -care to read anything but novels! Now, as a matter of fact I am -_devoted_ to things like Vedic Books. If I had nothing else to do I -should dig and delve in the archaic from morning till night.” - -“The implication being,” returned Mr. Ancram sweetly, “that I have -nothing else to do.” - -Mrs. Daye compressed her lips in the manner of one whose patience is at -an end. “It would serve you perfectly right,” she exclaimed, “if I -didn’t tell you what a long review of it I saw the other day in one of -the home papers.” - -Ancram looked up with an almost imperceptible accession of interest. - -“How nice!” he said lightly. “A fellow out here always feels himself in -luck when his odds and ends get taken up at home. You don’t happen to -remember the paper—or the date?” - -“I’m almost sure it was the _Times_,” Mrs. Daye replied, with rather an -accentuation of rejoiceful zeal; “but Richard can tell you. It was he -who drew my attention to the notice.” - -Mr. Ancram’s eyebrows underwent a slight contraction. “Notice” did not -seem to be a felicitous word. - -“Oh, thanks,” he said. “Never mind; one generally comes across those -things sooner or later.” - -“I say, Ancram,” put in Mr. St. George, who had been listening on Mrs. -Daye’s left, “you Asiatic Society fellows won’t get as much out of -Church for your investigations as you did out of Spence.” - -Ancram looked fixedly at a porcelain cherub that moored a boatful of -pink-and-white confectionery to the nearest bank of the Viceregal roses. -“Sir Griffiths was certainly generous,” he said. “He gave Pierson a -quarter of a lakh, for instance, to get his ethnological statistics -together. It was easy to persuade him to recognise the value of these -things.” - -“It won’t be easy to get this man to recognise it,” persisted St. -George. “He’s the sort of fellow who likes sanitation better than -Sanscrit. He’s got a great scheme on for improving the village -water-supply for Bengal, and I hear he wants to reorganise the -vaccination business. Great man for the people!” - -“Wants to spend every blessed pice on the bloomin’ ryot,” remarked -Captain Delaine, with humorous resentment. - -“Let us hope the people will be grateful,” said Ancram vaguely. - -“They won’t, you know,” remarked Rhoda Daye to Mr. Pond. “They’ll never -know. They are like the cattle—they plough and eat and sleep; and if a -tenth of them die of cholera from bad water, they say it was written -upon their foreheads; and if Government cleans the tanks and the tenth -are spared, they say it is a good year and the gods are favourable.” - -“Dear me!” said Mr. Pond: “that’s very interesting.” - -“Isn’t it? And there’s lots more of it—all in the Calcutta newspapers, -Mr. Pond: you should read them if you wish to be informed.” And Mr. Pond -thought that an excellent idea. - -When a Lieutenant-Governor drops into the conversational vortex of a -Calcutta dinner-party he circles on indefinitely. The measure of his -hospitality, the nature of his tastes, the direction of his policy, his -quality as a master, and the measure of his popularity, are only a few -of the heads under which he is discussed; while his wife is made the -most of separately, with equal thoroughness and precision. Just before -Mrs. Daye looked smilingly at Mrs. St. George, and the ladies flocked -away, some one asked who Mrs. Church’s friends were in Calcutta, anyway: -she seemed to know hardly any one person more than another—a delightful -impartiality, the lady added, of course, after Lady Spence’s -favouritism. The remark fell lightly enough upon the air, but Lewis -Ancram did not let it pass. He looked at nobody in particular, but into -space: it was a way he had when he let fall anything definite. - -“Well,” he said, “I hope I may claim to be one. My pretension dates back -five years—I used to know them in Kaligurh. I fancy Mrs. Church will be -appreciated in Calcutta. She is that combination which is so much less -rare than it used to be—a woman who is as fine as she is clever, and as -clever as she is charming.” - -“With all due deference to Mr. Ancram’s opinion,” remarked Mrs. Daye -publicly, with one hand upon the banister, as the ladies went up to the -drawing-room, “I should _not_ call Mrs. Church a fine woman. She’s much -too slender—really almost thin!” - -“My dear mummie,” exclaimed Rhoda, as Mrs. St. George expressed her -entire concurrence, “don’t be stupid! He didn’t mean that.” - -Later Ancram stepped out of one of the open French windows and found her -alone on the broad verandah, where orchids hung from the roof and big -plants in pots made a spiky gloom in the corners. A tank in the garden -glistened motionless below; the heavy fronds of a clump of sago palms -waved up and down uncertainly in the moonlight. Now and then in the -moist, soft air the scent of some hidden temple tree made itself felt. A -cluster of huts to the right in the street they looked down upon stood -half-concealed in a hanging blue cloud of smoke and fog. Far away in the -suburbs the wailing cry of the jackals rose and fell and recommenced; -nearer the drub-drubbing of a tom-tom announced that somewhere in the -bazar they kept a marriage festival. But for themselves and the -moonlight and the shadow of the creeper round the pillars, the verandah -was quite empty, and through the windows came a song of Mrs. Delaine’s -about love’s little hour. The situation made its voiceless demand, and -neither of them were unconscious of it. Nevertheless he, lighting a -cigarette, asked her if she would not come in and hear the music; and -she said no—she liked it better there; whereat they both kept the -silence that was necessary for the appreciation of Mrs. Delaine’s song. -When it was over, Rhoda’s terrier, Buzz, came out with inquiring -cordiality, and they talked of the growth of his accomplishments since -Ancram had given him to her; and then, as if it were a development of -the subject, Rhoda said: - -“Mrs. Church has a very interesting face, don’t you think?” - -“Very,” Ancram replied unhesitatingly. - -“She looks as if she cared for beautiful things. Not only pictures and -things, but beautiful conceptions—ideas, characteristics.” - -“I understand,” Ancram returned: “she does.” - -There was a pause, while they listened to the wail of the jackals, which -had grown wild and high and tumultuous. As it died away, Rhoda looked up -with a little smile. - -“I like that,” she said; “it is about the only thing out here that is -quite irrepressible. And—you knew her well at Kaligurh?” - -“I think I may say I did,” Ancram replied, tossing the end of his -cigarette down among the hibiscus bushes. “My dear girl, you must come -in. There is nothing like a seductive moonlight night in India to give -one fever.” - -“I congratulate you,” said Miss Daye—and her tone had a defiance which -she did not intend, though one could not say that she was unaware of its -cynicism—“I congratulate you upon knowing her well. It is always an -advantage to know the wife of the Lieutenant-Governor well. The most -delightful things come of it—Commissionerships, and all sorts of things. -I hope you will make her understand the importance of the Vedic Books in -their bearing upon the modern problems of government.” - -“You are always asking me to make acknowledgments—you want almost too -many; but since it amuses you, I don’t mind.” Rhoda noted the little -gleam in his eyes that contradicted this. “Sanscrit is to me now exactly -what Greek was at Oxford—a stepping-stone, and nothing more. One must do -something to distinguish oneself from the herd; and in India, thank -fortune, it’s easy enough. There’s an enormous field, and next to nobody -to beat. Bless you, a Commissariat Colonel can give himself an aureole -of scientific discovery out here if he cares to try! If I hadn’t taken -up Sanscrit and Hinduism, I should have gone in for palæontology, or -conchology, or folk-lore, or ferns. Anything does: only the less other -people know about it the better; so I took Sanscrit.” A combined -suggestion of humour and candour gradually accumulated in Mr. Ancram’s -sentences, which came to a climax when he added, “You don’t think it -very original to discover that!” - -“And the result of being distinguished from the herd?” - -He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, they don’t send one to administer the -Andamans or Lower Burmah,” he said. “They conserve one’s intellectual -achievements to adorn social centres of some importance, which is more -agreeable. And then, if a valuable post falls vacant, one is not -considered disqualified for it by being a little wiser than other -people. Come now—there’s a very big confession for you! But you mustn’t -tell. We scientists must take ourselves with awful seriousness if we -want to be impressive. That’s the part that bores one.” - -Mr. Ancram smiled down at his betrothed with distinct good-humour. He -was under the impression that he had spontaneously given his soul an -airing—an impression he was fond of. She listened, amused that she could -evoke so much, and returned to the thing he had evaded. - -“Between the Vedic Books and Mrs. Church,” she said, “our future seems -assured.” - -Ancram’s soul retired again, and shut the door with a click. - -“That is quite a false note,” he said coolly: “Mrs. Church will have -nothing to do with it.” - - - - - CHAPTER III. - - -It became evident very soon after Miss Rhoda Daye’s appearance in -Calcutta that she was not precisely like the other young ladies in -sailor hats and cambric blouses who arrived at the same time. For one -superficial thing, anybody could see that she had less colour; and this -her mother mourned openly—a girl depended so entirely for the first -season on her colour. As other differences became obvious Mrs. Daye had -other regrets, one of them being that Rhoda had been permitted so -absolutely to fashion her own education. Mrs. Daye had not foreseen one -trivial result of this, which was that her daughter, believing herself -devoid of any special talent, refused to ornament herself with any -special accomplishment. This, in Mrs. Daye’s opinion, was carrying -self-depreciation and reverence for achievement and all that sort of -thing a great deal too far: a girl had no right to expect her parents to -present her to the world in a state of artistic nudity. It was not in -the nature of compensation that she understood the situation with the -Amir and the ambitions of the National Congress; such things were almost -unmentionable in Calcutta society. And it was certainly in the nature of -aggravation that she showed, after the first month of it, an -inexplicable indifference to every social opportunity but that of -looking on. Miss Daye had an undoubted talent for looking on; and she -would often exercise it—mutely, motionlessly, half hidden behind a -pillar at a ball, or abandoned in a corner after dinner—until her mother -was mortified enough to take her home. Presently it appeared that she -had looked on sufficiently to know her ground. She made her valuation of -society; she picked out the half-dozen Anglo-Indian types; it may be -presumed that she classified her parents. She still looked on, but with -less concentration: she began to talk. She developed a liking for the -society of elderly gentlemen of eminence, and an abhorrence for that of -their wives, which was considered of doubtful propriety, until the Head -of the Foreign Office once congratulated himself openly upon sitting -next her at dinner. After which she was regarded with indulgence, it was -said in corners that she must be clever, subalterns avoided her, and her -mother, taking her cue unerringly, figuratively threw up her hands and -asked Heaven why she of all people should be given a _fin-de-siècle_ -daughter. - -Privately Mrs. Daye tried to make herself believe, in the manner of -the Parisian playwright, that a _succès d’estime_ was infinitely to be -preferred to the plaudits of the mob. I need hardly say that she was -wholly successful in doing so, when Mr. Lewis Ancram contributed to -the balance in favour of this opinion. Mr. Ancram was observing too: -he observed in this case from shorter and shorter distances, and -finally allowed himself to be charmed by what he saw. Perhaps that is -not putting it quite strongly enough. He really encouraged himself to -be thus charmed. He was of those who find in the automatic monotony of -the Indian social machine, with its unvarying individual—a machine, he -was fond of saying, the wheels of which are kept oiled with the -essence of British Philistinism—a burden and a complaint. In London he -would have lived with one foot in Mayfair and the other in the Strand; -and there had been times when he talked of the necessity of chaining -his ambition before his eyes to prevent his making the choice of a -career over again, though it must be said that this violent proceeding -was carried out rather as a solace to his defrauded capacity for -culture than in view of any real danger. He had been accustomed to -take the annually fresh young ladies in straw hats and cambric blouses -who appeared in the cold weather much as he took the inevitable -functions at Government House—to be politely avoided, if possible; if -not, to be submitted to with the grace which might be expected from a -person holding his office and drawing his emoluments. When he found -that Rhoda Daye was likely to break up the surface of his blank -indifference to evening parties he fostered the probability. Among all -the young ladies in sailor hats and cambric blouses he saw his single -chance for experience, interest, sensation; and he availed himself of -it with an accumulated energy which Miss Daye found stimulating enough -to induce her to exert herself, to a certain extent, reciprocally. She -was not interested in the Hon. Mr. Lewis Ancram because of his -reputation: other men had reputations—reputations almost as big as -their paybills—who did not excite her imagination in the smallest -degree. It would be easy to multiply accounts upon which Mr. Ancram -did not interest Miss Daye, but it is not clear that any result would -be arrived at that way, and the fact remains that she was interested. -From this quiet point—she was entirely aware of its advantage—she -contemplated Mr. Ancram’s gradual advance along the lines of -attraction with a feeling very like satisfaction. She had only to -contemplate it. Ancram contributed his own impetus, and reached the -point where he believed his affections involved with an artistic shock -which he had anticipated for weeks as quite divinely enjoyable. She -behaved amusingly when they were engaged: she made a little comedy of -it, would be coaxed to no confessions and only one vow—that, as they -were to go through life together, she would try always to be -agreeable. If she had private questionings and secret alarms, she hid -them with intrepidity; and if it seemed to her to be anything -ridiculous that the wayward god should present himself behind the -careful countenance and the well-starched shirt-front of early -middle-age, holding an eyeglass in attenuated fingers, and mutely -implying that he had been bored for years, she did not betray her -impression. The thrall of their engagement made no change in her; she -continued to be the same demure, slender creature, who said unexpected -things, that she had been before. That he had covetable new privileges -did not seem to make much difference; her chief value was still that -of a clever acquaintance. She would grow more expensive in time, he -thought vaguely; but several months had passed, as we have seen, -without this result. On the other hand, there had been occasions when -he fancied that she deliberately disassociated herself from him in -that favourite pursuit of observation, in order to obtain a point of -view which should command certain intellectual privacies of his. He -wondered whether she would take this liberty with greater freedom when -they were one and indivisible; and, while he felt it absurd to object, -he wished she would be a little more communicative about what she saw. - -They were to be married in March, when Ancram would take a year’s -furlough, and she would help him to lave his stiffened powers of -artistic enjoyment in the beauties of the Parthenon and the inspirations -of the Viennese galleries and the charms of Como and Maggiore. They -talked a great deal of the satisfaction they expected to realise in this -way. They went over it in detail, realising again and again that it must -represent to him compensation for years of aridity and to her a store -against the future likely to be drawn upon largely. Besides, it was a -topic upon which they were quite sure of finding mutual understanding, -even mutual congratulation—an excellent topic. - -Meanwhile Ancram lived with Philip Doyle in Hungerford Street under the -ordinary circumstances which govern Calcutta bachelors. Doyle was a -barrister. He stood, in Calcutta, upon his ability and his -individuality, and as these had been observed to place him in familiar -relations with Heads of Departments, it may be gathered that they gave -him a sufficient elevation. People called him a “strong” man because he -refused their invitations to dinner, but the statement might have had a -more intelligent basis and been equally true. It would have surprised -him immensely if he could have weighed the value of his own opinions, or -observed the trouble which men who appropriated them took to give them a -tinge of originality. He was a survival of an older school, -certainly—people were right in saying that. He had preserved a -courtliness of manner and a sincerity of behaviour which suggested an -Anglo-India that is mostly lying under pillars and pyramids in rank -Calcutta cemeteries now. He was hospitable and select—so much of both -that he often experienced ridiculous annoyance at having asked men to -dinner who were essentially unpalatable to him. His sensitiveness to -qualities in personal contact was so great as to be a conspicuous -indication, to the discerning eye, of Lewis Ancram’s unbounded tact. - -Circumstances had thrown the men under one roof, and even if the younger -of them had not made himself so thoroughly agreeable, it would have been -difficult to alter the arrangement. - -It could never be said of Lewis Ancram that he did not choose his -friends with taste, and in this case his discrimination had a foundation -of respect which he was in the habit of freely mentioning. His -admiration of Doyle was generous and frank, so generous and frank that -one might have suspected a virtue in the expression of it. -Notwithstanding this implication, it was entirely sincere, though he -would occasionally qualify it. - -“I often tell Doyle,” he said once to Rhoda, “that his independence is -purely a matter of circumstance. If he had the official yoke upon his -neck he would kow-tow like the rest of us.” - -“I don’t believe that,” she answered quickly. - -“Ah well, now that I think of it I don’t particularly believe it myself. -Doyle’s the salt of the earth anyhow. He makes it just possible for -officials like myself to swallow officialdom.” - -“Did it ever occur to you,” she asked slowly, “to wonder what he thinks -of you?” - -“Oh, I daresay he likes me well enough. Irishmen never go in for -analysing their friends. At all events we live together, and there are -no rows.” - -They were driving, and the dogcart flew past the ships along the -Strand—Ancram liked a fast horse—for a few minutes in silence. Then she -had another question. - -“Have you succeeded in persuading Mr. Doyle to—what do the newspapers -say?—support you at the altar, yet?” - -“No, confound him. He says it would be preposterous at his age—he’s not -a year older than I am! I wonder if he expects me to ask Baby Bramble, -or one of those little boys in the Buffs! Anyway it won’t be Doyle, for -he goes to England, end of February—to get out of it, I believe.” - -“I’m not sorry,” Rhoda answered; but it would have been difficult for -her to explain, at the moment, why she was not sorry. - - - - - CHAPTER IV. - - -“I don’t mind telling you,” said Philip Doyle, knocking the ashes out of -his pipe, “that, personally, His Acting Honour represents to me a number -of objectionable things. He is a Radical, and a Low Churchman, and a -Particularist. He’s that objectionable ethical mixture, a compound of -petty virtues. He believes this earth was created to give him an -atmosphere to do his duty in; and he does it with the invincible courage -of short-sightedness combined with the notion that the ultimate court of -appeal for eighty million Bengalis should be his precious Methodist -conscience. But the brute’s honest, and if he insists on putting this -University foolishness of his through, I’m sorry for him. He’s a dead -man, politically, the day it is announced.” - -“He is,” replied Ancram, concentrating his attention on a match and the -end of his cigar. “There’s—no doubt—about that.” - -The two men were smoking after dinner, with the table and a couple of -decanters between them. Roses drooped over the bowl of Cutch silver that -gleamed in the middle of the empty cloth, and a lemon leaf or two -floated in the finger-glass at Ancram’s elbow. He threw the match into -it, and looked across at Doyle with his cigar between his teeth in the -manner which invites further discussion. - -“In point of political morality I suppose he’s right enough——” - -“He generally is,” Ancram interrupted. “He’s got a scent for political -morality keen enough to upset every form of Government known to the -nineteenth century.” - -“But they see political morality through another pair of spectacles in -England. To withdraw State aid from education anywhere at this end of -the century is as impracticable as it would be to deprive the British -workman of his vote. It’s retrogressive, and this is an age which will -admit anything except a mistake of its own.” - -“He doesn’t intend to withdraw State aid from education. He means to -spend the money on technical schools.” - -“A benevolent intention. But it won’t make the case any better with the -Secretary of State. He will say that it ought to be done without -damaging the sacred cause of higher culture.” - -“Damn the sacred cause of higher culture!” replied Ancram, with an -unruffled countenance. “What has it done out here? Filled every -sweeper’s son of them with an ambition to sit on an office stool and be -a gentleman!—created by thousands a starveling class that find nothing -to do but swell mass-meetings on the Maidan and talk sedition that gets -telegraphed from Peshawur to Cape Comorin. I advertised for a baboo the -other day, and had four hundred applications—fifteen rupees a month, -poor devils! But the Dayes were a fortnight in getting a decent cook on -twenty.” - -“Bentinck should have thought of that; it’s too late now. You can’t -bestow a boon on the masses in a spirit of progressiveness and take it -away sixty years later in a spirit of prudence. It’s decent enough of -Church to be willing to bear the consequences of somebody else’s -blunder; but blunders of that kind have got to take their place in the -world’s formation and let the ages retrieve them. It’s the only way.” - -“Oh, I agree with you. Church is an ass: he ought not to attempt it.” - -“Why do you fellows let him?” - -Ancram looked in Doyle’s direction as he answered—looked near him, fixed -his eyes, with an effect of taking a view at the subject round a corner, -upon the other man’s tobacco-jar. The trick annoyed Doyle; he often -wished it were the sort of thing one could speak about. - -“Nobody is less amenable to reason,” he said, “than the man who wants to -hit his head against a stone wall, especially if he thinks the world -will benefit by his inconvenience. And, to make matters worse, Church -has complicated the thing with an idea of his duty toward the people at -home who send out the missionaries. He doesn’t think it exactly -according to modern ethics that they should take up collections in -village churches to provide the salvation of the higher mathematics for -the sons of fat _bunnias_ in the bazar—who could very well afford to pay -for it themselves.” - -“He can’t help that.” - -Ancram finished his claret. “I believe he has some notion of advertising -it. And after he has eliminated the missionary who teaches the Georgics -instead of the Gospels, and devoted the educational grants to turning -the gentle Hindoo into a skilled artisan, he thinks the cause of higher -culture may be pretty much left to take care of itself. He believes we -could bleed Linsettiah and Pattore and some of those chaps for -endowments, I fancy, though he doesn’t say so.” - -“Better try some of the smaller natives. A maharajah won’t do much for a -C. I. E. or an extra gun nowadays: it isn’t good enough. He knows that -all Europe is ready to pay him the honours of royalty whenever he -chooses to tie up his cooking-pots and go there. He’ll save his money -and buy hand-organs with it, or panoramas, or sewing-machines. -Presently, if this adoration of the Eastern potentate goes on at home, -we shall have the maharajah whom we propose to honour receiving our -proposition with his thumb applied to his nose and all his fingers out!” - -Ancram yawned. “Well, it won’t be a question of negotiating for -endowments: it will never come off. Church will only smash himself over -the thing if he insists; and,” he added, as one who makes an -unprejudiced, impartial statement on fatalistic grounds, “he will -insist. I should find the whole business rather amusing if, as -Secretary, I hadn’t to be the mouthpiece for it.” He looked at his -watch. “Half-past nine. I suppose I ought to be off. You’re not coming?” - -“Where?” - -“To Belvedere. A ‘walk-round,’ I believe.” - -“Thanks: I think not. It would be too much bliss for a corpulent -gentleman of my years. I remember—the card came last week, and I gave it -to Mohammed to take care of. I believe Mohammed keeps a special -_almirah_ for the purpose; and in it,” Mr. Doyle continued gravely, “are -the accumulations of several seasons. He regards them as a trust only -second to that of the Director of Records, and last year he made them -the basis of an application for more pay.” - -“Which you gave him,” laughed Ancram, getting into his light overcoat as -the brougham rolled up to the door. “I loathe going; but for me there’s -no alternative. There seems to be an Act somewhere providing that a man -in my peculiar position must show himself in society.” - -“So long as you hover on the brink of matrimony,” said the other, “you -must be a butterfly. Console yourself: after you take the plunge you can -turn ascidian if you like.” - -The twinkle went out of Philip Doyle’s eyes as he heard the carriage -door shut and the wheels roll crunching toward the gate. He filled his -pipe again and took up the _Saturday Review_. Half an hour later he was -looking steadily at the wall over the top of that journal, considering -neither its leading articles nor its reviews nor its advertisements, but -Mr. Lewis Ancram’s peculiar position. - -At that moment Ancram leaned against the wall in a doorway of the -drawing-room at Belvedere, one leg lightly crossed over the other, his -right hand in his pocket, dangling his eyeglass with his left. It was -one of the many casual attitudes in which the world was informed that a -Chief Secretary, in Mr. Ancram’s opinion, had no prescriptive right to -give himself airs. He had a considering look: one might have said that -his mind was far from the occasion—perhaps upon the advisability of a -tobacco tax; but this would not have been correct. He was really -thinking of the quantity and the quality of the people who passed him, -and whether as a function the thing could be considered a success. With -the white gleam on the pillars, and the palms everywhere, and the moving -vista of well-dressed women through long, richly-furnished rooms -arranged for a large reception, it was certainly pretty enough; but -there was still the question of individuals, which had to be determined -by such inspection as he was bestowing upon them. It would have been -evident to anybody that more people recognised Ancram than Ancram -recognised; he had by no means the air of being on the look-out for -acquaintances. But occasionally some such person as the Head of the -Telegraph Department looked well at him and said, “How do, Ancram?” with -the effect of adding “I defy you to forget who I am!” or a lady of -manner gave him a gracious and pronounced inclination, which also said, -“You are the clever, the rising Mr. Ancram. You haven’t called; but you -are known to despise society. I forgive you, and I bow.” One or two -Members of Council merely vouchsafed him a nod as they passed; but it -was noticeably only Members of Council who nodded to Mr. Ancram. An -aide-de-camp to the Viceroy, however—a blue-eyed younger son with his -mind seriously upon his duty—saw Ancram in his path, and hesitated. He -had never quite decided to what extent these fellows in the Bengal -Secretariat, and this one in particular, should be recognised by an -aide-de-camp; and he went round the other way. Presently there was a -little silken stir and rustle, a parting of the ladies’ trains, and a -lull of observation along both sides of the lane which suddenly formed -itself among the people. His Excellency the Viceroy had taken his early -leave and was making his departure. Lord Scansleigh had an undisguised -appreciation of an able man, and there was some definiteness in the way -he stopped, though it was but for a moment, and shook hands with Ancram, -who swung the eyeglass afterwards more casually than he had done before. -The aide-de-camp, following after, was in no wise rebuked. What the -Viceroy chose to do threw no light on his difficulty. He merely cast his -eyes upon the floor, and his fresh coloured countenance expressed a -respectfully sad admiration for the noble manner in which his lord -discharged every obligation pertaining to the Viceregal office. - -The most privileged hardly cares to make demands upon his hostess as -long as she has a Viceroy to entertain, and Ancram waited until their -Excellencies were well on their way home, their four turbaned Sikhs -trotting after them, before he made any serious attempt to find Mrs. -Church. A sudden and general easefulness was observable at the same -time. People began to look about them and walk and talk with the -consciousness that it was no longer possible that they should be -suspected of arranging themselves so that Lord Scansleigh _must_ bow. -The Viceroy having departed, they thought about other things. She was -standing, when presently he made his way to her, talking to Sir William -Scott of the Foreign Department, and at the moment, to the Maharajah of -Pattore. Ancram paused and watched her unperceived. It was like the -pleasure of looking at a picture one technically understands. He noted -with satisfaction the subtle difference in her manner toward the two -men, and how, in her confidence with the one and her condescending -recognition of the other’s dignity, both were consciously receiving -their due. He noticed the colour of her heliotrope velvet gown, and -asked himself whether any other woman in the room could possibly wear -that shade. Mentally he dared the other women to say that its simplicity -was over-dramatic, or that by the charming arrangement of her hair and -her pearls and the yellowed lace, that fell over her shoulders Judith -Church had made herself too literal a representation of a -great-grandmother who certainly wore none of these things. He paused -another second to catch the curve of her white throat as she turned her -head with a little characteristic lifting of her chin; and then he went -up to her. The definite purpose that appeared in his face was enough of -itself to assert their intimacy—to this end it was not necessary that he -should drop his eyeglass. - -“Oh,” she said, with a step forward, “how do you do! I began to -think——Maharajah, when you are invited to parties you always come, don’t -you? Well, this gentleman does not always come, I understand. I beg you -will ask a question about it at the next meeting of the Legislative -Council. The Honourable the Chief Secretary is requested to furnish an -explanation of his lamentable failure to perform his duties toward -society.” - -The native smiled uncomfortably, puzzled at her audacity. His membership -of the Bengal Legislative Council was a new toy, and he was not sure -that he liked any one else to play with it. - -“His Highness of Pattore,” said Ancram, slipping a hand under the fat -elbow in its pink-and-gold brocade, “would be the very last fellow to -get me into a scrape. Wouldn’t you, Maharaj!” - -His Highness beamed affectionately upon Ancram. There was, at all -events, nothing but flattery in being taken by the elbow by a Chief -Secretary. “Certainlie,” he replied—“the verrie last”; and he laughed -the unctuous, irresponsible laugh of a maharajah, which is accompanied -by the twinkling of pendant emeralds and the shaking of personal -rotundities which cannot be indicated. - -Sir William Scott folded his arms and refolded them, balanced himself -once or twice on the soles of his shoes, pushed out his under-lip, and -retreated in the gradual and surprised way which would naturally be -adopted by the Foreign Department when it felt itself left out of the -conversation. The Maharajah stood about uneasily on one leg for a -moment, and then with a hasty double salaam he too waddled away. Mrs. -Church glanced after his retreating figure—it was almost a perfect -oval—with lips prettily composed to seemly gravity. Then, as her eyes -met Ancram’s, she laughed like a schoolgirl. - -“Oh,” she said, “go away! I mustn’t talk to you. I shall be forgetting -my part.” - -“You are doing it well. Lady Spence, at this stage of the proceedings, -was always surrounded by bank-clerks and policemen. I do not observe a -member of either of those interesting species,” he said, glancing round -through his eyeglass, “within twenty yards. On the contrary, an -expectant Member of Council on the nearest sofa, the Commander-in-Chief -hovering in the middle distance, and a fringe of Departmental Heads on -the horizon.” - -“I do not see any of them,” she laughed, looking directly at Ancram. “We -are going to sit down, you and I, and talk for four or six minutes, as -the last baboo said who implored an interview with my husband”; and Mrs. -Church sank, with just a perceptible turning of her shoulder upon the -world, into the nearest armchair. It was a wide gilded arm-chair, -cushioned in deep yellow silk. Ancram thought, as she crossed her feet -and leaned her head against the back of it, that the effect was -delicious. - -“And you really think I am doing it well!” she said. “I have been dying -to know. I really dallied for a time with the idea of asking one of the -aides-de-camp. But as a matter of fact,” she said confidentially, -“though I order them about most callously, I am still horribly afraid of -the aides-de-camp—in uniform, on duty.” - -“And in flannels, off duty?” - -“In flannels, off duty, I make them almond toffee and they tell me their -love affairs. I am their sisterly mother and their cousinly aunt. We -even have games of ball.” - -“They are nice boys,” he said, with a sigh of resignation: “I daresay -they deserve it.” - -There was an instant’s silence of good fellowship, and then she moved -her foot a little, so that a breadth of the heliotrope velvet took on a -paler light. - -“Yes,” he nodded, “it is quite—regal.” - -She laughed, flushing a little. “Really! That’s not altogether correct. -It ought to be only officiating. But I can’t tell you how delicious it -is to be _obliged_ to wear pretty gowns.” - -At that moment an Additional Member of Council passed them so -threateningly that Mrs. Church was compelled to put out a staying hand -and inquire for Lady Bloomsbury, who was in England, and satisfy herself -that Sir Peter had quite recovered from his bronchitis, and warn Sir -Peter against Calcutta’s cold-weather fogs. Ancram kept his seat, but -Sir Peter stood with stout persistence, rooted in his rights. It was -only when Mrs. Church asked him whether he had seen the new portrait, -and told him where it was, that he moved on, and then he believed that -he went of his own accord. By the time an Indian official arrives at an -Additional Membership he is usually incapable of perceiving anything -which does not tend to enhance that dignity. - -“You have given two of my six minutes to somebody else, remember,” -Ancram said. For an instant she did not answer him. She was looking -about her with a perceptible air of having, for the moment, been -oblivious of something it was her business to remember. Almost -immediately her eye discovered John Church. He was in conversation with -the Bishop, and apparently they were listening to each other with -deference, but sometimes Church’s gaze wandered vaguely over the heads -of the people and sometimes he looked at the floor. His hands were -clasped in front of him, his chin was so sunk in his chest that the most -conspicuous part of him seemed his polished forehead and his heavy black -eyebrows, his expression was that of a man who submits to the -inevitable. Ancram saw him at the same moment, and in the silence that -asserted itself between them there was a touch of embarrassment which -the man found sweet. He felt a foolish impulse to devote himself to -turning John Church into an ornament to society. - -“This sort of thing——” he suggested condoningly. - -“Bores him. Intolerably. He grudges the time and the energy. He says -there is so much to do.” - -“He is quite right.” - -“Oh, don’t encourage him! On the contrary—promise me something.” - -“Anything.” - -“When you see him standing about alone—he is really very -absent-minded—go up and make him talk to you. He will get your ideas—the -time, you see, will not be wasted. And neither will the general public,” -she added, “be confronted with the spectacle of a Lieutenant-Governor -who looks as if he had a contempt for his own hospitality.” - -“I’ll try. But I hardly think my ideas upon points of administration are -calculated to enliven a social evening. And don’t send me now. The -Bishop is doing very well.” - -“The Bishop?” She turned to him again, with laughter in the dark depths -of her eyes. “I realised the other day what one may attain to in -Calcutta. His Lordship asked me, with some timidity, what I thought of -the length of his sermons! Tell me, please, who is this madam bearing -down upon me in pink and grey?” - -Ancram was on his feet. “It is Mrs. Daye,” he said. “People who come so -late ought not to insist upon seeing you.” - -“Mrs. Daye! Oh, of course; your——” But Mrs. Daye was clasping her -hostess’s hand. “And Miss Daye, I think,” said Mrs. Church, looking -frankly into the face of the girl behind, “whom I have somehow been -defrauded of meeting before. I have a great many congratulations -to—divide,” she went on prettily, glancing at Ancram. “Mr. Ancram is an -old friend of ours.” - -“Thank you,” replied Miss Daye. Her manner suggested that at school such -acknowledgments had been very carefully taught her. - -“My dear, you should make a pretty curtsey,” her mother said jocularly, -and then looked at Rhoda with astonishment as the girl, with an unmoved -countenance, made it. - -Ancram looked uncomfortable, but Mrs. Church cried out with vivacity -that it was charming—she was so glad to find that Miss Daye could unbend -to a stranger; and Mrs. Daye immediately stated that she _must_ hear -whether the good news was true that Mrs. Church had accepted the -presidency—presidentship (what should one say?)—of the Lady Dufferin -Society. Ah! that was delightful—now _everything_ would go smoothly. -Poor dear Lady Spence found it _far_ too much for her! Mrs. Daye touched -upon a variety of other matters as the four stood together, and the -gaslights shone down upon the diamond stars in the women’s hair, and the -band played on the verandah behind the palms. Among them was the -difficulty of getting seats in the Cathedral in the cold weather, and -the fascinating prospect of having a German man-of-war in port for the -season, and that dreadful frontier expedition against the Nagapis; and -they ran, in the end, into an allusion to Mrs. Church’s delightful -Thursday tennises. - -“Ah, yes,” Mrs. Church replied, as the lady gave utterance to this, with -her dimpled chin thrust over her shoulder, in the act of departure: “you -must not forget my Thursdays. And you,” she said to Rhoda, with a -directness which she often made very engaging—“you will come too, I -hope?” - -“Oh, yes, thank you,” the girl answered, with her neat smile: “I will -come too—with pleasure.” - -“Why didn’t you go with them?” Mrs. Church exclaimed a moment later. - -Ancram looked meditatively at the chandelier. “We are not exactly a -demonstrative couple,” he said. “She likes a decent reticence, I -believe—in public. I’ll find them presently.” - -They were half a mile on their way home when he began to look for them; -and Mrs. Daye had so far forgotten herself as to comment unfavourably -upon his behaviour. - -“My dear mummie,” her daughter responded, “you don’t suppose I want to -interfere with his amusements!” - - - - - CHAPTER V. - - -A bazar had been opened in aid of a Cause. The philanthropic heart of -Calcutta, laid bare, discloses many Causes, and during the cold weather -their commercial hold upon the community is as briskly maintained as it -may be consistently with the modern doctrine of the liberty of the -subject. The purpose of this bazar was to bring the advantages of the -piano and feather-stitch and Marie Bashkirtseff to young native ladies -of rank. It had been for some time obvious that young native ladies of -rank were painfully behind the van of modern progress. It was known that -they were not in the habit of spending the golden Oriental hours in the -search for wisdom as the bee obtains honey from the flowers: they much -preferred sucking their own fingers, cloyed with sweetmeats from the -bazar. Yet a few of them had tasted emancipation. Their husbands allowed -them to show their faces to the world. Of one, who had been educated in -London, it was whispered that she wore stays, and read books in three -languages besides Sanscrit, and ate of the pig! These the memsahibs -fastened upon and infected with the idea of elevating their sisters by -annual appeals to the public based on fancy articles. Future generations -of Aryan lady-voters, hardly as yet visible in the effulgence of all -that is to come, will probably fail to understand that their privileges -were founded, towards the end of the nineteenth century, on an -antimacassar; but thus it will have been. - -The wife of the Lieutenant-Governor had opened the bazar. She had done -it in black lace and jet, which became her exceedingly, with a pretty -little speech, which took due account of the piano and feather-stitch -and Marie Bashkirtseff under more impressive names. She had driven there -with Lady Scott. The way was very long and very dusty and very native, -which includes several other undesirable characteristics; and Lady Scott -had beguiled it with details of an operation she had insisted on -witnessing at the Dufferin Hospital for Women. Lady Scott declared that, -holding the position she did on the Board, she really felt the -responsibility of seeing that things were properly done, but that -henceforth the lady-doctor in charge should have her entire confidence. -“I only wonder,” said Mrs. Church, “that, holding the position you do on -the Board, you didn’t insist on performing the operation yourself”; and -her face was so grave that Lady Scott felt flattered and deprecated the -idea. - -Then they had arrived and walked with circumstance through the little -desultory crowd of street natives up the strip of red cloth to the door, -and there been welcomed by three or four of the very most emancipated, -with two beautiful, flat, perfumed bouquets of pink-and-white roses and -many suffused smiles. And then the little speech, which gave Mrs. Gasper -of the High Court the most poignant grief, in that men, on account of -the unemancipated, were excluded from the occasion; she would simply -have given anything to have had her husband hear it. After which Mrs. -Church had gone from counter to counter, with her duty before her eyes. -She bought daintily, choosing Dacca muslins and false gods, brass -plaques from Persia and embroidered cloths from Kashmir. A dozen or two -of the unemancipated pressed softly upon her, chewing betel, and -appraising the value of her investments, and little Mrs. Gasper noted -them too from the other side of the room. Lady Scott was most kind in -showing dear Mrs. Church desirable purchases, and made, herself, -conspicuously more than the wife of the Lieutenant-Governor. On every -hand a native lady said, “Buy something!” with an accent less expressive -of entreaty than of resentful expectation. One of the emancipated went -behind a door and made up the total of Mrs. Church’s expenditure. She -came out again looking discontented: Lady Spence the year before had -spent half as much again. - -Mrs. Church felt as she drove away that she had left behind her an -injury which might properly find redress under a Regulation. - -She was alone, Lady Scott having to go on to a meeting of the “Board” -with Mrs. Gasper. The disc of pink-and-white roses rolled about with the -easy motion of the barouche, on the opposite seat. It was only half-past -four, and the sun was still making strong lines with the tawdry -flat-roofed yellow shops that huddled along the crowded interminable -streets. She looked out and saw a hundred gold-bellied wasps hovering -over a tray of glistening sweetmeats. Next door a woman with her red -cloth pulled over her head, and her naked brown baby on her hip, paused -and bought a measure of parched corn from a bunnia, who lolled among his -grain heaps a fat invitation to hunger. Then came the square dark hole -of Abdul Rahman, where he sat in his spectacles and sewed, with his long -lean legs crossed in front of him, and half a dozen red-beaked -love-birds in a wicker cage to keep him company. And then the -establishment of Saddanath Mookerjee, announcing in a dazzling fringe of -black letters: - - ――――――――――――――― - PAINS FEVERANDISEASES CURED - ―――――――― - WHILE YOU WAIT - -She looked at it all as she rolled by with a little tender smile of -reconnaissance. The old fascination never failed her; the people and -their doings never became common facts. Nevertheless she was very tired. -The crowd seethed along in the full glare of the afternoon, hawking, -disputing, gesticulating. The burden of their talk—the naked coolies, -the shrill-jabbering women with loads of bricks upon their heads, the -sleek baboos in those European shirts the nether hem of which no canon -of propriety has ever taught them to confine—the burden of their talk -reached her where she sat, and it was all of _paisa_[A] and _rupia_, the -eternal dominant note of the bazar. She closed her eyes and tried to put -herself into relation with a life bounded by the rim of a copper coin. -She was certainly very tired. When she looked again a woman stooped over -one of the city standpipes and made a cup with her hand and gave her -little son to drink. He was a very beautiful little son, with a string -of blue beads round his neck and a silver anklet on each of his fat -brown legs, and as he caught her hand with his baby fingers the mother -smiled over him in her pride. - ------ - -Footnote A: - - Halfpence. - ------ - -Judith Church suddenly leaned back among her cushions very close to -tears. “It would have been better,” she said to herself—“so much -better,” as she opened her eyes widely and tried to think about -something else. There was her weekly dinner-party of forty that night, -and she was to go down with the Bishop. Oh, well! that was better than -Sir Peter Bloomsbury. She hoped Captain Thrush had not forgotten to ask -some people who could sing—and _not_ Miss Nellie Vansittart. She smiled -a little as she thought how Captain Thrush had made Nellie Vansittart’s -pretty voice an excuse for asking her and her people twice already this -month. She must see that Captain Thrush was not on duty the afternoon of -Mrs. Vansittart’s _musicale_. She felt indulgent towards Captain Thrush -and Nellie Vansittart; she give that young lady plenary absolution for -the monopoly of her lieutenant on the Belvedere Thursdays; she thought -of them by their Christian names. Then to-morrow—to-morrow she opened -the _café chantant_ for the Sailors’ Home, and they dined at the Fort -with the General. On Wednesday there was the Eurasian Female Orphans’ -prize-giving, and the dance on board the _Boetia_. On Friday a “Lady -Dufferin” meeting—or was it the Dhurrumtollah Self-Help Society, or the -Sisters’ Mission?—she must look it up in her book. And, sandwiched in -somewhere, she knew there was a German bacteriologist and a lecture on -astronomy. She put up both her slender hands in her black gloves and -yawned; remembering at the same time that it was ten days since she had -seen Lewis Ancram. Her responsibilities, when he mocked at them with -her, seemed light and amusing. He gave her strength and stimulus: she -was very frank with herself in confessing how much she depended upon -him. - -The carriage drew up on one side of the stately width of Chowringhee. -That is putting it foolishly; for Chowringhee has only one side to draw -up at—the other is a footpath bordering the great green Maidan, which -stretches on across to the river’s edge, and is fringed with masts from -Portsmouth and Halifax and Ispahan. When the sun goes down behind -them——But the sun had not gone down when Mrs. Church got out of her -carriage and went up the steps of the School of Art: it was still -burnishing the red bricks of that somewhat insignificant building, and -lying in yellow sheets over the vast stucco bulk of the Indian Museum on -one side, and playing among the tree-tops in the garden of the -Commissioner of Police on the other. Anglo-Indian aspirations, in their -wholly subordinate, artistic form, were gathered together in an -exhibition here, and here John Church, who was inspecting a gaol at the -other end of Calcutta, had promised to meet his wife at five o’clock. - -The Lieutenant-Governor had been looking forward to this: it was so -seldom, he said, that he found an opportunity of combining a duty and a -pleasure. Judith Church remembered other Art Exhibitions she had seen in -India, and thought that one category was enough. - -At the farther end of the room a native gentleman stood transfixed with -admiration before a portrait of himself by his own son. Two or three -ladies with catalogues darted hurriedly, like humming-birds, from -water-colour to water-colour. A cadaverous planter from the Terai, who -turned out sixty thousand pounds of good tea and six yards of bad -pictures annually, talked with conviction to an assenting broker with -his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, about the points of his -“Sunset View of Kinchinjunga,” that hung among the oils on the other -wall. There was no one else in the room but Mr. Lewis Ancram, who wore a -straw hat and an air of non-expectancy, and looked a sophisticated -twenty-five. - -For a moment, although John Church was the soul of punctuality, it did -not seem remarkable to Mrs. Church that her husband had failed to turn -up. Ancram had begun to explain, indeed, before it occurred to her to -ask; and this, when she remembered it, brought a delicate flush to her -cheeks which stayed there, and suggested to the Chief Secretary the -pleasant recollection of a certain dewy little translucent flower that -grew among the Himalayan mosses very high up. - -“It was a matter His Honour thought really required looking into—clear -evidence, you know, that the cholera was actually being communicated -inside the gaol—and when I offered to bring his apologies on to you I -honestly believe he was delighted to secure another hour of -investigation.” - -“John works atrociously hard,” she replied; and when he weighed this -afterward, as he had begun to weigh the things she said, he found in it -appreciably more concern for John’s regrettable habit of working -atrociously hard than vexation at his failure to keep their engagement. - -They walked about for five minutes and looked at the aspirations. Ancram -remembered Rhoda Daye’s hard little sayings on the opening day, and -reflected that some women could laugh with a difference. Mrs. Church did -it with greatest freedom, he noticed, at the prize pictures. For the -others she had compunction, and she regarded the “Sunset View of -Kinchinjunga” with a smile that she plainly atoned for by an inward -tear. “Don’t!” she said, looking round the walls, as he invested that -peak with the character of a strawberry ice. “It means all the bloom of -their lives, poor things. At all events it’s ideality, it isn’t——” - -“Pig-sticking!” - -“Yes,” she said softly. “If I knew what in the world to do with it, I -would buy that ‘Kinchin.’ But its ultimate disposal does present -difficulties.” - -“I don’t think you would have any right to do that, you know. You -couldn’t be so dishonest with the artist. Who would sell the work of his -hand to be burned!” - -He was successful in provoking her appreciation. “You are quite right,” -she said. “The patronage of my pity! You always see!” - -“I _have_ bought a picture,” Ancram went on, “by a fellow named Martin, -who seems to have sent it out from England. It’s nothing great, but I -thought it was a pity to let it go back. That narrow one, nearest to the -corner.” - -“It is good enough to escape getting a prize,” she laughed. “Yes, I like -it rather—a good deal—very much indeed. I wish I were a critic and could -tell you why. It will be a pleasure to you; it is so green and cool and -still.” - -Mr. Ancram’s purchase was of the type that is growing common enough at -the May exhibitions—a bit of English landscape on a dull day towards -evening, fields and a bank with trees on it, a pool with water-weeds in -it, the sky crowding down behind and standing out in front in the quiet -water. Perhaps it lacked imagination—there was no young woman leaning -out of the canoe to gather water-lilies—but it had been painted with a -good deal of knowledge. - -Mr. James Springgrove at the moment was talking about it to another -gentleman. Mr. Springgrove was one of Calcutta’s humourists. He was also -a member of the Board of Revenue; and for these reasons, combined with -his subscription, it was originally presumed that Mr. Springgrove -understood Art. People generally thought he did, because he was a -Director and a member of the Hanging Committee, but this was a mistake. -Mr. Springgrove brought his head as nearly as possible into a line with -the other gentleman’s head, from which had issued, in weak commendation, -the statement that No. 223 reminded it of home. - -[Illustration: There was a moment’s pause.] - -“If you asked what it reminded _me_ of,” said Mr. Springgrove, clapping -the other on the back, “I should say verdigris, sir—verdigris.” Mrs. -Church and the Honourable Mr. Lewis Ancram looked into each other’s eyes -and smiled as long as there was any excuse for smiling. - -“I am glad you are not a critic,” he said. She was verging toward the -door. “What are you going to do now?” - -“Afterward—we meant to drive to Hastings House. John thought there would -be time. It is quite near Belvedere, you know. But——And I shall not have -another free afternoon for a fortnight.” - -They went out in silence, past the baboo who sat behind a table at the -receipt of entrance money, and down the steps. The syce opened the -carriage door, and Mrs. Church got in. There was a moment’s pause, while -the man looked questioningly at Ancram, still holding open the door. - -“If he invites himself,” said Judith inwardly, with the intention of -self-discipline; and the rest was hope. - -“Is there any reason——?” he asked, with his foot on the step; and it was -quite unnecessary that he should add “against my coming?” - -“No—there is no reason.” Then she added, with a visible effort to make -it the commonplace thing it was not, “Then you will drive out with me, -and I shall see the place after all? How nice!” - -They rolled out into the gold-and-green afternoon life of the Maidan, -along wide pipal-shadowed roads, across a bridge, through a lane or two -where the pariahs barked after the carriage and the people about the -huts stared, shading their eyes. There seemed very little to say. They -thought themselves under the spell of the pleasantness of it—the lifting -of the burden and the heat of the day, the little wind that shook the -fronds of the date palms and stole about bringing odours from where the -people were cooking, the unyoked oxen, the hoarse home-going talk of the -crows that flew city-ward against the yellow sky with a purple light on -their wings. - -“Let the carriage stay here,” Judith said, as they stopped beside a -dilapidated barred gate. “I want to walk to the house.” - -A salaaming creature in a _dhoty_ hurried out of a clump of bamboos in -the corner and flung open the gate. It seemed to close again upon the -world. They were in an undulating waste that had once been a stately -pleasure-ground, and it had a visible soul that lived upon its memories -and was content in its abandonment. It was so still that the great teak -leaves, twisted and discoloured and full of holes like battered bronze, -dropping singly and slowly through the mellow air, fell at their feet -with little rustling cracks. - -“What a perfection of silence!” Judith exclaimed softly; and then some -vague perception impelled her to talk of other things—of her -dinner-party and Nellie Vansittart. - -Ancram looked on, as it were, at her conversation for a moment or two -with his charming smile. Then, “Oh, dear lady,” he broke in, “let them -go—those people. They are the vulgar considerations of the time which -has been—which will be again. But this is a pause—made for _us_.” - -She looked down at the rusty teak-leaves, and he almost told her, as he -knocked them aside, how poetic a shadow clung round her eyelids. The -curve of the drive brought them to the old stucco mansion, dreaming -quietly and open-eyed over its great square porch of the Calcutta of -Nuncomar and Philip Francis. - -“It broods, doesn’t it?” said Judith Church, standing under the yellow -honeysuckle of the porch. “Don’t you wish you could see the ghost!” - -The gatekeeper reappeared, and stood offering them each a rose. - -“This gentleman,” replied Ancram, “will know all about the ghost. He -probably makes his living out of Warren Hastings, in the tourist season. -Without doubt, he says, there is a _bhut_, a very terrible _bhut_, which -lives in the room directly over our heads and wears iron boots. Shall we -go and look for it?” - -Half way up the stairs Ancram turned and saw the gatekeeper following -them. “You have leave to go,” he said in Hindustani. - -At the top he turned again, and found the man still salaaming at their -heels. “_Jao!_” he shouted, with a threatening movement, and the native -fled. - -“It is preposterous,” he said apologetically to Mrs. Church, “that one -should be dogged everywhere by these people.” - -They explored the echoing rooms, and looked down the well of the ruined -staircase, and decided that no ghost with the shadow of a title to the -property could let such desirable premises go unhaunted. They were in -absurdly good spirits. They had not been alone together for a fortnight. -The sky was all red in the west as they stepped out upon the wide flat -roof, and the warm light that was left seemed to hang in mid-air. The -spires and domes of Calcutta lay under a sulphur-coloured haze, and the -palms on the horizon stood in filmy clouds. The beautiful tropical day -was going out. - -“We must go in ten minutes,” said Judith, sitting down on the low mossy -parapet. - -“Back into the world.” He reflected hastily and decided. Up to this time -Rhoda Daye had been a conventionality between them. He had a sudden -desire to make her the subject of a confidence—to explain, perhaps to -discuss, anyhow to explain. - -“Tell me, my friend,” he said, making a pattern on the lichen of the -roof with his stick, “what do you think of my engagement?” - -She looked up startled. It was as if the question had sprung at her. She -too felt the need of a temporary occupation, and fell upon her rose. - -“You had my congratulations a long time ago,” she said, carefully -shredding each petal into three. - -“Don’t!” he exclaimed impatiently: “I’m serious!” - -“Well, then—it is not a fair thing that you are asking me. I don’t know -Miss Daye. I never shall know her. To me she is a little marble image -with a very pretty polish.” - -“And to me also,” he repeated, seizing her words: “she is a little -marble image with a very pretty polish.” He put an unconscious demand -for commiseration into his tone. Doubtless he did not mean to go so far, -but his inflection added, “And I’ve got to marry her!” - -“To you—to you!” She plucked aimlessly at her rose, and searched vainly -for something which would improve the look of his situation. But the -rush of this confidence had torn up commonplaces by the roots. She felt -it beating somewhere about her heart; and her concern, for the moment, -in hearing of his misfortune, was for herself. - -“The ironical part of it is,” he went on, very pale with the effort of -his candour, “that I was blindly certain of finding her sympathetic. You -know what one means by that in a woman. I wanted it, just then. I seemed -to have arrived at a crisis of wanting it. I made ludicrously sure of -it. If you had been here,” he added with conviction, “it would never -have happened.” - -She opened her lips to say “Then I wish I had been here,” but the words -he heard were, “People tell me she is very clever.” - -“Oh,” he said bitterly, “she has the qualities of her defects, no doubt. -But she isn’t a woman—she’s an intelligence. Conceive, I beg of you, the -prospect of passing one’s life in conjugal relations with an -intelligence!” - -Judith assured herself vaguely that this brutality of language had its -excuse. She could have told him very fluently that he ought not to marry -Rhoda Daye under any circumstances, but something made it impossible -that she should say anything of the sort. She strove with the instinct -for a moment, and then, as it overthrew her, she looked about her -shivering. The evening chill of December had crept in and up from the -marshes; one or two street lamps twinkled out in the direction of the -city; light white levels of mist had begun to spread themselves among -the trees in the garden below them. - -“We must go,” she said, rising hurriedly: “how suddenly it has grown -cold!” And as she passed before him into the empty house he saw that her -face was so drawn that even he could scarcely find it beautiful. - - - - - CHAPTER VI. - - -“Mummie,” remarked Miss Daye, as she pushed on the fingers of a new pair -of gloves in the drawing-room, “the conviction grows upon me that I -shall never become Mrs. Ancram.” - -“Rhoda, if you talk like that you will certainly bring on one of my -headaches, and it will be the third in a fortnight that I’ll have to -thank you for. Did I or did I not send home the order for your wedding -dress by last mail?” - -“You did, mummie. But you could always advertise it in the local papers, -you know. Could you fasten this? ‘_By Private Sale—A Wedding Dress -originally intended for the Secretariat. Ivory Satin and Lace. Skirt -thirty-nine inches, waist twenty-one. Warranted never been worn._’ -Thanks so much!” - -“Rhoda! you are capable of anything——” - -“Of most things, mummie, I admit. But I begin to fear, not of that!” - -“Are you going to break it off? There he is this minute! Don’t let him -come in here, dear—he would know instantly that we had been discussing -him. You _have_ upset me so!” - -“He shan’t.” Miss Daye walked to the door. “You are not to come any -farther, my dear sir,” said she to the Honourable Mr. Ancram among the -Japanese pots on the landing: “mummie’s going to have a headache, and -doesn’t want you. I’m quite ready!” She stood for a moment in the -doorway, her pretty shoulders making admirably correct lines, in a -clinging grey skirt and silver braided zouave, that showed a charming -glimpse of blue silk blouse underneath, buttoning her second glove. -Ancram groaned within himself that he must have proposed to her because -she was _chic_. Then she looked back. “Don’t worry, mummie. I’ll let you -know within a fortnight. You won’t have to advertise it after all—you -can countermand the order by telegraph!” Mrs. Daye, on the sofa, threw -up her hands speechlessly, and her eyes when her daughter finally left -the room were round with apprehension. - -Ancram had come to take his betrothed for a drive in his dog-cart. It is -a privilege Calcutta offers to people who are engaged: they are -permitted to drive about together in dog-carts. The act has the binding -force of a public confession. Mr. Ancram and Miss Daye had taken -advantage of it in the beginning. By this time it would be more proper -to say that they were taking refuge in it. - -He had seen Mrs. Church several times since the evening on which he had -put her into her carriage at the gates of Hastings House, and got into -his own trap and driven home with a feeling which he analysed as -purified but not resigned. She had been very quiet, very self-contained, -apparently content to be gracious and effective in the gown of the -occasion; but once or twice he fancied he saw a look of waiting, a gleam -of expectancy, behind her eyes. It was this that encouraged him to ask -her, at the first opportunity, whether she did not think he would be -perfectly justified in bringing the thing to an end. She answered him, -with an unalterable look, that she could not help him in that decision; -and he brought away a sense that he had not obtained the support on -which he had depended. This did not prevent him from arriving very -definitely at the decision in question unaided. Nothing could be more -obvious than that the girl did not care for him; and, granting this, was -he morally at liberty, from the girl’s own point of view, to degrade her -by a marriage which was, on her side, one of pure ambition? If her -affections had been involved in the remotest degree——but he shrugged his -shoulders at the idea of Rhoda Daye’s affections. He wished to Heaven, -like any schoolboy, that she would fall in love with somebody else, but -she was too damned clever to fall in love with anybody. The thing would -require a little finessing; of course the rupture must come from her. -There were things a man in his position had to be careful about. But -with a direct suggestion——Nothing was more obvious than that she did not -care for him. He would make her say so. After that, a direct suggestion -would be simple—and wholly justifiable. These were Mr. Lewis Ancram’s -reflections as he stood, hat in hand, on Mrs. Daye’s landing. They were -less involved than usual, but in equations of personal responsibility -Mr. Ancram liked a formula. By the intelligent manipulation of a formula -one could so often eliminate the personal element and transfer the -responsibility to the other side. - -The beginning was not auspicious. - -“Is that _le dernier cri_?” he asked, looking at her hat as she came -lightly down the steps. - -“Papa’s? Poor dear! yes. It was forty rupees, at Phelps’s. You’ll find -me extravagant—but horribly!—especially in hats. I adore hats; they’re -such conceptions, such ideas! I mean to insist upon a settlement in -hats—three every season, in perpetuity.” - -They were well into the street and half-way to Chowringhee before he -found the remark, at which he forced himself to smile, that he supposed -a time would arrive when her affections in millinery would transfer -themselves to bonnets. The occasion was not propitious for suggestions -based on emotional confessions. The broad roads that wind over the -Maidan were full of gaiety and the definite facts of smart carriages and -pretty bowing women. The sun caught the tops of the masts in the river, -and twinkled there; it mellowed the pillars of the bathing-ghats, and -was also reflected magnificently from the plate-glass mirrors with which -Ram Das Mookerjee had adorned the sides of his barouche. A white patch a -mile away resolved itself into a mass of black heads and draped bodies -watching a cricket match. Mynas chattered by the wayside, stray notes of -bugle practice came crisply over the walls of the Fort; there was an -effect of cheerfulness even in the tinkle of the tram bells. If the -scene had required any further touch of high spirits, it was supplied in -the turn-out of the Maharajah of Thuginugger, who drove abroad in a -purple velvet dressing gown, with pink outriders. Ancram had a fine -susceptibility to atmospheric effect, and it bade him talk about the -Maharajah of Thuginugger. - -“That chap Ezra, the Simla diamond merchant, told me that he went with -the Maharajah through his go-downs once. His Highness likes pearls. Ezra -saw them standing about in bucketsful.” - -“Common wooden buckets?” - -“I believe so.” - -“How satisfying! Tell me some more.” - -“There isn’t any more. The rest was between Ezra and the Maharajah. I -dare say there was a margin of profit somewhere. What queer weather they -seem to be having at home!” - -“It’s delicious to live in a place that hasn’t any weather—only a -permanent fervency. I like this old Calcutta. It’s so wicked and so rich -and so cheerful. People are born and burned and born and burned, and -nothing in the world matters. Their nice little stone gods are so easy -to please, too. A handful of rice, a few marigold chains, a goat or two: -hardly any of them ask more than that. And the sun shines every day—on -the just man who has offered up his goat, and on the unjust man who has -eaten it instead.” - -She sat up beside him, her slender figure swaying a little with the -motion of the cart, and looked about her with a light in her grey eyes -that seemed the reflection of her mood. He thought her chatter -artificial; but it was genuine enough. She always felt more than her -usual sense of irresponsibility with him in their afternoon drives. The -world lay all about them and lightened their relation; he became, as a -rule, the person who was driving, and she felt at liberty to become the -person who was talking. - -“There!” she exclaimed, as three or four coolie women filed, laughing, -up to a couple of round stones under a pipal tree by the roadside, and -took their brass lotas from their heads and carefully poured water over -the stones. “Fancy one’s religious obligations summed up in a -cooking-potful of Hughli water! Are those stones sacred?” - -“I suppose so.” - -“The author of ‘The Modern Influence of the Vedic Books,’” she suggested -demurely, “should be quite sure. He should have left no stone unturned.” - -She regarded him for a moment, and, observing his preoccupation, just -perceptibly lifted her eyebrows. Then she went on: “But perhaps big -round stones under pipal trees that like libations come in the second -volume. When does the second volume appear?” - -“Not until Sir Griffiths Spence comes out again and this lunatic goes -back to Hassimabad, I fancy. I want an appropriation for some further -researches first.” - -The most enthusiastic of Mr. Ancram’s admirers acknowledged that he was -not always discreet. - -“And he won’t give it to you—this lunatic?” - -“Not a pice.” - -“Then,” she said, with a ripple of laughter, “he _must_ be a fool!” - -She was certainly irritating this afternoon. Ancram gave his Waler as -smart a cut as he dared, and they dashed past Lord Napier, sitting on -his intelligent charger in serious bronze to all eternity, and rounded -the bend into the Strand. The brown river tore at its heaving buoys; the -tide was racing out. The sun had dipped, and the tall ships lay in the -after-glow in twos and threes and congeries along the bank, along the -edge of Calcutta, until in the curving distance they became mere -suggestions of one another and a twilight of tilted masts. Under their -keels slipped great breadths of shining water. Against the glow on it a -country-boat, with its unwieldy load of hay, looked like a floating -barn. On the indistinct other side the only thing that asserted itself -was a factory chimney. They talked of the eternal novelty of the river, -and the eternal sameness of the people they met; and then he lapsed -again. - -Rhoda looked down at the bow of her slipper. “Have you got a headache?” -she asked. The interrogation was one of cheerful docility. - -“Thanks, no. I beg your pardon: I’m afraid I was inexcusably -preoccupied.” - -“Would it be indiscreet to ask what about? Don’t you want my opinion? I -am longing to give you my opinion.” - -“Your opinion would be valuable.” - -Miss Daye again glanced down at her slipper. This time her pretty -eyelashes shaded a ray of amused perception. “He thinks he can do it -himself,” she remarked privately. “He is quite ready to give himself all -the credit of getting out of it gracefully. The amount of flattery they -demand for themselves, these Secretaries!” - -“A premium on my opinion!” she said. “How delightful!” - -Ancram turned the Waler sharply into the first road that led to the -Casuerina Avenue. The Casuerina Avenue is almost always poetic, and -might be imagined to lend itself very effectively, after sunset, to the -funeral of a sentiment which Mr. Ancram was fond of describing to -himself as still-born. The girl beside him noted the slenderness of his -foot and the excellent cut of his grey tweed trousers. Her eyes dwelt -upon the nervously vigorous way he handled the reins, and her glance of -light bright inquiry ascertained a vertical line between his eyebrows. -It was the line that accompanied the Honourable Mr. Ancram’s Bills in -Council, and it indicated a disinclination to compromise. Miss Daye, -fully apprehending its significance, regarded him with an interest that -might almost be described as affectionate. She said to herself that he -would bungle. She was rather sorry for him. And he did. - -“I should be glad of your opinion of our relation,” he said—which was -very crude. - -“I think it is charming. I was never more interested in my life!” she -declared frankly, bringing her lips together in the pretty composure -with which she usually told the vague little lie of her satisfaction -with life. - -“Does that sum up your idea of—of the possibilities of our situation?” -He felt that he was doing better. - -“Oh no! There are endless possibilities in our situation—mostly stupid -ones. But it is a most agreeable actuality.” - -“I wish,” he said desperately, “that you would tell me just what the -actuality means to you.” - -They were in the Avenue row, and the Waler had been allowed to drop into -a walk. The after-glow still lingered in the soft green duskiness over -their heads; there was light enough for an old woman to see to pick up -the fallen spines in the grass; the nearest tank, darkling in the -gathering gloom of the Maidan, had not yet given up his splash of red -from over the river. He looked at her intently, and her eyes dropped to -the thoughtful consideration of the crone who picked up spines. It might -have been that she blushed, or it might have been some effect of the -after-glow. Ancram inclined to the latter view, but his judgment could -not be said to be impartial. - -“Dear Lewis!” she answered softly, “how very difficult that would be!” - -In the sudden silence that followed, the new creaking of the Waler’s -harness was perceptible. Ancram assured himself hotly that this was -simple indecency, but it was a difficult thing to say. He was still -guarding against the fatality of irritation when Rhoda added daintily: - -“But I don’t see why you should have a monopoly of catechising. Tell me, -sir—I’ve wanted to know for ever so long—what was the first, the very -first thing you saw in me to fall in love with?” - - - - - CHAPTER VII. - - -The Honourable Mr. Ancram’s ideal policy toward the few score million -subjects of the Queen-Empress for whose benefit he helped to legislate, -was a paternalism somewhat highly tempered with the exercise of -discipline. He had already accomplished appreciable things for their -advantage, and he intended to accomplish more. It would be difficult to -describe intelligibly all that he had done; besides, his tasks live in -history. The publications of the Government of India hold them all, and -something very similar may be found in the record which every retired -civilian of distinction cherishes in leather, behind the glass of his -bookcases in Brighton or Bournemouth. It would therefore be unnecessary -as well. - -It was Mr. Ancram’s desire to be a conspicuous benefactor—this among -Indian administrators is a matter of business, and must not be smiled at -as a weakness—and in very great part he had succeeded. The fact should -be remembered in connection with his expressed opinion—it has been said -that he was not always discreet—that the relatives in the subordinate -services of troublesome natives should be sent, on provocation, to the -most remote and unpleasant posts in the province. To those who -understand the ramifications of cousinly connection in the humbler -service of the _sircar_, the detestation of exile and the claims of -family affection in Bengal, the efficacy of this idea for promoting -loyalty will appear. It was Mr. Ancram’s idea, but he despaired of -getting it adopted. Therefore he talked about it. Perhaps upon this -charge he was not so very indiscreet after all. - -It will be observed that Mr. Ancram’s policy was one of exalted -expediency. This will be even more evident when it is understood that, -in default of the opportunity of coercing the subject Aryan for his -highest welfare, Mr. Ancram conciliated him. The Chief Secretary had -many distinguished native friends. They were always trying to make him -valuable presents. When he returned the presents he did it in such a way -that the bond of their mutual regard was cemented rather than -otherwise—cemented by the tears of impulsive Bengali affection. He had -other native friends who were more influential than distinguished. They -spoke English and wrote it, most of them. They created the thing which -is quoted in Westminster as “Indian Public Opinion.” They were in the -van of progress, and understood all the tricks for moving the wheels. -The Government of India in its acknowledged capacity as brake found -these gentlemen annoying; but Mr. Ancram, since he could not imprison -them, offered them a measure of his sympathy. They quite understood that -it was a small measure, but there is a fascination about the friendship -of a Chief Secretary, and they often came to see him. They did not bring -him presents, however; they knew very much better than that. - -Mohendra Lall Chuckerbutty was one of these inconspicuously influential -friends. Mohendra was not a maharajah: he was only a baboo, which -stands, like “Mr.” for hardly anything at all. To say that he was a -graduate of the Calcutta University is to acknowledge very little; he -was as clever before he matriculated as he was after he took his degree. -But it should not be forgotten that he was the editor and proprietor of -the _Bengal Free Press_; that was the distinction upon which, for the -moment, he was insisting himself. The _Bengal Free Press_ was a voice of -the people—a particularly aggressive and pertinacious voice. It sold for -two pice in the bazar, and was read by University students at the rate -of twenty-five to each copy. It was regularly translated for the benefit -of the Amir of Afghanistan, the Khan of Kelat, and such other people as -were interested in knowing how insolent sedition could be in Bengal with -safety; and it lay on the desk of every high official in the Province. -Its advertisements were very funny, and its editorial English was more -fluent than veracious: but when it threw mud at the Viceroy, and called -the Lieutenant-Governor a contemptible tyrant, and reminded the people -that their galls were of the yoke of the stranger, there was no -mistaking the direction of its sentiment. - -Mohendra Lall Chuckerbutty sat in the room the Chief Secretary called -his workshop, looking, in a pause of their conversation, at the Chief -Secretary. No one familiar with that journal would have discovered in -his amiable individuality the incarnation of the _Bengal Free Press_. On -his head he wore a white turban, and on his countenance an expression of -benign intelligence just tinged with uncertainty as to what to say next. -His person was buttoned up to his perspiring neck in a tight black -surtout, which represented his compromise with European fashions, and -across its most pronounced rotundity hung a substantial gold -watch-chain. From the coat downwards he fell away, so to speak, into -Aryanism: the indefinite white draperies of his race were visible, and -his brown hairy legs emerged from them bare. He had made progress, -however, with his feet, on which he wore patent leather shoes, almost -American in their neatness, with three buttons at the sides. He sat -leaning forward a little, with his elbows on his knees, and his plump -hands, their dimpled fingers spread apart, hanging down between them. -Mohendra Lall Chuckerbutty’s attitude expressed his very genuine anxiety -to make the most of his visit. - -Ancram leaned back in his tilted chair, with his feet on his desk, -sharpening a lead pencil. “And that’s my advice to you,” he said, with -his eyes on the knife. - -“Well, I am grateful foritt! I am very much ob_liged_ foritt!” Mohendra -paused to relieve his nerves by an amiable, somewhat inconsequent laugh. -“It iss my wish offcourse to be guided as far as possible by your -opinion.” Mohendra glanced deprecatingly at the matting. “But this is a -_sir_rious grievance. And there are others who are always spikking with -me and pushing me——” - -“No grievance was ever mended in a day or a night, or a session, Baboo. -Government moves slowly. Ref—changes are made by inches, not by ells. If -you are wise, you’ll be content with one inch this year and another -next. It’s the only way.” - -Mohendra smiled in sad agreement, and nodded two or three times, with -his head rather on one side. It was an attitude so expressive of -submission that the Chief Secretary’s tone seemed unnecessarily -decisive. - -“The article on that admirable Waterways Bill off yours I hope you -recivved. I sent isspecial marked copy.” - -“Yes,” replied Ancram, in cordial admission: “I noticed it. Very much to -the point. The writer thoroughly grasped my idea. Very grammatical -too—and all that.” Mr. Ancram yawned a little. “But you’d better keep my -name out of your paper, Baboo—unless you want to abuse me. I’m a modest -man, you know. That leader you speak of made me blush, I assure you.” - -It required all Mohendra’s agility to arrive at the conclusion that if -the Honourable Mr. Ancram really considered the influence of the _Bengal -Free Press_ of no importance, he would not take the trouble to say so. -He arrived at it safely, though, while apparently he was only shaking -his head and respectfully enjoying Mr. Ancram’s humour, and saying, “Oh, -no, no! If sometimes we blame, we must also often praise. Oh yess, -certainlie. And _efery_ one says it iss a good piece off work.” - -Ancram looked at his watch. The afternoon was mellowing. If Mohendra -Lall Chuckerbutty had come for the purpose of discussing His Honour the -Lieutenant-Governor’s intentions towards the University Colleges, he had -better begin. Mr. Ancram was aware that in so far as so joyous and -auspicious an event as a visit to a Chief Secretary could be dominated -by a purpose, Mohendra’s was dominated by this one; and he had been for -some time reflecting upon the extent to which he would allow himself to -be drawn. He was at variance with John Church’s administration—now that -three months had made its direction manifest—at almost every point. He -was at variance with John Church himself—that he admitted to be a matter -of temperament. But Church had involved the Government of Bengal in -blunders from which the advice of his Chief Secretary, if he had taken -it, would have saved him. He had not merely ignored the advice: he had -rejected it somewhat pointedly, being a candid man and no diplomat. If -he had acknowledged his mistakes ever so privately, his Chief Secretary -would have taken a fine ethical pleasure in forgiving them; but the -Lieutenant-Governor appeared to think that where principle was concerned -the consideration of expediency was wholly superfluous, and continued to -defend them instead, even after he could plainly see, in the _Bengal -Free Press_ and elsewhere, that they had begun to make him unpopular. -Ancram’s vanity had never troubled him till now. It had grown with his -growth, and strengthened with his strength, under the happiest -circumstances, and he had been as little aware of it as of his arterial -system. John Church had made him unpleasantly conscious of it, and he -was as deeply resentful as if John Church had invested him with it. The -Honourable Mr. Ancram had never been discounted before, and that this -experience should come to him through an official superior whom he did -not consider his equal in many points of administrative sagacity, was a -circumstance that had its peculiar irritation. Mohendra Lall -Chuckerbutty was very well aware of this; and yet he did not feel -confident in approaching the matter of His Honour and the higher -culture. It was a magnificent grievance. Mohendra had it very much at -heart, the _Free Press_ would have it very much at heart, and nothing -was more important than the private probing of the Chief Secretary’s -sentiment regarding it; yet Mohendra hesitated. He wished very much that -there were some tangible reason why Ancram should take sides against the -Lieutenant-Governor, some reason that could be expressed in rupees: then -he would have had more confidence in hoping for an adverse criticism. -But for a mere dislike, a mere personal antagonism, it would be so -foolish. Thus Mohendra vacillated, stroking his fat cheek with his -fingers, and looking at the matting. Ancram saw that his visitor would -end by abandoning his intention, and became aware that he would prefer -that this should not happen. - -“And what do you think,” he said casually, “of our proposal to make you -all pay for your Greek?” - -Mohendra beamed. “I think, sir, that it cannot be _your_ proposal.” - -“It isn’t,” said Ancram sententiously. - -“If it becomes law, it will be the signal for a great disturbance. I -mean, off course,” the Baboo hastened to add, “of a pa_cific_ kind. No -violence, of course! Morally speaking the community is already up in -arms—_morally_ speaking! It is destructive legislation, sir; we _must_ -protest.” - -“I don’t blame you for that.” - -“Then you do not yourself approve off it?” - -“I think it’s a mistake. Well-intentioned, but a mistake.” - -“Oh, the _intention_, that iss good! But impracticable,” Mohendra -ventured vaguely: “a bubble in the air—that is all; but the question -i—iz,” he went on, “will it become law? Yesterday only I first heard -offitt. Mentally I said, ‘I will go to my noble friend and find out for -myself the rights offitt!’ _Then_ I will act.” - -“Oh, His Honour intends to put it through. If you mean to do anything -there’s no time to lose.” Ancram assured himself afterwards that between -his duty as an administrator and his private sentiment toward his chief -there could be no choice. - -“We will petition the Viceroy.” - -Ancram shook his head. “Time wasted. The Viceroy will stick to Church.” - -“Then we can petition the Secretary-off-State.” - -“That might be useful, if you get the right names.” - -“We will have it fought out in Parliament. Mr. Dadabhai——” - -“Yes,” Ancram responded with a smile, “Mr. Dadabhai——” - -“There will be mass meetings on the Maidan.” - -“Get them photographed and send them to the _Illustrated London News_.” - -“And every paper will be agitating it. The _Free Press_, the -_Hindu Patriot_, the _Bengalee_—all offthem will be writing about it——” - -“There is one thing you must remember if the business goes to -England—the converts of these colleges from which State aid is to be -withdrawn.” - -“Christians?” Mohendra shook his head with a smile of contempt. “There -are none. It iss not to change their religion that the Hindus go to -college.” - -“Ah!” returned Ancram. “There are none? That is a pity. Otherwise you -might have got them photographed too, for the illustrated papers.” - -“Yes. It iss a pity.” - -Mohendra reflected profoundly for a moment. “But I will remember what -you say about the fottograff—if any can be found.” - -“Well, let me know how you get on. In my private capacity—in my -_private_ capacity, remember—as the friend and well-wisher of the -people, I shall be interested in what you do. Of course I talk rather -freely to you, Baboo, because we know each other well. I have not -concealed my opinion in this matter at any time, but for all that it -mustn’t be known that I have active sympathies. You understand. This is -entirely confidential.” - -“Oh, offcourse! my gracious goodness, yes!” - -Mohendra’s eyes were moist—with gratification. He was still trying to -express it when he withdrew, ten minutes later, backing toward the door. -Ancram shut it upon him somewhat brusquely, and sent a servant for a -whisky-and-soda. It could not be said that he was in the least nervous, -but he was depressed. It always depressed him to be compelled to take up -an attitude which did not invite criticism from every point of view. His -present attitude had one aspect in which he was compelled to see himself -driving a nail into the acting Lieutenant-Governor’s political coffin. -Ancram would have much preferred to see all the nails driven in without -the necessity for his personal assistance. His reflections excluded -Judith Church as completely as if the matter were no concern of hers. He -considered her separately. The strengthening of the bond between them -was a pleasure which had detached itself from all the other interests of -his life; he thought of it tenderly, but the tenderness was rather for -his sentimental property in her than for her in any material sense. She -stood, with the dear treasure of her sympathy, apart from the Calcutta -world, and as far apart from John Church as from the rest. - -That evening, at dinner, Ancram told Philip Doyle and another man that -he had been drawing Mohendra Lall Chuckerbutty on the University College -question, and he was convinced that feeling was running very high. - -“The fellow had the cheek to boast about the row they were going to -make,” said Mr. Ancram. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII. - - -Philip Doyle did not know at all how it was that he found himself at the -Maharajah of Pattore’s garden-party. He had not the honour of knowing -the Maharajah of Pattore—his invitation was one of the many amiabilities -which he declared he owed to his distinguished connection with the -Bengal Secretariat in the person of Lewis Ancram. Certainly Ancram had -asked him to accept, and take his, Ancram’s, apologies to the Maharajah; -but that seemed no particular reason why he should be there. The fact -was, Doyle assured himself, as he bowled along through the rice-fields -of the suburbs to His Highness’s garden-house—the fact was, he was -restless, he needed change supremely, and anything out of the common -round had its value. Things in Calcutta had begun to wear an unusually -hard and irritating look; he felt his eye for the delinquencies of human -nature growing keener and more critical. This state of things, taken in -connection with the possession of an undoubted sense of humour, Doyle -recognised to be grave. He told himself that, although he was unaware of -anything actually physically wrong, the effects of the climate were most -insidious, and he made it a subject of congratulation that his passage -was taken in the _Oriental_. - -There was a festival arch over the gate when he reached it, and a -multitude of little flags, and “WELLCOME” pendent in yellow marigolds. -Doyle was pleased that he had come. It was a long time since he had -attended a Maharajah’s garden party; its features would be fresh and in -some ways soothing. He shook hands gravely with the Maharajah’s eldest -son, a slender, subdued, cross-eyed young man in an embroidered -smoking-cap and a purple silk frock-coat, and said “Thank you—thank -you!” for a programme of the afternoon’s diversions. The programme was -printed in gold letters, and he was glad to learn from it that His -Highness’s country residence was called “Floral Bower.” This was -entirely as it should be. He noticed that the Maharajah had provided -wrestling and dancing and theatricals for the amusement of his guests, -and resolved to see them all. He had a pleasant sense of a strain -momentarily removed, and he did not importune himself to explain it. -There were very few English people in the crowd that flocked about the -grounds, following with docile admiration the movements of the principal -guests; it was easy to keep away from them. He had only to stroll about, -and look at the curiously futile arrangement of ponds and grottoes and -fountains and summer-houses, and observe how pretty a rose-bush could be -in spite of everything and how appropriately brilliant the clothes of -the Maharajah’s friends were. Some of the younger ones were playing -football, with much laughter and screaming and wonderfully high kicks. -He stood and watched them, smilingly reflecting that he would back a -couple of Harrovians against the lot. His eyes were still on the boys -and the smile was still on his lips when he found himself considering -that he would reach England just about the day of Ancram’s wedding. Then -he realised that Ancram’s wedding had for him some of the -characteristics of a physical ailment which one tries, by forgetting, to -conjure out of existence. The football became less amusing, and he was -conscious that much of its significance had faded out of the Maharajah’s -garden-party. Nevertheless he followed the feebly curved path which led -to His Highness’s private menagerie, and it was while he was returning -the unsympathetic gaze of a very mangy tiger in a very ramshackle cage, -that the reflection came between them, as forcibly as if it were a new -one, that he would come back next cold weather to an empty house. Ancram -would be married. He acknowledged, still carefully examining the tiger, -that he would regret the man less if his departure were due to any other -reason; and he tried to determine, without much success, to what extent -he could blame himself in that his liking for Ancram had dwindled so -considerably during the last few months. By the time he turned his back -upon the zoölogical attraction of the afternoon he had fallen into the -reverie from which he hoped to escape in the _Oriental_—the -recollection, perfect in every detail, of the five times he had met -Rhoda Daye before her engagement, and a little topaz necklace she had -worn three times out of the five, and the several things that he wished -he had said, and especially the agreeable exaltation of spirit in which -he had called himself, after every one of these interviews, an elderly -fool. - -His first thought when he saw her, a moment after, walking towards him -with her father, was of escape—the second quickened his steps in her -direction, for she had bowed, and after that there could be no idea of -going. He concluded later, with definiteness, that it would have been -distinctly rude when there were not more than twenty Europeans in the -place. Colonel Daye’s solid white-whiskered countenance broke into a -square smile as Doyle approached—a smile which expressed that it was -rather a joke to meet a friend at a maharajah’s garden party. - -“You’re a singular being,” he said, as they shook hands; “one never -comes across you in the haunts of civilisation. Here’s _my_ excuse.” -Colonel Daye indicated his daughter. “Would come. Offered to take her to -the races instead—wouldn’t look at it!” - -“If I had no reason for coming before, I’ve found one,” said Doyle, with -an inclination towards Rhoda that laid the compliment at her feet. There -were some points about Philip Doyle that no emotional experience could -altogether subdue. He would have said precisely the same thing, with -precisely the same twinkle, to any woman he liked. - -Rhoda looked at him gravely, having no response ready. If the in-drawing -of her under-lip betrayed anything it was that she felt the least bit -hurt—which, in Rhoda Daye, was ridiculous. If she had been asked she -might have explained it by the fact that there were people whom she -preferred to take her seriously, and in the ten seconds during which her -eyes questioned this politeness she grew gradually delicately pink under -his. - -“Rum business, isn’t it?” Colonel Daye went on, tapping the backs of his -legs with his stick. “Hallo! there’s Grigg. I must see Grigg—do you -mind? Don’t wait, you know—just walk on. I’ll catch you up in ten -minutes.” - -Without further delay Colonel Daye joined Grigg. - -“That’s like my father,” said the girl, with a trace of embarrassment: -“he never can resist the temptation of disposing of me, if it’s only for -ten minutes. We ought to feel better acquainted than we do. I’ve been -out seven months now, but it is still only before people that we dare to -chaff each other. I think,” she added, turning her grey eyes seriously -upon Doyle, “that he finds it awkward to have so much of the society of -a young lady who requires to be entertained.” - -“What a pity that is!” Doyle said involuntarily. - -She was going to reply with one of her bright, easy cynicisms, and then -for some reason changed her mind. “I don’t know about the advantage of -very deep affections,” she said involuntarily, and there was no -flippancy in her tone. Doyle fancied that he detected a note of pathos -instead, but perhaps he was looking for it. - -They were walking with a straggling company of baboos in white muslin -down a double row of plantains towards the wrestling ring. Involuntarily -he made their pace slower. - -“You can’t be touched by that ignoble spirit of the age—already.” - -Miss Daye felt her moral temperature fall several degrees from the -buoyant condition in which she contrived to keep it as a rule. To say -she experienced a chill in the region of her conscience is perhaps to -put it grotesquely, but she certainly felt inclined to ask Philip Doyle -with some astonishment what difference it made to him. - -“The spirit of the age is an annoying thing. It robs one of all -originality.” - -“Pray,” he said, “be original in some other direction. You have a very -considerable choice.” - -His manner disarmed his words. It was grave, almost pleading. She -wondered why she was not angry, but the fact remained that she was only -vaguely touched, and rather unhappy. Then he spoiled it. - -“In my trade we get into dogmatic ways,” he apologised. “You won’t mind -the carpings of an elderly lawyer who has won a bad eminence for himself -by living for twenty years in Calcutta. By the way, I had Ancram’s -apologies to deliver to the Maharajah. If he had known he would perhaps -have entrusted me with more important ones.” Doyle made this speech in -general compensation, to any one who wanted it, for being near her—with -her. If he expected blushing confusion he failed to find it. - -“He didn’t know,” she said indifferently; “and if he had——Oh, there are -the wrestlers.” She looked at them for a moment with disfavour. “Do you -like them? I think they are like performing animals.” - -The men separated for a moment and rubbed their shining brown bodies -with earth. Somewhere near the gate the Maharajah’s band struck up “God -Save the Queen,” four prancing pennons appeared over the tops of the -bushes, and with one accord the crowd moved off in that direction. A -moment later His Highness was doubling up in appreciation of His -Excellency’s condescension in arriving. His Excellency himself was -surrounded ten feet deep by his awe-struck and delighted fellow-guests, -and the wrestlers, bereft of an audience, sat down and spat. - -What Doyle always told himself that he must do with regard to Miss Daye -was to approach her in the vein of polished commonplace—polished because -he owed it to himself, commonplace because its after effect on the -nerves he found to be simpler. Realising his departure from this -prescribed course, he fervently set himself down a hectoring idiot, and -looked round for Colonel Daye. Colonel Daye radiated the commonplace; he -was a most usual person. In his society there was not the slightest -danger of saying anything embarrassing. But he was not even remotely -visible. - -“Believe me,” said Rhoda, with sudden divination, “we shall be lucky if -we see my father again in half an hour. I am very sorry, but he really -is a most unnatural parent.” There was a touch of defiance in her laugh. -He should not lecture her again. “Where shall we go?” - -“Have you seen the acting?” - -“Yes. It’s a conversation between Rama and Shiva. Rama wears a red wig -and Shiva wears a yellow one; the rest is tinsel and pink muslin. They -sit on the floor and argue—that is the play. While one argues the other -chews betel and looks at the audience. I’ve seen better acting,” she -added demurely, “at the Corinthian Theatre.” - -Doyle laughed irresistibly. Calcutta’s theatrical resources, even in the -season, lend themselves to frivolous suggestion. - -“I could show you the Maharajah’s private chapel, if you like,” she -said. - -Doyle replied that nothing could be more amusing than a Maharajah’s -private chapel; and as they walked together among the rose bushes he -felt every consideration, every scruple almost, slip away from him in -the one desire her nearness always brought him—the desire for that kind -of talk with her which should seal the right he vaguely knew was his to -be acknowledged in a privacy of her soul that was barred against other -people. Once or twice before he had seemed almost to win it, and by some -gay little saying which rang false upon his sincerity she had driven him -back. She assuredly did not seem inclined to give him an opportunity -this afternoon. It must be confessed that she chattered, in that wilful, -light, irrelevant way that so stimulated his desire to be upon tenderly -serious terms with her, by no means as her mentor, but for his own -satisfaction and delight. She chattered, with her sensitiveness alive at -every point to what he should say and to what she thought she could -guess he was thinking. She believed him critical, which was distressing -in view of her conviction that he could never understand her—never! He -belonged to an older school, to another world; his feminine ideal was -probably some sister or mother, with many virtues and no opinions. He -was a person to respect and admire—she did respect and she did admire -him—but to expect any degree of fellowship from him was absurd. The -incomprehensible thing was that this conclusion should have any soreness -about it. For the moment she was not aware that this was so; her -perception of it had a way of coming afterwards, when she was alone. - -“Here it is,” she said, at the entrance of a little grotto made of -stucco and painted to look like rock, serving no particular purpose, by -the edge of an artificial lake. “And here is the shrine and the -divinity!” - -As a matter of fact, there was a niche in the wall, and the niche held -Hanuman with his monkey face and his stolen pineapple, coy in painted -plaster. - -Miss Daye looked at the figure with a crisp assumption of interest. -“Isn’t he amusing!” she remarked: “‘Bloomin’ idol made o’ mud’!” - -“And so this is where you think His Highness comes to say his prayers?” -Doyle said, smiling. - -“Perhaps he has a baboo to say them for him,” she returned, as they -strolled out. “That would be an ideal occupation for a baboo—to make -representations on behalf of one exalted personage to another. I wonder -what he asks Hanuman for! To be protected from all the evils of this -life, and to wake up in the next another maharajah!” - -He was so engaged with the airiness of her whimsicality and the tilt of -the feather in her hat that he found no answer ready for this, and to -her imagination he took the liberty of disapproving her flippancy. -Afterwards she told herself that it was not a liberty—that the -difference in their ages made it a right if he chose to take it—but at -the moment the idea incited her to deepen his impression. She cast about -her for the wherewithal to make the completest revelation of her cheaper -qualities. In a crisis of candour she would show him just how audacious -and superficial and trivial she could be. Women have some curious -instincts. - -“I am dying,” she said, with vivacity, “to see how His Highness keeps -house. They say he has a golden chandelier and the prettiest harem in -Bengal. And I confide to you, Mr. Doyle, that I should like a glass of -simpkin—immensely. It goes to my head in the most amusing way in the -middle of the afternoon.” - -“His ideal young woman,” she declared to herself, “would have said -‘champagne’—no, she would have preferred tea; and she would have died -rather than mention the harem.” - -But it must be confessed that Philip Doyle was more occupied for the -moment with the curve of her lips than with anything that came out of -them, except in so far that everything she said seemed to place him more -definitely at a distance. - -“I’m afraid,” he returned, “that the ladies are all under double lock -and key for the occasion, but there ought to be no difficulty about the -champagne and the chandelier.” - -At that moment Colonel Daye’s tall grey hat came into view, threading -the turbaned crowd in obvious quest. Rhoda did not see it, and Doyle -immediately found a short cut to the house which avoided the encounter. -He had suddenly remembered several things that he wanted to say. They -climbed a flight of marble stairs covered with some dirty yards of -matting, and found themselves almost alone in the Maharajah’s -drawing-room. The Viceroy had partaken of an ice and gone down again, -taking the occasion with him; and the long table at the end of the room -was almost as heavily laden as when the confectioner had set it forth. - -“A little pink cake in a paper boat, please,” she commanded, “with jam -inside”; and then, as Doyle went for it, she sat down on one of -Pattore’s big brocaded sofas, and crossed her pretty feet, and looked at -the chromolithographs of the Prince and Princess of Wales askew upon the -wall, and wondered why she was making a fool of herself. - -“I’ve brought you a cup of coffee: do you mind?” he asked, coming back -with it. “His Highness’ intentions are excellent, but the source of his -supplies is obscure. I tried the champagne,” he added apologetically: -“it’s unspeakable!” - -No, Miss Daye did not mind. Doyle sat down at the other end of the sofa, -and reflected that another quarter of an hour was all he could possibly -expect, and then—— - -“I am going home, Miss Daye,” he said. - -Since there was no other way of introducing himself to her -consideration, he would do it with a pitchfork. - -“I knew you were. Soon?” - -“The day after to-morrow, in the _Oriental_. I suppose Ancram told you?” - -“I believe he did. You and he are great friends, aren’t you?” - -“We live together. Men must be able to tolerate each other pretty fairly -to do that.” - -“How long shall you be in England?” - -“Six months, I hope.” - -She was silent, and he fancied she was thinking, with natural -resentment, that he might have postponed his departure until after the -wedding. Doyle hated a lie more than most people, but he felt the -situation required that he should say something. - -“The exigency of my going is unkind,” he blundered. “It will deprive me -of the pleasure of offering Ancram my congratulations.” - -There was only the faintest flavour of mendacity about this; but she -detected it, and fitted it, with that unerring feminine instinct we hear -so much about, to her thought. For an instant she seemed lost in -buttoning her glove; then she looked up, with a little added colour. - -“Don’t tamper with your sincerity for me,” she said quickly: “I’m not -worth it. It’s very kind of you to consider my feelings, but I would -much rather have the plain truth between us—that you don’t approve of me -or of the—the marriage. I jar upon you—oh! I see it! a dozen times in -half an hour—and you are sorry for your friend. For his sake you even -try to like me: I’ve seen you doing it. Please don’t: it distresses me -to know that you take that trouble——” - -“Here you are!” exclaimed Colonel Daye, in the doorway. “Much obliged to -you, Doyle, really, for taking care of this little girl. Most difficult -man to get hold of, Grigg.” - - - - - CHAPTER IX. - - -It has been obvious, I hope, that Lewis Ancram was temperamentally equal -to adjusting himself to a situation. His philosophy was really -characteristic of him; and none the less so because it had a pessimistic -and artistic tinge, and he wore it in a Persian motto inside a crest -ring on his little finger. It can hardly be said that he adjusted -himself to his engagement and his future, when it became apparent to him -that the one could not be broken or the other changed, with -cheerfulness—for cheerfulness was too commonplace a mental condition to -have characterised Mr. Ancram under the happiest circumstances. Neither -can it be denied, however, that he did it with a good deal of dignity -and some tact. He permitted himself to lose the abstraction that had -been overcoming him so habitually in Rhoda’s society, and he said more -of those clever things to her which had been temporarily obscured by the -cloud on his spirits. They saw one another rather oftener than usual in -the fortnight following the evening on which Mr. Ancram thought he could -suggest a course for their mutual benefit to Miss Daye and her daintily -authoritative manner with him convinced him that his chains were riveted -very firmly. At times he told himself that she had, after all, -affectionate potentialities, though he met the problem of evolving them -with a shrug. He disposed himself to accept all the ameliorations of the -situation that were available, all the consolations he could find. One -of the subtlest and therefore most appreciable of these was the -necessity, which his earlier confidence involved, of telling Judith -Church in a few suitably hesitating and well-chosen words that things -were irrevocable. Judith kept silence for a moment, and then, with a -gravely impersonal smile, she said, “I hope—and think—you may be happier -than you expect,” in a manner which made further discussion of the -matter impossible. It cannot be doubted, however, that she was able to -convey to him an under-current of her sympathy without embarrassment. -Otherwise he would hardly have found himself so dependent on the odd -half-hours during which they talked of Henley’s verses and Swan’s -pictures and the possibility of barricading oneself against the moral -effect of India. Ancram often gave her to understand, in one delicate -way or another, that if there were a few more women like her in the -country it could be done. - -The opinion seemed to be general, though perhaps nobody else formulated -it exactly in those terms. People went about assuring each other that -Mrs. Church was the most charming social success, asserting this as if -they recognised that it was somewhat unusual to confer such a decoration -upon a lady whose husband had as yet none whatever. People said she was -a really fascinating woman in a manner which at once condoned and -suggested her undistinguished antecedents—an art which practice has made -perfect in the bureaucratic circles of India. They even went so far as -to add that the atmosphere of Belvedere had entirely changed since the -beginning of the officiating period—which was preposterous, for nothing -could change the social atmosphere of any court of Calcutta short of the -reconstruction of the Indian Empire. The total of this meant that Mrs. -Church had a good memory, much considerateness, an agreeable -disposition, and pretty clothes. Her virtues, certainly her virtues as I -know them, would hardly be revealed in the fierce light which beats upon -the wife of an acting Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal from November until -April, though a shadow of one of them might have been detected in the -way she behaved to the Dayes. Ancram thought her divine in this, but she -was only an honest woman with a temptation and a scruple. Her dignity -made it difficult; she was obliged to think out delicate little ways of -offering them her friendship in the scanty half hours she had to herself -after dinner, while the unending scratch of her husband’s pen came -through the portière that hung across the doorway into his -dressing-room. What she could do without consulting them she did; though -it is not likely that Colonel Daye will ever attribute the remarkable -smoothness of his official path at this time to anything but the spirit -of appreciation in which he at last found Government disposed to regard -his services. The rest was not so easy, because she had to count with -Rhoda. On this point her mother was in the habit of invoking Rhoda’s -better nature, with regrettable futility. Mrs. Daye said that for her -part she accepted an invitation in the spirit in which it was given, and -it is to be feared that no lady in Mrs. Church’s “official position” -would be compelled to make overtures twice to Mrs. Daye, who told other -ladies, in confidence, that she had the best reason to believe Mrs. -Church a noble-minded woman—a beautiful soul. It distressed her that she -was not able to say this to Rhoda also, to be frank with Rhoda, to -discuss the situation and perhaps to hint to the dear child that her -non-responsiveness to Mrs. Church’s very kind attitude looked “the least -bit in the world like the little green monster, you know, dearest one.” -It was not, Mrs. Daye acknowledged, that Rhoda actively resisted Mrs. -Church’s interest; she simply appeared to be unaware of it, and sat on a -chair beside that sweet woman in the Belvedere drawing-room with the -effect of being a hundred miles away. Mrs. Daye sometimes asked herself -apprehensively how soon Mrs. Church would grow tired of coaxing Rhoda, -how long their present beatitudes might be expected to last. It was with -this consideration in mind that she went to her daughter’s room the day -after the Maharajah of Pattore’s garden-party, which was Thursday. The -windows of that apartment were wide open, letting in great squares of -vivid sunlight, and their muslin curtains bellied inward with the -pleasant north wind. It brought gusts of sound from the life outside—the -high plaintive cheeling of the kites, the interminable cawing of the -crows, the swish of the palm fronds, the scolding of the mynas; and all -this life and light and clamour seemed to centre in and circle about the -yellow-haired girl who sat, half-dressed, on the edge of the bed writing -a letter. She laid it aside face downward, at her mother’s knock, and -that amiable lady found her daughter seated before the looking-glass -with a crumpled little brown ayah brushing her hair. - -Mrs. Daye cried out at the glare, at the noise. “It’s like living in one -of those fretwork marble summer-houses at Delhi where the kings of -what-you-may-call-it dynasty kept their wives!” she declared, with her -hands pressed on her eyes and a thumb in each ear; and when the shutters -were closed and the room reduced to some degree of tranquillity, broken -by glowing points where the green slats came short of the sash, she -demanded eau-de-cologne and sank into a chair. “I’ve come for ‘Cruelle -Enigme,’ Rhoda,” Mrs. Daye announced. - -“No, you haven’t, mummie. And besides, you can’t have it—it isn’t a nice -book for you to read.” - -“Can’t I?” Mrs. Daye asked plaintively. “Well, dear, I suppose I must -take your opinion—you know how much my wretched nerves will stand. From -all I hear I certainly can’t be too thankful to you for protecting me -from Zola.” - -“Ayah,” Rhoda commanded in the ayah’s tongue, “give me the yellow book -on the little table—the yellow one, owl’s daughter! Here’s one you can -have, mother,” she said, turning over a few of the leaves with a touch -that was a caress—“‘Robert Helmont’—you haven’t read that.” - -Mrs. Daye glanced at it without enthusiasm. - -“It’s about a war, isn’t it? I’m not fond of books about wars as a rule, -they’re so ‘bluggy,’” and the lady made a little face; “but of course—oh -yes, Daudet, I know he would be charming even if he _was_ bluggy. Rhoda, -don’t make any engagement for Sunday afternoon. I’ve accepted an -invitation from Belvedere for a river-party.” - -The face in the looking-glass showed the least contraction between the -eyebrows. The ayah saw it, and brushed even more gently than before. -Mrs. Daye was watching for it, and hurried on. “I gather from Mrs. -Church’s extremely kind note—she writes herself, and not the -aide-de-camp—that it is a little _fête_ she is making especially, in a -manner, for you and Mr. Ancram, dear—in celebration, as it were. She has -asked only people we know very well indeed; it is really almost a family -affair. _Very_ sweet of her I call it, though of course Lewis Ancram is -an old friend of—of the Lieutenant-Governor’s.” - -The contraction between the girl’s brows deepened seriously, gave place -to a considering air, and for a moment she looked straight into her own -eyes in the glass and said nothing. They rewarded her presently with a -bubble of mischievous intelligence, which almost broke into a smile. -Mrs. Daye continued to the effect that nothing did one so much good as a -little jaunt on the river—it seemed to blow the malaria out of one’s -system—for her part she would give up anything for it. But Rhoda had no -other engagement? - -“Oh dear no!” Miss Daye replied. “There is nothing in the world to -interfere!” - -“Then you will go, dearest one?” - -“I shall be delighted.” - -“My darling child, you _have_ relieved my mind! I was so afraid that -some silly little fad—I know how much you dislike the glare of the -river——” then, forgetfully, “I will write at once and accept for us -all.” Mrs. Daye implanted a kiss upon her daughter’s forehead, with a -sense that she was picturesquely acknowledging dutiful obedience, and -rustled out. “Robert Helmont” remained on the floor beside her chair, -and an indefinitely pleasant freshness was diffused where she had been. - -As Rhoda twisted her hair a little uncontrollable smile came to her lips -and stayed there. “Ayah, worthy one,” she said, “give me the letter from -the bed”; and having read what she had written she slowly tore it into -very small pieces. “After all,” she reflected, “that would be a stupid -way.” - - - - - CHAPTER X. - - -The opinion was a united one on board the _Annie Laurie_ the next Sunday -afternoon that Nature had left nothing undone to make the occasion a -success. This might have testified to less than it did; for a similar -view has been expressed as unanimously, and adhered to as firmly, on -board the _Annie Laurie_ when the banks of the Hooghly have been grey -with deluge and the ladies have saved their skirts by sitting on one -another’s knees in her tiny cabin. The _Annie Laurie_ being the -Lieutenant-Governor’s steam-launch, nobody but the Lieutenant-Governor -presumes to be anything but complimentary as to the weather experienced -aboard her. And this in India is natural. It could not be said, however, -that there was anything necessarily diplomatic even in Mrs. Daye’s -appreciation of this particular afternoon. The air—they all dilated on -the air—blew in from the sea, across the salt marshes, through the -plantains and the cocoanut-trees of the little villages, and brought a -dancing crispness, softened by the sun. The brown river hurtled outwards -past her buoys, and a great merchant ship at anchor in midstream swung -slowly round with the tide. A vague concourse of straight masts and -black hulls and slanting funnels stretched along the bank behind them -with the indefiniteness that comes of multitude, for every spar and line -stood and swung clear cut in the glittering sun; and the point they were -bound for elbowed itself out into the river two miles farther down, in -the grey greenness of slanting, pluming palms. Already the water was -growing more golden where the palms toppled over the river: there would -not be more than two good hours of daylight. As Mrs. Daye remarked to -the Lieutenant-Governor, life was all too short in the cold weather -really to absorb, to drink in, the beauties of nature—there was so much -going on. - -“Then,” said His Honour, “we must make the most of our time.” But he did -not prolong his gaze at Mrs. Daye by way of emphasising his remark, as -another man, and especially another lieutenant-governor, might have -done. He fixed it instead on the dilapidated plaster façade on the left -bank of the river, formerly inhabited by the King of Oudh and his -relatives, and thought of the deplorable sanitation there. - -Not that John Church was by any means unappreciative of the beauties of -nature. It was because he acknowledged the moral use of them that he -came on these Sunday afternoon picnics. He read the poets, and would pay -a good price for a bronze or a picture, for much the same reason. They -formed part of his system of self-development; he applied them to his -mind through the medium which nature has provided, and trusted that the -effect would be good. He did it, however, as he did everything, with the -greatest possible economy of time, and sometimes other considerations -overlapped. That very afternoon he meant to speak to the Superintendent -of the Botanical Gardens—the green elbow of the river crooked about this -place—concerning the manufacture and distribution of a new febrifuge, -and he presently edged away from Mrs. Daye with the purpose of finding -out her husband’s views concerning the silting up of river-beds in -Bengal and the cost of preventive measures. Life with John Church could -be measured simply as an area for effort. - -[Illustration: Notwithstanding, it was gay enough.] - -Notwithstanding these considerations, it was gay enough. Captain Thrush, -A.D.C., sat on the top of the cabin, and swung his legs to the -accompaniment of his amusing experiences the last time he went quail -shooting. The St. Georges were there, and the St. Georges were -proverbial in Calcutta for lightheartedness. Sir William Scott might -have somewhat overweighted the occasion; but Sir William Scott had taken -off his hat, the better to enjoy the river-breeze, and this reduced him -to a name and a frock coat. In the general good spirits the abnegation -and the resolution with which Lewis Ancram and Judith Church occupied -themselves with other people might almost have passed unnoticed. Rhoda -Daye found herself wondering whether it would be possible for Ancram to -be pathetic under the most moving circumstances, so it may be presumed -that she perceived it; but the waves of mirth engendered by Captain -Thrush and the St. Georges rolled over it so far as the rest were -concerned, as they might over a wreck of life and hope. This pretty -simile occurred to Miss Daye, who instantly dismissed it as mawkish, but -nevertheless continued, for at least five minutes, to reflect on the -irony of fate, as, for the moment, she helped to illustrate it. A new -gravity fell upon her for that period, as she sat there and watched -Judith Church talking to Sir William Scott about his ferns. For the -first time she became aware that the situation had an edge to it—that -she was the edge. She was the saturnine element in what she had hitherto -resolutely regarded as a Calcutta comedy; she was not sure that she -could regard it as a comedy any longer, even from the official point of -view. Ancram evidently had it in mind to make an exhibition to the world -in general, and to Mrs. Church in particular, of devotion to his -betrothed. She caught him once or twice in the act of gratefully -receiving Mrs. Church’s approving glance. Nevertheless she had an -agreeable tolerance for all that he found to do for her. She forbade -herself, for the time being, any further analysis of a matter with which -she meant to have in future little concern. In that anticipation she -became unaccountably light-hearted and talkative and merry. So much so, -that Captain Thrush, A.D.C., registered his conviction that she was -really rather a pretty girl—more in her than he thought; and the -Honourable Mr. Lewis Ancram said to himself that she was enjoying, in -anticipation, the prestige she would have a month later, and that the -cleverest of women were deplorably susceptible to social ambition. - -The Superintendent met them at the wharf, and John Church led the way up -the great central avenue of palms, whose grey, shaven polls look as if -they had been turned by some giant lathe, with his hand on the arm of -this gentleman. The others arranged themselves with a single eye to -avoiding the stupidity of walking with their own wives and trooped -after. - -“We are going to the orchid-houses, John,” Mrs. Church called after her -husband, as Sir William Scott brought them to a halt at a divergent road -he loved; and Church took off his hat in hurried acquiescence. - -“Notice my new Dendrobium!” cried the Superintendent, turning a rueful -countenance upon them. “The only one in Asia!” Then his head resumed its -inclination of respectful attention, and the pair disappeared. - -Mrs. Church laughed frankly. “Poor Dr. James!” she exclaimed. “My -husband is double-dyed in febrifuge to-day.” - -Ancram took the privilege—it was one he enjoyed—of gently rebuking her. -“It is one of those common, urgent needs of the people,” he said, “that -His Honour so intimately understands.” - -Judith looked at him with a sudden sweet humility in her eyes. “You are -quite right,” she returned. “I sometimes think that nobody knows him as -you do. Certainly,” she added, in a lower tone, as the two fell back, -“nobody has more of his confidence, more of his dependence.” - -“I don’t know,” Ancram answered vaguely. “Do you really think so? I -don’t know.” - -“I am sure of it.” - -He looked straight before him in silence, irritated in his sensitive -morality—the morality which forbade him to send a Government -_chuprassie_ on a private errand, or to write to his relations in -England on office paper. A curve in the walk showed them Rhoda Daye, -standing alone on the sward, beside a bush in crimson-and-orange flower, -intently examining a spray. Almost involuntarily they paused, and Ancram -turned his eyes upon Mrs. Church with the effect of asking her what he -should do, what he must do. - -“Go!” she said; and then, as if it were a commonplace: “I think Miss -Daye wants you. I will overtake the others.” - -She thought he left her very willingly, and hurried on with the -conviction that, like everything else, it would come right—quite -right—in the end. She was very happy if in any way she had helped it to -come right—so happy that she longed to be alone with her sensations, and -revolted with all her soul against the immediate necessity of Sir -William Scott and the St. Georges. To be for a few hours quite alone, -unseen and unknown, in the heart of some empty green wilderness like -this, would help her, she knew, to rationalise her satisfaction. “My -dear boy,” she said, with nervous patience, as Captain Thrush appeared -in search of her, “did you think I had fallen into a tank? Do go and -take care of the other people.” An aide-de-camp was not a serious -impediment to reflection, but at the moment Judith would have been -distressed by the attendance of her own shadow, if it were too -perceptible. - -Ancram crossed over to Rhoda, with his antipathy to the -Lieutenant-Governor sensibly aggravated by the fact that his wife took -an interest in him—an appreciative interest. It was out of harmony, -Ancram felt vaguely, that she should do this—it jarred. He had so -admired her usual attitude of pale, cool, sweet tolerance toward John -Church—had so approved it. That attitude had been his solace in thinking -about her in her unique position and with her rare temperament. To -suppose her counting up her husband’s virtues, weighing them, doing -justice to them, tinged her with the commonplace, and disturbed him. - -“That’s a curious thing,” he said to Rhoda. - -She let go her hold of the twig, and the red-and-gold flower danced up -like a flame. - -“It belongs to the sun and the soil; so it pleases one better than any -importation.” - -“An orchid is such a fairy—you can’t expect it to have a nationality,” -he returned. - -She stood, with her head thrown back a little, looking at the sprays -that swung above the line of her lips. Her wide-brimmed hat dropped a -soft shadow over the upper part of her face; her eyes shone through it -with a gleam of intensely feminine sweetness, and the tender curve of -her throat gave him an unreasoned throb of anticipation. In six weeks he -would be married to this slender creature; it would be an excursion into -the unknown, not unaccompanied by adventures. Tentatively, it might be -agreeable; it would certainly be interesting. He confessed to a -curiosity which was well on the way to become impatient. - -“Then do you want to go and see the Dendrobium?” she asked. - -“Not if you prefer to do anything else.” - -“I think I would enjoy the cranes more, or the pink water-lilies. The -others will understand, won’t they, that we two might like to take a -little walk?” - -Her coquetry, he said to himself, was preposterously pretty. They took -another of the wide solitary paths that led under showery bamboos and -quivering mahogany trees to where a stretch of water gave back the -silence of the palms against the evening sky, and he dropped -unconsciously into the stroll which is characterised everywhere as a -lover’s. She glanced at him once or twice corroboratively, and said to -herself that she had not been mistaken: he had real distinction—he was -not of the herd. Then she picked up broad, crisp leaves with the point -of her parasol and pondered while he talked of a possible walking tour -in the Tyrol. Presently she broke in irrelevantly, hurriedly. - -“I like to do a definite thing in a definite way: don’t you?” - -“Certainly; yes, of course.” - -“Well; and that is why I waited till this afternoon to tell you—to tell -you——” - -“To tell me——” - -“My dear Mr. Ancram, that I cannot possibly marry you.” - -She had intended to put it differently, more effectively—perhaps with a -turn that would punish him for his part in making the situation what it -was. But it seemed a more momentous thing than she thought, now that she -came to do it; she had a sense that destiny was too heavy a thing to -play with. - -He gave her an official look, the look which refuses to allow itself to -be surprised, and said “Really?” in a manner which expressed absolutely -nothing except that she had his attention. - -“I do not pretend,” she went on, impaling her vanity upon her candour, -“that this will give you the slightest pain. I have been quite conscious -of the relation between us” (here she blushed) “for a very long time; -and I am afraid you must understand that I have reached this decision -without any undue distress—_moi aussi_.” - -She had almost immediately regained her note; she was wholly mistress of -what she said. For an instant Ancram fancied that the bamboos and the -mahogany trees and the flaming hibiscus bushes were unreal, that he was -walking into a panorama, and it seemed to him that his steps were -uncertain. He was carrying his silk hat, and he set himself mechanically -to smooth it round and round with his right hand as he listened. - -When she paused he could find nothing better to say than “Really?” -again; and he added, “You can’t expect me to be pleased.” - -“Oh, but I do,” she returned promptly. “You are, aren’t you?” - -It seemed a friendly reminder of his best interests. It brought the -bamboos back to a vegetable growth, and steadied Ancram’s nerves. He -continued to smooth his hat; but he recovered himself sufficiently to -join her, at a bound, in the standpoint from which she seemed inclined -to discuss the matter without prejudice. - -“Since we are to be quite candid with each other,” he said, smiling, -“I’m not sure.” - -“Your candour has—artistic qualities—which make it different from other -people’s. At all events, you will be to-morrow: to-morrow you will thank -Heaven fasting.” - -He looked at her with some of the interest she used to inspire in him -before his chains began to gall him. - -“Prickly creature!” he said. “Are _you_ quite sure? Is your -determination unalterable?” - -“I acknowledge your politeness in asking me,” she returned. “It is.” - -“Then I suppose I must accept it.” He spoke slowly. “But for the -_soulagement_ you suggest I am afraid I must wait longer than -to-morrow.” - -They walked on in silence, reached the rank edge of the pond, and turned -to go back. The afternoon still hung mellow in mid air, and something of -its tranquillity seemed to have descended between them. In their joint -escape from their mutual burden they experienced a reciprocal good -feeling, something like comradeship, not untouched by sentiment. Once or -twice he referred to their broken bond, asking her, with the appetite of -his egotism, to give him the crystal truth of the reason she had -accepted him. - -“I accepted my idea of you,” she said simply, “which was not altogether -an accurate one. Besides, I think a good deal about—a lot of questions -of administration. I thought I would like to have a closer interest, -perhaps a hand in them. Such fools of women do.” - -After which they talked in a friendly way (it has been noted that Ancram -was tolerant) about how essential ambition was to the bearableness of -life in India. - -“I see that you will be a much more desirable acquaintance,” Rhoda said -once, brightly, “now that I am not going to marry you.” And he smiled in -somewhat unsatisfied acquiescence. - -Ancram grew silent as they drew near the main avenue and the real -parting. The dusk had fallen suddenly, and a little wind brought showers -of yellow leaves out of the shivering bamboos. They were quite alone, -and at a short distance almost indistinguishable from the ixora bushes -and the palmettos. - -“Rhoda,” he said, stopping short, “this is our last walk together—we who -were to have walked together always. May I kiss you?” - -The girl hesitated for an instant. “No,” she said, with a nervous laugh: -“not that. It would be like the resurrection of something that had never -lived and never died!” - -But she gave him her hand, and he kissed that, with some difficulty in -determining whether he was grateful or aggrieved. - -“It’s really very raw,” said Miss Daye, as they approached the others; -“don’t you think you had better put on your hat?” - - - - - CHAPTER XI. - - -“Rhoda,” said Mrs. Daye, as her daughter entered the drawing-room next -morning, “I have thought it all out, and have decided to ask them. Mrs. -St. George quite agrees with me. _She_ says, sound the Military -Secretary first, and of course I will; but she thinks they are certain -to accept. Afterward we’ll have the whole party photographed on the back -verandah—I don’t see how they could get out of it—and that will be a -souvenir for you, if you like.” - -The girl sank into a deep easy chair and crossed her knees with -deliberation. She was paler than usual; she could not deny a certain -lassitude. As her mother spoke she put up her hand to hide an incipient -yawn, and then turned her suffused eyes upon that lady, with the effect -of granting a weary but necessary attention. - -“You have decided to ask them?” she asked, with absent-minded -interrogation. “Whom?” - -“How ridiculous you are, Rhoda! The Viceroy and Lady Scansleigh, of -course! As if there could be the slightest doubt about anybody else! You -will want to know next what I intend to ask them to. I have never known -a girl take so little interest in her own wedding.” - -“That brings us to the point,” said Rhoda. - -An aroused suspicion shot into Mrs. Daye’s brown eyes. “What point, -pray? No nonsense, now, Rhoda!” - -“No nonsense this time, mummie; but no wedding either. I have -decided—finally—not to marry Mr. Ancram.” - -Mrs. Daye sat upright—pretty, plump, determined. She really looked at -the moment as if she could impose her ideas upon anybody. She had a -perception of the effect, to this end, of an impressive _tournure_. -Involuntarily she put a wispish curl in its place, and presented to her -daughter the outline of an unexceptionable shoulder and sleeve. - -“Your decision comes too late to be effectual, Rhoda. People do not -change their minds in such matters when the wedding invitations are -actually——” - -“Written out to be lithographed—but not ordered yet, mummie.” - -“In half an hour they will be.” - -“Would have been, mummie dear.” - -Mrs. Daye assumed the utmost severity possible to a countenance intended -to express only the amenities of life, and took her three steps toward -the door. “This is childish, Rhoda,” she said over her shoulder, “and I -will not remain to listen to it. Retraction on your part at this hour -would be nothing short of a crying scandal, and I assure you once for -all that neither your father nor I will hear of it.” - -Mrs. Daye reached the door very successfully. Rhoda turned her head on -its cushion, and looked after her mother in silence, with a -half-deprecating smile. Having achieved the effect of her retreat, that -lady turned irresolutely. - -“I cannot remain to listen to it,” she repeated, and stooped to pick up -a pin. - -“Oh, do remain, mummie! Don’t behave like the haughty and hard-hearted -mamma of primitive fiction; she is such an old-fashioned person. Do -remain and be a nice, reasonable, up-to-date mummie: it will save such a -lot of trouble.” - -“You don’t seem to realise what you are talking of throwing over!” - -Mrs. Daye, in an access of indignation, came as far back as the piano. - -“Going down to dinner before the wives of the Small Cause Court! What a -worldly lady it is!” - -“I wish,” Mrs. Daye ejaculated mentally, “that I had been brought up to -manage daughters.” What she said aloud, with the effect of being forced -to do so, was that Rhoda had also apparently forgotten that her sister -Lettice was to come out next year. Before the gravity of this -proposition Mrs. Daye sank into the nearest chair. And the expense, with -new frocks for Darjiling, would be really—— - -“All the arguments familiar to the pages of the _Family Herald_,” the -girl retorted, a dash of bitterness in her amusement, “‘with a little -store of maxims, preaching down a daughter’s heart!’ Aren’t you ashamed, -mummie! But you needn’t worry about that. I’ll go back to England and -live with Aunt Jane: she dotes on me. Or I’ll enter the Calcutta Medical -College and qualify as a lady-doctor. I shouldn’t like the cutting up, -though—I really shouldn’t.” - -“Rhoda, _tu me fais mal_! If you could only be serious for five minutes -together. I suppose you have some absurd idea that Mr. Ancram is not -sufficiently—demonstrative. But that will all come in due time, dear.” - -The girl laughed so uncontrollably that Mrs. Daye suspected herself of -an unconscious witticism, and reflected a compromising smile. - -“You think I could win his affections afterwards. Oh! I should despair -of it. You have no idea how coy he is, mummie!” - -Mrs. Daye made a little grimace of sympathy, and threw up her eyes and -her hands. They laughed together, and then the elder lady said with -severity that her daughter was positively indecorous. “Nothing could -have been more devoted than his conduct yesterday afternoon. ‘How -ridiculously happy,’ was what Mrs. St. George said—‘how ridiculously -happy those two are!’” - -Mrs. Daye had become argumentative and plaintive. She imparted the -impression that if there was another point of view—which she doubted—she -was willing to take it. - -“Oh! no doubt it was evident enough,” Rhoda said tranquilly: “we had -both been let off a bad bargain. An afternoon I shall always remember -with pleasure.” - -“Then you have actually done it—broken with him!” - -“Yes.” - -“Irrevocably?” - -“Very much so.” - -“_Do_ tell me how he took it!” - -“Calmly. With admirable fortitude. It occupied altogether about ten -minutes, with digressions. I’ve never kept any of his notes—he doesn’t -write clever notes—and you know I’ve always refused to wear a ring. So -there was nothing to return except Buzz, which wouldn’t have been fair -to Buzz. It won’t make a scandal, will it, my keeping Buzz? He’s quite a -changed dog since I’ve had him, and I love him for himself alone. He -doesn’t look in the least,” Rhoda added, thoughtfully regarding the -terrier curled up on the sofa, who turned his brown eyes on her and -wagged his tail without moving, “like a Secretariat puppy.” - -“And is that all?” - -“That’s all—practically.” - -“Well, Rhoda, of course I had to think of your interests first—_any_ -mother would; but if it’s really quite settled, I must confess that I -believe you are well out of it, and I’m rather relieved myself. When I -thought of being that man’s mother-in-law I used to be thankful -sometimes that your father would retire so soon—which was horrid, dear.” - -“I can understand your feelings, mummie.” - -“I’m sure you can, dear: you are always my sympathetic child. _I_ -wouldn’t have married him for worlds! I never could imagine how you made -up your mind to it in the first place. Now, I suppose that absurd Mrs. -St. George will go on with her theory that no daughter of mine will ever -marry in India, because the young men find poor old me so amusing!” - -“She’s a clever woman—Mrs. St. George,” Rhoda observed. - -“And now that we’ve had our little talk, dear, there’s one thing I -should like you to take back—that quotation from Longfellow, or was it -Mrs. Hemans?—about a daughter’s heart, you know.” Mrs. Daye inclined her -head coaxingly towards the side. “I _shouldn’t_ like to have that to -remember between us, dear,” she said, and blew her nose with as close an -approach to sentiment as could possibly be achieved in connection with -that organ. - -“You ridiculous old mummie! I assure you it hadn’t the slightest -application.” - -“Then _that’s_ all right,” Mrs. Daye returned, in quite her sprightly -manner. “I’ll refuse the St. Georges’ dinner on Friday night; it’s only -decent that we should keep rather quiet for a fortnight or so, till it -blows over a little. And we shall get rid of you, my dear child, I’m -perfectly certain, quite soon enough,” she added over her shoulder, as -she rustled out. “With your brains, you might even marry very well at -home. But your father is sure to be put out about this—awfully put out!” - -“Do you know, Buzz,” murmured Rhoda a moment later (the terrier had -jumped into her lap), “if I had been left an orphan in my early youth, I -fancy I would have borne it better than most people.” - - - - - CHAPTER XII. - - -The editor of the _Word of Truth_ sat in his office correcting a proof. -The proof looked insurmountably difficult of correction, because it was -printed in Bengali; but Tarachand Mookerjee’s eye ran over it nimbly, -and was accompanied by a smile, ever expanding and contracting, of -pleased, almost childish appreciation. The day was hot, unusually so for -February; and as the European editors up-town worked in their -shirt-sleeves, so Tarachand Mookerjee worked in his _dhoty_, which left -him bare from his waist up—bare and brown and polished, like a figure -carved in mahogany, for his ribs were very visible. He wore nothing -else, except patent leather shoes and a pair of white cotton stockings, -originally designed for a more muscular limb, if for a weaker sex. These -draperies were confined below the knee by pieces of the red tape with -which a considerate Government tied up the reports and resolutions it -sent the editor of the _Word of Truth_ for review. Above Tarachand’s -three-cornered face his crisp black hair stood in clumps of oily and -admired disorder; he had early acquired the literary habit of running -his fingers through it. He had gentle, velvety eyes, and delicate -features, and a straggling beard. He had lost two front teeth, and his -attenuated throat was well sunk between his narrow shoulders. This gave -him the look of a poor nervous creature; and, indeed, there was not a -black-and-white terrier in Calcutta that could not have frightened him -horribly. Yet he was not in the least afraid of a watch-dog belonging to -Government—an official translator who weekly rendered up a confidential -report of the emanations of the _Word of Truth_ in English—because he -knew that this animal’s teeth were drawn by the good friends of Indian -progress in the English Parliament. - -Tarachand did almost everything that had to be done for the _Word of -Truth_ except the actual printing; although he had a nephew at the -Scotch Mission College who occasionally wrote a theatrical notice for -him in consideration of a free ticket, and who never ceased to urge him -to print the paper in English, so that he, the nephew, might have an -opportunity of practising composition in that language. It was Tarachand -who translated the news out of the European papers into his own columns, -where it read backwards, who reviewed the Bengali school-books written -by the pundits of his acquaintance, who “fought” the case of the baboo -in the Public Works Department dismissed for the trivial offence of -stealing blotting-paper. It was, above all, Tarachand who wrote -editorials about the conduct of the Government of India: that was the -business of his life, his morning and his evening meditation. Tarachand -had a great pull over the English editors uptown here; had a great pull, -in fact, over any editors anywhere who felt compelled to base their -opinions upon facts, or to express them with an eye upon consequences. -Tarachand knew nothing about facts—it is doubtful whether he would -recognise one if he saw it—and consequences did not exist for him. In -place of these drawbacks he had the great advantages of imagination and -invective. He was therefore able to write the most graphic editorials. - -He believed them, too, with the open-minded, admiring simplicity that -made him wax and wane in smiles over this particular proof. I doubt -whether Tarachand could be brought to understand the first principles of -veracity as applied to public affairs, unless possibly through his -pocket. A definition to the Aryan mind is always best made in rupees, -and to be mulcted heavily by a court of law might give him a grieved and -surprised, but to some extent convincing education in political ethics. -It would necessarily interfere at the same time, however, with his -untrammelled and joyous talent for the creation and circulation of cheap -fiction; it would be a hard lesson, and in the course of it Tarachand -would petition with fervid loyalty and real tears. Perhaps it was on -some of these accounts that the Government of India had never run -Tarachand in. - -Even for an editor’s office it was a small room, and though it was on -the second floor, the walls looked as if fungi grew on them in the -rains. The floor was littered with publications; for the _Word of Truth_ -was taken seriously in Asia and in Oxford, and “exchanged” with a number -of periodicals devoted to theosophical research, or the destruction of -the opium revenue, or the protection of the sacred cow by combination -against the beef-eating Briton. In one corner lay a sprawling blue heap -of the reports and resolutions before mentioned, accumulating the dust -of the year, at the end of which Tarachand would sell them for waste -paper. For the rest, there was the editorial desk, with a chair on each -side of it, the editorial gum-pot and scissors and waste-paper basket; -and portraits, cut from the _Illustrated London News_, askew on the wall -and wrinkling in their frames, of Max Müller and Lord Ripon. The warm -air was heavy with the odour of fresh printed sheets, and sticky with -Tarachand’s personal anointing of cocoa-nut oil, and noisy with the -clamping of the press below, the scolding of the crows, the eternal -wrangle of the streets. Through the open window one saw the sunlight -lying blindly on the yellow-and-pink upper stories, with their winding -outer staircases and rickety balconies and narrow barred windows, of the -court below. - -Tarachand finished his proof and put it aside to cough. He was bent -almost double, and still coughing when Mohendra Lal Chuckerbutty came -in; so that the profusion of smiles with which he welcomed his brother -journalist was not undimmed with tears. They embraced strenuously, -however, and Mohendra, with a corner of his nether drapery, tenderly -wiped the eyes of Tarachand. For the moment the atmosphere became doubly -charged with oil and sentiment, breaking into a little storm of phrases -of affection and gestures of respect. When it had been gone through -with, these gentlemen of Bengal sat opposite each other beaming, and -turned their conversation into English as became gentlemen of Bengal. - -“I deplore,” said Mohendra Lal Chuckerbutty concernedly, with one fat -hand outspread on his knee, “to see that this iss still remaining with -you——” - -The other, with a gesture, brushed his ailment away. “Oh, it iss -nothing—nothing whatever! I have been since three days under -astronomical treatment of Dr. Chatterjee. ‘Sir,’ he remarked me -yesterday, as I was leaving his höwwse, ‘after _one_ month you will be -again salubrious. You will be on legs again—_take_ my word!’” - -Mohendra leaned back in his chair, put his head on one side, and -described a right angle with one leg and the knee of the other. “Smart -chap, Chatterjee!” he said, in perfect imitation of the casual sahib. He -did not even forget to smooth his chin judicially as he said it. The -editor of the _Word of Truth_, whose social opportunities had been -limited to his own caste, looked on with admiration. - -“And what news do you bring? But already I have perused the _Bengal Free -Press_ of to-day, so without doubt I know all the news!” Tarachand made -this professional compliment as coyly and insinuatingly as if he and -Mohendra had been sweethearts. “I can_not_ withhold my congratulations -on that leader of thiss morning,” he went on fervently. “Here it is to -my hand; diligently I have been studying it with awful admiration.” - -Mohendra’s chin sank into his neck in a series of deprecating nods and -inarticulate expressions of dissent, and his eyes glistened. Tarachand -took up the paper and read from it:— - - “‘THE SATRAP AND THE COLLEGES.’ - -“Ah, how will His Honour look when he sees that! - -“‘Is it possible, we ask all sane men with a heart in their bosom, that -Dame Rumour is right in her prognostications? Can it be true that the -tyrant of Belvedere will dare to lay his hand on the revenue sacredly -put aside to shower down upon our young hopefuls the mother’s milk of an -Alma Mater upon any pretext whatsoever? We fear the affirmative. Even as -we go to press the knell of higher education may be sounding, and any -day poor Bengal may learn from a rude Notification in the _Gazette_ that -her hope of progress has been shattered by the blasting pen of the -caitiff Church. We will not mince matters, nor hesitate to proclaim to -the housetops that the author of this dastardly action is but a poor -stick. Doubtless he will say that the College grants are wanted for this -or for that; but full well the people of this province know it is to -swell the fat pay of boot-licking English officials that they are -wanted. A wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse, and any excuse will -serve when an autocrat without fear of God or man sits upon the _gaddi_. -Many are the pitiable cases of hardship that will now come to view. One -amongst thousands will serve. Known to the writer is a family man, and a -large one. He has been blessed with seven sons, all below the age of -nine. Up to the present he has been joyous as a lark and playful as a -kitten, trusting in the goodness of Government to provide the nutrition -of their minds and livelihoods. Now he is beating his breast, for his -treasures will be worse than orphans. How true are the words of the -poet— - - “‘Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, - Tenets with books, and principles with times!’ - -Again and yet again have we exposed the hollow, heartless and vicious -policy of the acting Lieutenant-Governor, but, alas! without result. - - “‘Destroy his fib or sophistry—in vain; - The creature’s at his dirty work again!’ - -But will this province sit tamely down under its brow-beating? A -thousand times no! We will appeal to the justice, to the mercy of -England, through our noble friends in Parliament, and the lash will yet -fall like a scorpion upon the shrinking hide of the coward who would -filch the people from their rights.’” - -Tarachand stopped to cough, and his round liquid eyeballs, as he turned -them upon Mohendra, stood out of their creamy whites with enthusiasm. -“One word,” he cried, as soon as he had breath: “you are the Ma_cau_lay -of Bengal! No less. The Ma_cau_lay of Bengal!” - -(John Church, when he read Mohendra’s article next day, laughed, but -uneasily. He knew that in all Bengal there is no such thing as a sense -of humour.) - -“My own feeble pen,” Tarachand went on deprecatingly, “has been busy at -this thing for the to-morrow’s issue. I also have been saying some -worthless remark, perhaps not altogether beyond the point,” and the -corrected proof went across the table to Mohendra. While he glanced -through it Tarachand watched him eagerly, reflecting every shade of -expression that passed over the other man’s face. When Mohendra smiled -Tarachand laughed out with delight, when Mohendra looked grave -Tarachand’s countenance was sunk in melancholy. - -“‘Have the hearts of the people of India turned to water that any son of -English mud may ride over their prostrate forms?’” - -he read aloud in Bengali. “That is well said. - -“‘Too often the leaders of the people have waited on the -Lieutenant-Governor to explain desirable matters, but the counsel of -grey hairs has not been respected. Three Vedas, and the fourth a cudgel! -The descendants of monkeys have forgotten that once before they played -too many tricks. The white dogs want another lesson.’ - -“A-ha!” Mohendra paused to comment, smiling. “Very good talk. But it is -necessary also to be a little careful. After that—it is my advice—you -say how Bengalis are loyal before everything.” - -The editor of the _Word of Truth_ slowly shook his head, showing, in his -contemptuous amusement, a row of glittering teeth stained with the red -of the betel. “No harm can come,” he said. “They dare not muzzle thee -press.” The phrase was pat and familiar. “When the loin-cloth burns one -must speak out. I am a poor man, and I have sons. Where is their rice to -come from? Am I a man without shame, that I should let the Sirkar turn -them into carpenters?” In his excitement Tarachand had dropped into his -own tongue. - -“‘Education to Bengalis is as dear as religion. They have fought for -religion, they may well fight for education. Let the game go on; let -European officials grow fat on our taxes; let the wantons, their women, -dance in the arms of men, and look into their faces with impudence, at -the _tamashos_ of the Burra Lât as before. But if the Sirkar robs the -poor Bengali of his education let him beware. He will become without -wings or feathers, while Shiva will protect the helpless and those with -a just complaint.’ - -“Without doubt that will make a _sen_sation,” Mohendra said, handing -back the proof. “With_out_ doubt! You can have much more the courage of -your opinion in the vernacular. English—that iss a_noth_er thing. I -wrote myséêlf, last week, some issmall criticism on the Chairman of the -Municipality, maybe half a column—about that new drain in Colootollah -which we must put our hand in our pocket. Yesterda-ay I met the Chairman -on the Red Road, and he takes no notiss off my face! That was _not_ -pleasant. To-day I am writing on issecond thoughts we cannot live -without drainage, and I will send him marked copy. But in that way it -iss troublesome, the English.” - -“These Europeans they have no eye-shame. They are entirely made of wood. -But I think this Notification will be a nice kettle of fish! Has the -Committee got isspeakers for the mass meeting on the Maidan?” - -Mohendra nodded complacently. “Already it is being arranged. For a month -I have known every word spoken by His Honour on this thing. I have the -_best_ information. Every week I am watching the _Gazette_. The morning -of publication _ekdum_[B] goes telegram to our good friend in -Parliament. Agitation in England, agitation in India! Either will come -another Royal Commission to upset the thing, or the Lieutenant-Governor -is forced to _re_tire.” - ------ - -Footnote B: - - In one breath. - ------ - -Mohendra’s nods became oracular. Then his expression grew seriously -regretful. “Myséêlf I hope they will—what iss it in English?—_w’itewass_ -him with a commission. It goes against me to see disgrace on a high -official. It is _not_ pleasant. He means well—he _means_ well. And at -heart he is a very good fellow—personally I have had much agreeable -conversation with him. Always he has asked me to his garden-parties.” - -“He has set fire to his own beard, brother,” said the editor of the -_Word of Truth_ in the vernacular, spitting. - -“Very true—oh, very true! And all the more we must attack him because I -see the reptile English press, in Calcutta, in Bombay, in Allahabad, -they are upholding this dacoity. That iss the only word—dacoity.” -Mohendra rose. “And we two have both off us the best occasion to fight,” -he added beamingly, as he took his departure, “for did we not graduate -hand in hand that same year out off Calcutta University?” - - * * * * * - -“God knows, Ancram, I believe it is the right thing to do!” - -John Church had reached his difficult moment—the moment he had learned -to dread. It lay in wait for him always at the end of unbaffled -investigation, of hard-fast steering by principle, of determined -preliminary action of every kind—the actual executive moment. Neither -the impulse of his enthusiasm nor the force of his energy ever sufficed -to carry him over it comfortably; rather, at this point, they ebbed -back, leaving him stranded upon his responsibility, which invariably at -once assumed the character of a quicksand. He was never defeated by -himself at these junctures, but he hated them. He turned out from -himself then, consciously seeking support and reinforcement, to which at -other times he was indifferent; and it was in a crisis of desire for -encouragement that he permitted himself to say to Lewis Ancram that God -knew he believed the College Grants Notification was the right thing to -do. He had asked Ancram to wait after the Council meeting was over very -much for this purpose. - -“Yes, sir,” the Chief Secretary replied; “if I may be permitted to say -so, it is the most conscientious piece of legislation of recent years.” - -The Lieutenant-Governor looked anxiously at Ancram from under his bushy -eyebrows, and then back again at the Notification. It lay in broad -margined paragraphs of beautiful round baboo’s handwriting, covering a -dozen pages of foolscap, before him on the table. It waited only for his -ultimate decision to go to the Government Printing Office and appear in -the _Gazette_ and be law to Bengal. Already he had approved each -separate paragraph. His Chief Secretary had never turned out a better -piece of work. - -“To say precisely what is in my mind, Ancram,” Church returned, -beginning to pace the empty chamber, “I have sometimes thought that you -were not wholly with me in this matter.” - -“I will not disguise from you, sir”—Ancram spoke with candid -emphasis—“that I think it’s a risky thing to do, a—deuced risky thing.” -His Honour was known to dislike strong language. “But as to the -principle involved there can be no two opinions.” - -His Honour’s gaunt shadow passed and repassed against the oblong patch -of westering February sunlight that lightened the opposite wall before -he replied. - -“I am prepared for an outcry,” he said slowly at last. “I think I can -honestly say that I am concerned only with the principle—with the -possible harm, and the probable good.” - -Ancram felt a rising irritation. He reflected that if His Honour had -chosen to take him into confidence earlier, he—Mr. Ancram—might have -been saved a considerable amount of moral unpleasantness. By taking him -into confidence now the Lieutenant-Governor merely added to it -appreciably and, Ancram pointed out to himself, undeservedly. He played -with his watch-chain for distraction, and looked speculatively at the -Notification, and said that one thing was certain, they could depend -upon His Excellency if it came to any nonsense with the Secretary of -State. “Scansleigh is loyal to his very marrow. He’ll stand by us, -whatever happens.” No one admired the distinguishing characteristic of -the Viceroy of India more than the Chief Secretary of the Government of -Bengal. - -“Scansleigh sees it as I do,” Church returned; “and I see it plainly. At -least I have not spared myself—nor any one else,” he added, with a smile -of admission which was at the moment pathetic, “in working the thing up. -My action has no bearing that I have not carefully examined. Nothing can -result from it that I do not expect—at least approximately—to happen.” - -Ancram almost imperceptibly raised his eyebrows. The gesture, with its -suggestion of dramatic superiority, was irresistible to him; he would -have made it if Church had been looking at him; but the eyes of the -Lieutenant-Governor were fixed upon the sauntering multitude in the -street below. He turned from the window, and went on with a kind of -passion. - -“I tell you, Ancram, I feel my responsibility in this thing, and I will -not carry it any longer in the shape of a curse to my country. I don’t -speak of the irretrievable mischief that is being done by the wholesale -creation of a clerkly class for whom there is no work, or of the danger -of putting that sharpest tool of modern progress—higher education—into -hands that can only use it to destroy. When we have helped these people -to shatter all their old notions of reverence and submission and -self-abnegation and piety, and given them, for such ideals as their -fathers had, the scepticism and materialism of the West, I don’t know -that we shall have accomplished much to our credit. But let that pass. -The ultimate consideration is this: You know and I know where the money -comes from—the three lakhs and seventy-five thousand rupees—that goes -every year to make B.A.s of Calcutta University. It’s a commonplace to -say that it is sweated in annas and pice out of the cultivators of the -villages—poor devils who live and breed and rot in pest-stricken holes -we can’t afford to drain for them, who wear one rag the year through and -die of famine when the rice harvest fails! The ryot pays, that the -money-lender who screws him and the landowner who bullies him may give -their sons a cheap European education.” - -“The wonder is,” Ancram replied, “that it has not been acknowledged a -beastly shame long ago. The vested interest has never been very strong.” - -“Ah well,” Church said more cheerfully, “we have provided for the vested -interest; and my technical schools will, I hope, go some little way -toward providing for the cultivators. At all events they will teach him -to get more out of his fields. It’s a tremendous problem, that,” he -added, refolding the pages with a last glance, and slipping them into -their cover: “the ratio at which population is increasing out here and -the limited resources of the soil.” - -He had reassumed the slightly pedantic manner that was characteristic of -him; he was again dependent upon himself, and resolved. - -“Send it off at once, will you?” he said; and Ancram gave the packet to -a waiting messenger. “A weighty business off my mind,” he added, with a -sigh of relief. “Upon my word, Ancram, I am surprised to find you so -completely in accord with me. I fancied you would have objections to -make at the last moment, and that I should have to convince you. I -rather wanted to convince somebody. But I am very pleased indeed to be -disappointed!” - -“It is a piece of work which has my sincerest admiration, sir,” Ancram -answered; and as the two men descended the staircases from the Bengal -Council Chamber to the street, the Lieutenant-Governor’s hand rested -upon the arm of his Chief Secretary in a way that was almost -affectionate. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII. - - -Three days later the Notification appeared. John Church sat tensely -through the morning, unconsciously preparing himself for -emergencies—deputations, petitions, mobs. None of these occurred. The -day wore itself out in the usual routine, and in the evening His Honour -was somewhat surprised to meet at dinner a member of the Viceroy’s -Council who was not aware that anything had been done. He turned with -some eagerness next morning to the fourth page of his newspaper, and -found its leading article illuminating the subject of an archæological -discovery in Orissa, made some nine months previously. The -Lieutenant-Governor was an energetic person, and did not understand the -temper of Bengal. He had published a Notification subversive of the -educational policy of the Government for sixty years, and he expected -this proceeding to excite immediate attention. He gave it an importance -almost equal to that of the Derby Sweepstakes. This, however, was in -some degree excusable, considering the short time he had spent in -Calcutta and the persevering neglect he had shown in observing the tone -of society. - -Even the telegram to the sympathetic Member of Parliament failed of -immediate transmission. Mohendra Lal Chuckerbutty wrote it out with -emotion; then he paused, remembering that the cost of telegrams paid for -by enthusiastic private persons was not easily recoverable from -committees. Mohendra was a solid man, but there were funds for this -purpose. He decided that he was not justified in speeding the nation’s -cry for succour at his own expense; so he submitted the telegram to the -committee, which met at the end of the week. The committee asked -Mohendra to cut it down and let them see it again. In the end it arrived -at Westminster almost as soon as the mail. Mohendra, besides, had his -hands and his paper full, at the moment, with an impassioned attack upon -an impulsive judge of the High Court who had shot a bullock with its -back broken. As to the _Word of Truth_, Tarachand Mookerjee was -celebrating his daughter’s wedding, at the time the Notification was -published, with tom-toms and sweetmeats and a very expensive nautch, and -for three days the paper did not appear at all. - -The week lengthened out, and the Lieutenant-Governor’s anxiety grew -palpably less. His confidence had returned to such a degree that when -the officers of the Education Department absented themselves in a body -from the first of his succeeding entertainments he was seriously -disturbed. “It’s childish,” he said to Judith. “By my arrangement not a -professor among them will lose a pice either in pay or pension. If the -people are anxious enough for higher education to pay twice as much for -it as they do now these fellows will go on with their lectures. If not, -we’ll turn them into inspectors, or superintendents of the technical -schools.” - -“I can understand a certain soreness on the subject of their dignity,” -his wife suggested. - -Church frowned impatiently. “People might think less of their dignity in -this country and more of their duty, with advantage,” he said, and she -understood that the discussion was closed. - -The delay irritated Ancram, who was a man of action. He told other -people that he feared it was only the ominous lull before the storm, and -assured himself that no man could hurry Bengal. Nevertheless, the terms -in which he advised Mohendra Lal Chuckerbutty, who came to see him every -Sunday afternoon, were successful to the point of making that Aryan -drive rather faster on his way back to the _Bengal Free Press_ office. -At the end of a fortnight Mr. Ancram was able to point to the -verification of his prophecy; it had been the lull before the storm, -which developed, two days later, in the columns of the native press, -into a tornado. - -“I tell you,” said he, “you might as well petition Sri Krishna as the -Viceroy,” when Mohendra Lal Chuckerbutty reverted to this method of -obtaining redress. Mohendra, who was a Hindoo of orthodoxy, may well -have found this flippant, but he only smiled, and assented, and went -away and signed the petition. He yielded to the natural necessity of the -pathetic temperament of his countrymen—even when they were university -graduates and political agitators—to implore before they did anything -else. An appeal was distilled and forwarded. The Viceroy promptly -indicated the nature of his opinions by refusing to receive this -document unless it reached him through the proper channel—which was the -Bengal Government. The prayer of humility then became a shriek of -defiance, a transition accomplished with remarkable rapidity in Bengal. -In one night Calcutta flowered mysteriously into coloured cartoons, -depicting the Lieutenant-Governor in the prisoner’s dock, charged by the -Secretary of State, on the bench, with the theft of bags of gold marked -“College Grants”; while the Director of Education, weeping bitterly, -gave evidence against him. The Lieutenant-Governor was represented in a -green frock-coat and the Secretary of State in a coronet, which made -society laugh, and started a wave of interest in the College Grants -Notification. John Church saw it in people’s faces at his garden -parties, and it added to the discomfort with which he read -advertisements of various mass meetings, in protest, to be held -throughout the province, and noticed among the speakers invariably the -unaccustomed names of the Rev. Professor Porter of the Exeter Hall -Institute, the Rev. Dr. MacInnes of the Caledonian Mission, and Father -Ambrose, who ruled St. Dominic’s College, and who certainly insisted, as -part of _his_ curriculum, upon the lives of the Saints. - -The afternoon of the first mass meeting in Calcutta closed into the -evening of the last ball of the season at Government House. A petty -royalty from Southern Europe, doing the grand tour, had trailed his -clouds of glory rather indolently late into Calcutta; and, as society -anxiously emphasized, there was practically only a single date available -before Lent for a dance in his honour. When it was understood that Their -Excellencies would avail themselves of this somewhat contracted -opportunity, society beamed upon itself, and said it knew they -would—they were the essence of hospitality. - -There are three square miles of the green Maidan, round which Calcutta -sits in a stucco semi-circle, and past which her brown river runs to the -sea. Fifteen thousand people, therefore, gathered in one corner of it, -made a somewhat unusually large patch of white upon the grass, but were -not otherwise impressive, and in no wise threatening. Society, which had -forgotten about the mass meeting, put up its eye-glass, driving on the -Red Road, and said that there was evidently something “going -on”—probably a football team of Tommies from the Fort playing the town. -Only two or three elderly officials, taking the evening freshness in -solitary walks, looked with anxious irritation at the densely-packed -mass; and Judith Church, driving home through the smoky yellow twilight, -understood the meaning of the cheers the south wind softened and -scattered abroad. They brought her a stricture of the heart with the -thought of John Church’s devotion to these people. Ingrates, she named -them to herself, with compressed lips—ingrates, traitors, hounds! Her -eyes filled with the impotent tears of a woman’s pitiful indignation; -her heart throbbed with a pang of new recognition of her husband’s -worth, and of tenderness for it, and of unrecognised pain beneath that -even this could not constitute him her hero and master. She asked -herself bitterly—I fear her politics were not progressive—what the -people in England meant by encouraging open and ignorant sedition in -India, and whole passages came eloquently into her mind of the speech -she would make in Parliament if she were but a man and a member. They -brought her some comfort, but she dismissed them presently to reflect -seriously whether something might not be done. She looked courageously -at the possibility of imprisoning Dr. MacInnes. Then she too thought of -the ball, and subsided upon the determination of consulting Lewis -Ancram, at the ball, upon this point. She drew a distinct ethical -satisfaction from her intention. It seemed in the nature of a -justification for the quickly pulsating pleasure with which she looked -forward to the evening. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV. - - -Gentlemen native to Bengal are not usually invited to balls at -Government House. It is unnecessary to speak of the ladies: they are -non-existent to the social eye, even if it belongs to a Viceroy. The -reason is popularly supposed to be the inability of gentlemen native to -Bengal to understand the waltz, except by Aryan analysis. It is thought -well to circumscribe their opportunities of explaining it thus, and they -are asked instead to evening parties which offer nothing more -stimulating to the imagination than conversation and champagne—of -neither of which they partake. On this occasion however, at the entreaty -of the visiting royalty, the rule was relaxed to admit perhaps fifty; -and when Lewis Ancram arrived—rather late—the first personality he -recognised as in any way significant was that of Mohendra Lal -Chuckerbutty, who leaned against a pillar, with his hands clasped behind -him, raptly contemplating a polka. Mohendra, too, had an appreciation of -personalities, and of his respectful duty to them. He bore down in -Ancram’s direction unswervingly through the throng, his eye humid with -happiness, his hand held out in an impulse of affection. When he thought -he had arrived at the Chief Secretary’s elbow he looked about him in -some astonishment. A couple of subalterns in red jackets disputed with -mock violence over the dance-card of a little girl in white, and a much -larger lady was waiting with imposing patience until he should be -pleased to get off her train. At the same moment an extremely correct -black back glanced through the palms into the verandah. - -The verandah was very broad and high, and softly lighted in a way that -made vague glooms visible and yet gave a gentle radiance to the sweep of -pale-tinted drapery that here and there suggested a lady sunk in the -depths of a roomy arm-chair, playing with her fan and talking in -undertones. It was a place of delicious mystery, in spite of the strains -of the orchestra that throbbed out from the ball-room, in spite of the -secluded fans opening and closing in some commonplace of Calcutta -flirtation. The mystery came in from without, where the stars crowded -down thick and luminous behind the palms, and a grey mist hung low in -the garden beneath, turning it into a fantasy of shadowed forms and -filmy backgrounds and new significances. Out there, in the wide spaces -beyond the tall verandah pillars, the spirit of the spring was -abroad—the troubled, throbbing, solicitous Indian spring, perfumed and -tender. The air was warm and sweet and clinging; it made life a -pathetic, enjoyable necessity, and love a luxury of much refinement. - -Ancram folded his arms and stood in the doorway and permitted himself to -feel these things. If he was not actually looking for Judith Church, it -was because he was always, so to speak, anticipating her; in a state of -readiness to receive the impression of her face, the music of her voice. -Mrs. Church was the reason of the occasion, the reason of every occasion -in so far as it concerned him. She seemed simply the corollary of his -perception of the exquisite night when he discovered her presently, on -one of the more conspicuous sofas, talking to Sir Peter Bloomsbury. She -was waiting for him to find her, with a little flickering smile that -came in the pauses between Sir Peter’s remarks; and when Ancram -approached he noticed, with as keen a pleasure as he was capable of -feeling, that her replies to this dignitary were made somewhat at -random. - -Their conversation changed when Sir Peter went away only to take its -note of intimacy and its privilege of pauses. They continued to speak of -trivial matters, and to talk in tones and in things they left unsaid. -His eyes lingered in the soft depths of hers to ascertain whether the -roses were doing well this year at Belvedere, and there was a conscious -happiness in the words with which she told him that they were quite -beyond her expectations not wholly explicable even by so idyllic a fact. -The content of their neigbourhood surrounded them like an atmosphere, -beyond which people moved about irrationally and a string band played -unmeaning selections much too loud. She was lovelier than he had ever -seen her, more his possession than he had ever felt her—the incarnation, -as she bent her graceful head towards him, of the eloquent tropical -night and the dreaming tropical spring. He told himself afterwards that -he felt at this moment an actual pang of longing, and rejoiced that he -could still experience an undergraduate’s sensation after so many years -of pleasures that were but aridly intellectual at their best. Certainly, -as he sat there in his irreproachable clothes and attitude, he knew that -his blood was beating warm to his finger-tips with a delicious impulse -to force the sweet secret of the situation between them. The south wind -suggested to him, through the scent of breaking buds, that prudence was -entirely a relative thing, and not even relative to a night like this -and a woman like that. As he looked at a tendril of her hair, blown -against the warm whiteness of her neck, it occurred to the Honourable -Mr. Ancram that he might go a little further. He felt divinely rash; but -his intention was to go only a little further. Hitherto he had gone no -distance at all. - -The south wind drove them along together. Judith felt it on her neck and -arms, and in little, cool, soft touches about her face. She did not -pause to question the happiness it brought her: there were other times -for pauses and questions; her eyes were ringed with them, under the -powder. She abandoned herself to her woman’s divine sense of ministry; -and the man she loved observed that she did it with a certain inimitable -poise, born of her confidence in him, which was as new as it was -entrancing. - -People began to flock downstairs to supper in the wake of the Viceroy -and the visiting royalty; the verandah emptied itself. Presently they -became aware that they were alone. - -“You have dropped your fan,” Ancram said, and picked it up. He looked at -its device for a moment, and then restored it. Judith’s hands were lying -in her lap, and he slipped the fan into one of them, letting his own -rest for a perceptible instant in the warm palm of the other. There -ensued a tumultuous silence. He had only underscored a glance of hers; -yet it seemed that he had created something—something as formidable as -lovely, as embarrassing as divine. As he gently withdrew his hand she -lifted her eyes to his with mute entreaty, and he saw that they were -full of tears. He told himself afterwards that he had been profoundly -moved; but this did not interfere with his realisation that it was an -exquisite moment. - -Ancram regarded her gravely, with a smile of much consideration. He gave -her a moment of time, and then, as she did not look up again, he leaned -forward, and said, quite naturally and evenly, as if the proposition -were entirely legitimate: “The relation between us is too tacit. Tell me -that you love me, dear.” - -For an instant he repented, since it seemed that she would be carried -along on the sweet tide of his words to the brink of an indiscretion. -Once more she looked up, softly seeking his eyes; and in hers he saw so -lovely a light of self-surrender that he involuntarily thanked Heaven -that there was no one else to recognise it. In her face was nothing but -the thought of him; and, seeing this, he had a swift desire to take her -in his arms and experience at its fullest and sweetest the sense that -she and her little empire were gladly lost there. In the pause of her -mute confession he felt the strongest exultation he had known. Her -glance reached him like a cry from an unexplored country; the revelation -of her love filled him with the knowledge that she was infinitely more -adorable and more desirable than he had thought her. From that moment -she realised to him a supreme good, and he never afterwards thought of -his other ambitions without a smile of contempt which was almost -genuine. But she said nothing: she seemed removed from any necessity of -speech, lifted up on a wave of absolute joy, and isolated from all that -lay either behind or before. He controlled his impatience for words from -her—for he was very sure of one thing; that when they came they would be -kind—and chose his own with taste. - -“Don’t you think that it would be better if we had the courage and the -candour to accept things as they are? Don’t you think we would be -stronger for all that we must face if we acknowledged—only to each -other—the pain and the sweetness of it?” - -“I have never been blind,” she said softly. - -“All I ask is that you will not even pretend to be. Is that too much?” - -“How can it be a question of that?” Her voice trembled a little. Then -she hurried illogically on: “But there can be no change—there must be no -change. These are things I hoped you would never say.” - -“The alternative is too wretched: to go on living a lie—and a stupid, -unnecessary lie. Why, in Heaven’s name, should there be the figment of -hypocrisy between us? I know that I must be content with very little, -but I am afraid there is no way of telling you how much I want that -little.” - -She had grown very pale, and she put up her hand and smoothed her hair -with a helpless, mechanical gesture. - -“No, no,” she said—“stop. Let us make an end of it quickly. I was very -well content to go on with the lie. I think I should always have been -content. But now there is no lie: there is nothing to stand upon any -longer. You must get leave, or something, and go away—or I will. I am -not—really—very well.” - -She looked at him miserably, with twitching lips, and he laid a soothing -hand—there was still no one to see—upon her arm. - -“Judith, don’t talk of impossibilities. How could we two live in one -world—and apart! Those are the heroics of a dear little schoolgirl. You -and I are older, and braver.” - -She put his hand away with a touch that was a caress, but only said -irrelevantly, “And Rhoda Daye might have loved you honestly!” - -“Ah, that threadbare old story!” He felt as if she had struck him, and -the feeling impelled him to ask her why she thought he deserved -punishment. “Not that it hurts,” Mr. Ancram added, almost resentfully. - -She gave him a look of vague surprise, and then lapsed, refusing to make -the effort to understand, into the troubled depths of her own thought. - -“Be a little kind, Judith. I only want a word.” - -The south wind brought them a sound out of the darkness—the high, faint, -long-drawn sound of a cheer from the Maidan. She lifted her head and -listened intently, with apprehensive eyes. Then she rose unsteadily from -her seat, and, as he gave her his arm in silence, she stood for a moment -gathering up her strength, and waiting, it seemed, for the sound to come -again. Nothing reached them but the wilder, nearer wail of the jackals -in the streets. - -“I must go home,” she said, in a voice that was quite steady; “I must -find my husband and go home.” - -He would have held her back, but she walked resolutely, if somewhat -purposelessly, round the long curve of the verandah, and stood still, -looking at the light that streamed out of the ballroom and glistened on -the leaves of a range of palms and crotons in pots that made a seclusion -there. - -“Then,” said Ancram, “I am to go on with the forlorn comfort of a guess. -I ought to be thankful, I suppose, that you can’t take that from me. -Perhaps you would,” he added bitterly, “if you could know how precious -it is.” - -His words seemed to fix her in a half-formed resolve. Her hand slipped -out of his arm, and she took a step away from him toward the crotons. -Against their dark green leaves he saw, with some alarm, how white her -face was. - -“Listen,” she said: “I think you do not realise it, but I know you are -hard and cruel. You ask me if I am not to you what I ought to be to my -husband, who is a good man, and who loves me, and trusts you. And, what -is worse, this has come up between us at a time when he is threatened -and troubled: on the very night when I meant—when I meant”—she stopped -to conquer the sob in her throat—“to have asked you to think of -something that might be done to help him. Well, but you ask me if I have -come to love you, and perhaps in a way you have a right to know; and the -truth is better, as you say. And I answer you that I have. I answer you -yes, it is true, and I know it will always be true. But from to-night -you will remember that every time I look into your face and touch your -hand I hurt my own honour and my husband’s, and—and you will not let me -see you often.” - -As Ancram opened his lips to speak, the cheer from the Maidan smote the -air again, and this time it seemed nearer. Judith took his arm -nervously. - -“What can they be doing out there?” she exclaimed. “Let us go—I must -find my husband—let us go!” - -They crossed the threshold into the ballroom, where John Church joined -them almost immediately, his black brows lightened by an unusually -cheerful expression. - -“I’ve been having a long talk with His Excellency,” he said to them -jointly. “An uncommonly capable fellow, Scansleigh. He tells me he has -written a strong private letter to the Secretary of State about this -Notification of mine. That’s bound to have weight, you know, in case -they make an attempt to get hold of Parliament at home.” - -As Mrs. Church and Mr. Lewis Ancram left the verandah a chair was -suddenly pushed back behind the crotons. Miss Rhoda Daye had been -sitting in the chair, alone too, with the south wind and the stars. She -had no warning of what she was about to overhear—no sound had reached -her, either of their talk or their approach—and in a somewhat agitated -colloquy with herself she decided that nothing could be so terrible as -her personal interruption of what Mrs. Church was saying. That lady’s -words, though low and rapid, were very distinct, and Rhoda heard them -out involuntarily, with a strong disposition to applaud her and to love -her. Then she turned a key upon her emotions and Judith Church’s secret, -and slipped quietly out to look for her mother, who asked her, between -her acceptance of an ice from the Home Secretary and a _petit four_ from -the General Commanding the Division, why on earth she looked so -depressed. - -[Illustration: “What do I know about the speech!”] - -Ancram, turning away from the Churches, almost ran into the arms of -Mohendra Lal Chuckerbutty, with whom he shook hands. His manner -expressed, combined with all the good will in the world, a slight -embarrassment that he could not remember Mohendra’s name, which is so -often to be noticed when European officials have occasion to greet -natives of distinction—natives of distinction are so very numerous and -so very similar. - -“I hope you are well!” beamed the editor of the _Bengal Free Press_. “It -is a very select party.” Then Mohendra dropped his voice confidentially: -“We have sent to England, by to-day’s mail, every word of the isspeech -of Dr. MacInnes——” - -“Damn you!” Ancram said, with a respectful, considering air: “what do I -know about the speech of Dr. MacInnes! _Jehannum jao!_”[C] - ------ - -Footnote C: - - “Go to Hades!” - ------ - -Mohendra laughed in happy acquiescence as the Chief Secretary bowed and -left him. “Certainlie! certainlie!” he said; “it is a very select -party!” - -The evening had one more incident. Mr. and Mrs. Church made their -retreat early: Judith’s face offered an excuse of fatigue which was -better than her words. Their carriage turned out of Circular Road with a -thickening crowd of natives talking noisily and walking in the same -direction. They caught up with a glare and the smell and smoke of -burning pitch. Judith said uneasily that there seemed to be a bonfire in -the middle of the road. They drew a little nearer, and the crowd massed -around them before and behind, on the bridge leading to Belvedere out of -the city. Then John Church perceived that the light streamed from a -burning figure which flamed and danced grotesquely, wired to a pole -attached to a bullock cart and pulled along by coolies. The absorbed -crowd that walked behind, watching and enjoying like excited children at -a show, chattered defective English, and the light from the burning -thing on the pole streamed upon faces already to some extent illumined -by the higher culture of the University Colleges. But it was not until -they recognised his carriage and outriders, and tried to hurry and to -scatter on the narrow bridge, that the Acting Lieutenant-Governor of -Bengal fully realised that he had been for some distance swelling a -procession which was entertaining itself with much gusto at the expense -of his own effigy. - - - - - CHAPTER XV. - - -When it became obvious that the College Grants Notification held fateful -possibilities for John Church personally, and for his wife incidentally, -it rapidly developed into a topic. Ladies, in the course of midday -visits in each other’s cool drawing-rooms, repeated things their -husbands had let fall at dinner the night before, and said they were -awfully sorry for Mrs. Church; it must be too trying for her, poor -thing. If it were only on _her_ account, some of them thought, the -Lieutenant-Governor—the “L.G.,” they called him—ought to let things go -on as they always had. What difference did it make anyway! At the clubs -the matter superseded, for the moment, the case of an army chaplain -accused of improper conduct at Singapore, and bets were freely laid on -the issue—three to one that Church would be “smashed.” If this attitude -seemed less sympathetic than that of the ladies, it betokened at least -no hostility. On the contrary, no small degree of appreciation was -current for His Honour. He would not have heard the matter discussed -often from his own point of view, but that was because his own point of -view was very much his own property. He might have heard himself -commended from a good many others, however, and especially on the ground -of his pluck. Men said between their cigars that very few fellows would -care to put their hands to such a piece of _zubberdusti_[D] at this end -of the century, however much it was wanted. Personally they hoped the -beggar would get it through, and with equal solicitude they proceeded to -bet that he wouldn’t. Among the sentiments the beggar evoked, perhaps -the liveliest was one of gratitude for so undeniable a sensation so near -the end of the cold weather, when sensations were apt to take flight, -with other agreeable things, to the hill stations. - ------ - -Footnote D: - - “High-handed proceeding.” - ------ - -The storm reached a point when the Bishop felt compelled to put forth an -allaying hand from the pulpit of the Cathedral. As the head of the -Indian Establishment the Bishop felt himself allied in no common way -with the governing power, and His Lordship was known to hold strong -views on the propriety with which lawn sleeves might wave above -questions of public importance. Besides, neither Dr. MacInnes nor -Professor Porter were lecturing on the binomial theorem under -Established guidance, while as to Father Ambrose, he positively invited -criticism, with his lives of the Saints. When, therefore, the Cathedral -congregation heard his Lordship begin his sermon with the sonorous -announcement from Ecclesiastes, - -“_For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge - increaseth sorrow. He—that increaseth—knowledge—increaseth—sorrow_,” - -it listened, with awakened interest, for a snub to Dr. MacInnes and -Professor Porter, and for a rebuke, full of dignity and austerity, to -Father Ambrose; both of which were duly administered. His Lordship’s -views, supported by the original Preacher, were doubtless more valuable -in his sermon than they would be here, but it is due to him to say that -they formed the happiest combination of fealty and doctrine. The -Honourable Mr. Ancram said to Sir William Scott on the Cathedral steps -after the service—it was like the exit of a London theatre, with people -waiting for their carriages—that while his Lordship’s reference was very -proper and could hardly fail to be of use, public matters looked serious -when they came to be discussed in the pulpit. To which Sir William gave -a deprecating agreement. - -Returning to his somewhat oppressively lonely quarters, Ancram felt the -need of further conversation. The Bishop had stirred him to vigorous -dissent, which his Lordship’s advantage of situation made peculiarly -irritating to so skilled an observer of weak points. He bethought -himself that he might write to Philip Doyle. He remembered that Doyle -had not answered the letter in which he had written of his changed -domestic future, frankly asking for congratulation rather than for -condolence; but without resentment, for why should a man trouble himself -under Florentine skies with unnecessary Calcutta correspondents? He -consulted only his own pleasure in writing again: Doyle was so readily -appreciative, he would see the humour in the development of affairs with -His Honour. It was almost a week since Mr. Ancram had observed at the -ball, with acute annoyance, what an unreasonable effect the matter was -having upon Judith Church, and he was again himself able to see the -humour of it. He finally wrote with much facility a graphically -descriptive letter, in which the Bishop came in as a mere picturesque -detail at the end. He seemed to pick his way, as he turned the pages, -out of an embarrassing moral quagmire; he was so obviously high and dry -when he could fix the whole thing in a caricature of effective -paragraphs. He wrote:— - -/# “I don’t mind telling you privately that I have no respect whatever -for the scheme, and very little for the author of it. He reminds one of -nothing so #/ /# much as an elderly hen sitting, with the obstinacy of -her kind, on eggs out of which it is easy to see no addled reform will -ever step to crow. He is as blind as a bat to his own deficiencies. I -doubt whether even his downfall will convince him that his proper sphere -of usefulness in life was that of a Radical cobbler. He has a noble -preference for the ideal of an impeccable Indian administrator, which he -goes about contemplating, while his beard grows with the tale of his -blunders. The end, however, cannot be far off. Bengal is howling for his -retirement; and, notwithstanding a fulsome habit he has recently -developed of hanging upon my neck for sympathy, I own to you that, if -circumstances permitted, I would howl too.” #/ - -Ancram’s first letter had miscarried, a peon in the service of the -Sirkar having abstracted the stamps; and Philip Doyle, when he received -the second, was for the moment overwhelmed with inferences from his -correspondent’s silence regarding the marriage, which should have been -imminent when he wrote. Doyle glanced rapidly through another Calcutta -letter that arrived with Ancram’s for possible news; but the brief -sensation of Miss Daye’s broken engagement had expired long before it -was written, and it contained no reference to the affair. The theory of -a postponement suggested itself irresistibly; and he spent an absorbed -and motionless twenty minutes, sitting on the edge of his bed, while his -pipe went out in his hand, looking fixedly at the floor of his room in -the hotel, and engaged in constructing the tissue of circumstances which -would make such a thing likely. If he did not grow consciously -lighter-hearted with this occupation, at least he turned, at the end of -it, to re-peruse his letters, as if they had brought him good news. He -read them both carefully again, and opened the newspaper that came with -the second. It was a copy of the _Bengal Free Press_, and his friend of -the High Court had called his special attention to its leading article, -as the most caustic and effective attack upon the College Grants -Notification which had yet appeared. Mr. Justice Shears wrote:— - -/# “As you will see, there is abundant intrinsic evidence that no native -wrote it. My own idea, which I share with a good many people, is that it -came from the pen of the Director of Education, which is as facile as it -would very naturally be hostile. Let me know #/ /# what you think. -Ancram is non-committal, but he talks of Government’s prosecuting the -paper, which looks as if the article had already done harm.” #/ - -Doyle went through the editorial with interest that increased as his eye -travelled down the column. He smiled as he read; it was certainly a -telling and a forcible presentation of the case against His Honour’s -policy, adorned with gibes that were more damaging than its argument. -Suddenly he stopped, with a puzzled look, and read the last part of a -sentence once again:— - -/# “But he has a noble preference for the ideal of an impeccable Indian -administrator, which he goes about contemplating, while his beard grows -with the tale of his blunders.” #/ - -The light of a sudden revelation twinkled in Doyle’s eyes—a revelation -which showed the Chief Secretary to the Bengal Government led on by -vanity to forgetfulness. He reopened Ancram’s letter, and convinced -himself that the words were precisely those he had read there. For -further assurance, he glanced at the dates of the letter and the -newspaper: the one had been written two days before the other had been -printed. Presently he put them down, and instinctively rubbed his thumb -and the ends of his fingers together with the light, rapid movement with -which people assure themselves that they have touched nothing soiling. -He permitted himself no characterisation of the incident—lofty -denunciation was not part of Doyle’s habit of mind—beyond what might -have been expressed in the somewhat disgusted smile with which he -re-lighted his pipe. It was like him that his principal reflection had a -personal tinge, and that it was forcible enough to find words. “And I,” -he said, with a twinkle at his own expense, “lived nine months in the -same house with that skunk!” - - - - - CHAPTER XVI. - - -Every day at ten o’clock the south wind came hotter and stronger up from -the sea. The sissoo trees on the Maidan trembled into delicate flower, -and their faint, fresh fragrance stood like a spell about them. The teak -pushed out its awkward rags, tawdry and foolish, but divinely green; and -here and there a tamarind by the roadside lifted its gracious head, like -a dream-tree in a billow of misty leaf. The days grew long and lovely; -the coolies going home at sunset across the burnt grass of the Maidan -joined hands and sang, with marigolds round their necks. The white-faced -aliens of Calcutta walked there too, but silently, for “exercise.” The -crows grew noisier than ever, for it was young crow time; the fever-bird -came and told people to put up their punkahs. The Viceroy and all that -were officially his departed to Simla, and great houses in Chowringhee -were to let. It was announced rather earlier than usual that His Honour -the Lieutenant-Governor would go “on tour,” which had no reference to -Southern Europe, but meant inspection duty in remote parts of the -province. Mrs. Church would accompany the Lieutenant-Governor. The local -papers, in making this known, said it was hoped that the change of air -would completely restore “one of Calcutta’s most brilliant and popular -hostesses,” whose health for the past fortnight had been regrettably -unsatisfactory. - -The Dayes went to Darjiling, and Dr. MacInnes to England. Dr. MacInnes’ -expenses to England, and those of Shib Chunder Bhose, who accompanied -him, were met out of a fund which had swelled astonishingly considering -that it was fed by Bengali sentiment—the fund established to defeat the -College Grants Notification. Dr. MacInnes went home, as one of the noble -band of Indian missionaries, to speak to the people of England, and to -explain to them how curiously the administrative mind in India became -perverted in its conceptions of the mother country’s duty to the heathen -masses who look to her for light and guidance. Dr. MacInnes was prepared -to say that the cause of Christian missions in India had been put back -fifty years by the ill-judged act, so fearful in its ultimate -consequences, of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. Since that high -official could not be brought to consider his responsibility to his -Maker, he should be brought to consider his responsibility to the people -of England. Dr. MacInnes doubtless did not intend to imply that the -latter tribunal was the higher of the two, but he certainly produced the -impression that it was the more effective. - -Shib Chunder Bhose, in fluent and deferential language, heightened this -impression, which did no harm to the cause. Shib Chunder Bhose had been -found willing, in consideration of a second-class passage, to accompany -Dr. MacInnes in the character of a University graduate who was also a -Christian convert. Shib Chunder’s father had married a Mohamedan woman, -and so lost his caste, whereafter he embraced Christianity because -Father Ambrose’s predecessor had given him four annas every time he came -to catechism. Shib Chunder inherited the paternal religion, with -contumely added on the score of his mother, and, since he could make no -other pretension, figured in the College register as Christian. A young -man anxious to keep pace with the times, he had been a Buddhist since, -and afterwards professed his faith in the tenets of Theosophy; but -whenever he fell ill or lost money he returned irresistibly to the -procedure of his youth, and offered rice and marigolds to the Virgin -Mary. Dr. MacInnes therefore certainly had the facts on his side when he -affectionately referred to his young friend as living testimony to the -work of educational missions in India, living proof of the falsity of -the charge that the majority of mission colleges were mere secular -institutions. As his young friend wore a frock-coat and a humble smile, -and was able on occasion to weep like anything, the effect in the -provinces was tremendous. - -Dr. MacInnes gave himself to the work with a zeal which entirely merited -the commendation he received from his conscience. Sometimes he lectured -twice a day. He was always freely accessible to interviewers from the -religious press. He refrained, in talking to these gentlemen, from all -personal malediction of the Lieutenant-Governor—it was the sin he had to -do with, not the distinguished sinner—and thereby gained a widespread -reputation for unprejudiced views. Portraits of the reverend crusader -and Shib Chunder Bhose appeared on the posters which announced Dr. -MacInnes’ subject in large letters—“MISSIONS AND MAMMON. SHALL A -LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR ROB GOD?”—and in all the illustrated papers. The -matter arrived regularly with the joint at Hammersmith Sunday -dinner-tables. Finally the _Times_ gave it almost a parochial -importance, and solemnly, in two columns, with due respect for -constituted authority, came to no conclusion at all from every point of -view. - -The inevitable question was early asked in Parliament, and the -Under-Secretary of State said he would “inquire.” Further questions were -asked on different and increasingly urgent grounds, with the object of -reminding and hastening the Secretary of State. A popular Nonconformist -preacher told two thousand people in Exeter Hall that they and he could -no longer conscientiously vote to keep a Government in office that would -hesitate to demand the instant resignation of an official who had -brought such shame upon the name of England. Shortly afterwards one hon. -member made a departure in his attack upon Mr. John Church, which -completely held the attention of the House while it lasted. The effect -was unusual, to be achieved by this particular hon. member, and he did -it by reading aloud the whole of an extremely graphic and able article -criticising His Honour’s policy from the _Bengal Free Press_. - -“I put it to hon. members,” said he, weightily, in conclusion, “whether -any one of us, in our boasted superiority of intellect, has the right to -say that people who can thus express themselves do not know what they -want!” - -That evening, before he went to bed, Lord Strathell, Secretary of State -for India, in Eaton Square, London, wrote a note to Lord Scansleigh, -Viceroy and Governor-General of India, in Viceregal Lodge, Simla. The -note was written on Lady Strathell’s letter-paper, which was delicately -scented and bore a monogram and coronet. It was a very private and -friendly note, and it ran:— - -“DEAR SCANSLEIGH: I needn’t tell you how much I regret the necessity of -my accompanying official letter asking you to arrange Church’s -retirement. I can quite understand that it will be most distasteful to -you, as I know you have a high opinion of him, both personally and as an -administrator. But the Missionary Societies, etc., have got us into the -tightest possible place over his educational policy. Already several -Nonconformist altars—if there are such things—are crying out for the -libation of our blood. Somebody must be offered up. I had a Commission -suggested, and it was received with rage and scorn. Nothing will do but -Church’s removal from his present office—and the sooner the better. I -suppose we must find something else for him. - -“Again assuring you of my personal regret, believe me, dear Scansleigh, -yours cordially, - - ”STRATHELL. - -“P.S.—Thus Party doth make Pilates of us all.” - - - - - CHAPTER XVII. - - -It was the first time in history that the town of Bhugsi had been -visited by a Lieutenant-Governor. Bhugsi was small, but it had a -reputation for malodorousness not to be surpassed by any municipality of -Eastern Bengal. Though Bhugsi was small it was full—full of men and -children and crones and monkeys, and dwarfed, lean-ribbed cattle, and -vultures of the vilest appetite. The town squatted round a tank, very -old, very slimy, very sacred. Bhugsi bathed in the tank and so secured -eternal happiness, drank from the tank and so secured it quickly. All -such abominations as are unnameable Bhugsi also preferred to commit in -the vicinity of the tank, and it was possibly for this reason that the -highest death-rate of the last “year under report” had been humbly -submitted by Bhugsi. - -Noting this achievement, John Church added Bhugsi to his inspection -list. The inspection list was already sufficiently long for the time at -his disposal, but Church had a way of economising his time that -contributed much to the discipline of provincial Bengal. He accomplished -this by train and boat and saddle; and his staff, with deep inward -objurgations, did its best to keep up. He pressed upon Judith the -advisability of a more leisurely progress by easier routes, with -occasional meeting-places, but found her quietly obstinate in her -determination to come with him. She declared herself the better for the -constant change and the stimulus of quick moves; and this he could -believe, for whenever they made a stay of more than forty-eight hours -anywhere it was always she who was most feverishly anxious to depart. -She filled her waking moments and dulled her pain in the natural way, -with actual physical exertion. While the servants looked on in -consternation she toiled instinctively over packings and unpackings, and -was glad of the weariness they brought her. She invented little new -devotions to her husband—these also soothed her—and became freshly -solicitous about his health, freshly thoughtful about his comfort. -Observing which, Church reflected tenderly on the unselfishness of -women, and said to his wife that he could not have her throwing herself, -this way, before the Juggernaut of his official progress. - -There were no Europeans at all at Bhugsi, so the Lieutenant-Governor’s -party put up at the dâk-bungalow, three miles outside the town. Peter -Robertson, the Commissioner of the Division, and the district officer, -who were in attendance upon His Honour, were in camp near by, as their -custom is. The dâk-bungalow had only three rooms, and this made the fact -that two of His Honour’s suite had been left at the last station with -fever less of a misfortune. By this time, indeed, the suite consisted of -Judith and the private secretary and the servants; but as John Church -said, getting into his saddle at six o’clock in the morning, there were -quite enough of them to terrify Bhugsi into certain reforms. - -He spent three hours inspecting the work of the native magistrate, and -came back to breakfast with his brows well set together over that -official’s amiable tolerance of a popular way of procuring confessions -among the police, which was by means of needles and the supposed -criminal’s finger-nails. It had been practised in Bhugsi, as the native -magistrate represented, for thousands of years, but it made John Church -angry. He ate with stern eyes upon the table-cloth, and when the meal -was over rode back to Bhugsi. There was only that one day, and beside -the all-important matter of the sanitation he had to look at the -schools, to inspect the gaol, to receive an address and to make a -speech. He reflected on the terms of the speech as he rode, improving -upon their salutary effect. He said to his private secretary, cantering -alongside, that he had never known it so hot in April—the air was like a -whip. It was borne in upon him once that if he could put down the burden -of his work and of his dignity and stretch himself out to sleep beside -the naked coolies who lay on their faces in the shadow of the pipal -trees by the roadside, it would be a pleasant thing, but this he did not -say to his private secretary. - -It was half-past five, and the bamboos were all alive with the evening -twitter of hidden sparrows, before the Lieutenant-Governor returned. For -an instant Judith, coming out at the sound of hoofs, failed to recognise -her husband, he looked, with a thick white powder of dust over his beard -and eyebrows, so old a man. He stooped in his saddle, too, and all the -gauntness of his face and figure had a deeper accent. - -“Put His Honour to bed, Mrs. Church,” cried the Commissioner, lifting -his hat as he rode on to camp. “He has done the work of six men to-day.” - -“You will be glad of some tea,” she said. - -He tumbled clumsily out of his saddle and leaned for a moment against -his animal’s shoulder. The mare put her head round whinnying, but when -Church searched in his pocket for her piece of sugar-cane and offered it -to her, she snuffed it and refused it. He dropped the sugar-cane into -the dust at her feet and told the syce to take her away. - -“If she will not eat her gram give me word of it,” he said. But she ate -her gram. - -“Will you change first, John?” Judith asked with her hand on his -coat-sleeve. “I think you should—you are wet through and through.” - -“Yes, I will change,” he said; but he dropped into the first chair he -saw. The chair stood on the verandah, and the evening breeze had already -begun to come up. He threw back his head and unfastened his damp collar -and felt its gratefulness. In the intimate neighbourhood of the -dâk-bungalow the private secretary could be heard splashing in his tub. - -“Poor Sparks!” said His Honour. “I’m afraid he has had a hard day of it. -Good fellow, Sparks, thoroughly good fellow. I hope he’ll get on. It’s -very disheartening work, this of ours in India,” he went on absently; -“one feels the depression of it always, more or less, but to-night——” He -paused and closed his eyes as if he were too weary to finish the -sentence. A servant appeared with a wicker table and another with a -tray. - -“A cup of tea,” said Judith cheerfully, “will often redeem the face of -nature”; but he waved it back. - -“I am too hungry for tea. Tell them to bring me a solid meal: cold -beef—no, make it hot—that game pie we had at breakfast—anything there -is, but as soon as possible. How refreshing this wind is!” - -“Go and change, John,” his wife urged. - -“Yes, I must, immediately: I shall be taking a chill.” As he half rose -from his chair he saw the postman, turbaned, barefooted, crossing the -grass from the road, and dropped back again. - -“Here is the dâk,” he said; “I must just have a look first.” - -Mrs. Church took her letters, and went into the house to give orders to -the butler. Five minutes afterwards she came back, to find her husband -sitting where she had left him, but upright in his chair and -mechanically stroking his beard, with his face set. He had grown paler, -if that was possible, but had lost every trace of lassitude. He had the -look of being face to face with a realised contingency which his wife -knew well. - -“News, John?” she asked nervously; “anything important?” - -“The most important—and the worst,” he answered steadily, without -looking at her. His eyes were fixed on the floor, and on his course of -action. - -“What do you mean, dear? What has happened? May I see?” - -For answer he handed her his private letter from Lord Scansleigh. She -opened it with shaking fingers, and read the first sentence or two -aloud. Then instinctively her voice stopped, and she finished it in -silence. The Viceroy had written:— - -“MY DEAR CHURCH: The accompanying official correspondence will show you -our position, when the mail left England, with the Secretary of State. I -fear that nothing has occurred in the meantime to improve it—in fact, -one or two telegrams seem rather to point the other way. I will not -waste your time and mine in idle regrets, if indeed they would be -justifiable, but write only to assure you heartily in private, as I do -formally in my official letter, that if we go we go together. I have -already telegraphed this to Strathell, and will let you know the -substance of his reply as soon as I receive it. I wish I could think -that the prospect of my own resignation is likely to deter them from -demanding yours, but I own to you that I expect our joint immolation -will not be too impressive a sacrifice for the British Public in this -connection. - -“With kind regards to Mrs. Church, in which my wife joins, - - “Believe me, dear Church, yours sincerely, - - “SCANSLEIGH.” - -They spoke for a few minutes of the Viceroy’s loyalty and consideration -and appreciation. She dwelt upon that with instinctive tact, and then -Church got up quickly. - -“I must write to Scansleigh at once,” he said. “I am afraid he is -determined about this, but I must write. There is a great deal to do. -When Sparks comes out send him to me.” Then he went over to her and -awkwardly kissed her. “You have taken it very well, Judith,” he -said—“better than any woman I know would have done.” - -She put a quick detaining hand upon his arm. “Oh, John, it is only for -your sake that I care at all. I—I am so tired of it. I should be only -too glad to go home with you, dear, and find some little place in the -country where we could live quietly——” - -“Yes, yes,” he said, hurrying away. “We can discuss that afterwards. -Don’t keep Sparks talking.” - -Sparks appeared presently, swinging an embossed silver cylinder half a -yard long. New washed and freshly clad in garments of clean country -silk, with his damp hair brushed crisply off his forehead, there was a -pinkness and a healthiness about Sparks that would have been refreshing -at any other moment. “Have you seen this bauble, Mrs. Church?” he -inquired: “Bhugsi’s tribute, enshrining the address. It makes the -fifth.” - -Judith looked at it, and back at Captain Sparks, who saw, with a falling -countenance, that there were tears in her eyes. - -“It is the last he will ever receive,” she said, and one of the tears -found its way down her cheek. “They have asked him from England to -resign—they say he must.” - -Captain Sparks, private secretary, stood for a moment with his legs -apart in blank astonishment, while Mrs. Church sought among the folds of -her skirt for her pocket-handkerchief. - -“By the Lord—impossible!” he burst out; and then, as Judith pointed -mutely to her husband’s room, he turned and shot in that direction, -leaving her, as her sex is usually left, with the teacups and the -situation. - - * * * * * - -A few hours later Captain Sparks’ dreams of the changed condition of -things were interrupted by a knock. It was Mrs. Church, sleepy-eyed, in -her dressing-gown, with a candle; and she wanted the chlorodyne from the -little travelling medicine chest, which was among the private -secretary’s things. - -“My husband seems to have got a chill,” she said. “It must have been -while he sat in the verandah. I am afraid he is in for a wretched -night.” - -“Three fingers of brandy,” suggested Sparks concernedly, getting out the -bottle. “Nothing like brandy.” - -“He has tried brandy. About twenty drops of this, I suppose?” - -“I should think so. Can I be of any use?” - -Judith said No, thanks—she hoped her husband would get some sleep -presently. She went away, shielding her flickering candle, and darkness -and silence came again where she had been. - -A quarter of an hour later she came back, and it appeared that Captain -Sparks could be of use. The chill seemed obstinate; they must rouse the -servants and get fires made and water heated. Judith wanted to know how -soon one might repeat the dose of chlorodyne. She was very much awake, -and had that serious, pale decision with which women take action in -emergencies of sickness. - -Later still they stood outside the door of his room and looked at each -other. “There is a European doctor at Bhai Gunj,” said Captain Sparks. -“He may be here with luck by six o’clock to-morrow afternoon—_this_ -afternoon.” He looked at his watch and saw that it was past midnight. -“Bundal Singh has gone for him, and Juddoo for the native apothecary at -Bhugsi—but he will be useless. Robertson will be over immediately. He -has seen cases of it, I know.” - -A thick sound came from the room they had left, and they hurried back -into it. - - * * * * * - -“Water?” repeated the Commissioner; “yes, as much as he likes. I wish to -God we had some ice.” - -“Then, sir, I may take leave?” It was the unctuous voice of the native -apothecary. - -“No, you may not. Damn you, I suppose you can help to rub him? Quick, -Sparks; the turpentine!” - - * * * * * - -Next day at noon arrived Hari Lal, who had travelled many hours and many -miles with a petition to the Chota Lât Sahib, wherein he and his village -implored that the goats might eat the young shoots in the forest as -aforetime; for if not—they were all poor men—how should the goats eat at -all? Hari Lal arrived upon his beast, and saw from afar off that there -was a chuprassie in red and gold upon the verandah whose favour would -cost money. So he dismounted at a considerable and respectful distance, -and approached humbly, with salaams and words that were suitable to a -chuprassie in red and gold. The heat stood fiercely about the bungalow, -and it was so silent that a pair of sparrows scolding in the verandah -made the most unseemly wrangle. - -Bundal Singh had not the look of business. He sat immovable upon his -haunches, with his hands hanging between his knees. His head fell -forward heavily, his eyes were puffed, and he regarded Hari Lal with -indifference. - -“O most excellent, how can a poor man seeking justice speak with the Lât -Sahib? The matter is a matter of goats——” - -“_Bus!_ The Lât Sahib died in the little dawn. This place is empty but -for the widow. _Mutti dani wasti gia_—they have gone to give the earth. -It was the bad sickness, and the pain of it lasted only five hours. When -he was dead, worthy one, his face was like a blue puggri that has been -thrice washed, and his hand was no larger than the hand of my woman! -What talk is there of justice? _Bus!_” - -Hari Lal heard him through with a countenance that grew ever more -terrified. Then he spat vigorously, and got again upon his animal. “And -you, fool, why do you sit here?” he asked quaveringly, as he sawed at -the creature’s mouth. - -“Because the servant-folk of the Sirkar do not run away. Who then would -do justice and collect taxes, _budzat_? _Jao_, you Bengali rice-eater! I -am of a country where those who are not women are men!” - -The Bengali rice-eater went as he was bidden, and only a little curling -cloud of white dust, sinking back into the road under the sun, remained -to tell of him. Bundal Singh, hoarse with hours of howling, lifted up -his voice in the silence because of the grief within him, and howled -again. - -A little wind stole out from under a clump of mango trees and chased -some new-curled shavings about the verandah, and did its best to blow -them in at the closed shutters of a darkened room. The shavings were too -substantial, but the scent of the fresh-cut planks came through, and -brought the stunned woman on the bed a sickening realisation of one -unalterable fact in the horror of great darkness through which she -groped, babbling prayers. - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII. - - -“It was all very well for _him_, poor man, to want to be buried in that -hole-and-corner kind of way—where he fell, I suppose, doing his duty: -very simple and proper, I’m sure; and I should have felt just the same -about it in his place—but on _her_ account he ought to have made it -possible for them to have taken him back to Calcutta and given him a -public funeral.” - -Mrs. Daye spoke feelingly, gently tapping her egg. Mrs. Daye never could -induce herself to cut off the top of an egg with one fell blow; she -always tapped it, tenderly, first. - -“It would have been something!” she continued. “Poor dear thing! I _was_ -so fond of Mrs. Church.” - -“I see they have started subscriptions to give him a memorial of sorts,” -remarked her husband from behind his newspaper. “But whether it’s to be -put in Bhugsi or in Calcutta doesn’t seem to be arranged.” - -“Oh, in Calcutta, of course! They won’t get fifty rupees if it’s to be -put up at Bhugsi. _Nobody_ would subscribe!” - -“Is there room?” asked Miss Daye meekly, from the other side of the -table. “The illustrious are already so numerous on the Maidan. Is there -no danger of overcrowding?” - -“How ridiculous you are, Rhoda! You’ll subscribe, Richard, of course? -Considering how _very_ kind they’ve been to us I should say—what do you -think?—a hundred rupees.” Mrs. Daye buttered her toast with knitted -brows. - -“We’ll see. Hello! Spence is coming out again. ‘By special arrangement -with the India Office.’ He’s fairly well now, it seems, and willing to -sacrifice the rest of his leave ‘rather than put Government to the -inconvenience of another possible change of policy in Bengal.’ _That_ -means,” Colonel Daye continued, putting down the Calcutta paper and -taking up his coffee-cup, “that Spence has got his orders from Downing -Street, and is being packed back to reverse this College Grants -business. But old Hawkins won’t have much of a show, will he? Spence -will be out in three weeks.” - -“I’m very pleased,” Mrs. Daye remarked vigorously. “Mrs. Hawkins was bad -enough in the Board of Revenue; she’d be un_bear_able at Belvedere. And -Mrs. Church was so _per_fectly unaffected. But I don’t think we would be -quite justified in giving a hundred, Richard—seventy-five would be -ample.” - -“One would think, mummie, that the hat was going round for Mrs. Church,” -said her daughter. - -“Hats have gone round for less deserving persons,” Colonel Daye -remarked, “and in cases where there was less need of them, too. St. -George writes me that there was no insurances, and not a penny saved. -Church has always been obliged to do so much for his people. The widow’s -income will be precisely her three hundred a year of pension, and no -more—bread and butter, but no jam.” - -“Talking of jam,” said Mrs. Daye, with an effect of pathos, “if you -haven’t eaten it all, Richard, I should like some. Poor dear thing! And -if she marries again, she loses even that, doesn’t she? Oh, no, she -doesn’t, either: there was that Madras woman that had three husbands and -three pensions; they came altogether to nine hundred a year in the end. -Of course, money is out of the question; but a little offering of -something useful—made in a friendly way—she might even be grateful for. -I am thinking of sending her a little something.” - -“What, mummie?” Rhoda demanded, with suspicion. - -“That long black cloak I got when we all had to go into mourning for -your poor dear grandmother, Rhoda. I’ve hardly worn it at all. Of -course, it would require a little alteration, but——” - -“_Mummie!_ How beastly of you! You must not _dream_ of doing it.” - -“It’s fur-lined,” said Mrs. Daye, with an injured inflection. “Besides, -she isn’t the wife of the L.G. _now_, you know.” - -“Papa——” - -“What? Oh, certainly not! Ridiculous! Besides, you’re too late with your -second-hand souvenir, my dear. St. George says that Mrs. Church sails -to-day from Calcutta. Awfully cut up, poor woman, he says. Wouldn’t go -back to Belvedere; wouldn’t see a soul: went to a boarding-house and -shut herself up in two rooms.” - -“How un_kind_ you are about news, Richard! Fancy your not telling us -that before! And I think you and Rhoda are _quite_ wrong about the -cloak. If _you_ had died suddenly of cholera in a a dâk-bungalow in the -wilds and _I_ was left with next to nothing, I would accept little -presents from friends in the spirit in which they were offered, no -matter _what_ my position had been!” - -“I daresay you would, my dear. But if I—hello! Exchange is going up -again—if I catch you wearing cast-off mourning for me, I’ll come and -hang around until you burn it. By the way, I saw Doyle last night at the -Club.” - -“The barrister? Did you speak to him?” asked Mrs. Daye. - -“Yes. ‘Hello!’ I said: ‘thought you were on leave. What in the world -brings you up here?’ Seems that Pattore telegraphed askin’ Doyle to -defend him in this big diamond case with Ezra, and he came out. ‘Well,’ -I said, ‘Pattore’s in Calcutta, Ezra’s in Calcutta, diamond’s in -Calcutta, an’ you’re in Darjiling. When I’m sued for two lakhs over a -stone to dangle on my tummy I won’t retain you!’” - -“And what did Mr. Doyle say to that, papa?” his daughter inquired. - -“Oh—I don’t remember. Something about never having seen the place before -or something. Here, khansamah—cheroot!” - -The man brought a box and lighted a match, which he presently applied to -one end of the cigar while his master pulled at the other. - -“Well,” said Mrs. Daye, thoughtfully dabbling in her finger-bowl, “about -this statue or whatever it is to Mr. Church—if it were a mere question -of inclination—but as things are, Richard, I really don’t think we can -afford more than fifty. It isn’t as if it could do the poor man any -good. Where are you going, Rhoda? Wait a minute.” - -Mrs. Daye followed her daughter out of the room, shutting the door -behind her, and put an impressive hand upon Rhoda’s arm at the foot of -the staircase. - -“My dear child,” she said, with a note of candid compassion, “what do -you think has happened? Your father and I were discussing it as you came -down, but I said ‘Not a word before Rhoda!’ They have made Lewis Ancram -Chief Commissioner of Assam!” - -The colour came back into the girl’s face with a rush, and the -excitement went out of her eyes. - -“Good heavens, mummie, how you—— Why shouldn’t they? Isn’t he a proper -person?” - -“Very much so. _That_ has nothing to do with it. Think of it, Rhoda—a -Chief Commissioner, at his age! And you _can’t_ say I didn’t prophesy -it. _The_ rising man in the Civil Service I always told you he was.” - -“And I never contradicted you, mummie dear! My own opinion is that when -Abdur Rahman dies they’ll make him Amir!” Rhoda laughed a gay, -irresponsible laugh, and tripped on upstairs with singular lightness of -step. Mrs. Daye, leaning upon the end of the banister, followed her with -reproachful eyes. - -“You seem to take it very lightly, Rhoda, but I must say it serves you -perfectly right for having thrown the poor man over in that disgraceful -way. Girls who behave like that are generally sorry for it later. I knew -of a chit here in Darjiling that jilted a man in the Staff Corps and ran -away with a tea-planter. The man will be the next Commander-in-Chief of -the Indian Army, everybody says, and I hope she likes her tea-planter.” - -“Mummie!” Rhoda called down confidentially from the landing. - -“Well?” - -“Put your head in a bag, mummie. I’m going out. Shall I bring you some -chocolates or some nougat or anything?” - -“I shall tell your father to whip you. Yes, chocolates if they’re -fresh—_insist_ upon that. Those crumbly Neapolitan ones, in -silver-and-gold paper.” - -“All right. And mummie!” - -“What?” - -“Write and congratulate Mr. Ancram. Then he’ll know there’s no -ill-feeling!” - -Which Mrs. Daye did. - - - - - CHAPTER XIX. - - -Ten minutes later Rhoda stood fastening her glove at her father’s door -and looking out upon a world of suddenly novel charm. The door opened, -as it were, upon eternity, with a patch of garden between, but eternity -was blue and sun-filled and encouraging. The roses and sweet-williams -stood sheer against the sky, with fifty yellow butterflies dancing above -them. Over the verge of the garden—there was not more than ten feet of -it in any direction—she saw tree-tops and the big green shoulders of the -lower hills, and very far down a mat of fleecy clouds that hid the -flanks of some of these. The sunlight was tempting, enticing. It made -the rubble path warm beneath her feet and drew up the scent of the -garden until the still air palpitated with it. Rhoda took little -desultory steps to the edge of the ledge the house was built on, and -down the steep footway to the road. The white oaks met over her head, -and far up among the tree-ferns she heard a cuckoo. Its note softened -and accented her unreasoned gladness, seemed to give it a form and a -metre. She looked up into the fragrant leafy shadows and listened till -it came again, vaguely aware that it was enough to live for. If she had -another thought it was that Philip Doyle had come too late to see the -glory of the rhododendrons, there was only, here and there, a red rag of -them left. - -She stepped with a rattle of pebbles into the wide main road round the -mountain, and there stood for a moment undecided. It was the chief road, -the Mall; and if she turned to the right it would lead her past the -half-dozen tiny European shops that clung to the side of the hill, past -the hotels and the club, and through the expansion where the band played -in the afternoon, where there were benches and an admirable view, and -where new-comers to Darjiling invariably sat for two or three days and -contentedly occupied themselves with processes of oxygenation. This part -of the Mall was frequented and fashionable; even at that hour she would -meet her acquaintances on hill ponies and her mother’s friends in -dandies and her mother’s friends’ babies in perambulators, with a -plentiful background of slouching Bhutia coolies, their old felt hats -tied on with their queues, and red-coats from a recuperating regiment, -and small black-and-white terriers. It was not often that this prospect -attracted her; she had discovered a certain monotony in its cheerfulness -some time before; but to-day she had to remind herself of that discovery -before she finally decided to turn to the left instead. She had another -reason: if she went that way it might look to Philip Doyle as if she -wanted to meet him. Why this gentleman should have come to so -extraordinary a conclusion on the data at his disposal Miss Daye did not -pause to explain. She was quite certain that he would, so she turned to -the left. - -It suited her mood, when once she had taken that direction, to walk very -fast. She had an undefined sense of keeping pace with events; her -vigorous steps made a rhythm for her buoyant thought, and helped it out. -She was entirely occupied with the way in which she would explain to Mr. -Doyle how it was that she was not married to Lewis Ancram. She -anticipated a pleasure in this, and she thought it was because Doyle -would be gratified, on his friend’s account. He had never liked the -match—she clung to that impression in all humility—he would perhaps -approve of her breaking it off. Rhoda felt a little excited satisfaction -at the idea of being approved of by Philip Doyle. She put the words with -which she would tell him into careful phrases as she walked, -constructing and reconstructing them, while Buzz kept an erratic course -before her with inquisitive pauses by the wayside and vain chasing of -little striped squirrels that whisked about the boles of the trees. -Buzz, she thought, had never been more idiotically amusing. - -The road grew boskier and lonelier. Miss Daye met a missionary lady in a -jinricksha, and then a couple of schoolboys sprinting, and then for a -quarter of a mile nobody at all. The little white houses stopped -cropping out on ledges above her head, the wall of rock or of rubble -rose solidly up, wet and glistening, and tapestried thick with tiny -ferns and wild begonias. All at once, looking over the brink, she saw -that the tin roofs of the cottages down the khud-side no longer shone in -the sun; the clouds had rolled between it and them—very likely down -there it was raining. Presently the white mist smoked up level with the -road, and she and the trees and the upper mountain stood in dappled -sunlight for a moment alone above a phantasmally submerged world. Then -the crisp leaf-shadows on the road grew indistinct and faded, the -sunlight paled and went out, and in a moment there was nothing near or -far but a wandering greyness, and here and there perhaps the shadowed -hole of an oak-tree or the fantastic outline of a solitary nodding fern. - -“It’s going to rain, Buzz,” she said, as the little dog mutely inquired -for encouragement and direction, “and neither of us have got an -umbrella. So we’ll both get wet and take our death of cold. _Sumja_,[E] -Buzz?” - ------ - -Footnote E: - - “Do you understand?” - ------ - -As she spoke they passed the blurred figure of a man, walking rapidly in -the other direction. “Buzz!” Rhoda cried, as the dog turned and trotted -briskly after: “Come back, sir!” Buzz took no notice whatever, and -immediately she heard him addressed in a voice which made a sudden -requirement upon her self-control. She had a divided impulse—to betake -herself on as fast as she could into remote indistinguishability, and to -call the dog again. With a little effort of hardihood she turned and -called him, turned with a thumping heart, and waited for his restoration -and for anything else that might happen. The mist drifted up for a -moment as Philip Doyle heard her and came quickly back; and when they -shook hands they stood in a little white temple with uncertain walls and -a ceiling decoration of tree-ferns in high relief. - -She asked him when he had come, although she knew that already, and he -inquired for her mother, although he was quite informed as to Mrs. -Daye’s well-being. He explained Buzz’s remembering him, as if he had -taken an unfair advantage of it, and they announced simultaneously that -it was going to rain. Then conversation seemed to fail them wholly, and -Rhoda made a movement of departure. - -“I suppose you are going to some friend in the neighbourhood,” he said, -lifting his hat, “if there is any neighbourhood—which one is inclined to -doubt.” - -“Oh, no, I’m only walking.” - -“All alone?” - -“Buzz,” she said, with a downcast smile. - -“Buzz is such an effective protection that I’m inclined to ask you to -share him.” His voice was even more tentative than his words. He fancied -he would have made a tremendous advance if she allowed him to come with -her. - -“Oh, yes,” she said foolishly, “you may have half.” - -“Thank you. I am three miles from my club, twenty-four hours from my -office, and four thousand feet above sea-level—and I don’t mind -confessing that I’m very frightened indeed. How long, I wonder, does it -take to acquire the magnificent indifference to the elements which you -display? But the storm is indubitably coming: don’t you think we had -better turn back?” - -“Yes,” she said again, and they turned back; but they sauntered along -among the clouds at precisely the pace they might have taken in the -meadows of the world below. - -She asked him where he had spent his leave and how he had enjoyed it, -and she gathered from his replies that one might stay too long in India -to find even Italy wholly paradisaical, although Monte Carlo had always -its same old charm. “You should see Monte Carlo before some cataclysm -overtakes it,” he said. “You would find it amusing. I spent a month at -Homburg,” he went on humorously, “with what I consider the greatest -possible advantage to my figure. Though my native friends have been -openly condoling with me on my consequent loss of prestige, and I have -no doubt my sylph-like condition will undermine my respectability.” He -felt, as he spoke, deplorably middle-aged, and to mention these things -seemed to be a kind of apology for them. - -Rhoda looked at him with the conviction that he had left quite ten years -in Europe, but she found herself oddly reluctant to say so. “Mummie will -tell you,” she said. “Mummie always discovers the most wonderful changes -in people when they have been home. And why did you come back so soon?” - -“Why?” he repeated, half facing round, and then suddenly dropping back -again. “I came to see about something.” - -“Oh, yes, of course you did. I know about it. And do you think you will -win?” - -She looked at him with a smile of timid intelligence. Under it she was -thinking that she had never had such a stupid conversation with Mr. -Doyle before. He smiled back gravely, and considered for a moment. - -“I don’t in the least know,” he said with courageous directness; “but I -mean to try—very hard.” - -If he had thought, he might have kept the suggestion out of his voice—it -was certainly a little premature—but he did not think, and the -suggestion was there. Rhoda felt her soul leap up to catch its full -significance; then she grew very white, and shivered a little. The -shiver was natural enough: two or three big drops had struck her on the -shoulders, and others were driving down upon the road, with wide spaces -between them, but heavily determined, and making little splashes where -they struck. - -“It is going to pour,” she said; and, as they walked on with a futile -quickening of pace, she heard him talk of something else, and called -herself a fool for the tumult in her heart. The rain gathered itself -together and pelted them. She was glad of the excuse to break blindly -into a run, and Doyle needed all his newly acquired energy to keep up -with her. The storm was behind them, and as it darkened and thickened -and crashed and drove them on, Rhoda’s blood tingled with a wild sweet -knowledge that she fled before something stronger and stranger than the -storm, and that in the end she would be overtaken, in the end she would -cede. Her sense of this culminated when Philip Doyle put a staying hand -upon her arm—she could not have heard him speak—and she sped on faster, -with a little frightened cry. - -“Come back!” he shouted; and, without knowing why, she did as he bade -her, struggling at every step, it seemed, into a chaos out of which the -rain smote her on both cheeks, with only one clear sensation—that he had -her hand very closely pressed to his side, and that somewhere or other, -presently, there would be shelter. They found it not ten yards -behind—one of those shallow caves that Sri Krishna scooped out long ago -to lodge his beggar priests in. Some Bhutia coolies had been cooking a -meal there; a few embers still glowed on a heap of ashes in the middle -of the place. Doyle explained, as he thrust her gently in, that these -had caught his eye. - -“You won’t mind my leaving you here,” he said, “while I go on for a -dandy and wraps and things? I shall not be a moment longer than I can -help. You won’t be afraid?” - -“In this rain! It would be wicked. Yes, I shall—I shall be horribly -afraid! You must stay here too, until it is over. Please come inside _at -once_.” - -The little imperious note thrilled Doyle; but he stayed where he was. - -“My dear child,” he said, “this may last for hours, and, if you don’t -get home somehow, you are bound to get a chill. Besides, I must let your -mother know.” - -“It will probably be over by the time you reach the house. And my mother -is always quite willing to entrust me to Providence, Mr. Doyle. And if -you go I’ll come, too.” - -She looked so resolute that Doyle hesitated. “Won’t you be implored to -stay here?” he asked. - -She shook her head. “Not if you go,” she said. And, without further -parley, he stooped and came in. - -They could not stand upright against the shelving sides and roof of the -place, so perforce they sat upon the ground—she, with her feet tucked -under her, leaning upon one hand, in the way of her sex, he hugging his -knees. There might have been thirty cubic feet of space in the cave, but -it was not comfortably apportioned, and he had to crouch rather -awkwardly to keep himself at what he considered a proper distance. It -was warm and dry there, and the dull fire of the embers in the middle -gave a centre and a significance to the completeness of their shelter. -The clouds hung like a grey curtain before the entrance, bordered all -round with trailing vines and drooping ferns; the beat of the rain came -in to them in a heavy distant monotone, and even the thunder seemed to -be rolling in a muffled way among the valleys below. Doyle felt that -nothing could be more perfect than their solitude. He would not speak, -lest his words should people it with commonplaces; he almost feared to -move, lest he should destroy the accident that gave him the privilege of -such closeness to her. The little place was filled, it seemed to him, -with a certain divine exhalation of her personality, of her freshness -and preciousness; he breathed it, and grew young again, and bold. In the -moments of silence that fell their love arose before them like a -presence. The girl saw how beautiful it was without looking, the man -asked himself how long he could wait for its realisation. - -“Are you very wet?” he asked her at last. - -“No; only my jacket.” - -“Then you ought to take it off, oughtn’t you? Let me help you.” - -He had to lean closer to her for that. The wet little coat came off with -difficulty; and then he put an audacious hand upon the warm shoulder in -its cambric blouse underneath, with a suddenly taught confidence that it -would not shrink away. - -“Only a little damp,” he said. It was the most barefaced excuse for his -caressing fingers. “Tell me, darling, when a preposterously venerable -person like me wishes to make a proposal of marriage to somebody who is -altogether sweet and young and lovable like you, has he any business to -take advantage of a romantic situation to do it in?” - -She did not answer. The lightness of his words somewhat disturbed her -sense of their import. Then she looked into his face, and saw the -wonderful difference that the hope of her had written there, and, -without any more questioning, she permitted herself to understand. - -“Think about it for a little while,” he said, and came a good deal -nearer, and drew her head down upon his breast. He knew a lifetime of -sweet content in the space it rested there, while he laid his lips -softly upon her hair and made certain that no other woman’s was so -sweet-scented. - -“Well?” he said at last. - -“But——” - -“But?” - -“But you never did approve of me.” - -“Didn’t I? I don’t know. I have always loved you.” - -“I have never loved anybody—before.” - -That was as near as she managed to get, then or for long thereafter, to -the matter of her previous engagement. - -“No. Of course not. But for the future?” - -Without taking her head from his shoulder, she lifted her eyes to his; -and he found the pledge he sought in them. - -And that upturning of her face brought her lips, her newly grave, sweet, -submissive lips, very near, and the gladness within him was newborn and -strong. And so the storm swept itself away, and the purple-necked doves -cooed and called again where the sunlight glistened through the dripping -laurels, and these two were hardly aware. Then suddenly a Bhutia girl -with a rose behind her ear came and stood in the door of the cave and -regarded them. She was muscular and red-cheeked and stolid; she wore -many strings of beads as well as the rose behind her ear, and as she -looked she comprehended, with a slow and foolish smile. - -“It is her tryst!” Rhoda cried, jumping up. “Let us leave it to her.” - -Then they went home through a world of their own, which the piping birds -and the wild roses and the sun-decked mosses reflected fitly. The clouds -had gone to Thibet; all round about, in full sunlight, the great -encompassing, gleaming Snows rose up and spoke of eternity, and made a -horizon not too solemn and supreme for the vision of their happiness. - - * * * * * - -“My dearest child.” said Mrs. Daye that night—she had come late to her -daughter’s room with her hair down—“don’t think I’m not as pleased as -possible, because I _am_. I’ve always had the greatest admiration for -Mr. Doyle, and you couldn’t have a better—unofficial—position in -Calcutta. But I _must_ warn you, dear—I’ve seen such misfortune come of -it, and I knew I shouldn’t sleep if I didn’t—before this engagement is -announced——” - -“I’ll go to church in a cotton blouse and a serge skirt this time, if -that’s what you’re thinking of, mummie.” - -“There! I was sure of it! Do think seriously, Rhoda, of the injustice to -poor Mr. Doyle, if you’re merely marrying him for _pique_!” - - - - - CHAPTER XX. - - -The Honourable Mr. Ancram found himself gratified by Mrs. Church’s -refusal to see him in Calcutta. It filled out his idea of her, which was -a delicate one, and it gave him a pleasurable suggestive of the stimulus -which he should always receive from her in future toward the alternative -which was most noble and most satisfying. Mr. Ancram had the clearest -perception of the value of such stimulus; but the probability that he -was likely to be able to put it permanently at his disposal could hardly -be counted chief among the reasons which made him, at this time, so -exceedingly happy. His promotion had even less to do with it. India is -known to be full of people who would rather be a Chief Commissioner than -Rudyard Kipling or Saint Michael, but this translation had been in the -straight line of Mr. Ancram’s intention for years; it offered him no -fortuitous joy, and if it made a basis for the more refined delight -which had entered his experience, that is as much as it can be credited -with. Life had hitherto offered him no satisfaction that did not pale -beside the prospect of possessing Judith Church. He gave dreamy -half-hours to the realisation of how the sordidness of existence would -vanish when he should regard it through her eyes, of how her goodness -would sweeten the world to him, and her gaiety brighten it, and her -beauty etherealise it. He tried to analyse the completeness of their -fitness for each other, and invariably gave it up to fall into a little -trance of longing and of anticipation. - -He could not be sufficiently grateful to John Church for dying—it was a -circumstance upon which he congratulated himself frankly, an accident by -which he was likely to benefit so vastly that he could indulge in no -pretence of regretting it on any altruistic ground. It was so decent of -Church to take himself out of the way that his former Chief Secretary -experienced a change of attitude toward him. Ancram still considered him -an ass, but hostility had faded out of the opinion, which, when he -mentioned it, dwelt rather upon that animal’s power of endurance and -other excellent qualities. Ancram felt himself distinctly on better -terms with the late Lieutenant-Governor, and his feeling was accented by -the fact that John Church died in time to avoid the necessity for a more -formal resignation. His Chief Secretary felt personally indebted to him -for that, on ethical grounds. - -In the long, suggestive, caressing letters which reached Judith by every -mail, he made an appearance of respecting her fresh widowhood that was -really clever, considering the fervency which he contrived to imply. As -the weeks went by, however, he began to consider this attitude of hers, -the note she had struck in going six thousand miles away without seeing -him, rather an extravagant gratification of conscience, and if she had -been nearer it may be doubted whether his tolerance would have lasted. -But she was in London and he was in Assam, which made restraint easier; -and he was able always to send her the assurance of his waiting passion -without hurting her with open talk of the day when he should come into -his own. Judith, seeing that his pen was in a leash, watered her love -anew with the thought of his innate nobility, and shortened the time -that lay between them. - -In spite of her conscience, which was a good one, there were times when -Mrs. Church was shocked by the realisation that she was only trying to -believe herself unhappy. In spite of other things, too, of a more -material sort. Misfortune had overtaken the family at Stoneborough: -ill-health had compelled her father to resign the pulpit of Beulah -Church, and to retire upon a microscopic stipend from the superannuation -fund. There was a boy of fourteen, much like his sister, who wanted to -be a soldier, and did not want to wear a dirty apron and sell the -currants of the leading member of his father’s congregation. For these -reasons Judith’s three hundred a year shrank to a scanty hundred and -fifty. The boy went to Clifton, and she to an attic in that south side -of Kensington where they are astonishingly cheap. Here she established -herself, and grew familiar with the devices of poverty. It was not -picturesque Bohemian poverty; she had little ladylike ideals in gloves -and shoes that she pinched herself otherwise to attain, and it is to be -feared that she preferred looking shabby-genteel with eternal -limitations to looking disreputable with spasmodic extravagances. But -neither the sordidness of her life nor the discomfort she tried to -conjure out of the past made her miserable. Rather she extracted a -solace from them—they gave her a vague feeling of expiation; she hugged -her little miseries for their purgatorial qualities, and felt, though -she never put it into a definite thought, that they made a sort of -justification for her hope of heaven. - -Besides, except once a week, on Indian mail day, her life was for the -time in abeyance. She had a curious sense occasionally, in some sordid -situation to which she was driven for the lack of five shillings, of how -little anything mattered during this little colourless period; and she -declined kindly invitations from old Anglo-Indian acquaintances in more -expensive parts of Kensington with almost an ironical appreciation of -their inconsequence. She accepted existence without movement or charm -for the time, since she could not dispense with it altogether. She -invented little monotonous duties and occupied herself with them, and -waited, always with the knowledge that just beyond her dingy horizon lay -a world, her old world, of full life and vivid colour and long dramatic -days, if she chose to look. - -On mail days she did look, over Ancram’s luxurious pages with soft eyes -and a little participating smile. They made magic carpets for her—they -had imaginative touches. They took her to the scent of the food-stuff in -the chaffering bazar; she saw the white hot sunlight sharp-shadowed by -dusty palms, and the people, with their gentle ways and their simplicity -of guile, the clanking silver anklets of the coolie women, the black -_kol_ smudges under the babies’ eye-lashes—the dear people! She -remembered how she had seen the oxen treading out the corn in the warm -leisure of that country, and the women grinding at the mill. She -remembered their simple talk; how the gardener had told her in his own -tongue that the flowers ate much earth; how a syce had once handed her a -beautiful bazar-written letter, in which he asked for more wages because -he could not afford himself. She remembered the jewelled Rajahs, and the -ragged magicians, and the coolies’ song in the evening, and the -home-trotting little oxen painted in pink spots in honour of a plaster -goddess, and realised how she loved India. She realised it even more -completely, perhaps, when November came and brought fogs which were -always dreary in that they interfered with nothing that she wanted to -do, and neuralgia that was especially hard to bear for being her only -occupation. The winter dragged itself away. Beside Ancram’s letters and -her joy in answering them, she had one experience of pleasure keen -enough to make it an episode. She found it in the _Athenian_, which she -picked up on a news-stall, where she had dropped into the class of -customers who glance over three or four weeklies and buy one or two. It -was a review, a review of length and breadth and weight and density, of -the second volume of the “Modern Influence of the Vedic Books,” by Lewis -Ancram, I.C.S. She bought the paper and took it home, and all that day -her heart beat higher with her woman’s ambition for the man she loved, -sweetened with the knowledge that his own had become as nothing to the -man who loved her. - - - - - CHAPTER XXI. - - -It was a foregone conclusion in Calcutta that the name of the Chief -Commissioner of Assam should figure prominently in the Birthday Honours -of the season. On the 24th of that very hot May people sat in their -verandahs in early morning dishabille, and consumed tea and toast and -plantains, and read in the local extras that a Knight Commandership of -the Star of India had fluttered down upon the head of Mr. Lewis Ancram, -without surprise. Doubtless the “Modern Influence of the Vedic Books” -was to be reckoned with to some extent in the decorative result, but the -general public gave it less importance than Sir Walter Besant, for -example, would be disposed to do. The general public reflected rather -upon the Chief Commissioner’s conspicuous usefulness in Assam, -especially the dexterity with which he had trapped border raids upon -tea-plantations. The general public remembered how often it had seen Mr. -Lewis Ancram’s name in the newspapers, and in what invariably approved -connections. So the men in pyjamas on the verandahs languidly regarded -the wide flat spreading red-and-yellow bouquets of the gold mohur trees -where the crows were gasping and swearing on the Maidan, and declared, -with unanimous yawns, that Ancram was “just the fellow to get it.” - -The Supreme Government at Simla was even better acquainted with Lewis -Ancram’s achievements and potentialities than the general public, -however. There had been occasions, when Mr. Ancram was a modest Chief -Secretary only, upon which the Supreme Government had cause to -congratulate itself privately as to Mr. Ancram’s extraordinary -adroitness in political moves affecting the “advanced” Bengali. Since -his triumph over the College Grants Notification the advanced Bengali -had become increasingly outrageous. An idea in this connection so far -emerged from official representations at headquarters as to become -almost obvious, as to leave no alternative—which is a very remarkable -thing in the business of the Government of India. It was to the effect -that the capacity to outwit the Bengali should be the single -indispensable qualification of the next Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. - -“No merely straightforward chap will do,” said Lord Scansleigh, with a -sigh, “however able he may be. Of course,” he added, “I don’t mean to -say that we want a crooked fellow, but our man must understand -crookedness and be equal to it. That, poor Church never was.” - -The Viceroy delivered himself thus because Sir Griffiths Spence’s -retirement was imminent, and he had his choice for Bengal to make over -again. Simplicity and directness apparently disqualified a number of -gentleman of seniority and distinction, for ten days later it was -announced that the appointment had fallen to Sir Lewis Ancram, K.C.S.I. -Again the little world of Calcutta declined to be surprised: nothing, -apparently, exceeded the popular ambition for the Chief Commissioner of -Assam. Hawkins, of the Board of Revenue, was commiserated for a day or -two, but it was very generally admitted that men like Hawkins of the -Board of Revenue, solid, unpretentious fellows like that, were extremely -apt, somehow, to be overlooked. People said generally that Scansleigh -had done the right thing—that Ancram would know how to manage the -natives. It was perceived that the new King of Bengal would bring a -certain picturesqueness to the sceptre, he was so comparatively young -and so superlatively clever. In view of this the feelings of Hawkins of -the Board of Revenue were lost sight of. And nothing could have been -more signal than the approbation of the native newspapers. Mohendra Lal -Chuckerbutty, in the _Bengal Free Press_, wept tears of joy in leading -articles every day for a week. “Bengal,” said Mohendra, editorially, -“has been given a man after her own heart.” By which Sir Lewis Ancram -was ungrateful enough to be annoyed. - -Judith grew very white over the letter which brought her the news, -remembering many things. It was a careful letter, but there was a throb -of triumph in it—a suggestion, just perceptible, of the dramatic value -of the situation. She told herself that this was inevitable and natural, -just as inevitable and natural as all the rest; but at the same time she -felt that her philosophy was not quite equal to the remarkable -completeness of Ancram’s succession. With all her pride in him, in her -heart of hearts she would infinitely have preferred to share some -degradation with him rather than this; she would have liked the taste of -any bitterness of his misfortune better than this perpetual savour of -his usurpation. It was a mere phase of feeling, which presently she put -aside, but for the moment her mind dwelt with curious insistence upon -one or two little pictorial memories of the other master of Belvedere, -while tears stood in her eyes and a foolish resentment at this fortunate -turn of destiny tugged at her heart-strings. In a little while she found -herself able to rejoice for Ancram with sincerity, but all day she -involuntarily recurred, with deep, gentle irritation, to the association -of the living idea and the dead one. - -Perhaps the liveliest pang inflicted by Sir Lewis Ancram’s appointment -was experienced by Mrs. Daye. Mrs. Daye confided to her husband that she -never saw the Belvedere carriage, with its guard of Bengal cavalry -trotting behind, without thinking that if things had turned out -differently she might be sitting in it, with His Honour her son-in-law. -From which the constancy and keenness of Mrs. Daye’s regrets may be in a -measure inferred. She said to privileged intimate friends that she knew -she was a silly, worldly thing, but really it did bring out one’s -silliness and worldliness to have one’s daughter jilt a -Lieutenant-Governor, in a way that nobody could understand whose -daughter hadn’t done it. Mrs. Daye took what comfort she could out of -the fact that this limitation excluded every woman she knew. She would -add, with her brow raised in three little wrinkles of deprecation, that -of course they were immensely pleased with Rhoda’s ultimate choice: Mr. -Doyle was a dear, sweet man, but she, Mrs. Daye, could not help having a -sort of sisterly regard for him, which towards one’s son-in-law was -ridiculous. He certainly had charming manners—the very man to appreciate -a cup of tea and one’s poor little efforts at conversation—if he didn’t -happen to be married to one’s daughter. It was ludicrously impossible to -have a seriously enjoyable _tête-à-tête_ with a man who was married to -one’s daughter! - - - - - CHAPTER XXII. - - -Calcutta, when the Doyles came down from Darjiling, chased by the early -rains, was prepared to find the marriage ridiculous. Calcutta counted on -its fingers the years that lay between Mr. and Mrs. Doyle, and -mentioned, as a condoning fact, that Philip Doyle’s chances for the next -High Court Judgeship were very good indeed. Following up this line of -fancy, Calcutta pictured a matron growing younger and younger and a -dignitary of the Bench growing older and older, added the usual -accessories of jewels and balls and Hill captains and the private -_entrée_, and figured out the net result, which was regrettably vulgar -and even more regrettably common. It is perhaps due to Calcutta rather -than to the Doyles to say that six weeks after their arrival these -prophecies had been forgotten and people went about calling it an ideal -match. One or two ladies went so far as to declare that Rhoda Daye had -become a great deal more tolerable since her marriage; her husband was -so much cleverer than she was, and that was what she needed, you know. -In which statement might occasionally be discerned a gleam of -satisfaction. - -It shortly became an item of gossip that very few engagements were -permitted to interfere with Mrs. Philip Doyle’s habit of driving to her -husband’s office to pick him up at five o’clock in the afternoon, and -that very few clients were permitted to keep him there after she had -arrived. People smiled in indulgent comment on it, as the slender, -light, tasteful figure in the cabriolet drove among the thronging -carriages in the Red Road towards Old Post-Office Street, and looked -again, with that paramount interest in individuals which is almost the -only one where Britons congregate in exile. Mrs. Doyle, in the -picturesque exercise of the domestic virtues, was generally conceded to -be even more piquant than Miss Daye in the temporary possession of a -Chief Secretary. - -I have no doubt that on one special Wednesday afternoon she was noted to -look absent and a trifle grave, as the Waler made his own pace to bring -his master. There was no reason for this in particular, except that His -Honour the Lieutenant-Governor was leaving for England by the mail train -for Bombay that evening. Perhaps this in itself would hardly have -sufficed to make Mrs. Doyle meditative, but there had been a great -clamour of inquiry and suggestion as to why Sir Lewis Ancram was -straining a point to obtain three months’ leave under no apparent -emergency: people said he had never looked better—and Mrs. Doyle -believed she knew precisely why. The little cloud of her secret -knowledge was before her eyes as the crows pecked hoarsely at the street -offal under the Waler’s deliberate feet, and she was somewhat impatient -at being burdened with any acquaintance with Sir Lewis Ancram’s private -intentions. Also she remembered her liking for the woman he was going -home to marry; and, measuring in fancy Judith Church’s capacity for -happiness, she came to the belief that it was likely to be meagrely -filled. It was the overflowing measure of her own, perhaps, that gave -its liveliness to her very real pang of regret. She knew Lewis Ancram so -much better than Mrs. Church did, she assured herself; was it not proof -enough, that the other woman loved him while she (Rhoda) bowed to him? -As at that moment, when he passed her on horseback, looking young and -vigorous and elate. Rhoda fancied a certain significance in his smile; -it spoke of good-fellowship and the prospect of an equality of bliss and -the general expediency of things as they were rather than as they might -have been. She coloured hotly under it, and gathered up the reins and -astonished the Waler with the whip. - -As she turned into Old Post-Office Street, a flanking battalion of the -rains—riding up dark and thunderous behind the red-brick turrets of the -High Court—whipped down upon the Maidan, and drove her, glad of a -refuge, up the dingy stairs to her husband’s office. Her custom was to -sit in the cabriolet and despatch the syce with a message. The syce -would deliver it in his own tongue—“The memsahib sends a salutation”—and -Doyle would presently appear. But to-day it was raining and there was no -alternative. - -A little flutter of consideration greeted her entrance. Two or three -native clerks shuffled to their feet and salaamed, and one ran to open -the door into Doyle’s private room for her. Her husband sat writing -against time at a large desk littered thick with papers. At another -table a native youth in white cotton draperies sat making quill pens, -with absorbed precision. The punkah swung a slow discoloured petticoat -above them both. The tall wide windows were open. Through them little -damp gusts came in and lifted the papers about the room; and beyond them -the grey rain slanted down, and sobered the vivid green of everything, -and turned the tilted palms into the likeness of draggled plumes waving -against the sky. - -“You have just escaped the shower,” said Doyle, looking up with quick -pleasure at her step. “I’ll be another twenty minutes, I’m afraid. And I -have nothing for you to play with,” he added, glancing round the dusty -room—“not even a novel. You must just sit down and be good.” - -“Mail letters?” asked Rhoda, with her hand on his shoulder. - -The clerk was looking another way, and she dropped a foolish, quick -little kiss on the top of his head. - -“Yes. It’s this business of the memorial to Church. I’ve got the -newspaper reports of the unveiling together, and the Committee have -drafted a formal letter to Mrs. Church, and there’s a good deal of -private correspondence—letters from big natives sending subscriptions, -and all that—that I thought she would like to see. As Secretary to the -Committee, it of course devolves upon me to forward everything. And at -this moment,” Doyle went on, glancing ruefully at the page under his -hand, “I am trying to write to her privately, poor thing.” - -Rhoda glanced down at the letter. “I know you will be glad to have these -testimonials, which are as sincere as they are spontaneous, to the -unique position Church held in the regard of many distinguished people,” -she read deliberately, aloud. - -“Do you think that is the right kind of thing to say? It strikes me as -rather formal. But one is so terribly afraid of hurting her by some -stupidity.” - -“Oh, I don’t think so at all, Philip. I mean—it is quite the proper -thing, I think. After all, it’s—it’s more than a year ago, you know.” - -“The wives of men like Church remember them longer than that, I fancy. -But if you will be pleased to sit down, Mrs. Doyle, I’ll finish it in -some sort of decency and get it off.” - -Rhoda sat down and crossed her feet and looked into dusty vacancy. The -recollection of Ancram’s expression as he passed her in the road came -back to her, and as she reflected that the ship which carried him to -Judith Church would also take her the balm respectfully prepared by the -Committee, her sense of humour curved her lips in an ironical smile. The -grotesqueness of the thing made it seem less serious, and she found -quite five minutes’ interested occupation in considering it. Then she -regarded the baboo making pens, and picked up a “Digest” and put it down -again, and turned over the leaves of a tome on the “Hindu Law of -Inheritance,” and yawned, and looked out of the window, and observed -that it had stopped raining. - -“Philip, aren’t you nearly done? Remember me affectionately to Mrs. -Church—no, perhaps you’d better not, either.” - -Doyle was knitting his brows over a final sentiment, and did not reply. - -“Philip, is that one of your old coats hanging on the nail? Is it old -enough to give away? I want an old coat for the syce to sleep in: he had -fever yesterday.” - -Mrs. Doyle went over to the object of her inquiries, took it down, and -daintily shook it. - -“_Philip!_ Pay some attention to me. May I have this coat? There’s -nothing in the pockets—nothing but an old letter and a newspaper. Oh!” - -Her husband looked up at last, noting a change in the tone of her -exclamation. She stood looking in an embarrassed way at the address on -the envelope she held. It was in Ancram’s handwriting. - -“What letter?” he asked. - -She handed it to him, and at the sight of it he frowned a little. - -“Is the newspaper the _Bengal Free Press_?” - -“Yes,” she said, glancing at it. “And it’s marked in one or two places -with red pencil.” - -“Then read them both,” Doyle replied. “They don’t tell a very pretty -story, but it may amuse you. I thought I had destroyed them long ago. I -can’t have worn that coat since I left Florence.” - -Rhoda sat down, with a beating curiosity, and applied herself to -understand the story that was not very pretty. It sometimes annoyed her -that she could not resist her interest in things that concerned Ancram, -especially things that exemplified him. She brought her acutest -intelligence to bear upon the exposition of the letter and the -newspaper; but it was very plain and simple, especially where it was -underscored in red pencil, and she comprehended it at once. - -She sat thinking of it, with bright eyes, fitting it into relation with -what she had known and guessed before, perhaps unconsciously pluming -herself a little upon her penetration, and, it must be confessed, -feeling a keen thrill of unregretting amusement at Ancram’s conviction. -Then suddenly, with a kind of mental gasp, she remembered Judith Church. - -“Ah!” she said to herself, and her lips almost moved. “What a -complication!” And then darted up from some depth of her moral -consciousness the thought, “She ought to know, and I ought to tell her.” - -She tried to look calmly at the situation, and analyse the character of -her responsibility. She sought for its _pros_ and _cons_; she made an -effort to range them and to balance them. But, in spite of herself, her -mind rejected everything save the memory of the words she had overheard -one soft spring night on the verandah at Government House: - -“_You ask me if I am not to you what I ought to be to my husband, who is -a good man, and who loves me and trusts you._” - -“And trusts you! and trusts you!” Remembering the way her own blood -quickened when she heard Judith Church say that, Rhoda made a spiritual -bound towards the conviction that she could not shirk opening such -deplorably blind eyes and respect herself in future. Then her memory -insisted again, and she heard Judith say, with an inflection that -precluded all mistake, all self-delusion, all change: - -“_But you ask me if I have come to love you, and perhaps in a way you -have a right to know; and the truth is better, as you say. And I answer -you that I have. I answer you, Yes, it is true; and I know it will -always be true._” - -Did that make no difference? And was there not infinitely too much -involved for any such casual, rough-handed interference as hers would -be? - -At that moment she saw that her husband was putting on his hat. His -letter to Mrs. Church lay addressed upon the desk, the papers that were -to accompany scattered about it, and Doyle was directing the clerk with -regard to them. - -“You will put all these in a strong cover, Luteef,” said he, “and -address it as I have addressed that letter. I would like you to take -them to the General Post Office yourself, and see that they don’t go -under-stamped.” - -“Yessir. All thee papers, sir? And I am to send by letter-post, sir?” - -“Yes, certainly. Well, Rhoda? That was a clever bit of trickery, wasn’t -it? I heard afterwards that the article was quoted in the House, and did -Church a lot of damage.” - -Doyle spoke with the boldness of embarrassment. These two were not in -the habit of discussing Ancram; they tolerated him occasionally as an -object, but never as a subject. Already he regretted the impulse that -put her in possession of these facts. It seemed to his sensitiveness -like taking an unfair advantage of a man when he was down, which, -considering to what Lewis Ancram had risen, was a foolish and baseless -scruple. Rhoda looked at her husband, and hesitated. For an instant she -played with the temptation to tell him all she knew, deciding, at the -end of the instant, that it would entail too much. Even a reference to -that time had come to cost her a good deal. - -“I am somehow not surprised,” she said, looking down at the letter and -paper in her hand. “But—I think it’s a pity Mrs. Church doesn’t know.” - -“Poor dear lady! why should she? I am glad she is spared that -unnecessary pang. We should all be allowed to think as well of the world -as we can, my wife. Come; in twenty minutes it will be dark.” - -“Do you think so?” his wife asked doubtfully. But she threw the letter -and the newspaper upon the desk. She would shirk it; as a duty it was -not plain enough. - -“Then you ought to burn those, Philip,” she said, as they went -downstairs together. “They wouldn’t make creditable additions to the -records of the India Office.” - -“I will,” replied her husband. “I don’t know why I didn’t long ago. How -deliciously fresh it is after the rain!” - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII. - - -There was a florist’s near by—in London there always is a florist’s near -by—and Judith stood in the little place, among the fanciful straw -baskets and the wire frames and the tin boxes of cut flowers and the -damp pots of blooming ones, and made her choice. In her slenderness and -her gladness she herself had somewhat the poise of a flower, and the -delicate flush of her face, with its new springing secret of life, did -more to suggest one—a flower just opened to the summer and the sun. - -She picked out some that were growing in country lanes then—it was the -middle of July—poppies and cornbottles and big brown-hearted daisies. -They seemed to her to speak in a simple way of joy. Then she added a pot -of ferns and some clustering growing azaleas, pink and white and very -lovely. She paid the florist’s wife ten shillings, and took them all -with her in a cab. This was not a day for economies. She drove back to -her rooms, the azaleas beside her on the seat making a picture of her -that people turned to look at. In her hand she carried a folded brown -envelope. On the form inside it was written, in the generically -inexpressive characters of the Telegraph Department, “_Arrive London -2.30. Will be with you at five. Ancram._” - -[Illustration: She drove back.] - -It was ten o’clock in the morning, but she felt that the day would be -too short for all there was to do. There should be nothing sordid in her -greeting, nothing to make him remember that she was poor. Her attic -should be swept and garnished: women think of these little things. She -had also with her in the cab a pair of dainty Liberty muslin curtains to -keep out the roof and the chimneys, and a Japanese tea-set, and tea of a -kind she was not in the habit of drinking. She had only stopped buying -pretty fresh decorative things when it occurred to her that she must -keep enough money to pay the cabman. As she hung the curtains, and put -the ferns on the window-seat and the azaleas in the corners, and the -plump, delicate-coloured silk cushions in the angles of her small hard -sofa, her old love of soft luxurious things stirred within her. -Instinctively she put her poverty away with impatience and contempt. -What in another woman might have been a calculating thought came to her -as a hardly acknowledged sense of relief and repose. There would be no -more of _that_! - -A knock at the door sent the blood to her heart, and her hand to her -dusty hair, before she remembered how impossible it was that this should -be any but an unimportant knock. Yet she opened the door with a -thrill—it seemed that such a day could have no trivial incidents. When -she saw that it was the housemaid with the mail, the Indian mail, she -took it with a little smile of indifference and satisfaction. It was no -longer the master of her delight. - -She put it all aside while she adjusted the folds of the curtains and -took the step-ladder out of the room. Then she read Philip Doyle’s -letter. She read it, and when she had finished she looked gravely, -coldly, at the packet that came with it, carefully addressed in the -round accurate hand of the clerk who made quill pens in Doyle’s office. -She was conscious of an unkindness in this chance; it might so well have -fallen last week or next. There was no ignoring it—it was there, it had -been delivered to her, it seemed almost as urgent a demand upon her time -and thought and interest as if John Church himself had put it into her -hand. With an involuntary movement she pushed the packet aside and -looked round the room. There were still several little things to do. She -got up to go about them; but she moved slowly, and the glow had gone out -of her face, leaving her eyes shadowed as they were on other days. She -made the cornbottles and the daisies up into little bouquets, but she -let her hands drop into her lap more than once, and thought about other -things. - -Suddenly, with a quick movement, she went over to where the packet lay -and took it up. It was as if she turned her back upon something; she had -a resolute look. As she broke the wax and cut the strings, any one might -have recognised that she confronted herself with a duty which she did -not mean to postpone. It would have been easy to guess her unworded -feeling—that, however differently her heart might insist, she could not -slight John Church. This was a sensitive and a just woman. - -She opened letter after letter, reading slowly and carefully. Every word -had its due, every sentence spoke to her. Gradually there came round her -lips the look they wore when she knelt upon her hassock in St. Luke’s -round the corner, and repeated, with bent head, - -/* “But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders: Spare -Thou them, O Lord, which confess their faults.” */ - -It seemed to her that in not having loved John Church while he lived nor -mourned him in sackcloth when he was dead she had sinned indeed. She was -in the midst of preparations that were almost bridal, yet it is quite -true that for this man whose death had wrought her deliverance and her -joy, her eyes were full of a tender, reverent regret. Presently she came -upon a letter which she put aside, with a pang, to be read last of all. -It was like Ancram, she thought, to have borne witness to her husband’s -worth—he could never have guessed that his letter would hurt her a -little one day. She noticed that it was fastened together with a -newspaper, by a narrow rubber circlet, and that the newspaper was marked -in red pencil. She remembered Ancram’s turn for journalism—he had -acknowledged many a clever article to her—and divined that this was some -tribute from his pen. The idea gave her a realising sense that her lover -shared her penance and was vaguely comforting. - -She went through all the rest, as I have said, conscientiously, -seriously, and with a troubled heart. Philip Doyle had not been mistaken -in saying that they were sincere, and spontaneous. The tragedy of -Church’s death had brought out his motives in high relief; it was not -likely he could ever have lived to be so appreciated. These were -impressions of him struck off as it were in a white heat of feeling. His -widow sat for a moment silent before the revelation they made of him, -even to her. - -Then, to leave nothing undone, Judith opened Ancram’s letter. Her -startled eyes went through it once without comprehending a line of its -sequence, though here and there words struck her in the face and made it -burn. She put her hand to her head to steady herself; she felt giddy, -and sickeningly unable to comprehend. She fastened her gaze upon the -page, seeing nothing, while her brain worked automatically about the -fact that she was the victim of some terribly untoward circumstance—what -and why it refused to discover for her. Presently things grew simpler -and clearer; she realised the direction from which the blow had come. -Her power to reason, to consider, to compare, came back to her; and she -caught up her misfortune eagerly, to minimise it. The lines of Ancram’s -hostility and contempt traced themselves again upon her mind, and this -time it quivered under their full significance. “Happily for Bengal,” -she read, “a fool is invariably dealt with according to his folly.” Then -she knew that no mollifying process of reasoning could alter the fact -which she had to face. - -Her mind grew acute in its pain. She began to make deductions, she -looked at the date. The corroboration of the newspaper flashed upon her -instantly, and with it came a keen longing to tell her husband who had -written that article—he had wondered so often and so painfully. All at -once she found herself framing a charge. - -A clock struck somewhere, and as if the sound summoned her she got up -from her seat and opened a little lacquered box that stood upon the -mantel. It contained letters chiefly, but from among its few photographs -she drew one of her husband. With this in her hand she went into her -bedroom and shut the door and locked it. - -When the maid brought Sir Lewis Ancram’s card up at five o’clock she -found the door open. Mrs. Church was fitting a photograph into a little -frame. She looked thoughtful, but charming; and she said so -unhesitatingly, “Bring the gentleman up, Hetty,” that Hetty, noticing -the curtains and the cushions in Mrs. Church’s sitting-room, brought the -gentleman up with a smile. - -At his step upon the stair her eyes dilated, she took a long breath and -pulled herself together, her hand tightening on the corner of the table. -He came in quickly and stood before her silent; he seemed to insist upon -his presence and on his outstretched hands. His face was almost open and -expansive in its achieved happiness; one would have said he was a -fellow-being and not a Lieutenant-Governor. It looked as if to him the -moment were emotional, but Mrs. Church almost immediately deprived it of -that character. She gave him the right hand of ordinary intercourse and -an agreeable smile. - -“You are looking surprisingly well,” she said. - -If this struck Ancram as inadequate he hesitated about saying so. The -words upon his own lips were “My God! how glad I am to see you!” but he -did not permit these to escape him either. Her friendliness was too -cheerful to chill him, but he put his eyeglass into his eye, which he -generally did when he wanted to reflect, behind a pause. - -“And you are just the same,” he said. “A little more colour, perhaps.” - -“I am not really, you know,” she returned, slipping her hand quickly out -of his. “Since I saw you I am older—and wiser. Nearly two years older -and wiser.” - -The smile which he sent into her eyes was a visible effort to bring -himself nearer to her. - -“Where have you found so much instruction?” he asked, with tender -banter. - -Her laugh accepted the banter and ignored its quality. “In ‘The Modern -Influence of the Vedic Books,’ among other places,” she said, and rang -the bell. “Tea, Hetty.” - -“I must be allowed to congratulate you upon that,” she went on -pleasantly. “All the wise people are talking about it, aren’t they? And -upon the rest of your achievements. They have been very remarkable.” - -“They are very incomplete,” he hinted; “but I am glad you are disposed -to be kind about them.” - -They had dropped into chairs at the usual conversational distance, and -he sat regarding her with a look which almost confessed that he did not -understand. - -“I suppose you had an execrable passage,” Judith volunteered, with -sociable emphasis. “I can imagine what it must have been, as far as -Aden, with the monsoon well on.” - -“Execrable,” he repeated. He had come to a conclusion. It was part of -her moral conception of their situation that he should begin his -love-making over again. She would not tolerate their picking it up and -going on with it. At least that was her attitude. He wondered, -indulgently, how long she would be able to keep it. - -“And Calcutta? I suppose you left it steaming?” - -“I hardly know. I was there only a couple of days before the mail left. -Almost the whole of July I have been on tour.” - -“Oh—really?” said Mrs. Church. Her face assumed the slight sad -impenetrability with which we give people to understand that they are -trespassing upon ground hallowed by the association of grief. Ancram -observed, with irritation, that she almost imposed silence upon him for -a moment. Her look suggested to him that if he made any further careless -allusions she might break into tears. - -“Dear me!” Judith said softly at last, pouring out the tea, “how you -bring everything back to me!” - -He thought of saying boldly that he had come to bring her back to -everything, but for some reason he refrained. - -“Not unpleasantly, I hope?” He had an instant’s astonishment at finding -such a commonplace upon his lips. He had thought of this in poems for -months. - -She gave him his tea, and a pathetic smile. It was so pathetic that he -looked away from it, and his eye fell upon the portrait of John Church, -framed, near her on the table. - -“Do you think it is a good one?” she asked eagerly, following his -glance. “Do you think it does him justice? It was so difficult,” she -added softly, “to do him justice.” - -Sir Lewis Ancram stirred his tea vigorously. He never took sugar, but -the manipulation of his spoon enabled him to say, with candid emphasis, -“He never got justice.” - -For the moment he would abandon his personal interest, he would humour -her conscience; he would dwell upon the past, for the moment. - -“No,” she said, “I think he never did. Perhaps, now——” - -Ancram’s lip curled expressively. - -“Yes, now,” he said—“now that no appreciation can encourage him, no -applause stimulate him, now that he is for ever past it and them, they -can find nothing too good to say of him. What a set of curs they are!” - -“It is the old story,” she replied. Her eyes were full of sadness. - -“Forgive me!” Ancram said involuntarily. Then he wondered for what he -had asked to be forgiven. - -“He was a martyr,” Judith went on calmly—“‘John Church, martyr,’ is the -way they ought to write him down in the Service records. But there were -a few people who knew him great and worthy while he lived. I was one——” - -“And I was another. There were more than you think.” - -“He used to trust you. Especially in the matter that killed him—that -educational matter—he often said that without your sympathy and support -he would hardly know where to turn.” - -“His policy was right. Events are showing now how right it was. Every -day I find what excellent reason he had for all he did.” - -“Yes,” Judith said, regarding him with a kind of remote curiosity. “You -have succeeded to his difficulties. I wonder if you lie awake over them, -as he used to do! And to all the rest. You have taken his place, and his -hopes, and the honours that would have been his. How strange it seems!” - -“Why should it seem so strange, Judith?” - -She half turned and picked up a letter and a newspaper that lay on the -table behind her. - -“This is one reason,” she said, and handed them to him. “Those have -reached me to-day, by some mistake in Mr. Doyle’s office, I suppose. One -knows how these things happen in India. And I thought you might like to -have them again.” - -Ancram’s face fell suddenly into the lines of office. He took the papers -into his long nervous hands in an accustomed way, and opened the pages -of the letter with a stroke of his finger and thumb which told of a -multitude of correspondence and a somewhat disregarding way of dealing -with it. His eyes were riveted upon Doyle’s red pencil marks under “_his -beard grows with the tale of his blunders_” in the letter and the -newspaper, but his expression merely noted them for future reference. - -“Thanks,” he said presently, settling the papers together again. -“Perhaps it is as well that they should be in my possession. It was -thoughtful of you. In other hands they might be misunderstood.” - -She looked at him full and clearly, and something behind her eyes -laughed at him. - -“Oh, I think not!” she said. “Let me give you another cup of tea.” - -“No more, thank you.” He drew his feet together in a preliminary -movement of departure, and then thought better of it. - -“I hope you understand,” he said, “that in—in official life one may be -forced into hostile criticism occasionally, without the slightest -personal animus.” His voice was almost severe—it was as he were -compelled to reason with a subordinate in terms of reproof. - -Judith smiled acquiescently. - -“Oh, I am sure that must often be the case,” she said; and he knew that -she was beyond all argument of his. She had adopted the official -attitude; she was impersonal and complaisant and non-committal. Her -comment would reach him later, through the authorised channels of the -empty years. It would be silent and negative in its nature, the denial -of promotion, but he would understand. Even in a matter of sentiment the -official attitude had its decencies, its conveniences. He was vaguely -aware of them as he rose, with a little cough, and fell back into his -own. - -Nevertheless it was with something like an inward groan that he -abandoned it, and tried, for a few lingering minutes, to remind her of -the man she had known in Calcutta. - -“Judith,” he said desperately at the door, after she had bidden him a -cheerful farewell, “I once thought I had reason to believe that you -loved me.” - -She was leaning rather heavily on the back of a chair. He had made only -a short visit, but he had spent five years of this woman’s life since he -arrived. - -“Not you,” she said: “my idea of you. And that was a long time ago.” - -She kept her tone of polite commonplace; there was nothing for it but a -recognisant bow, which Ancram made in silence. As he took his way -downstairs and out into Kensington, a malignant recollection of having -heard something very like this before took possession of him and -interfered with the heroic quality of his grief. If he had a Nemesis, he -told himself, it was the feminine idea of him. But that was afterward. - - * * * * * - -One day, a year later, Sir Lewis Ancram paused in his successful conduct -of the affairs of Bengal long enough to state the case with ultimate -emphasis to a confidentially inquiring friend. - -“As the wife of my late honoured chief,” he said, “I have the highest -admiration and respect for Mrs. Church; but the world is wrong in -thinking that I have ever made her a proposal of marriage; nor have I -the slightest intention of doing so.” - - THE END. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - D. 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Miss Hunt probably writes dialogue better -than any of our young novelists.... Not only are her conversations -wonderfully vivacious and sustained, but she contrives to assign to each -of her characters a distinct mode of speech, so that the reader easily -identifies them, and can follow the conversations without the slightest -difficulty.”—_London Athenæum._ - -“One of the best writers of dialogue of our immediate day. The -conversations in this book will enhance her already secure -reputation.”—_London Daily Chronicle._ - -“A creation that does Miss Hunt infinite credit, and places her in the -front rank of the younger novelists.... Brilliantly drawn, quivering -with life, adroit, quiet-witted, unfalteringly insolent, and withal -strangely magnetic.”—_London Standard._ - -_AN IMAGINATIVE MAN._ By ROBERT S. HICHENS, author of “The Green -Carnation.” 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. - -“One of the brightest books of the year.”—_Boston Budget._ - -“Altogether delightful, fascinating, unusual.”—_Cleveland Amusement -Gazette._ - -“A study in character.... Just as entertaining as though it were the -conventional story of love and marriage. The clever hand of the author -of ‘The Green Carnation’ is easily detected in the caustic wit and -pointed epigram.”—_Jeannette L. Gilder, in the New York World._ - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - =“A better book than ‘The Prisoner of Zenda.’”=—_London Queen._ - -_THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO._ By ANTHONY HOPE, author of “The God -in the Car,” “The Prisoner of Zenda,” etc. With photogravure -Frontispiece by S. W. Van Schaick. Third edition. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. - -“No adventures were ever better worth recounting than are those of -Antonio of Monte Velluto, a very Bayard among outlaws.... To all those -whose pulses still stir at the recital of deeds of high courage, we may -recommend this book.... The chronicle conveys the emotion of heroic -adventure, and is picturesquely written.”—_London Daily News._ - -“It has literary merits all its own, of a deliberate and rather deep -order.... In point of execution ‘The Chronicles of Count Antonio’ is the -best work that Mr. Hope has yet done. The design is clearer, the -workmanship more elaborate, the style more colored.... The incidents are -most ingenious, they are told quietly, but with great cunning, and the -Quixotic sentiment which pervades it all is exceedingly -pleasant.”—_Westminster Gazette._ - -“A romance worthy of all the expectations raised by the brilliancy of -his former books, and likely to be read with a keen enjoyment and a -healthy exaltation of the spirits by every one who takes it up.”—_The -Scotsman._ - -“A gallant tale, written with unfailing freshness and spirit.”—_London -Daily Telegraph._ - -“One of the most fascinating romances written in English within many -days. The quaint simplicity of its style is delightful, and the -adventures recorded in these ‘Chronicles of Count Antonio’ are as -stirring and ingenious as any conceived even by Weyman at his -best.”—_New York World._ - -“Romance of the real flavor, wholly and entirely romance, and narrated -in true romantic style. The characters, drawn with such masterly -handling, are not merely pictures and portraits, but statues that are -alive and step boldly forward from the canvas.”—_Boston Courier._ - -“Told in a wonderfully simple and direct style, and with the magic touch -of a man who has the genius of narrative, making the varied incidents -flow naturally and rapidly in a stream of sparkling discourse.”—_Detroit -Tribune._ - -“Easily ranks with, if not above, ‘A Prisoner of Zenda.’... Wonderfully -strong, graphic, and compels the interest of the most blasé novel -reader.”—_Boston Advertiser._ - -“No adventures were ever better worth telling than those of Count -Antonio.... The author knows full well how to make every pulse thrill, -and how to hold his readers under the spell of his magic.”—_Boston -Herald._ - -“A book to make women weep proud tears, and the blood of men to tingle -with knightly fervor.... In ‘Count Antonio’ we think Mr. Hope surpasses -himself, as he has already surpassed all the other story-tellers of the -period.”—_New York Spirit of the Times._ - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -_THE REDS OF THE MIDI._ An Episode of the French Revolution. By FÉLIX -GRAS. Translated from the Provençal by Mrs. CATHARINE A. JANVIER. With -an Introduction by THOMAS A. JANVIER. With Frontispiece. 12mo. Cloth, -$1.50. - -M. Félix Gras is the official head of the _Félibrige_, the society of -Provençal men of letters, the highest honor in their gift. It is -believed that the introduction of his rare talent to our readers will -meet with prompt appreciation. - -“In all French history there is no more inspiring episode than that with -which M. Gras deals in this story: the march to Paris and the doings in -Paris of that Marseilles Battalion made up of men who were sworn to cast -down ‘the tyrant,’ and who ‘knew how to die.’ His epitome of the motive -power of the Revolution in the feelings of one of its individual -pleasant parts is the very essence of simplicity and directness. His -method has the largeness and clearness of the Greek drama. The motives -are distinct. The action is free and bold. The climax is inevitable, and -the story has a place entirely apart from all the fiction of the French -Revolution with which I am acquainted.”—_From Mr. Janvier’s -Introduction._ - -_THE GODS, SOME MORTALS, AND LORD WICKENHAM._ By JOHN OLIVER HOBBES. -With Portrait. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. - -“Mrs. Craigie has taken her place among the novelists of the day. It is -a high place and a place apart. Her method is her own, and she stands -not exactly on the threshold of a great career, but already within the -temple of fame.”—_G. W. Smalley, in the Tribune._ - -“Here is the sweetness of a live love story.... It is to be reckoned -among the brilliants as a novel.”—_Boston Courier._ - -“One of the most refreshing novels of the period, full of grace, spirit, -force, feeling, and literary charm.”—_Chicago Evening Post._ - -“Clever and cynical, full of epigrams and wit, bright with keen -delineations of character, and with a shrewd insight into life.”—_Newark -Advertiser._ - -“A novel of profound psychological knowledge and ethical import.... -Worthy of high rank in current fiction.”—_Boston Beacon._ - -_MAELCHO._ By the Hon. EMILY LAWLESS, author of “Grania,” “Hurrish,” -etc. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. - -“A paradox of literary genius. It is not a history, and yet has more of -the stuff of history in it, more of the true national character and -fate, than any historical monograph we know. It is not a novel, and yet -fascinates us more than any novel.”—_London Spectator._ - -“Abounds in thrilling incidents.... Above and beyond all, the book -charms by reason of the breadth of view, the magnanimity, and the -tenderness which animate the author.”—_London Athenæum._ - -“A piece of work of the first order, which we do not hesitate to -describe as one of the most remarkable literary achievements of this -generation.”—_Manchester Guardian._ - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -_SLEEPING FIRES._ By GEORGE GISSING, author of “In the Year of Jubilee,” -“Eve’s Ransom,” etc. 16mo. Cloth, 75 cents. - -In this striking story the author has treated an original motive with -rare self-command and skill. His book is most interesting as a story, -and remarkable as a literary performance. - -_STONEPASTURES._ By ELEANOR STUART. 16mo. Cloth, 75 cents. - -“This is a strong bit of good literary workmanship.... The book has the -value of being a real sketch of our own mining regions, and of showing -how, even in the apparently dull round of work, there is still material -for a good bit of literature.”—_Philadelphia Ledger._ - -_COURTSHIP BY COMMAND._ By M. M. BLAKE. 16mo. Cloth, 75 cents. - -“A bright, moving study of an unusually interesting period in the life -of Napoleon, ... deliciously told; the characters are clearly, strongly, -and very delicately modeled, and the touches of color most artistically -done. ‘Courtship by Command’ is the most satisfactory Napoleon -bonne-bouche we have had.”—_New York Commercial Advertiser._ - -_THE WATTER’S MOU’._ By BRAM STOKER. l6mo. Cloth, 75 cents. - -“Here is a tale to stir the most sluggish nature.... It is like standing -on the deck of a wave-tossed ship; you feel the soul of the storm go -into your blood.”—_N. Y. Home Journal._ - -“The characters are strongly drawn, the descriptions are intensely -dramatic, and the situations are portrayed with rare vividness of -language. It is a thrilling story, told with great power.”—_Boston -Advertiser._ - -_MASTER AND MAN._ By Count LEO TOLSTOY. With an Introduction by W. D. -HOWELLS. 16mo. Cloth, 75 cents. - -“Crowded with these characteristic touches which mark his literary -work.”—_Public Opinion._ - -“Reveals a wonderful knowledge of the workings of the human mind, and it -tells a tale that not only stirs the emotions, but gives us a better -insight into our own hearts.”—_San Francisco Argonaut._ - -_THE ZEIT-GEIST._ By L. DOUGALL, author of “The Mermaid,” “Beggars All,” -etc. 16mo. Cloth, 75 cents. - -“One of the best of the short stories of the day.”—_Boston Journal._ - -“One of the most remarkable novels of the year.”—_New York Commercial -Advertiser._ - -“Powerful in conception, treatment, and influence.”—_Boston Globe._ - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - TWO REMARKABLE AMERICAN NOVELS. - -_THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE. An Episode of the American Civil War._ By -STEPHEN CRANE. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. - -“Mr. Stephen Crane is a great artist, with something new to say, and -consequently with a new way of saying it.... In ‘The Red Badge of -Courage’ Mr. Crane has surely contrived a masterpiece.... He has painted -a picture that challenges comparisons with the most vivid scenes of -Tolstoy’s ‘La Guerre et la Paix’ or of Zola’s ‘La Débâcle.’”—_London New -Review._ - -“In its whole range of literature we can call to mind nothing so -searching in its analysis, so manifestly impressed with the stamp of -truth, as ‘The Red Badge of Courage.’... A remarkable study of the -average mind under stress of battle.... We repeat, a really fine -achievement.”—_London Daily Chronicle._ - -“Not merely a remarkable book; it is a revelation.... One feels that, -with perhaps one or two exceptions, all previous descriptions of modern -warfare have been the merest abstractions.”—_St. James Gazette._ - -“Holds one irrevocably. There is no possibility of resistance when once -you are in its grip, from the first of the march of the troops to the -closing scenes.... Mr. Crane, we repeat, has written a remarkable book. -His insight and his power of realization amount to genius.”—_Pall Mall -Gazette._ - -“There is nothing in American fiction to compare with it in the vivid, -uncompromising, almost aggressive vigor with which it depicts the -strangely mingled conditions that go to make up what men call war.... -Mr. Crane has added to American literature something that has never been -done before, and that is, in its own peculiar way, inimitable.”—_Boston -Beacon._ - -“Never before have we had the seamy side of glorious war so well -depicted.... The action of the story throughout is splendid, and all -aglow with color, movement, and vim. The style is as keen and bright as -a sword-blade, and a Kipling has done nothing better in this -line.”—_Chicago Evening Post._ - -_IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING. A Romance of the American Revolution._ By -CHAUNCEY C. HOTCHKISS. 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. - -“The whole story is so completely absorbing that you will sit far into -the night to finish it. You lay it aside with the feeling that you have -seen a gloriously true picture of the Revolution.”—_Boston Herald._ - -“The story is a strong one—a thrilling one. It causes the true American -to flush with excitement, to devour chapter after chapter until the eyes -smart; and it fairly smokes with patriotism.”—_New York Mail and -Express._ - -“The heart beats quickly, and we feel ourselves taking part in the -scenes described.... Altogether the book is an addition to American -literature.”—_Chicago Evening Post._ - -“One of the most readable novels of the year.... As a love romance it is -charming, while it is filled with thrilling adventure and deeds of -patriotic daring.”—_Boston Advertiser._ - -“This romance seems to come the nearest to a satisfactory treatment in -fiction of the Revolutionary period that we have yet had.”—_Buffalo -Courier._ - -“A clean, wholesome story, full of romance and interesting -adventure.... Holds the interest alike by the thread of the story and -by the incidents.... A remarkably well-balanced and absorbing -novel.”—_Milwaukee Journal._ - - Transcriber’s Note - -Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and -are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original. - - 76.21 she [give] that young lady _sic_ - - 116.1 the _Free Press_[,] the _Hindu Patriot_, the Added. - _Bengalee_ - - 160.20 afternoo[o]n still hung mellow in mid air Removed. - - 207.3 as lovely, a[s] embarrassing as divine. Added. - - 281.9 and occupied herself with the[n/m] Replaced. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's His Honour, and a Lady, by Mrs. Everard Cotes - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS HONOUR, AND A LADY *** - -***** This file should be named 53036-0.txt or 53036-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/0/3/53036/ - -Produced by KD Weeks, Larry B. Harrison and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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