The Native Born; or, the Rajah's People Part 34

"Enough?" He looked at her with a twinkle in his bright eyes. "Dear girl, it hasn't paid so much as a quarter of its expenses."

"But will it ever?"

"Heaven knows--or perhaps even Heaven does not. I'm sure I don't."

"You talk so calmly about it!" she exclaimed, aghast. "Surely you are heavily involved--and not only you, but the Rajah and the people in Marut?"

He patted her on the cheek.

"Don't worry on that score," he a.s.sured her. "Besides, it's not my way to sit down and cry over what can't be helped. I dare say I shall pull through somehow."

"Yes, _you_, perhaps."

He changed color slightly under the challenge in her eyes, but his expression remained unruffled.

"You are not exactly a very trusting wife, are you, Lois? It comes of letting a woman have a look into business. Never mind, we won't argue the subject all over again. I know what you think of me. There, good-by. I must be off again. Nicholson will be around shortly. I told him he would find me at home."

"Had you not better wait for him, then?"

"Oh, no. I only told him I should be at home as a sort of _facon de parler_. He only comes when he thinks I am there--admirable person--and I know you like to have old friends about. Good-by, dear."

"Good-by." She accepted his kiss listlessly, and when he had gone went back to the window.

The window had become Lois Travers' vantage-point of life. From thence she could overlook the bustling Madras square into which four streets poured their unending stream, and build her fancies about each one of the atoms as they pa.s.sed unconsciously beneath her gaze. Some of the faces were well known to her. They always pa.s.sed at the time when she took her sewing and sat by the window, pretending to work by the fading glow of evening light, and about each she wove a simple little story, always, or nearly always, happy. She imagined the men returning from business to their homes. If there was ever a cloud upon their brow, she smiled to think how the trouble would be brushed away by loving hands; if their step were more than usually light and elastic, her own heart grew lighter with the thought that they were hurrying back to the source of their happiness.

Lois lived on the real or imagined joys of others. She clung to her air castles in which her unknown heroes lived, building them more beautifully, fitting them out with more perfect content, as her own brick dwelling grew darker and more desolate. She felt that if ever she let go her hold on them she would lose faith in human happiness, and thus in life itself. For between Lois Travers the woman and Lois Travers the light-hearted, high-spirited girl there stretched a year's gulf. Marriage had been to her what it is more or less to all women--a Rubicon, a Book of Revelations in which girlish ideals are rarely realized, sometimes modified, more often destroyed.

Clever and pliable women, women with the "art of living" do not allow their hearts to be broken in the latter event, supposing them to have relaxed their cleverness so far as to have had ideals at all; but Lois was not clever or pliable, and her ideals had been destroyed. She had loved John Stafford, and in some inexplicable way he had failed her. She had given her life into Travers' hands in the belief that he needed her for his progress, and that in helping him her idle powers of love and devotion would not be wasted. Too late she realized--what no woman ever realizes until it _is_ too late--that the man who needs a woman for his salvation is already far beyond her help.

Beneath Lois' light-heartedness and love of gaiety there lurked a spirit of Puritanism which had drawn her to Stafford, and now brought her into violent conflict with Travers' fundamental frivolity. In the first month of their marriage she had had to admit that she had reached the bottom of his character, and found nothing there--not so much as a deeply planted vice. He had pretended a depth of feeling which was only in part sincere, and he was too lazy to keep up a pretense when his chief object was gained. He really cared for Lois, but he had wilfully exaggerated the role she played in his life.

Always good-natured and kindly, he never allowed her to ruffle or anger him. She had never seen him rough or cruel to any human being, and all these superficial virtues forced her farther from him.

A few significant incidents had revealed to her that his good nature covered a cold-blooded indifference where his own interests were vitally concerned. His apparent pliability hid a dexterity which evaded every recognized principle. In vain she exerted the influence with which he had pretended to invest her. The first effort proved that it had never really existed. It was no more in his life than the valuable ornament on his mantel-shelf--a thing to be dusted, preserved, and admired in leisure hours, never set to serious use.

This last discovery, made shortly after their arrival in Madras, had broken her. From that moment she had felt herself crippled. Her life became a blank, colorless waste, all the more terrible because of the mirages with which it was lighted. The world saw the mirages: the good-looking, genial-tempered husband; the well-furnished house; all the outward symptoms of an irrefutably satisfactory and successful life.

Only one person perhaps saw deeper, and that was Nicholson. He had been ordered for a year to Madras, and thus it came about that they often met. Travers' first dislike for the officer had evaporated, and he seemed rather to insist on an increase of their intimacy, inviting Nicholson constantly to the house. And in those long evening visits Nicholson had seen what others did not see and what Lois kept hidden in her own heart. For she had told no one that the mirages were no more than mirages--that her life still lacked all the vital elements of reality and sincerity. She was proud, and not even the people in dear old Marut suspected that she was stifling in the hot Madras air and in the unhealthy atmosphere of small lies and loose principles in which Travers was so thoroughly at home. Only Nicholson's sensitive temperament felt what others neither heard nor saw.

So a year had pa.s.sed, and every evening Lois sat by the window, watching the busy crowd, and building up their lives as she had once dreamed of building up her own. She scarcely thought of herself.

Memories are dangerous. The present was too real to be considered, and the future too blank and hopeless.

The darkness increased. Twilight yielded to nightfall, and the yellow lights sprang up in the shops opposite her window. She heard the door open, but did not turn, thinking it was her husband unexpectedly returned.

"Shall I light the lamp?" she asked.

It was not Travers who answered. A familiar voice struck on her ears, like the memories, ringing out a dangerous response from her tired soul.

"Forgive me, Mrs. Travers. I met your husband this afternoon, and he told me to drop in unannounced, as he would be alone. It seems the other way about. I am very sorry to seem so rude."

Lois rose quickly to her feet. She saw Nicholson standing in the doorway, tall, upright, his face hidden by the shadow.

"I won't disturb you," he added, after a moment's hesitation.

The tone of formality hurt her. With a return of her old impulsiveness, she began searching for the matches.

"You are not disturbing me," she said. "On the contrary, I--was expecting you. Archibald told me you were coming, but I forgot to light up. I was twilight-dreaming, if there is such a term."

She laughed with a forced cheerfulness, and he made no answer. The little red-shaded lamp gave her some trouble, and when she looked up she saw that he was standing opposite her, the light falling on a broad scar across his forehead.

"How the burn shows to-night!" she exclaimed involuntarily. "Will you never lose it?"

"Never," he answered. "I do not want to. When I am depressed, I look at it, and remember that I have done one thing worth doing in my life."

"I don't know," she returned. "You have done more useful things than that."

"Not to my mind."

"Well, but to mine. There, when I have pulled the curtains and put the lamp just at your elbow, you could almost imagine yourself back in England, couldn't you? Imagine the street outside as a bit of London.

There could hardly be more noise. The idea may refresh you. You look so tired."

He seated himself in the comfortable wicker chair by the table and looked about him with a faint smile of content.

"Yes," he said, "it is homely, isn't it? The red light, and the pretty little room, and you sitting there working. It might be a corner of the old country--or of Marut. Your study was just like this, I remember."

"Yes, I copied it. It made me feel less lonely. Only I flatter myself that it is tidier here than it used to be in the old days."

He laughed, and the laughter sent the light s.h.i.+ning in his eyes.

"Rather! When I first joined I had the chemical craze on, do you remember? I thought I was going to discover some wonderful new gunpowder, and we used to experiment together in your room. The business came to an untimely end when I blew off part of the ceiling--"

"And some of my eyebrows!" she interposed merrily.

"Yes, of course. I don't know which disaster upset Mrs. Carmichael most, good soul. After that I forget what craze came about, but we always had a new one on the list, hadn't we?"

She nodded, her head once more bent over her work.

"None of them lasted," she said. "Crazes never do."

There was a moment's silence. Their little burst of gay recollections was over, and the restraint had regained its old ascendancy over them.

Unknown to her, Nicholson was watching his companion with keen, anxious eyes.

"You look pale and tired," he said gently. "Madras is getting too much for you. When is Travers going to take you for a change?"

"I don't know. Not just now. Besides, I am happier here. I like the noise and bustle."

"You used not to. You were all for outdoor sports and beautiful scenery."

"Yes, but now it is different. I could not stand the quiet. I must have noise to distract me--I mean, I have grown so accustomed to it."

"Yes," he said slowly, "one grows accustomed to it." Then, presently, he added, in another tone: "At any rate, my term in Madras is at an end. I return to Marut next week."