Chapter III

"Oh laisse frapper à la porte
La main, qui frappe avec ses doigts futiles.
Notre heure est si unique; et le reste, qu'importe
Le reste, avec ses doigts futiles.
* * * * * * *
L'instant est si rare, de lumière première,
Dans notre cœur, au fond de nous."
EMILE VERHAEREN.

It was after sunset when the little white boat "Marietta" slipped out of the rocky cove, as it had done almost every evening for the past six weeks. Nevil rowed. Martino sat beside his _houri_ in the stern; since rowing was apt to catch his breath and make him cough.

The hush and glow of early evening, in sky and lake, cast its spell upon all three. The Western hills wore a halo of light, shell-pink melting to amethyst. In the east an orange-golden moon hung poised above the rugged heights as if loath to lose touch with earth. The watchword of the evening was Peace.

The three in the boat talked fitfully of passing things. But of the great scheme no one spoke, till the keel grated on the pebbles. Then said Martino abruptly, gripping his friend's hand:

"When my spirit shall have digested that wonderful recital, I shall better be able to speak of details--possibilities. You understand?"

"Very much so. You've only to send word across when the process is complete!"

"That will be soon, I hope," softly, from Lilamani.

"The sooner the better for me, Signora. _Buon riposo_." From the top of the stone steps he watched their departing boat cleave the shining, sensitive silver below, while the black worm of envy gnawed at his heart. Fame, recognition--the one great good he had wrestled from life in defiance of his "lost lung,"--seemed of a sudden chilly, unsatisfying, like a glass of water on a cold day. _Santa Maria_! To be young and strong, with such a wife to feed the sacred flame! As if in jeering comment a violent fit of coughing shook him, as a dog shakes a rat. Then, with a curse, he turned homeward to supper and probable recriminations from a devoted if sharp-tongued sister: sole genie of his lamp.

Out on the lake, in the vanishing boat, silence had fallen again. But at the heart of it was understanding. To stir a man's imagination, is to seal his lips: and to-day Nevil Sinclair's imagination had been profoundly stirred. The rapture of the artist was his; his vision of things, beautiful beyond expression, entreating to be expressed; of things vital clamouring to be born.

And it was her doing--hers. He worshipped her with his eyes, while she lay back against her cushion, watching the birth of star upon quivering star.

Who that saw her, without prejudice, could doubt that his unique experiment seemed like to prove a unique success? Martino did not doubt. But Martino was of the elect. It was thought of the Philistines that chilled him; one Philistine in particular, brimful of prejudice. He thrust her impatiently aside. His decision for art had made him permanently a black sheep in her eyes. What matter one smudge the more? And his father? A twinge of pain here, tempered with annoyance. Why in the name of common sense couldn't folk who swore by it let a man be happy in his own way? He was, and would be, none the less. Nay more, he would make the name of Sinclair famous. Perhaps they would be satisfied then. For himself the glowing golden present was satisfaction enough. It is at once the strength and weakness of the artist nature, this full surrender to the spell of the moment.

Beyond this enchanted summer he refused to look definitely. Vague visions of a winter in Rome, or Egypt, sufficed. What matter where? The secret charm lay in seeing the whole world afresh, through her eyes; in realizing, through her, as never yet, the sanctity and sanity of the common, primal bond between man and woman that is at once keystone and pinnacle of the house of life.

Mighty opposites were they--irreconcilables? By no means. Six weeks of closest intimacy, of spelling out letter by letter the unknown quantity he had taken to wife, inclined him to believe rather that East and West are not antagonistic, but complementary: heart and head, thought and action, woman and man. Between all these "pairs of opposites" fusion is rare, difficult, yet eminently possible. Why not, then, between East and West?

In the strength of that analogy he could go forward, unafraid; still more so because the poetic temperament common to both implied a certain imaginative insight and flexibility, favourable to the bridging of gulfs; and the fact that, in Broome's phrase, he had "too little of the average Englishman under his Park Lane surface," was no longer a stone of stumbling, but his most valuable asset. In less than six months of marriage with the average Briton--say his own brother George--Lilamani's fairy boat of happiness would almost certainly have run aground upon the rocks. Even with himself, to whom a great love had given understanding, its fragility was a thing to tremble at; and he dreaded the risk of impact with sharp-cornered headlands that loomed vaguely through the golden mist.

Yet, for all his understanding, he did not dream that already two intrusive actualities threatened the fragile thing; did not dream of her troubled wonder in divining that the vital, motive power of her own life seemed to count for little in his.

Six weeks; and, to her knowledge, no form of devotion or prayer. A Bible lived among his books; an old Bible, solidly bound and clasped, with Christina Nevil writ in faded ink on the fly-leaf. But though Lilamani had read it--with an awed thrill in touching a book handled by his mother in her girlhood--she had only seen Nevil open it once. It was strange. Were all Englishmen thus? Or was it a part of his tender consideration for her that had been the crowning revelation of their union? Shyness and innate shrinking from the least hint of criticism made her fear to ask him--yet.

The second intrusive reality was more personal, more poignantly disturbing; one that might compel her to speak.

Six weeks; and no word of recognition from that father and sister, henceforth to be dear as her own; dearer, if that were possible. For in theory, if not always in fact, her husband's people become paramount to the Hindu wife; only a degree less honoured, less sacred than her lord himself. But then ... the home-coming of an Indian bride sets her in the heart of his family: an additional daughter, modestly self-suppressed; handmaiden in chief to the Queen-mother of that human hive. And Lilamani Sinclair--child of transition--found herself, instead, alone with this one man upon an unknown road, with never a signpost for guidance, and never a word from that England to which she must now belong.

For the first three weeks, secure in her certainty, she had not given the matter a thought. Then she had begun to watch her husband a little fearfully, whenever a post came in. Days passed. Eagerness faded into a wistful anxiety. Surely, even in England, some form of greeting, of "friendly wishings," was due to bride of eldest son? Could it be that he had never written of his marriage? And if not, why--why?

Day after day that question had tormented her waking, and bred grotesque nightmares when she slept. More than once it had been upon her lips. But her own conviction that he ought to have written made her dread his answer. Better they should be in the wrong than he. Yet--she must know; she must! And to-night, while she sat silent in the dusk, watching the birth of the stars, she was wondering, wondering--dared she ask him now?

The moment seemed propitious for touching upon intimate things. Courage waxed, as the glow of evening waned, and earth-stars came out along the water's edge. She stirred softly, and sat upright, clasping her hands; a trick she had when nervous. But it was Nevil who spoke.

"Such a silent little wife! Dreaming? Thinking of Sita?"

"No. Of Lilamani."

"So was I! Anything wrong with Lilamani? Isn't she quite happy?"

Her eyes dwelt a moment on his moon-lit face. Her own was half in shadow.

"Dearest," she said softly, "why ask so strange thing?"

"Only because I wish it so tremendously; and because--well, when a man stands at the summit of desire he's always half afraid of the next turning. You understand that--don't you?"

"Yes, too much. But ... we have ... not to be afraid." She drew a deep breath. "Nevil ... King of me ... have I leave to say all that is in my heart?"

"Beloved, why not? What is it?"

"Something I must ask. Only--if it vex you----"

"Ask any mortal thing you please."

A pause. Nevil, intent upon her shadowed face, let the boat drift at will.

"It is only--these many days I have been waiting, hoping ... some small word of greeting for new wife ... from England----"

"Lilamani! Forgive me----!"

The pain and self-reproach in his cry told her all. She leaned forward, steadying her breath.

"Oh, Nevil! Is it----? You have not written?"

"No. I have not written."

"Why?"

He merely saw the word; and his free hand covered both hers.

"Darling, how _shall_ I make you understand? With you, in India, it is so different. You see, my decision about the painting upset them a good deal at home. I was honestly sorry. But it had to be. Then came my marriage, which I knew they would not see--quite as I see it; and I wanted no outside worries disturbing our first spell of happiness. But it was wrong of me to forget how my not writing might affect you. I fancied you would be too happy in these honeymoon weeks to bother your head about strangers you had never seen."

"Oh, I am happy, beyond all dreaming. But Nevil----. Father of you, sister of you--my own being like lost--how could I not wish----?"

His grasp on her hands tightened. "I never thought of that, selfish duffer that I am. But truly, if they'd been a different sort I would have written sooner."

"Different sort? What is that?"

"Nowadays English, little wife!" He smiled, longing to win her from her anxious mood. "My meaning is that I'm a kind of freak in my family. They're not much like me, any of 'em, except my youngest sister, Christina, who might come out to us later on. She has more of my mother in her than the rest."

"How many--the rest?"

"Two brothers; a sailor and a soldier, besides Jane."

"And you also--very like your mother?"

"Very like. And proud of it. But I've always been out of gear with my father and Jane. They worship a godling called the Right Thing, whose first commandment is 'Thou shalt respect the whole beaten track, and nothing but the beaten track.' And we're not exactly respecting it--are we, Jewel of Delight?"

"No--I am afraid. But ... you were meaning to write ... sometime?"

"Naturally. I've been wondering this last week how much longer I would be justified in keeping our sanctuary sacred from the touch of outside things. That's how I look at it. Life is none too prodigal of happiness like ours. Are you in such a mortal hurry to admit the world, the flesh, and the devil?"

"Oh, no--no!" she cried out with sudden passion. "It was because I thought ... it must be right, and----"

The small even teeth closed on her lower lip.

"And what?" he asked almost sharply.

"Not anything more."

"There was something. I heard it in your voice. You asked leave to speak out all your thought. As you love me, Lilamani, keep nothing back."

"But it is such a small thing; a little private ache, because I had feared, through your not writing, you began to be ... ashamed----"

The hands he held were crushed against his lips. "I'll write to-morrow," was all he said.

Then, releasing her, he gripped his sculls and the boat sped forward, away from the thickly-clustered constellations of Cadenabbia and Tremezzo, toward the lone twin lights that beckoned to them from the farther shore, as yet untouched by the moon.

After a short silence Lilamani spoke.

"You did not sing to-night. Will you--now?"

He balanced the sculls at her bidding; lifted his head and sang softly, with tender inflections, the old Scots' ballad, so simple in phrasing, so extravagant in protest:

"My love is like a red rose that's newly sprung in June.
My love is like a melody that's sweetly played in tune----"

So singing and so floating, star-encompassed above and below, the watchword of the evening descended again upon them like a beatitude. The voices of the outer world seemed far away and unreal: themselves, and this their transient Eden, the sole realities.

The song ceased, and Nevil's oars plashed again, scattering stars. A few swift strokes carried them out of the moonlight into the shadow of their hill. Both were imaginative; both susceptible to the mood of the hour; and, in that moment of passing, a little breeze of dread blew chill upon their hearts.

As the keel grounded, Lilamani leaned forward, putting out a hand. "Nevil," she began, then checked herself.

"What is it?" he asked, his ear quick to catch the trouble in her tone.

"Not anything," she answered as before.

"Lilamani, is that true?"

"Nearly true. Only some woman's foolishness, of ... perhaps... Pity to break so heavenly evening with 'perhaps'----"

"Wise one!" he commended, turning to moor the boat. Sincerely he hoped that her trouble was no more than "woman's foolishness." But, being man, he was grateful for the reserve or consideration that had checked her impulse of speech.

Springing out, he drew the boat well in-shore; secured it; and returning, leaned to her again.

"Is it still there--the foolishness?"

"No."

"Did you drive it away?"

"Yes. Like it deserved."

"Don't let it come back. This is our perfect hour. Let us keep it so."

Above them, from massed bushes of rhododendron and azalea, the love-music of nightingales echoed his plea; and she sighed.

"Yes. That I am feeling too. Almost it is like enchantment. One little touch might break----"

"That's why I put off writing. Must I now?"

"It is not for wife to command her lord," she breathed. "But think only ... dearest, your father----"

Without a word he lifted her in his arms and carried her up through the fragrant dark, jewelled with aerial gold of fire-flies.

To both came the thought of that first time he had carried her thus, in the rush and swirl of the storm, that had led them into this deep heart of peace: and Lilamani, remembering all that his arms had told her then, found to-night, in their enfolding pressure, an answer to the question she could not bring herself to ask.