The Pool in the Desert [72]
misfortune had fallen out of a clear sky. For an instant he stared at his wife. When he spoke his voice was altered.
'For God's sake!' he said, 'let us have done with this pitiful wrangling. I dare say you can take care of yourself; at all events, I only meant to warn you. But now you must tell me exactly what you mean by this that you have said--this--about--'
'The fat's in the fire,' was Mrs. Innes's reflection.
'Certainly, I'll tell you--'
'Don't shout, please!'
'I mean simply that all Simla is talking about your affair with Miss Anderson. You may imagine that because you are fifteen years older than she is things won't be thought of, but they are, and I hear it's been spoken about at Viceregal Lodge. I KNOW Lady Bloomfield has noticed it, for she herself mentioned it to me. I told her I hadn't the slightest objection, and neither have I, but there's an old proverb about people in glass houses. What are you going to do?'
Colonel Innes's expression was certainly alarming, and he had made a step toward her that had menace in it.
'I am going out,' he said, and turned and left her to her triumph.
Chapter 3.IX.
She--Violet--had unspeakably vulgarized it, but it must be true--it must be, to some extent, true. She may even have lied about it, but the truth was there, fundamentally, in the mere fact that it had been suggested to her imagination. Madeline's name, which had come to be for him an epitome of what was finest and most valuable, most to be lived for, was dropping from men's lips into a kind of an abyss of dishonourable suggestion. There was no way out of it or around it. It was a cloud which encompassed them, suddenly blackening down.
There was nothing that he could do--nothing. Except, yes, of course--that was obvious, as obvious as any other plain duty. Through his selfishness it had a beginning; in spite of his selfishness it should have an end. That went without saying. No more walks or rides. In a conventional way, perhaps--but nothing deliberate, designed--and never alone together. Gossip about flippant married women was bad enough, but that it should concern itself with an unprotected creature like Madeline was monstrous, incredible. He strode fiercely into the road round Jakko, and no little harmless snake, if it had crawled across his path, would have failed to suffer a quick fate under the guidance of his imagination. But there was nothing for him to kill, and he turned upon himself.
The sun went down into the Punjab and left great blue-and-purple hill worlds barring the passage behind him. The deodars sank waist deep into filmy shadow, and the yellow afterlight lay silently among the branches. A pink-haunched monkey lopading across the road with a great show of prudence seemed to have strayed into an unfamiliar country, and the rustling twigs behind him made an episode of sound. The road in perpetual curve between its little stone parapet and the broad flank of the hill rose and fell under the deodars; Innes took its slopes and its steepnesses with even, unslackened stride, aware of no difference, aware of little indeed except the physical necessity of movement, spurred on by a futile instinct that the end of his walk would be the end of his trouble--his amazing, black, menacing trouble. A pony's trot behind him struck through the silence like percussion-caps; all Jakko seemed to echo with it; and it came nearer--insistent, purposeful--but he was hardly aware of it until the creature pulled up beside him, and Madeline, slipping quickly off, said--
'I'm coming too.'
He took off his hat and stared at her. She seemed to represent a climax.
'I'm coming too,' she said. 'I'm tired of picking flies off the Turk, and he's really unbearable about them tonight. Here, syce.' She threw the reins to the man and turned to Innes with a smile of relief. 'I would much rather do a walk. Why--you want me to come too, don't you?'
His face was all one negative, and under the unexpectedness of it and the amazement of it her questioning eyes slowly filled
'For God's sake!' he said, 'let us have done with this pitiful wrangling. I dare say you can take care of yourself; at all events, I only meant to warn you. But now you must tell me exactly what you mean by this that you have said--this--about--'
'The fat's in the fire,' was Mrs. Innes's reflection.
'Certainly, I'll tell you--'
'Don't shout, please!'
'I mean simply that all Simla is talking about your affair with Miss Anderson. You may imagine that because you are fifteen years older than she is things won't be thought of, but they are, and I hear it's been spoken about at Viceregal Lodge. I KNOW Lady Bloomfield has noticed it, for she herself mentioned it to me. I told her I hadn't the slightest objection, and neither have I, but there's an old proverb about people in glass houses. What are you going to do?'
Colonel Innes's expression was certainly alarming, and he had made a step toward her that had menace in it.
'I am going out,' he said, and turned and left her to her triumph.
Chapter 3.IX.
She--Violet--had unspeakably vulgarized it, but it must be true--it must be, to some extent, true. She may even have lied about it, but the truth was there, fundamentally, in the mere fact that it had been suggested to her imagination. Madeline's name, which had come to be for him an epitome of what was finest and most valuable, most to be lived for, was dropping from men's lips into a kind of an abyss of dishonourable suggestion. There was no way out of it or around it. It was a cloud which encompassed them, suddenly blackening down.
There was nothing that he could do--nothing. Except, yes, of course--that was obvious, as obvious as any other plain duty. Through his selfishness it had a beginning; in spite of his selfishness it should have an end. That went without saying. No more walks or rides. In a conventional way, perhaps--but nothing deliberate, designed--and never alone together. Gossip about flippant married women was bad enough, but that it should concern itself with an unprotected creature like Madeline was monstrous, incredible. He strode fiercely into the road round Jakko, and no little harmless snake, if it had crawled across his path, would have failed to suffer a quick fate under the guidance of his imagination. But there was nothing for him to kill, and he turned upon himself.
The sun went down into the Punjab and left great blue-and-purple hill worlds barring the passage behind him. The deodars sank waist deep into filmy shadow, and the yellow afterlight lay silently among the branches. A pink-haunched monkey lopading across the road with a great show of prudence seemed to have strayed into an unfamiliar country, and the rustling twigs behind him made an episode of sound. The road in perpetual curve between its little stone parapet and the broad flank of the hill rose and fell under the deodars; Innes took its slopes and its steepnesses with even, unslackened stride, aware of no difference, aware of little indeed except the physical necessity of movement, spurred on by a futile instinct that the end of his walk would be the end of his trouble--his amazing, black, menacing trouble. A pony's trot behind him struck through the silence like percussion-caps; all Jakko seemed to echo with it; and it came nearer--insistent, purposeful--but he was hardly aware of it until the creature pulled up beside him, and Madeline, slipping quickly off, said--
'I'm coming too.'
He took off his hat and stared at her. She seemed to represent a climax.
'I'm coming too,' she said. 'I'm tired of picking flies off the Turk, and he's really unbearable about them tonight. Here, syce.' She threw the reins to the man and turned to Innes with a smile of relief. 'I would much rather do a walk. Why--you want me to come too, don't you?'
His face was all one negative, and under the unexpectedness of it and the amazement of it her questioning eyes slowly filled