“Man is fire, and Woman is tow,
And the Devil comes and begins to blow!”
--_Old Saw._
It is not exactly good for any man to be a condensed force in his
own person. An administrator represents a governor, who in his turn
represents the Imperial Government and takes precedence of any
stray royalty who may drift into his kingdom--provided he is not
the figgerhead itself. A representative power is very demoralising,
because the reins of government are too concentrated--in spite of the
Legislative Council. Six or seven thousand miles away is Westminster,
and somebody who is called the Colonial Secretary, and who can write
letters with censure in them; but on the spot, in such rat-traps as Key
Island, for instance, is an administrator, and this unit is for the
nonce a king in his own country if he has the confidence of the men
over him. The effect of this is seen when such transitory monarchs go
home, and walk into the Colonial Office to demand an extra six months’
leave. Then they learn their real importance, which is so great that
they cannot be spared, and are sent back to their tiny kingdoms not at
all appreciative of the compliment that has been paid them. A small
corner of the British Empire is the very worst school in which to learn
a sense of proportion; but Evelyn Gregory had been put in power in many
of such corners, and had learned to see things from a proper distance
even while he lived in the midst of them. It was the more surprising,
therefore, that he always impregnated himself with his kingdom of the
moment, and that particular spot (whether it were many thousand square
miles in the centre of Africa or Northern India, or only the limited
area of Key Island) was the problem which absorbed all his faculties
until he had made himself its master. The raging energies of the man
demanded an object on which to expend themselves in such a way, and had
been his quality of success throughout his turbulent career. It was a
little hard on Alaric Lewin, who was cast in another mould, that he
should have been appointed under a man who was a glutton for work, and
suffer as an ineffectual tool. But the Colonial Office is no respecter
of individualities.
There was a meeting of the Executive Council on the morning of
the Arthur Whites’ dinner; it was a small body, consisting of the
Attorney-General himself, Bute Churton as officer in command of the
forces, and the Colonial Treasurer, besides the Administrator. Gregory
mounted his pony and rode down into town thinking of his plans and the
future of Key Island, rather than of any social function, though he was
to be one of the guests at the Harrac. He was not a dreamer, but his
restless brains built fortresses where other men’s built castles in
the air, and he projected schemes for the Empire in place of personal
ambitions. The little streets opened out before him and revealed the
ring of the bay and the two great rocks guarding the harbour entrance,
and the Administrator’s keen sleepless eyes stared out through them
as a lion’s through the bars of his cage. With the smell of the
sunshine and the tropic life in his nostrils he jogged easily along,
mechanically raising his hand to his helmet if any one saluted him, but
seeing more of the sandbox and eucalyptus trees in the little central
square where the band played, than of the people he passed.
If France developed the resources of Madagascar now, as this new
interest in the Hovas seemed to indicate, that meant a spur in her
trade, and more traffic with Africa. Nothing would have pleased Evelyn
Gregory more than the least excuse for a quarrel if only he could
have laid greedy hands on a portion of his huge neighbour. He knew
Madagascar and her capabilities,--he held theories about the ore that
he chafed to see neglected,--and he coveted her for his Government, who
already found Key Island more trouble than she was worth. To turn his
guns on the French ships as they came up the Channel, and be the base
of British operations with the safe harbour and huge coaling stations,
would have fed his fighting instincts and ambitions alike. He glanced
at Tsofotra, the left gate and the more accessible of the two, where
the guns could be dragged up somehow in case of hard necessity; and he
felt a secret attraction towards those great sentinels, rising bare and
grim to over two thousand feet above his harbour.
... A woman passed him, riding up towards Government House, the way
he had come. He forgot the Lewins’ bungalow for the minute, and
half-wondered where she was going. She bowed, and he saluted, before he
remembered that she was Mrs. Lewin, the pretty wife of his incapable
A.D.C., who had better have been the boy than the girl. But her face
only brought a memory of her husband to his mind, and made his harsh
features a trifle less ingratiating than usual.
Why on earth had they sent him such a show article as Lewin for the
work he had before him! He wanted brains and energies, not muscles
and trained animal courage--a man, not only a soldier. Gregory knew
that as yet he had not his administration in the iron grip in which
he would hold it by-and-by, and before casting a loving eye round the
Channel,--Madagascar on one side, and Mozambique on the other,--he must
make Key Island his own. The natives were cowed with the presence of
the troops, but the root of the mischief was there still, and he had
not yet probed down to it. He wanted certain things done, too, by the
Home Government--the factories encouraged and enlarged, for he knew the
value of sweating the devil out of his people, and minor industries,
such as timber growing, given a helping hand; there were memoranda
to make, reports to send back to England, a mass of clerical work to
get through before Halton was recalled,--and Captain Lewin was the
best polo player that the club could get on to their faulty ground,
and in constant demand for tennis and gymkana. Truly the fates were
unpropitious for both men.
Chum had ridden on in the sunshine, thinking as hard as Gregory. He
would be at the Arthur Whites’ to-night, and he would talk of tennis
and cricket matches to the best of his ability to the woman assigned
him for dinner party, probably playing the part of courteous listener,
if only she would do the talking--Mrs. Lewin was beginning to know his
methods; and then, once the ladies had gone, he would draw nearer to
the man who could really interest him, and talk of the island and the
life there that woke him to more than surface attention,--but that
man would not be Ally! No schooling would push Ally into the place
she wanted him to take after her back was turned, and she herself
was helpless. With feminine philosophy she dressed carefully that
night, not for the Administrator, but because Chum never despised the
advantage of facing the world fortified by being perfectly turned
out. She was more successful than usual over her unruly hair, and the
pretty ripples lay round her flat ears--not over them, for Ally’s
warning!--and were massed down into the nape of her neck as if they
loved her, and were glad to frame her beauty. She looked at the slope
of her neck and the warm, white round of her shoulder, and because she
was respectful of her Creator’s work, she fastened a big, black velvet
rose to the shoulder-strap, where its artificial duskiness kissed the
reality of her own seductive dimples. More than one man found himself
vaguely conscious of that false flower before the dinner was over,
and thought stealthily of Captain Lewin’s domestic bliss. Leoline was
not exactly a woman whose influence was towards goodness, whatever
she might be in herself. For though she had no vice of her own, she
suggested all of them in turn to coarser and more masculine minds.
The Arthur Whites had placed their table well, and this is a great
gift in Key Island, where guests are easily bored through constantly
meeting each other. The host and hostess did not sit at either end
of their square table, but because one side would accommodate almost
as many as another they had a way of disposing themselves among
their guests, and placing two instead of one at either end. It broke
the usual solemn monotony of dinners, and accommodated a larger
number. Thus it happened that Mrs. Lewin, who had been taken in by
Captain Gilderoy, found that she was next the end of the table where
her host should ordinarily have sat, but round the corner were the
Administrator and Mrs. White. To sit next to Mr. Gregory was nothing,
for what attention he had to give was Mrs. White’s. Chum smiled upon
the garrison adjutant, and enjoyed herself with a continuation of the
philosophy that had dressed her for conquest. Across the table she
could see a woman, who was a stranger to her, neglecting her rightful
partner, Major Churton, and talking at the Administrator through
the medium of a projected water scheme in which she was not really
interested, and noted her failure with as much sympathy as amusement.
After all, they had all had their water-scheme trial, and failed also!
“Who is Major Churton’s partner?” she said idly to Gilderoy, under the
buzz of the conversation round them.
“That is Mrs. Clayton of Mitsinjovy fame!” he answered. “They have only
been out a month or so longer than you, and she was ill with fever at
first, so it took some time for her questionable attractions to dawn on
us.”
(“Then she does not know Mr. Gregory, and that is why she is wasting
her energies on the water scheme!” thought Chum.) Aloud she said
cautiously, “Do you know her?”
“Not personally, I am thankful to say, but I have a smiling
acquaintance with her. I have to pass their house on my way down to
town and to the garrison office every morning, and she is generally
showing her ankles for my benefit on the stoep. I always smile, because
as she has taken the trouble to get into her hammock, presumably on my
account, it would be unkind not to do so.”
Mrs. Lewin looked at his rather rugged face, and found it curiously
deceptive. For his eyes were quite friendly, and when he spoke in that
pleasant tone it was difficult to realise his sneering insinuations
about the lady sitting opposite, who was even now casting glances in
his direction.
“What sort of acquaintance did you say you had?” she asked, laughing.
“Just a smiling one. Don’t you know that stage? I should say it was
very inadvisable to go further and fare worse with the O.C.T.’s dinner
partner!”
“Now I come to think of it I have had that degree of intimacy with
people myself. It is rather fascinating, because though one can’t bow
it is not in human nature not to recognise a familiar face in some way
that evades the social law. But why should you judge Mrs. Clayton by
her ankles?”
He shrugged his shoulders, and the dog-smile marred his face for a
moment. “If a woman gives me such a flagrant invitation, what am I to
think? They have not begun entertaining yet, but if you would rather
wait and judge them by their tennis-cake and Bridge-markers pray do so.
For me, I have my private opinion.”
“Is that the usual test out here--how one entertains? I am still on my
probation then, because we have no courts, and have not started Bridge.
Ally and I only give whiskey-and-soda dinners at present.”
“Well, that is excellent, or sounds so!” he retorted, turning to
look at her more closely. Captain Gilderoy always retained his air of
being a gentleman whatever he said or did, but he was also, at times,
a man--the black rose that Chum was wearing was on his side, not the
Administrator’s, and he was well content with his lot, so much so that
when Diana Churton loudly claimed his attention to pronounce judgment
on a short issue of Victorian stamps, he turned reluctantly to answer,
leaving Mrs. Lewin for the moment unmonopolised.
The dinner was practically over, but there was just that pause of
desultory talk before Mrs. White rose that kept the men from their
cigarettes--in this house the women were, officially, not supposed to
smoke--and Chum knew that her hostess would look at her in a minute,
and altered her attitude to one of more alertness; but she had a
school-girl trick of slipping off her shoes under the dinner-table, and
for the minute the little right-hand slipper was missing.
She was feeling about for it with a distressed silk foot, when an
inspiration flashed into her head, filling her eyes with brilliant
laughter. The Administrator was not at the moment occupied any more
than herself; he was leaning back in his chair, his eyes for once cast
down, his massive face inwardly absorbed, but one nervous hand playing
with the fruit knife betraying the active, working brain. Mrs. Lewin
looked at him ... were they all wrong? Had Mrs. Clayton and the water
scheme failed to arrest his attention for exactly the same reason that
her own tentative efforts had not succeeded--that they had all appealed
to the wrong side of the man? How would audacity do instead?...
She leaned forward, her face flushed with her own uncertain daring,
her eyes still full of laughter, half excited, half amused at the
experiment, and spoke hurriedly under her breath.
“Mr. Gregory, will you try and find my shoe for me?”
The hand that played with the fruit knife stopped as if by clockwork,
and the Administrator raised his hard eyes and looked full into hers
in his amazement. A half-smile softened his own lips in answer to her
apologetic dimples.
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Lewin?”
“My shoe!” said Chum with apparent impatience. “I have a foolish habit
of slipping them off at meals and I’ve lost one, and Mrs. White will
look at me and rise in a minute, and I can’t go. Do feel for it! It
must be somewhere near you.”
His face flushed dark red with suppressed laughter, as, more awake
to the situation than she had ever known him, he sat back and felt
cautiously about in the unseen space of floor. A minute later he had
really found it, and caught it between his feet. The little soft satin
thing felt utterly alien and feminine, and yielded to the pressure of
his feet, yet just because it was so empty it suggested to his senses
the foot that would fill it. He pushed it carefully towards Mrs. Lewin,
his eyes still fixed upon her.
“Have you found it?” she said eagerly, without a trace of consciousness
in her charming face. “Thank you so much!... Yes, I have it!... That’s
all right!”
He had inevitably touched the little unslippered foot in its silk
stocking, but she did not seem to be aware of the fact as he was. Mrs.
White had risen, and Mrs. Lewin rose too, with one brilliant smile
of thanks at him--nothing more. The Administrator was nearest to the
door; he got out of his seat and held it for the ladies, looking down
on them from his unusual height as they passed,--Mrs. Arthur White in
dull white silk, a comfortable, portly presence--Mrs. Clayton, still
trying to attract attention with a jingle of bangles, but his eyes were
blank;--Diana Churton, hard and metallic and burnt to the collar-line,
beneath which her bare neck was startlingly fair;--then a tall woman
with a well-groomed head, and a black velvet rose nestling against the
rich whiteness of her skin. He scanned her as keenly as though he saw
her for the first time, and he felt sure she did not notice it as she
went calmly by, so softly unconscious of him that she was as easily
graceful as though no strong masculine eyes were searching her from the
crown of her head to the little foot that had a new meaning to him.
Mr. Gregory held the door until the last silk skirts had swept into
the further room. Then he went back to his seat and sat down, and the
talk buzzed round him of sugar works and hemp-crops, and mixtures of
races in Key Island, while a few men talked promotion and the chances
of the army. Between his feet, as he sat there discussing his favourite
topics, he could still feel the strange yielding softness of a little
satin slipper....
As Mrs. Lewin entered the drawing-room the coffee came in from the
servants’ quarters. She sat down in the nearest chair, which happened
to be beside a little table where a fancy mirror lay with some other
trifles. The other women had crossed over to the coffee-tray; Chum took
up the glass deliberately, and looked at herself; first on this side
and then on that. The inspection was entirely satisfactory.
She laid down the mirror, and smiled as if distinctly amused. For it
had occurred to her that they had all been fools and had wasted much
valuable time, and when women are fools the men will not help them out
of their folly.
“He is only a man!” she said a little contemptuously, going back to her
first comment.
By the time the men came into the drawing-room, most of the women had
drifted out on to the stoep, but the two Bridge tables were placed and
waiting, and the Bridge players sat down to the serious business of
their evening, while Hamilton Gurney of the Wessex wheeled the piano
out into the cool darkness and fortified by cého began to sing. He
had that gift of the gods a real tenor voice, and when he sang he was
suddenly transformed from an ordinary young man in a Line Regiment to
a satellite of the Angel Israfil, with power over his fellow-creatures
to wring their hearts and bring tears into their eyes. It is a little
pitiful of human nature that intense pleasure always shows itself most
simply in weeping; for when the senior sub. of the Wessex had dropped
his last soft note into a listening silence most of his hearers had
uncomfortable lumps in their throats, and believed that it was a
foretaste of Heaven.
Mrs. Lewin had seated herself in a basket chair as far from other
listeners as she could, for she was selfish over music, and felt
inclined to turn and rend any one who interrupted her enjoyment of
it. It represented the only violent emotion that she had really
experienced, and she objected to facing the public with quivering
nerves. To-night she was to be more than usually harrowed because Mr.
Gurney, in a fit of sentimentalism engendered by her own black rose,
had chosen a song with her name interwoven--a song that Blumenthal
loved best of all he wrote, and which seems as if the accompaniment
were born of the air. It is called “Leoline,” but Chum missed
the reference to herself as completely as she lost sight of the
pink-and-white young man at the piano who was casting glances at her
shadowy corner. Hamilton Gurney did not realise that he was merely the
vehicle of his own gift, and therefore he made the mistake of accepting
the attention he knew he received not only as for his voice, but for
his very unimportant self.
“One night we sat below the porch
And out in that warm air,
A firefly, like a dying star,
Fell tangled in her hair;
But I kissed him lightly off again
And he fluttered up the vine,
And died into the darkness
For the love of Leoline!”
Mrs. Lewin had drifted away into a sea of pain, as the rich notes
played over her nerves. Had she thought about him she would have been
positive that the Administrator was playing Bridge at Major Churton’s
table, but she was not thinking of him, nor did she realise until long
after the song was over that he was standing near her, a tall dark
shadow behind her chair, looking with very far-seeing eyes from Mr.
Gurney’s obvious application of his song to Mrs. Lewin’s equal ignoring
of it.
“We sang our songs together,
Till the stars shook in the skies;
We spoke--we spoke of common things--
But the tears were in our eyes!
And my hand I know it trembled
To each light warm touch of thine ...
Yet we are friends, and only friends,
My lost love, Leoline!”
“That’s her name, eh!” said Mr. Gregory, with some dry amusement. “And
that young fool is trying to catch her attention to the fact. It’s a
pity that he can’t realise his position of a Man behind a Voice.”
Chum moved her head restlessly, conscious that her heart was beating
thickly as only the slow rich notes ever made it beat. It frightened
her to have even the suspicion of an emotion she could not control, and
this was certainly a thing that seemed apart from her. Life had been
most comfortably manageable so far.
“I wonder what her husband calls her?” mused the Administrator, his
eyes absently fixed on the point of a little satin slipper, showing
beneath the frills of her skirt. “Leoline--Lena--Leo--she is not a
woman to lack a pet name, for all her inches!”
“Chum!” said Captain Lewin, strolling across the stoep with his hands
in his pockets. “Come in and drink Mr. White’s health--there’s cého
going!”
And a dozen voices seemed to echo his words from the lighted
windows--“Chum, are you out there?” “Chum--excuse me, Mrs. Lewin, it’s
so catching!--but do come in.” “Come along, Chum!”
“At all events,” said the Administrator, with an ugly smile, “that
name is not sacred to one person!”