Chapter VII

"There stood one with a heart in her hands: there sat another with hers in a cage:--and the tale goes on."--HEWLETT.

If those two first sittings had proved trying to Audrey, they were as nothing to the later ones that followed upon her disastrous walk by the sea.

Whenever Sir Lakshman Singh's presence set her free, she would find some valid excuse for slipping away to the garden; or the piano; or better still, to spend an hour with Madame de Lisle and her boy, whose trouble was of a kind that her practical nature could help and understand. This is what comes of putting one's life into the hands of a _man_, she would reflect, by way of consolation, whenever Monsieur de Lisle's folly and selfishness reacted more sharply than usual upon his wife and child. But the consolation did not strike deep, and do what she might, the thought of the two, left in the sitting-room, knocked incessantly at her heart. The primitive woman in her--long repressed and denied--rose up with might and taught her, at first hand, some plain truths that she had little will to learn. She, who took her stand upon self-knowledge, found suddenly that she had a stranger to reckon with--and that stranger, Audrey Hammond. For love, like all great natural disturbances, stirs up best and worst alike from the deep waters of the human heart. Had it come to this, that she was actually jealous of Lilamani, because Nevil's eyes and mind were concentrated upon her with increasing delight as the picture grew under his hand? So much at least was patent; even as the change in her--smother it how she might--was patent to Nevil. He set it down to her original disapproval; and was disappointed to find her so obstinate over a question settled past dispute.

But, for him, every minor consideration was dwarfed by the one thing that mattered: his picture, that already whispered of success, and the quickening sense of power that grew by what it fed on. There was a delicate pleasure, also, in the pursuit of an intimacy by no means to be hurried or unduly pressed. For all her young simplicity and flashes of confidence, this alluring child of an ancient race was still, in his eyes, almost as much a thing apart from the common round of life as she had seemed at first sight. Still, for him, she was the Arabian Nights' Princess brought hither by a kindly Fate to save him from the ambitions of others and kindle his spark of talent to a flame. Something of this Audrey guessed, and rated herself roundly for the relief it brought her. It was not Lilamani, it was the picture that enthralled him. With its completion, he would retreat to his allegiance; and then--then----

But at this point the old unawakened Audrey would slam the door sternly upon vain imaginings unworthy an enlightened woman.

And Lilamani?

For her this week--charged with a hidden drama--was a time of mental and spiritual changes the more vital because they were evolving unawares. Nor had they any direct relation to the studies so zealously pressed upon her by Audrey. These traversed only the surface of her mind, leaving few and hazy impressions in their wake. From books more inspiring than any in Audrey's trunk she had learnt astonishingly much for her years; and now her hidden self whispered that it were well to learn something of her fellow-beings direct from life; or, in other words, from the blue eyes and golden speech of the first white man Fate had flung in her path of life.

All unguessed by her the folded flower of her heart was opening, like a lotus to the moon, under an influence silent and irresistible as that which draws petal from petal till the shining secret stands revealed. She only knew that the dreaded sittings had become the pivot round which all lesser lights revolved; that the days between seemed empty and unsatisfying; the more so, because those days were disfigured by Audrey's battalions of the "ugly words" that hurt her mind. "Hygiene," "oxygen," "structural physiology": she grew to hate the sound of them; to wonder how she would ever face those dreadful "exams," whose mission was simply to give her a free pass back to India, as a woman qualified to live her own life, and to help those who could not or would not desert the beaten track.

But what if she herself found the unbeaten one too steep, too stony? No--no. That were mere weakness. By some means she must attain her goal; though at present its far-off gleam was dimmed by emotions more immediate in their appeal to her budding womanhood than any she had yet known.

So it befell that she let Sinclair persuade her to join a tea-party in the studio, where she was presented to Martino and ravished his inflammable heart. Nay more, she spent two evenings downstairs, losing, each time, a little of that paralyzing shyness induced by strange human beings in the mass. It cost her a greater effort than Audrey or Sir Lakshman knew; and both times she had her reward. Nevil devoted himself to her as gallantly as though he divined that the effort had been made for his pleasure; and Broome began to ask himself, was it, after all, not the picture, but the "houri"?

As for Audrey, it was useless to repeat that the craze would pass, that there could be no possibility of serious complications between such mighty opposites. She was in the grip of an emotion that is deaf to reason, nor regards the great god Common Sense, under whose banner she had lived and moved. On the second occasion she could scarce speak naturally to Lilamani when they reached their rooms; and the girl, who had come up a-flutter with the thrill of her new gladness, had gone to bed chilled, puzzled, almost unhappy.

So day by day the love and confidence that had been between them were dimmed by friction and constraint; and more trying than all--for each in her degree--were the morning hours of study. New faces, new imaginings, and the thrill enhancing both, estranged Lilamani more than ever from Audrey's bone-dry discourses on conditions of health and disease. The call of youth in her blood was ten times more commanding than any appeal to her intellect or ambition. Again and again, in defiance of brave resolves, her fancy would wander off at will, while Audrey's voice, reading or explaining, formed a sonorous accompaniment to the airy visions of her dream.

Audrey, meanwhile, had her own private devils to fight; and the fact that at times they mastered her, bred a smothered irritability that too often flashed out in sarcasm, or sharp speech. Her pupil's increasing absentmindedness annoyed her as never before. Nevil's doing, she could have sworn it. Whether he were merely turning the girl's head or disturbing her heart, some sort of veiled warning seemed advisable. Yet she shrank from engendering by premature speech, ideas that might never occur to this unsophisticated child of seclusion.

In any case the effect upon her studies was obvious. Each morning Audrey was maddened afresh by a sense of ploughing the sands. Each morning, when books, notes, and pencils were put away, the mutual sigh of relief became harder to restrain. Whenever Audrey's vexation flashed out, Lilamani's penitence would have disarmed a stone. But no penitence, however genuine, saved her from relapse next day: and at last, after a week of mingled happiness and strain, the inevitable crisis came.

It was a day of sudden, still heat. Even the persistent light wind of the Riviera seemed too lazy to blow. And it is on just such balmy days that imagination, like the swallow, soars highest into the blue; as Lilamani found to her cost.

To-day her mood was less rebellious than usual. She was making an honest effort to "be good" and "attend." But Audrey's chosen subject was not a happy one; nor had she the art of infusing life into dead facts. Her remarks on sick-room hygiene, illustrated by Indian experiences, were eminently sane, eminently practical; while Lilamani sat still as a mouse under a cat's claw, a pencil in her fingers, her eyes on the brilliant strip of sky and tree-tops framed by the open French windows. Vainly she clutched at each sentence, trying not to let it slip out of her mind as it passed; till she began to feel like a clumsy child playing at ball, and the foolish fancy whisked her miles away.

For a space Audrey talked on, unaware. But when, in the midst of a technical dissertation on invalid food-values, a dreamy half-smile flitted across her pupil's face, the smothered irritation of days leaped out in flame.

"Lilamani, will you attend!" she cried, slapping the open book so sharply that the girl jumped in her seat. "Have you heard one word of what I've just said?"

Lilamani puckered her forehead distressfully. "Oh yes--I heard."

"Well then--tell me what it was."

"It was--I----" She passed a hand across her brow as if to brush away cobwebs. "It was--oh, I forget."

"Speak the truth, please. You never heard it at all."

"I did _hear_--only----"

"You weren't listening?"

"I--I suppose not ... I was thinking----"

"Of carbons and proteids?"

"No ... no ... of some small verses I have been trying to make. One had just come so beautifully; and you've startled it away."

"Verses? Good heavens, you're incorrigible! What about?"

The grey eyes probed the brown ones as a lancet probes a wound--and they drew blood. Lilamani looked down, saw she had scribbled a line or two, and crumpling up the paper thrust it into her bodice.

"I cannot tell you what about, Audrey," she said, with the gentle dignity that so well became her. "They are only for my own private heart--

"Don't distress yourself. I've no wish to see them." Her tone was cold now, her face a mask. "But I have at least the right to insist that you shall not write verses when I am talking of far more important subjects and trying to make them clear to you. I wonder if you've taken in anything at all this week? Look at your notebook! Nothing but a few incoherent scribbles. It's a disgrace! And here--verses again----"

Lilamani's hand covered them promptly, and she tore out the page. "I can't help that. It's my nature," she said with a touch of heat. "I am not meaning to write them when you talk. They come."

"My dear girl, don't ask me to believe such fairy-tales. But if they do come--you must stop them coming--or I must stop teaching you. Frankly, Lilamani, I expected great things of you; and I am disappointed. Girls of your race are generally such eager students--so quick with their brains----"

"My brain is made in another pattern--that's why."

"It didn't seem so at first. It's all this stupid business of the picture and seeing so many people that has turned your head----"

At that Lilamani pushed aside the hated books and sprang to her feet. Tears stood in her eyes. The crimson of anger stained her cheeks. "Oh, I am sick of these studies--you are unkind to speak such things. I shall not hear you. My head is not 'turned,' and the picture is not at all stupid. It is going to be a beautiful gift for my dear father. As for too many people--it was you that made me----"

Her voice broke, and she hid her face from the eyes that seemed to look through her as if she were a pane of glass. A word, even a look of sympathy, might have worked wonders just then. But though Audrey was not so made, she could not see the girl thus, unmoved.

"My dear child," she said, touching her shoulder and speaking more gently, though scarce tenderly. "When I 'made you,' as you say, I couldn't foresee that--that things would move so fast. You're not quite strong yet, and a little overwrought through doing too much. That's all the trouble really. Lie down for an hour, and I'll give you some bromide----"

That last was fatal. Lilamani stepped swiftly backward, and uncovered her face.

"Oh, you _don't_ understand! You never do. You think everything is from the body. This trouble is in my soul--and you cannot cure it with any of your stupid medicines----"

Audrey's face hardened again.

"No. I don't understand your behaviour," she said in chill, even tones. "But I wish _you_ to understand that if you think medicines 'stupid' and are already sick of your studies, they will not be forced on you by me. Give up college and medicine, by all means--if you are prepared to go back home and obey your mother's wishes----"

"No--no. I will not--I will kill myself rather!" the girl cried out with sudden passion and fled precipitately, leaving Audrey alone by the table, angry and bewildered as she had rarely been in all the well-regulated years of her life.

Her bewilderment was for Lilamani; her anger was for Nevil, first and last. The emotion of a week, however genuine, was no match for the sex antagonism of ten years. "When man comes in at the window, Peace goes out at the door," was her favourite perversion of the old proverb anent Poverty and Love. And behold her wisdom justified: but at what a cost! Small consolation to reflect that she had foreseen this result of Sir Lakshman Singh's permission. But there would be some satisfaction in telling Nevil plainly what damage he had done to the girl whom he obviously admired, if nothing more.

Why not seek him out and tell him now--while she could trust her embittered heart to hurt either him or herself with an equal stoicism ...

Lilamani, leaning against her closed door, a-quiver from head to foot, heard her friend's departing footsteps, and drew a breath of relief. Never till now had she admitted that there lurked in Audrey some unnameable quality that seemed to rub the bloom off everything, and crush out all the beauty and colour of life. Whether that quality belonged to this one Englishwoman or to all, Lilamani could not tell. But there were moments when the prospect of a college full of Audreys, with a Miss Blakeney or two thrown in, seemed hardly less terrifying than the marriage from which she had fled.

While she leaned against the door, with closed eyes and heaving breast, tears stole unheeded over her cheeks that were no more on fire of anger, because anger was drowned in shame at her own loss of self-command. Had not that dear father--whose precepts were sacred to her as the laws of Manu--impressed on her from earliest childhood that only the low-born or the god-forsaken allow the red mist of anger to darken the light within? Happy for her that he had not seen her five minutes ago. But now, the way being clear, she could slip softly back to her House of Gods, and recapture the virtue she had lost.

There sun and sea gave her greeting, and a little lazy wind whispered of evening coolness not far off. Lying back in her chair, she closed her eyes again, that the last of the sunbeams might caress their lids, while the twin healers--warmth and silence--spoke peace to her soul. Of a sudden, in the heart of silence a sound was born: a footstep. Well, what matter? Let it pass. But she had an almost uncanny ear for footsteps; and this one----

She leaned forward eagerly: eyes wide, lips apart. Yes. It was he, in the greenish-grey flannel suit that she always hoped for when he came. Remembering the afternoon when she had seen him first, she could scarce believe it was but two weeks ago. It seemed as if it must have been another Lilamani in another life. Yet it was indeed she, even to the selfsame yellow _sari_: but how little she had dreamed----

Here came a shy thought not to be framed in words; and she slipped past it hurriedly wondering if he would look up; if a vision of her ever visited his mind when she was not present?

It was as if she had spoken aloud. He looked up at once. For a long moment his eyes held hers, while the blood burned in her cheeks.

Then, taking courage, she waved a hand. To her amazement, he replied by a gesture bidding her come down; and all the natural woman in her yearned to obey. But for a Hindu girl of good breeding, yea, though she had dared to rebel against _dastur_, such boldness were out of the question, even had not her quick ears heard the approach of footsteps more familiar than his own. Shaking her head, she leaned back out of sight just as Audrey came along the path.

She heard their voices at meeting; but no words. Then, cautiously, she peeped between the balustrades, watching unseen. He was smiling, the kind, infectious smile that lighted all his face. But Audrey's eyes showed no answering gleam. They wore the hard masked expression that had grown too familiar to Lilamani in the past week. She asked him something. He assented with raised brows; and, turning about, they walked together down the wide pathway to the sea.

Then she leaned over and looked after them; looked and looked till the tears gathered again in her eyes. What were they talking of, those two favoured ones, free to go where they would and with whom they pleased, while she could only look and long and wonder--like a human bird in a cage? Nay, her true cage had been happier, since she could not see too plainly between the bars. For the first time she, who so loved the land of her birth, regretted her nationality. Of what use to give her freedom, when the dusky skin, and all the hidden differences it implied, could no more be wiped out than the colour of the sea!

Sobs came thick and fast now, and fearing her father's return from Nice, she fled blindly back to her room; flung herself on the bed, and there let grief have its way with her. For the passionate heart of the East slept beneath her girlish gentleness; and already it had turned in its sleep. If there could only have been talk of such a bridegroom--was the stifled cry of her soul: and the next instant she reproached herself for a bold, shameless one, to think thoughts so unworthy of maidenhood. For this cherished daughter of Sir Lakshman Singh was no precocious little woman, like most Indian girls of her age; but something as near the English type of "sweet seventeen" as the conflicting elements of her life and education could be made to produce. And through all her vague, chaotic misery, her thoughts clave to those two down by the sea. What were they talking of--what?

Only at the sound of her father's footstep afar off did she rise up bravely and bathe her swollen eyes.