"Oh, Mrs. Norton, I've been hunting for you everywhere. I've a message from His Excellency. He wants you to come to his table at supper and save him from the Members of Council's awful wives."

"Oh, thanks, Captain Gardner, I'll come with pleasure," she answered, smiling prettily on him. An A.D.C. is always worth cultivating.

"I say, is it hopeless asking you for a dance now?" he said. "We poor devils of the Staff don't get a chance at the beginning of the evening, as we're so busy introducing people to Their Excellencies."

She looked at her programme.

"You can have this, if you like. It's only with some Indian Civilian in spectacles; and I hate the Heaven Born. They're such bores." She smiled and sailed off on the A.D.C.'s arm to the disgust of Rosenthal, calmly abandoned. But he could not help being amused when a round-faced young man dressed as an ancient Greek with gig-lamp spectacles rushed up to overtake Mrs. Norton before she entered the ballroom, and stopped in dismay to gaze after her open-mouthed and peer at his programme.

But the Hussar drove her back from Government House to Poona in his particularly luxurious Rolls-Royce with an English chauffeur and would hardly let her go when the car drew up before the door of the Munster Hotel where she was staying. Laughing, crushed and dishevelled, she broke from him and jumped out of the automobile, ran up the verandah steps and turned to wave to him as the chauffeur started off to take him to his quarters in the Club of Western India.

Still smiling Violet stumbled up the unlighted stairs and reached her sitting-room. When she turned up the lamp a letter lying on the table caught her eyes. She picked it up indifferently; but when she saw that it bore the handwriting of one of her Calcutta cousins and the Darjeeling postmark she tore it open eagerly and ran her eye rapidly down the pages. She came to the lines:

"I have seen the man you asked me about. He is always with a girl called Benson, rather a pretty little thing. She is popular with all the men; but Mr. Wargrave seems to be the favourite. They are staying at the same hotel; and everyone says they are engaged."

Then the writer went on to talk of family matters. But Violet read no more. Her eyes flamed with anger as she crumpled the paper up, flung it on the floor and stamped it under foot. She paced the room angrily, tearing the lace handkerchief she held in her hands to shreds. This, then, was Frank's loyalty to her, this was how he consoled himself for her absence. With this chit of a girl, with whom he probably laughed at her, Violet's readiness to give up reputation, good fame, home, for him.

She almost sobbed with jealous rage at the idea. She forgot her own infidelities and want of remembrance and felt herself to be a deceived and much-abused woman. But she would not bear such treatment meekly.

Frank was hers; no other woman had a right to him, should ever have him.

She was resolved on that. She stopped and, picking up the letter, smoothed it out and re-read it. Then, frowning, she pa.s.sed into her bedroom and tore off her costume. Not for an instant did she sleep during the remainder of the night, but tossed on her bed, revolving plans of vengeance.

Next day she was seated in the train on her way to Darjeeling, a journey that would take days. She had telegraphed fruitlessly for a room at the Oriental Hotel at which she knew from his letters that Frank was staying; but she had secured one at the larger Eastern Palace where her Calcutta relatives were residing. Only on the second day of her journey did she wire to Wargrave, bidding him meet her on her arrival.

As the train carried her across India her heart was still filled with anger, jealousy and almost hate of the man whom she had favoured above all others and who spurned her, dared to be faithless to her, it seemed.

She did not know how much love she had left for him; for his image had grown dim in the flight of time and among the distractions of gayer stations than Rohar. Certainly she had flirted herself, flirted recklessly; but that was a different matter to his faithlessness. She might do it; but he must not. Did she want him? She hardly knew. But she was not going to be put aside for this tiger-killing young person, this jungle girl, who must be taught not to trespa.s.s on Violet's property.

Then her mind went back to Rosenthal; and in the solitude of the ladies'

compartment she laughed aloud at the thought of the shock that his self-sufficiency must have received when he learned of her sudden and mysterious disappearance from Poona. For she had left him no word. It would do him good; he needed a lesson, for he was too sure of her. She had never troubled to a.n.a.lyse her feelings for him and did not know whether she liked or hated him most. She saw his faults clearly, his blatant conceit, his irritating belief in the supremacy of money, his arrogance, his bad manners. She knew that men deemed him a bounder. But his very boorishness, his savage outbreaks against conventionality, attracted her. Under the thin veneer of civilisation, he was simply an animal; she knew it and it appealed to her baser nature, the sensual strain in her. That he was beast, and wild beast at that, did not affright her; she felt that she could always dominate him when she would. Once or twice the beast had come out into the open; but she had driven it back with a whip--and she believed that she could always do it. The wealth, the life of luxury that he offered, appealed to her strongly; but she kept her head and remembered that he was dependent on his father's bounty, and she had no intention of compromising herself irretrievably under such circ.u.mstances. If he had the disposal of the old man's immense riches then the temptation might be over-powering; but until he had she would wait. And ever the memory of Wargrave obtruded itself, rather to her annoyance; but angry as she was with him she could not pretend to herself that she was indifferent to him.

Up in Darjeeling on the very day that she left Poona Frank sat with Miss Benson under a ma.s.sive, orchid-clad tree in the lovely Botanical Gardens, gazing moodily down into the depths of the valley far below them. Turning suddenly he found his companion looking at him. Something in her eyes moved him strongly and he forgot his caution.

"Muriel, you know how it is with, me," he said impetuously. "I oughtn't to say anything; but--well, all the men here run after you, and I can't bear it. I'm a fool, I know, but I can't help being jealous. I'm always afraid that some one of them will take you from me. The other woman seems to be forgetting me completely. She hasn't written to me for weeks, months. Surely she's tiring of me. I don't suppose she ever really cared for me--just was bored in that dull station. If--if she sets me free would you--could you ever like me well enough to marry me?"

The girl looked away over the valley and a little smile crept into her eyes. Then she turned to him and laid her hand on his.

"Dear boy, if you were free I would," she answered.

They were all alone, no one to see them; and his arms went out to her.

But she drew back.

"Not yet, dear. You're another woman's property still," she said.

He bit his lip.

"Yes, you're right, sweetheart. But--well, even if I weren't, I haven't much to offer you. I'm still in debt; and I'd be only condemning you to pa.s.s all your existence in the jungle."

"There'd be no hardship in that, dear. I love the forest better than anywhere else in the world. Life in it is happiness to me."

"But would you be content to live as Mrs. Dermot does?"

"Content? I'd love it better than anything else, if I were with you."

Then he forgot her reproof and she her high-minded resolves as his arms went round her and he drew her to him until their lips met in a long, pa.s.sionate kiss. Afterwards they sat hand in hand and talked of what the future would hold for them if only Fate were kind. And Mrs. Norton, speeding across India to shatter their dream-world, smiled a little grimly as she pictured to herself her meeting with Frank.

Next day the blow fell. Wargrave was sitting at lunch with Mrs. Dermot and Muriel in the hotel dining-room when Violet's telegram was handed to him. His companions could see that he had received bad news; but he pulled himself together and said nothing about it until he was alone with Mrs. Dermot in her private sitting-room after _tiffin_. Then he exclaimed suddenly, handing her the telegram:

"She's on her way here."

Noreen understood even before she looked at the paper. When she read the message she asked:

"What's she coming here for?"

"I don't know. I haven't had a letter from her for a long time," he replied wearily.

"What are you going to do about her?"

"What can I?" he said with a gesture of despair. "It's for her to decide. If she wishes it I must keep my word."

"But Muriel? What of her? You know she cares for you. Has she no right to be considered?" demanded her friend impatiently. "Are you going to ruin her life as well as yours? This woman will only drag you down. She can't really be fond of you or she wouldn't forget you as she's been doing. You don't love her. Don't you see what it will all mean to you?--to be pilloried in the Divorce Court, made to pay enormous costs, perhaps heavy damages as well. And even now you say you're in debt. And then to be chained for life to a woman you don't care about while you're in love with another. Oh, Mr. Wargrave, do be sensible. Tell her the truth. Tell her you can't go on with it."

"I've given her my word," he said simply.

She pleaded with him pa.s.sionately, but to no avail. At last, as Muriel entered the room, she rose, saying:

"Tell her. I'll not mention the subject again."

And she walked indignantly into her bedroom and shut the door almost with a bang; for the little woman was furious with him for what she deemed his cra.s.s stupidity.

"What's the matter with Noreen?" asked the girl in surprise.

Without a word he gave her the telegram.

"Oh Frank!" she gasped, and sank overwhelmed into a chair, letting the fatal paper flutter to the floor.

He did not go to her but stood by the window, the image of despair, gazing out with unseeing eyes.

"What am I to do?" he asked miserably.

"You must keep your word if she wishes it," answered the girl bravely.

But the next moment she broke down and, burying her face in her hands, wept bitterly. He made no move to her; and she rose and went quietly back to her own room.

In the interval that elapsed before Violet's arrival Mrs. Dermot did not abandon hope, and in spite of her words she attacked Wargrave persistently, trying to shake his resolution. But to her despair Muriel sided with him and declared that he was right. So finally Noreen gave it up and vowed that she would wash her hands of the whole affair.

When Violet reached Darjeeling Wargrave met her at the railway station.

Face to face with him her anger died and something of the attraction he had had for her revived. So she greeted him effusively and all but embraced him on the platform. Other men seeing the meeting wondered why he looked so miserable when such a lovely woman evinced her delight at seeing him so plainly. She pa.s.sed her arm through his with an air of possession and chatted volubly while he watched his servant help hers to collect her luggage. When she took her seat in the _dandy_, or chair carried on the shoulders of coolies, and was being conveyed towards her hotel she behaved as though they had not been parted a week, rattled on gaily about her doings in Poona and Mahableshwar and, with all the glories of the Himalayas about her, declared that the Bombay hill-station was far lovelier than Darjeeling. Wargrave was relieved that she showed no desire to be sentimental and gladly responded to her mood, detailing the forthcoming gaieties and promising to take her to them all.

When they reached the Eastern Palace Hotel and were shown up into her private sitting-room she put her hands on his shoulders as soon as they were alone and said: