the walls of lady gerardine's room glowed like the page of an old missal, with carmine and cobalt blue, with beetle-wing purples and greens. it was a columned and arched apartment in the wing of the modernised palace which yet remained as the last dusky prince had left it. here sir arthur's improving hand had been so far stayed.
lady gerardine sat in silence while the ayah brushed her hair. though no word had passed between them, the woman, inarticulately, as a dog may, felt that her mistress's heart was troubled. and, while her dark fingers moved among the gleaming strands, they trembled a little with a vague anxiety. jani had been rosamond's first and only nurse. it was to the faithful breast that had practically given her life that the young widow had clung in the hour of bereavement. this creature, who could not reason but only feel, had been then the sole presence she could endure. to the house of altered fortunes, from comparative poverty into the almost queenly state of lady gerardine, the woman had accompanied her mistress, rejoicing; bringing with her the same atmosphere of unreasoning, almost animal devotion.
how much did she understand, this secret, dark-minded, dark-faced old hindoo? more, perhaps, about her white child than rosamond knew herself! but her theories of what was good for her mistress had not changed since the days when she had ministered to her with gaudy toys, scraps of gilt paper, and luscious indian sweets.
* * * * *
sir arthur's step, the resonant step of the master, rang on the marble without. the ayah imperturbably continued to wield her brush. the faint tension that came over lady gerardine's figure was familiar to her, but evoked no sympathy; children and women know not what is their real good, in the hindoo's opinion; the lieutenant-governor was a great and good lord, and her ladyship's jewels were even nobler than the ranee's.
"tired, rosamond?" cried sir arthur, breezily. "i was sorry, my dear, that you could not wait to bid good night to our guests. but i made it all right; i made it all right. another time, love, you will consult me, before retiring. governor's wife, you know ... noblesse oblige, eh? well, well, let it pass! my dear child, the garden window open upon you, at this hour! we shall have you down with fever as sure as fate." he clucked disapprovingly. "will you never learn sense?"
rosamond stood up.
"pull the blinds, jani."
she came forward into the centre of the room, so strange a presence, with the long yellow tresses, the white skin, the tall proportions of her northern womanhood, in this haunt of oriental splendour, still peopled, one would think, with the small ghosts of bygone brown beauties.
through the door left open by sir arthur the sound of the fountain playing in the great inner baths fell soothingly on the ear. a breeze gently swayed the scented matting blinds to and fro and brought in gusts of eastern airs to their nostrils, spiced, heavy, dreamy. from below, where lay the town, rose rumours of revel—the poignant twang of the ghitern, the plaint of the reed, the dry sob of the tom-tom. the whole atmosphere within and without was an appeal to the emotions, to the senses; the very touch of the night wind a velvet-soft caress. a night, surely, when but to be alive was in itself a boon; when to be young and beautiful should mean joy. the appeal of it clamoured to rosamond gerardine's dormant soul, troubled this day to the core of its self-imposed slumber by the insistent voices of the past. she turned cold with a stony prescience of evil. if she might not sleep through life, then must she wish herself dead.
"i am very tired," she said to her husband, with a note of unconscious pleading in her voice. "i am going to bed; excuse me to all our guests."
"oh, every one has gone!" said the lieutenant-governor.
he threw himself luxuriously upon the settee and stretched his arms over the piled cushions with the gesture of the man at home in his wife's room.
"sit here, dear."
she took place beside him. he lifted a coil of her hair and played with it admiringly. the ayah drew back into the arched recess of the window and stood immobile, the silver brush gleaming in her dark hand.
"bethune tells me, rosamond," said sir arthur, rolling the soft hair round his finger, "that he wants you to help him with a life of poor english." rosamond looked at her husband, the light of pleading in her eyes died down into dull misery. "i understand, dear, that you have made some objection; but, as i have said to him, it is our duty, my dear rosamond, our duty, to see that the memory of the poor fellow should get proper recognition. a very distinguished young soldier," said sir arthur, with benevolence, "it would certainly ill-become me to put any difficulty in the way. so i have promised——"
she started away from him with an involuntary movement; the twist of hair in sir arthur's fingers plucked her back. she gave a cry:
"oh, you have hurt me!"
he was full of solicitous apology; kissed her hand, patted her head. but she, still drawing from him, gazed at him with the eyes of a woman in fever.
"you have hurt me," she repeated, in a whisper.
"of course," proceeded her lord and master, with fresh gusto, "i can quite understand, dear, that you should shrink a little from the business. it would naturally be a slightly painful one. your social duties occupy you a good deal, and——" he tenderly pulled her ear, "you have not much inclination for literary labour, have you? therefore, my love, overworked as i am, i have resolved to take the matter into my own hands. in fact, i have actually promised major bethune that i will be responsible for the task."
"you!"
her pale lips laughed silently.
"yes, i myself." he rubbed his hands and nodded. "i shall make the time, my love."
"you?" she repeated, and rose stiffly to her feet. "no."
"my dear rosamond!"
it had come upon her, after all. here would no refusal serve her any more, no strength of determination, no piteousness of pleading. before this smiling self-confidence of will what resistance could avail? it is the relentless trickle that wears the stone.
"no hands but mine, at least. no eyes but mine!"
"my dear child!"
"one would have thought that my wishes would be paramount in the matter; but you drive me, all of you. have your way."
"you amaze me—this is childish, unreasonable!"
she stared vacantly before her.
"kismet!" she said. "it is fate—i will do it."
"i have never heard such nonsense in my life."
"but at least," her eyes shot flame upon him, "let no one talk of laying a hand upon these things. good god, they, at least, are mine!"
sir arthur rose also, too bewildered still to be able to grasp the full measure of the offence.
"you are certainly very strange to-night, rosamond," he exclaimed with testy anxiousness. "not yourself at all. i feel convinced you have a touch of fever."
he stretched out his fingers for her pulse. quickly she evaded his touch.
"write to that man," she said, enunciating her words with painful distinctness, "tell him that he has gained his point."
ignoring the unbecoming and extraordinary situation of having a command issued to himself in such imperious tones from his wife's lips, sir arthur moved in high dudgeon towards the door.
"i insist upon your taking an effervescing draught at once. and to-morrow i shall certainly call in saunders to see you. jani, your mistress must go to bed."
the door fell back. rosamond sank down once more on the settee and sat, with her elbows on her knees, her chin on her clasped hands, staring at the marble floor, long, long into the night, while jani waited and never even moved a finger.
