"Thou dost beset the path to every shrine;
* * * * *
And if I turn from but one sin, I turn
Unto a smile of thine."
--ALICE MEYNELL.
For Roy himself, no less than Arúna, the passing of those golden October
weeks had been an experience as beautiful as it was unique. The very
beauty and bewilderment of it had blinded him, at first, to the
underlying danger for himself and her. Bewilderment sprang from an eerie
sense--vivid to the verge of illusion--that his mother was with him
again in the person of Arúna:--a fancy enhanced by the fact that his
entire knowledge of Indian womanhood--the turns of thought and phrase,
the charm, at once sensuous and spiritual--was linked indissolubly with
her. And the perilous charm had penetrated insidiously deeper than he
knew. By the time he realised what was happening, the spell was upon
him; his will held captive in silken meshes he had not the heart to
snap.
As often as not, in that early stage, he craved sight and sound of her
simply because she wore a sari and carried her head and moved her hands
just so; because her mere presence stirred him with a thrill that
blended exquisite pleasure, exquisite pain. There were times he would
contrive to be alone in the room with her; not talking; not even looking
at her--because her face disturbed the illusion; simply letting the feel
of her presence ease that inner ache--subdued, not stilled--for the
mother who had remained more vitally one with him than nine mothers in
ten are able, or willing, to remain with their grown-up sons.
Thea Leigh, watching unobtrusively, had caught a glimpse of the strange
dual influence at work in him. She had occasionally seen him with his
mother; and had gleaned some idea of their unique relation; partly from
Lance, partly from her intimate link with her own Theo, half a world
away; nearly eighteen now, and eager to join up before all was over. So
her troubled scrutiny was tempered with a measure of understanding. Roy
had always attracted her. And now, unmothered--the wound not yet
healed--she metaphorically gathered him to her heart; would have done so
physically without hesitation; but that Vincent had his dear and foolish
qualms about her promiscuous capacity for affection. But Arúna was her
ewe lamb of the moment; and not even Roy must be allowed to make things
harder for her than they were already....
So, after scouting the Delhi idea as preposterous, she suddenly
perceived there might be virtue in it--for Arúna. Possibly it would
glorify him in her eyes; but it would remove the fatal charm of his
presence; give her a chance to pull up before things had gone too far.
Whereat, being Thea, she spun round unashamedly, to Roy's secret
amusement and relief. All the Desmond in her rose to the adventure of
it. A risk, of course; but there must be no question of failure; and
success would justify all. She was entirely at his service; discussed
details by the hour; put him 'on to Vinx' for coaching in the general
situation--underground sedition; reformers, true and false; telling
arguments for the reclaiming of Dyán Singh.
To crown all--between genuine relief and genuine affection--she
impulsively kissed him on departure under Vincent's very eyes.
"Just only to give you my blessing!" she explained, laughing and
blushing like a girl at her own audacity. "Words are the stupidest
clumsy things. I'm sure life would be happier and less complicated if we
only had the sense to kiss more and talk less----!"
This--in the presence of Arúna and her husband and her six-year-old son!
Roy, deeply moved and a little overcome, nodded assent, while Vincent
took her by the arms and gently removed her from further temptation.
"Where _you'd_ be, Madam, if talking was rationed----!"
"I'd take it out in kissing--_Sir_!" she retorted unabashed; while Arúna
glanced a little wistfully at Roy, who was fondling Terry and talking
nonsense to Vernon. For the boy adored him and was on the brink of
tears.
But if he seemed unheeding, he was by no means unaware. He was fighting
his own battle in his own way; incidentally, he hoped, helping the girl
to fight hers. For he had shaken himself almost free of his delicious
yet disturbing illusion, only to be confronted by a more profoundly
disturbing reality. Loyal to his promise, tacitly given, he had simply
not connected her with the idea of marriage. The queer thrill of her
presence was for him quite another affair. Not until that night of
wandering in the moonlight had it struck him, with a faint shock, that
she might be mistaking his friendliness for--something more. That
contact with her had come at a critical moment for himself, was a detail
he failed to realise. Beyond the sudden bewildering sensations that
prompted his headlong proposal to Tara, he had not felt seriously
perturbed by girl or woman; and, in the past four years, life had been
filled to overflowing with other things----
That he should love Arúna, deeply and dearly, seemed as simple and
natural, as loving Tara. But to fall in love was a risk he had no right
to run, either for himself or her. Yet the risk had been run before he
awoke to the fact. And the events and emotions of Dewáli night had drawn
them irresistibly, dangerously close together. For the racial ferment
had been strong in him, as in her. And the darkness, the subtle
influence of his Indian dress--her tears--her danger! How could any man,
frankly loving her, not be carried a little out of himself? That
overmastering impulse to kiss her had startlingly revealed the true
forces at work.
After all that, what could he do, but sharply apply the curb and remove
himself--for a time--in the devout hope that 'things' had not gone too
far? He had not the assurance to suppose she was already in love with
him; but patently the possibility was there.
So--like Thea--he had come to see the Delhi inspiration in a new and
surprising light. Setting forth in search of Dyán, he was, in effect,
running away from himself--and Arúna, no less. If not actually in love,
he very soon would be--did he dare to let himself go.
And why not--why _not_? The old unreasoning rebellion stirred in him
afresh. His mother being gone, temptation tugged the harder. Home,
without the Indian element, was almost unthinkable. If only he could
take back Arúna! But for him there could be no 'if.' He had tacitly
given his word--to _her_. And in any case there was his father--the
Sinclair heritage--So all his fine dreams of helping Arúna amounted to
this--that it was he who might be driven, in the end, to hurt her more
than any of them. Life that looked such a straight-ahead business for
most people, seemed to bristle with pitfalls and obstacles for him; all
on account of the double heritage that was at once his pride, his
inspiration, and his stone of stumbling.
* * * * *
Endless wakeful hours of the night journey were peopled with thoughts
and visions of Arúna--her pansy face and velvet-soft eyes, now flashing
delicate raillery, now lifted in troubled appeal. A rainbow
creature--that was the charm of her. Not beautiful--he thanked his
stars; since his weakness for beauty amounted to a snare, but
attractive--perilously so. For, in her case, the very element that drew
him was the barrier that held them apart. The irony of it!
Was she lying awake too, poor child--missing him a little? Would she
marry an Indian--ever? Would she turn her back on India--even for him?
Unanswerable questions hemmed her in. Could she even answer them
herself? Too well he understood how the scales of her nature hung
balanced between conflicting influences. As he was, racially, so was
she, spiritually, a divided being; yet, in spite of waverings, Rajputni
at the core, with all that word implies to those who know. If she lacked
his mother's high sustained courage, her flashes of spirit shone out the
brighter for her lapses into womanly weakness--as in that poignant
moment by the tank, which had so nearly upset his own equilibrium.
Vividly recalling that moment, it hurt him to realise that weeks might
pass before he could see her again. No denying he wanted her; felt lost
without her. The coveted Delhi adventure seemed suddenly a very lonely
affair; not even a clear inner sense of his mother's presence to bear
him company. No dreams lately; no faint mystical intimation of her
nearness, since the wonderful hour with his grandfather. Only in the
form of that strange and lovely illusion had she seemed vitally near him
since he left Chitor.
Graceless ingratitude--that 'only.' For now, looking back, he clearly
saw how the beauty and bewilderment of that early phase--so mysteriously
blending Arúna with herself--had held his emotions in cheek, lifted
them, purified them; had saved him, for all he knew, from surrender to
an overwhelming passion that might conceivably have swept everything
before it. Pure fantasy--perhaps. But he felt no inclination to argue
out the unarguable. He preferred simply unquestioningly to believe that,
under God, he owed his salvation to her. And after all--take it
spiritually or psychologically--that was in effect the truth....
Towards morning, utter weariness lulled him into a troubled sleep--not
for long. He awoke, chilled and heavy-eyed, to find the unheeded
loveliness of a lemon-yellow dawn stealing over the blank immensity of
earth and sky.
In a moment he was up, stretching cramped limbs, thanking goodness for a
carriage to himself, leaning out and drinking huge draughts of crisp
clean air, fragrant with the ghost of a whiff of wood smoke--the
inimitable air of a Punjab autumn morning.