But as, after a time, impelled--even in his blank uncertainty regarding all things--to think of going into the drawing-room decently and in order, Chris looked up from his dreary meditations, the solidity of this screen wavered. And he saw the cause. A thin delicate hand was pulling the screen aside so as to see into the room.

'Who is it?' he called at once. 'What do you want?'

'Krishn Davenund,' came a voice. It was a woman's.

'Krishn Davenund,' he echoed stupidly, his heart beginning to throb.

'Well! I am Krishn Davenund. Who wants me?'

The next instant he was standing as if turned to stone beside the table; for the white-clad figure which showed itself, and then came swiftly towards him, was his mother's.

'Mother!' he faltered. 'Why?--what----?'

He paused, feeling there was no reason here, no reason at all in the clinging hands about his knees, in the pa.s.sionate kisses rained on them regardless of dress trousers, regardless of everything save that here was the son that had been lost, and was found again!

Not so Chris Davenant. With a certain rage he realised, even as he bent over her with tears in his eyes stirred to his innermost soul, that above all this emotion lay a doubt to what he ought to do next; whether he should raise his mother to the chair beside his, raise her to the unaccustomed, or crouch down on the floor beside her, himself, in forgotten fashion. Horrible, hateful thought; yet there it was!

She solved the question herself unconsciously with the dignified humility of Eastern womanhood. 'Sit thou there, son of thy father, master of my widowed house,' she said, 'so at thy feet shall I find son and husband once more!'

Then, in a perfect ecstasy of joy, she lifted her worn, refined face to his. 'Yea! I shall find Krishn, my Bala-Krishna once more! Lo! canst thou forgive thy mother, child; thy mother who denounced thee, not knowing that thou hadst returned--that thou hadst come back?'

'Come back?' he echoed.

Her face was as the face of an angel over the sinner that repenteth.

She reached her thin arm from her shroud, and laid her finger on his lip.

'Hush, child! Let it be forgotten. Let it be as if it had never been.

Thou canst tell me, after, why thou saidst no word. Yet Krishn, how could I tell? But for the old _pujari_ who laid the caste mark on thy forehead again, I might never have known.'

He understood then; understood why she had come to him; why that clinging mother's touch was his own once more. Poor mother!

'Lo! Krishn!' she went on, interrupting herself hastily at the look on his face, 'be not angry with me. If thou didst know the tears I have shed since he told me but yesterday! How could I know? And to think I might have killed thee. Say thou dost forgive me!'

'Speak not of forgiveness, mother,' he said huskily, bending to kiss her.

What else could he do? he asked himself. Could he tell her the truth--that he had not come back? Or had he? Or even if he had not, did he not mean to do so? He could not say. He only felt himself in the toils once more.

'Leave the past alone, mother,' he said fondly; 'the present is enough.'

She smiled rapturously for a moment, and then she looked round anxiously. 'Nay, child, not yet. There is thy wife. I must gain her forgiveness too, if mortal woman can forgive one who might have made her widow! But I will lie at her feet, Krishn. I will plead with her.

That is why I came hither--to see her--to call her daughter.'

Chris, with those clinging arms about him, Chris, in the luxury of being loved, gave a faint sob.

'She is not here to-night, mother,' he said; 'but fret not: she would forgive thee--even hadst thou made her widow!'

The worn old face looked rebuked, perhaps a trifle disappointed. 'Lo! I have heard ever,' she said, with a regret in her voice also, 'that they are as angels, without jealousy; not as we----'

Here the sight of the dark intelligent face above hers seemed to come upon her as if it had been her lover's and she a girl. She laid her head suddenly on his knee and laughed, a laugh that held a sob. 'Then I have thee to myself for now, heart's darling!' she murmured--'thou and thy house!'

She looked around her, full of childish curiosity and amazement. 'Thou art _Ameer_, indeed!' she went on with awe, touching the tablecloth gingerly with her fingers, 'and all those dishes!' She shook her head dismally. 'Lo! Krishn! how shall I ever feed thee when thou comest to our poor house? Yet wilt thou not mind,' she added; 'thou wert never a greedy one!'

Then the curiosity prevailed even over her thoughts of him, and clinging to his arm still, she raised herself to peer over the table at the drawing-room through which she had hurried.

'Thou dost eat here, and sleep there,' she suggested. 'Nay! Krishn, think not thy mother a fool; but she is so glad--so glad--and all is so new--it is a spectacle!'

Her familiar face, so austere now in its lines, yet still so full of life, furrowed by late tears, yet smoothed by present smiles, seemed to him the most charming thing of his very own he had seen for years. He rose like the boy he was in reality, and raised her with him. 'Come, little mother,' he said in banter. 'Come, feminine one, and see it all; there will be no peace for talk till that is over.'

It came naturally to him, that tone of superior affection which he had not dared to use for so long. So, hand in hand, he showed her things strange and new; and as he did so, saying that Viva had made this or arranged that, a certain content in the fact grew up in him.

'Doth she play this?' asked the widow in her shroud, as she touched the keys of the piano with an awed finger.

'Yea, and sings too,' he replied proudly. 'She shall sing for thee next time'--he had quite forgotten realities in this present--'and now,' he added, 'thou must see the rest, for we sleep not here. This is but for sitting.'

He took one of the pink-shaded lamps and led the way. 'This is my room,' he said with (considering the circ.u.mstances) a perfectly childish pomp and delight in his task.

His mother looked into the slip of a room with approval, until she came to the little camp-bed set in a corner.

'Are there no flowers?' she asked quickly: 'the wedding is not so old yet----'

The pink-shaded lamp trembled suddenly in his hands. He had remembered realities. 'And this--this is--the other,' he continued, pa.s.sing on.

The old woman gave a cry of pure delight; for there were flowers here.

Roses on the walls, the hangings, the floor; roses fastening up the lace curtains of the glittering bed, with its quilt of satin; roses even on the dressing-table, trimmed like a rose itself, where Chris, with a still unsteady hand, set down the rosy light to sparkle on the silver brushes and combs, the silver-topped Heaven-knows-what, that lay upon it. For Mrs. Chris had been dressing for a burlesque, and had required plenty of paints and pots!

The old woman, in her widow's shroud, stole over towards it, walking softly as if afraid of crushing the roses. But there was no awe in her face now; only a vast curiosity, as one by one she lifted the lids and looked in. For _this_ she knew, _this_ was common to all women.

Suddenly she glanced round at her son, and nodded archly ere proceeding with her inspection.

'Yea! She is good, and thou art blessed in one who careth for thy love,' she said softly.

Poor Chris!

He stood staring at his mother, staring at the paints and patches, staring at everything feminine in this world and the next, without a word, without almost a thought.

Only with a sort of vague wonder if this--this inconceivable position--was the common ground between those things feminine?

A sniff at a silver-topped bottle of White-Rose scent ended the inspection by bringing a sudden recollection, a sudden new interest to his mother's face.

'Lo! I had nigh forgotten,' she said, searching in the folds of her shroud with some trepidation, then relieved, coming towards him.

'Naraini--thou dost remember thy cousin Naraini, Krishn, though she was but a child when thou didst leave?'--

'Yea, I remember,' he said, his bewilderment pa.s.sing into something tangible, something that sent him hot and cold, that made him clinch his hands and try to bring the dull surprise back again. 'What then?'

'The girl hath a fancy--Didst thou, by chance, seek our house that morning, Krishn? I tell her it could not be, that thou wouldst not have gone away, but girls' fancies are ill to soothe; and she hath wept all night lest by her petulance she had driven thee forth. She did penance for it, poor child, within the hour, for having shown evil temper to a holy one; but since the _pujari's_ tale, she will have it that it was thou--So I gave my word I would ask thee, just to comfort her, though it is idle----'

Chris stood quite still.

'It is not idle,' he replied in a set voice, 'I--I begged of her----'