The Native Born; or, the Rajah's People Part 30

"You think it was foolish and unreasonable to wish no one to know? But I had my reasons--very good reasons. I wanted the retreat kept clear for you."

"Retreat--for me?"

"Yes, for you. Captain Stafford, why did you ask me to be your wife?"

He drew himself stiffly erect.

"I told you at the time," he said sternly. "I was quite honest. I told you that the best a man can bring the woman he marries is not in my power to give you. It was--s.h.i.+pwrecked some time ago."

"Not so very long ago," she corrected.

"That does not matter. The point is that I believe it in my power to make you happy--at any rate, it would always be my ambition to see you so; and therein I should no doubt regain a great deal that I have lost--"

"But you do not love me, Captain Stafford?"

"I have just said that I have lost the power of loving."

For a moment she was silent, her jeweled hands resting wearily on the arms of her chair, her eyes sunk to the ground.

"You made me an honorable proposal, Captain Stafford," she said at last. "You are an honorable man and inspire me with the desire to be honorable also. Won't you take back your freedom while there is yet time?"

"No."

"There are others--good women among whom you would find one who would love you as you deserve. I do not love you. All I can bring is a certain respect and friends.h.i.+p--that is all."

"I am grateful for so much," he said. He was thinking of Lois, and his voice sounded hard and compressed.

"If I marry you it will be because I must."

He nodded.

"Yes, I am aware of that."

"Aware of that?" she said, looking up into his haggard face. "How should you be 'aware of that?' Is my private life so public then?"

"You misunderstand me," he said, striving to cover up what he felt to have been a wanton piece of brutality. "I only mean, you must for the same reason that I must--because circ.u.mstances have linked us inseparably together, and because--"

He broke off. The tall figure of the Rajah had pa.s.sed the alcove and he had seen Beatrice sink back in her chair. As the figure moved on she broke into one of her harsh, jarring laughs.

"Good heavens, Captain Stafford," she exclaimed, "your arguments haven't a leg to stand on! What are you marrying me for?"

"I have tried to explain," he said, swinging himself clumsily up to the great lie of his life--"because I need you--and I hope you will come to need me."

"You mean I _do_ need you? Well, perhaps I do!" She sprang to her feet and held out her hand to him. "There! I seal the bargain. I warned you but you would not be warned. _Vogue la galere!_ Tell the whole world--it is better so."

He took the small firm hand and pressed it. At the same moment he saw the Rajah approaching for a second time.

"I will leave you now," he said in a low, earnest whisper. "I fancy the Rajah wishes to speak with you. It would be a good opportunity to tell him that we are engaged."

She drew back her hand hastily.

"Yes--of course I shall tell him."

Stafford bowed ceremoniously, making way for Nehal Singh. As he did so, he saw Lois enter the hall at Mrs. Carmichael's side. The two women bowed to him, the elder in a way which he had learned to understand. He drew aside out of their path, avoiding the genuine kindness which Lois' eyes expressed for him.

"Pray G.o.d you believe the worst of me!" was the thought that flashed through his mind. "Pray G.o.d I have taught you to forget!"

Nehal Singh had meanwhile taken Stafford's place at Beatrice's side.

As he had entered the alcove she had made an effort to pa.s.s out, but her eyes had met his, and the look in them had held her rooted to the ground. The color died and deepened by turns in her cheeks, and the hand that clasped the ivory fan shook as it had never shaken before in the course of a life full of risks and dangers. But then no man had ever looked at her as this man did. She had outstared insolence and snubbed sentimentality. She had never had to face such an honest, pure-hearted wors.h.i.+p as this young prince brought and laid silently at her feet. No need for him to tell her that she embodied every virtue and every perfection of which human nature is capable. She knew it, and the knowledge broke the very backbone of her daring and stirred to life in her sickened soul emotions which she could scarcely recognize as her own.

He stood quite close to her, but he did not touch her. In all their acquaintance he had never, except when he had taken her hand in farewell, made any attempt to draw nearer to her than the strictest etiquette allowed. Other men--men whom she hardly knew--had taken the opportunity which a ride or drive offered to kiss her, and had been offended and surprised at her contemptuous rebuff. (What girl in Marut objected to being kissed?) This man had treated her as though she were holy, an object to be respected and protected, not to be handled as a common plaything; and her heart had gone out to him in grat.i.tude and admiration. But tonight his very respect was painful to her. For a moment she would have given the best years of her life to know that he despised her and that all was over between them; and then came the revulsion, the wild longing to hold him to her as though his trust in her were her one salvation.

"Lakshmi!" he said, in a voice broken with feeling. "Lakshmi, you are the most perfect woman G.o.d ever sent to earth. Every hour I grow to know you better I feel how pale and empty of all true beauty my life was until you came. How can I thank you for all you have given me?"

"Hus.h.!.+" she said. "You must not talk to me like that. You must not."

"Why should I not tell you what is true?"

"Because--oh, don't you see?"--she gave a short, unsteady laugh--"we English don't tell people everything that is true. A man does not say that sort of thing to a woman--"

"To one woman!" he said.

"Yes, to one woman, perhaps. But I--I--" She hesitated, the truth struggling feebly to her lips. She felt herself turn sick and faint as she looked into his earnest face. She knew what answer he had ready for her, and though it would have brought the end for which she was praying, she sought with all her strength to keep it back. All the brutality in her character, her indifference to the feelings and opinions of others, failed. She dreaded the change that would come into his eyes; she did not believe that she could bear it. Tomorrow would be time enough. But was it any longer in her power to determine when it would be time enough? There was an expression in Nehal Singh's face which told her that he had already decided, and that the reins had suddenly slipped from her hands into his.

"Rajah--" she began, wildly seeking for some inspiration which would give her back control over herself and him. But the triviality died on her lips as the truth had died. A shrill cry broke above the dying waltz, and the Rajah and Beatrice, startled by its piercing appeal, turned from each other and confronted a catastrophe which overshadowed, and for the moment obliterated, their own threatening fate.

The dancers had already retired to the sitting-out alcoves. Only one figure occupied the floor, and that figure was Stafford's. He was crossing the room and had reached the center when the cry had been uttered. The amazed and startled watchers saw Lois rush toward him and with an incredible strength and rapidity thrust him to one side. A second later--it scarcely seemed a second--the immense golden chandelier crashed with a sound like thunder on to the very spot where he had been standing. A moment's uproar and horrified confusion ensued. The place, plunged in a half-darkness, seemed filled with dust and flying fragments, and people hurrying backward and forward, scarcely knowing what had happened or what had been the extent of the accident. Stafford's voice was the first to bring rea.s.surance to the startled crowd.

"It's all right!" he shouted. "We are both safe, thank G.o.d!"

They saw that he was deadly pale, though otherwise calm and collected.

In the first moment of alarm he had instinctively caught Lois in his arms, as though to s.h.i.+eld her from some fresh danger, but immediately afterward he had let her go, and she stood apart amidst the debris of the wrecked chandelier, trembling slightly, but firmly refusing all a.s.sistance.

"I owe my life to you," Stafford said to her, with awkward grat.i.tude.

"You do not need to thank me," she answered at once. "I did what any one else would have done in my place. I saw it coming."

"How did it happen?" The question came from Nehal Singh, who had forced his way to her side. "I can not understand how such an accident was possible."

There was an anxiety in his manner which seemed to increase during Lois' brief hesitation.

"I hardly like to say," she said at last, in a troubled voice. "I could not believe my eyes, and even now it seems like a dream. Or a shadow might have deceived me. I don't know--"

"Please tell me what you saw, or thought you saw!" the Rajah begged earnestly.

"I seemed to see the chandelier being lowered," she said, with an irrepressible shudder, "and then from a dark hole in the ceiling a hand appeared--a black hand with a knife--"

One of the women moaned, and there was afterward a silence in which a wave of formless fear surged over the closed circle. The men exchanged questioning glances, to which no one had an answer.