In a tropical climate, where the days are too often one long punishment
of heat and weariness, people believe in the dim early mornings and in
the comparative coolness of the dark star-spangled nights. The day
seems there a time for shelter, rest, and often for siestas of a
protracted kind. Hence it follows that an evening-party is often drawn
out long into the night, and guests who are comfortably seated upon a
cool, dimly-lit lawn feel in no hurry to leave the open air for the
mosquito-haunted heat of a sleeping-chamber.
But all pleasant things come to an end, and guests began to leave Mr
Perowne's. The absence of the two young officers passed unnoticed, and
several friends took their departure after a glance round, not seeing
Helen, and concluding that she was engaged.
Mrs Doctor Bolter had been, to use her own expression, "on pins and
needles" for quite two hours, trying to get the doctor home; but to
every fresh appeal he had something to say by way of excuse. This one
had to be seen--that one had said he wished to have a few words with
him--it was impossible to go at present.
"Helen Perowne will think it rude of you, my dear," he said,
reproachfully. "Go and have a chat with her again."
Mrs Bolter tightened her lips, and made up her mind, as she subsided,
to talk to the doctor next day; but at last she was driven to extremity,
and captured her husband after a long hunt--in every minute of which she
had made more and more sure that he was flirting with some lady in one
or other of the shady walks. She found him at last under a tree, seated
upon one bamboo chair with his legs on another, in company with Grey
Stuart's father, who was in a precisely similar attitude. A bamboo
table was between them, upon which was a homely looking bottle and a
great glass jug of cold water to help them in the mixings that took
place occasionally as they sat and smoked.
"Oh, here you are, Dr Bolter," said the lady, with some asperity.
"Yes, my dear, here I am," he replied: "arn't you nearly ready to go?"
Mrs Doctor Bolter gasped, for the effrontery of this remark was
staggering after she had been spending the last two hours in trying to
get him away.
"Ready to go!" she exclaimed, angrily. "I think it is disgracefully
late; and I can't think how Mr Stuart can sit there so patiently,
knowing all the while, as he does, that his child ought to be taken
home."
Mr Stuart chuckled.
"Bolter, old fellow," he said, "you'd better go. That's just how my
wife used to talk to me."
"Mr Stuart, I'm surprised at you," said Mrs Doctor, in her most
impressive manner.
"Yes, it was very rude," he said drily. "Perhaps you wouldn't mind
taking Grey home with you? I don't think I shall come just yet."
"Certainly, I will take the dear child home," replied Mrs Bolter. "I
don't think it is proper for her to be here so late."
"Humph! Who's she with?" said the old merchant.
"The Princess," was the reply.
"Oh, she's all right then. Good-night, Bolter, if you must go. Won't
you have just one wee drappie mair?"
The doctor shook his head with Spartan fortitude, and buttoned up his
coat, but only to unbutton it directly.
"Good-night, Stuart; we'll take your little lass home."
"Thankye; do," was the reply, and the dry old Scot sat back in his chair
chuckling, as he saw the doctor marched off.
"Seen Helen about, Stuart?" said Mr Perowne, coming up five minutes
later.
"No; not for an hour."
"If you see her, tell her I'm up by the drawing-room window. People
keep going, and she's not here."
"All right."
"By the way, when can I see you to-morrow?" said Mr Perowne, eagerly.
"I want to chat over that matter with you."
"I shall be in my office all day if you like to call."
"Yes; to be sure--of course. I'll call in," said the merchant, hastily,
as if the business was unpleasant to him; and he went away muttering.
"Hah!" grunted the old merchant, "pride must have a fall, they say; and
when pride does fall, it always bumps itself pretty hard upon the
stones."
The remarks made by Mrs Bolter to her husband, as they left the old
Scotch merchant, were of rather a forcible nature; but there was this
excuse for her: that she was very hot and extremely tired after the long
evening in the enervating climate; and this had no doubt acidified her
temper. But no matter what she said, the amiable little doctor took it
all in good part.
He was a naturalist and student of the human frame, and it was quite
natural, he told himself, that his wife should be cross now that she was
weary.
"Babies are always fretful when they are tired," he said to himself;
"and a woman is only a grownup baby. Poor little soul! she will be all
right in the morning."
"Why are we going in this direction, Dr Bolter?" said the little lady.
"This is not the nearest way to the gate."
"Must go and say good-night to Perowne and Madam Helen," he replied.
"They would not miss us," said Mrs Doctor, tartly. "I daresay we
should only be interrupting some pleasant flirtation."
"Oh--oh--oh! I say," said the doctor, jocularly. "For shame, my dear,
for shame! I'll tell Perowne what you say about his flirtations."
"Don't be foolish, Bolter," said his wife, sharply. "You know what I
mean."
"What, about Perowne flirting with the ladies?" he said, with a
smothered chuckle.
"About Helen Perowne," she said, shortly. "Well, here we are upon the
lawn, and of course there's no host here and no hostess."
"But there's little Grey," said the doctor. "By jingo, I'd about
forgotten her."
"No wonder, sir, when you have been drinking with her father to such an
extent."
"Fine thing in this climate, my dear," said the doctor. "Where's
Arthur?"
"Tired of all this frivolity, I suppose, and gone home like a sensible
man. He does not drink whiskey."
"Oh, dear," said the doctor, "I'll never take another drop if you talk
to me like this, but poison myself with liquor-ammoniae instead."
"Liquor what, sir?"
"Ammonias, my dear, sal-volatile as you call it when you require a
stimulus. Well, Grey, my child, we are to take you home."
"So soon, Dr Bolter?" said the Inche Maida, by whose side Grey was
seated.
"I think it quite late enough, Princess," said Mrs Bolter, austerely.
"Have you seen my brother?"
"Yes, I saw him following Miss Perowne down the walk," said the
Princess, quietly enjoying Mrs Bolter's start. "I suppose it is
pleasanter and cooler in the dark parts of the garden."
"My brother is fond of meditation," said Mrs Bolter, quietly; and she
looked very fixedly in the Princess's eyes.
"Yes, I suppose so; and night is so pleasant a time for thought,"
retorted the Princess. "You must come with your brother and the doctor,
and stay with me, Mrs Bolter."
"Thank you, madam," replied the little lady. "Never, if I know it," she
said to herself.
"I suppose it is late to English views?" said the Princess, smiling.
"Good-bye, then, dear Miss Stuart. I will try and persuade papa to
bring you to stay with me in my savage home. You really would come if
he consented?"
"Indeed I should like it," said Grey, quickly, as she looked frankly in
the Princess's handsome face, the latter kissing her affectionately at
parting.
"Now we must say good-night to Perowne and our hostess," said the
doctor, merrily. "Come along, my dear, and we'll soon be home. But I
say, where are these people?"
Neither Helen nor Mr Perowne was visible; and the replies they received
to inquiries were of the most contradictory character.
"There, do let us go, Dr Bolter," exclaimed the lady, with great
asperity now. "No one will miss us; but if the Perownes do, we can
apologise to-morrow or next day, when we see them."
"But I should have liked to say good-night," said the doctor. "Let's
have one more look. I daresay Helen is down here."
"I daresay Captain Hilton knows where she is," said Mrs Doctor,
sharply, and Grey gave quite a start.
"But I can't find Hilton, and I haven't seen Chumbley lately."
"Perhaps they have been sensible enough to go home to bed," said Mrs
Doctor, after she had been dragged up and down several walks.
"Almost seems as if everybody had gone home to bed," said the doctor,
rubbing his ear in a vexed manner. "Surely Perowne and Helen would not
have gone to bed before the guests had left."
"Well, I'm going to take Grey Stuart home, Doctor," said the lady,
decisively. "You can do as you like, but if the hostess cannot
condescend to give up her own pleasure for her guests', I don't see why
we should study her."
"Ah, here's Perowne," cried the doctor. "Good-night, old fellow. Thank
you for a pleasant evening. We are just off. Where is Madam Helen?"
"Don't know; but don't wait for her," said Mr Perowne; and after a
friendly leave-taking the party of three moved towards the gates, Mrs
Doctor heaving a satisfied sigh as they went along.
They had to cross the lawn again, where a goodly group of guests yet
remained; and as they passed, the Inche Maida smiled and kissed her hand
to Grey, while the Rajah rose to see them to the gates.
"Not gone yet, Rajah?" said the doctor. "I say, how are you going to
get home?"
"My boat is waiting. We like the night for a journey, and my rowers
will soon take me back."
"And the Inche Maida, will she go back home to-night?"
"No; I think she is to stay here. Shall I go and ask her?"
"Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Mrs Doctor, "he does not want to know.
Good-night, Rajah."
"Good-night--good-night."
They parted at the gate, and the Rajah returned to the lawn, staying
with the remaining guests till they departed; he and the Inche Maida
being about the last to leave--the latter being handed by Mr Perowne
into her boat, for the Rajah was wrong--the Princess had not been
invited to stay, and her strong crew of boatmen were very soon sending
the long light naga swiftly up stream, the smoothly-flowing water
breaking up into myriads of liquid stars, as it seemed to rush
glittering along on either side while they progressed between the two
black walls of foliage that ran up from the surface high in air, one
mass of leafage, from which the lowermost branches kissed the stream.