IN THE ROSE GARDEN
"Let us go out," said Linforth.
It was after dinner on the same evening, and he was standing with Violet
Oliver at the window of the drawing-room. Behind them an officer and his
wife from the cantonment were playing "Bridge" with Ralston and his
sister. Violet Oliver hesitated. The window opened upon the garden.
Already Linforth's hand was on the knob.
"Very well," she said. But there was a note of reluctance in her voice.
"You will need a cloak," he said.
"No," said Violet Oliver. She had a scarf of lace in her hand, and she
twisted it about her throat. Linforth opened the long window and they
stepped out into the garden. It was a clear night of bright stars. The
chill of sunset had passed, the air was warm. It was dark in spite of the
stars. The path glimmered faintly in front of them.
"I was hoping very much that I should meet you somewhere in India," said
Dick. "Lately I had grown afraid that you would be going home before the
chance came."
"You left it to chance," said Violet.
The reluctance had gone from her voice; but in its place there was
audible a note of resentment. She had spoken abruptly and a little
sharply, as though a grievance present in her mind had caught her
unawares and forced her to give it utterance.
"No," replied Linforth, turning to her earnestly. "That's not fair. I did
not know where you were. I asked all who might be likely to know. No one
could tell me. I could not get away from my station. So that I had to
leave it to chance."
They walked down the drive, and then turned off past the croquet lawn
towards a garden of roses and jasmine and chrysanthemums.
"And chance, after all, has been my friend," he said with a smile.
Violet Oliver stopped suddenly. Linforth turned to her. They were walking
along a narrow path between high bushes of rhododendrons. It was very
dark, so that Linforth could only see dimly her face and eyes framed in
the white scarf which she had draped over her hair. But even so he could
see that she was very grave.
"I was wondering whether I should tell you," she said quietly. "It was
not chance which brought me here--which brought us together again."
Dick came to her side.
"No?" he asked, looking down into her face. He spoke very gently, and
with a graver voice than he had used before.
"No," she answered. Her eyes were raised to his frankly and simply. "I
heard that you were to be here. I came on that account. I wanted to see
you again."
As she finished she walked forward again, and again Linforth walked at
her side. Dick, though his settled aim had given to him a manner and an
aspect beyond his age, was for the same reason younger than his years in
other ways. Very early in his youth he had come by a great and definite
ambition, he had been inspired by it, he had welcomed and clung to it
with the simplicity and whole-heartedness which are of the essence of
youth. It was always new to him, however long he pondered over it; his
joy in it was always fresh. He had never doubted either the true gold of
the thing he desired, or his capacity ultimately to attain it. But he had
ordered his life towards its attainment with the method of a far older
man, examining each opportunity which came his way with always the one
question in his mind--"Does it help?"--and leaving or using that
opportunity according to the answer. Youth, however, was the truth of
him. The inspiration, the freshness, the simplicity of outlook--these
were the dominating elements in his character, and they were altogether
compact of youth. He looked upon the world with expectant eyes and an
unfaltering faith. Nor did he go about to detect intrigues in men or
deceits in women. Violet's words therefore moved him not merely to
tenderness, but to self-reproach.
"It is very kind of you to say that," he said, and he turned to her
suddenly. "Because you mean it."
"It is true," said Violet simply; and the next moment she was aware that
someone very young was standing before her in that Indian garden beneath
the starlit sky and faltering out statements as to his unworthiness. The
statements were familiar to her ears, but there was this which was
unfamiliar: they stirred her to passion.
She stepped back, throwing out a hand as if to keep him from her.
"Don't," she whispered. "Don't!"
She spoke like one who is hurt. Amongst the feelings which had waked in
her, dim and for the most part hardly understood, two at all events were
clear. One a vague longing for something different from the banal path
she daily trod, the other a poignant regret that she was as she was.
But Linforth caught the hand which she held out to thrust him off, and,
clasping it, drew her towards him.
"I love you," he said; and she answered him in desperation:
"But you don't know me."
"I know that I want you. I know that I am not fit for you."
And Violet Oliver laughed harshly.
But Dick Linforth paid no attention to that laugh. His hesitation had
gone. He found that for this occasion only he had the gift of tongues.
There was nothing new and original in what he said. But, on the other
hand, he said it over and over again, and the look upon his face and the
tone of his voice were the things which mattered. At the opera it is the
singer you listen to, and not the words of the song. So in this rose
garden Violet Oliver listened to Dick Linforth rather than to what he
said. There was audible in his voice from sentence to sentence, ringing
through them, inspiring them, the reverence a young man's heart holds for
the woman whom he loves.
"You ought to marry, not me, but someone better," she cried. "There is
someone I know--in--England--who--"
But Linforth would not listen. He laughed to scorn the notion that there
could be anyone better than Violet Oliver; and with each word he spoke he
seemed to grow younger. It was as though a miracle had happened. He
remained in her eyes what he really was, a man head and shoulders above
her friends, and in fibre altogether different. Yet to her, and for her,
he was young, and younger than the youngest. In spite of herself, the
longing at her heart cried with a louder voice. She sought to stifle it.
"There is the Road," she cried. "That is first with you. That is what you
really care for."
"No," he replied quietly. She had hoped to take him at a disadvantage.
But he replied at once:
"No. I have thought that out. I do not separate you from the Road. I put
neither first. It is true that there was a time when the Road was
everything to me. But that was before I met you--do you remember?--in the
inn at La Grave."
Violet Oliver looked curiously at Linforth--curiously, and rather
quickly. But it seemed that he at all events did not remember that he had
not come alone down to La Grave.
"It isn't that I have come to care less for the Road," he went on. "Not
by one jot. Rather, indeed, I care more. But I can't dissociate you from
the Road. The Road's my life-work; but it will be the better done if it's
done with your help. It will be done best of all if it's done for you."
Violet Oliver turned away quickly, and stood with her head averted.
Ardently she longed to take him at his word. A glimpse of a great life
was vouchsafed to her, such as she had not dreamt of. That some time she
would marry again, she had not doubted. But always she had thought of her
husband to be, as a man very rich, with no ambition but to please her, no
work to do which would thwart her. And here was another life offered, a
life upon a higher, a more difficult plane; but a life much more worth
living. That she saw clearly enough. But out of her self-knowledge sprang
the insistent question:
"Could I live it?"
There would be sacrifices to be made by her. Could she make them? Would
not dissatisfaction with herself follow very quickly upon her marriage?
Out of her dissatisfaction would there not grow disappointment in her
husband? Would not bitterness spring up between them and both their lives
be marred?
Dick was still holding her hand.
"Let me see you," he said, drawing her towards him. "Let me see
your face!"
She turned and showed it. There was a great trouble in her eyes, her
voice was piteous as she spoke.
"Dick, I can't answer you. When I told you that I came here on purpose to
meet you, that I wanted to see you again, it was true, all true. But oh,
Dick, did I mean more?"
"How should I know?" said Dick, with a quiet laugh--a laugh of happiness.
"I suppose that I did. I wanted you to say just what you have said
to-night. Yet now that you have said it--" she broke off with a cry.
"Dick, I have met no one like you in my life. And I am very proud.
Oh, Dick, my boy!" And she gave him her other hand. Tears glistened
in her eyes.
"But I am not sure," she went on. "Now that you have spoken, I am not
sure. It would be all so different from what my life has been, from what
I thought it would be. Dick, you make me ashamed."
"Hush!" he said gently, as one might chide a child for talking nonsense.
He put an arm about her, and she hid her face in his coat.
"Yes, that's the truth, Dick. You make me ashamed."
So she remained for a little while, and then she drew herself away.
"I will think and tell you, Dick," she said.
"Tell me now!"
"No, not yet. It's all your life and my life, you know, Dick. Give me a
little while."
"I go away to-morrow."
"To-morrow?" she cried.
"Yes, I go to Ajmere. I go to find my friend. I must go."
Violet started. Into her eyes there crept a look of fear, and she
was silent.
"The Prince?" she asked with a queer suspense in her voice.
"Yes--Shere Ali," and Dick became perceptibly embarrassed. "He is not as
friendly to us as he used to be. There is some trouble," he said lamely.
Violet looked him frankly in the face. It was not her habit to
flinch. She read and understood his embarrassment. Yet her eyes met
his quite steadily.
"I am afraid that I am the trouble," she said quietly.
Dick did not deny the truth of what she said. On the other hand, he had
as yet no thought or word of blame for her. There was more for her to
tell. He waited to hear it.
"I tried to avoid him here in India, as I told you I meant to do," she
said. "I thought he was safe in Chiltistan. I did not let him know that I
was coming out. I did not write to him after I had landed. But he came
down to Agra--and we met. There he asked me to marry him."
"He asked _you!_" cried Linforth. "He must have been mad to think that
such a thing was possible."
"He was very unhappy," Violet Oliver explained. "I told him that it was
impossible. But he would not see. I am afraid that is the cause of his
unfriendliness."
"Yes," said Dick. Then he was silent for a little while.
"But you are not to blame," he added at length, in a quiet but decisive
voice; and he turned as though the subject were now closed.
But Violet was not content. She stayed him with a gesture. She was driven
that night to speak out all the truth. Certainly he deserved that she
should make no concealment. Moreover, the truth would put him to the
test, would show to her how deep his passion ran. It might change his
thoughts towards her, and so she would escape by the easiest way the
difficult problem she had to solve. And the easiest way was the way which
Violet Oliver always chose to take.
"I am to blame," she said. "I took jewels from him in London. Yes." She
saw Dick standing in front of her, silent and with a face quite
inscrutable, and she lowered her head and spoke with the submission of a
penitent to her judge. "He offered me jewels. I love them," and she
spread out her hands. "Yes, I cannot help it. I am a foolish lover of
beautiful things. I took them. I made no promises, he asked for none.
There were no conditions, he stipulated for none. He just offered me the
pearls, and I took them. But very likely he thought that my taking them
meant more than it did."
"And where are they now?" asked Dick.
She was silent for a perceptible time. Then she said:
"I sent them back." She heard Dick draw a breath of relief, and she went
on quickly, as though she had been in doubt what she should say and now
was sure. "The same night--after he had asked me to marry him--I packed
them up and sent them to him."
"He has them now, then?" asked Linforth.
"I don't know. I sent them to Kohara. I did not know in what camp he was
staying. I thought it likely he would go home at once."
"Yes," said Dick.
They turned and walked back towards the house. Dick did not speak. Violet
was afraid. She walked by his side, stealing every now and then a look at
his set face. It was dark; she could see little but the profile. But she
imagined it very stern, and she was afraid. She regretted now that she
had spoken. She felt now that she could not lose him.
"Dick," she whispered timidly, laying a hand upon his arm; but he made no
answer. The lighted windows of the house blazed upon the night. Would he
reach the door, pass in and be gone the next morning without another word
to her except a formal goodnight in front of the others?
"Oh, Dick," she said again, entreatingly; and at that reiteration of his
name he stopped.
"I am very sorry," he said gently. "But I know quite well--others have
taken presents from these princes. It is a pity.... One rather hates it.
But you sent yours back," and he turned to her with a smile. "The others
have not always done as much. Yes, you sent yours back."
Violet Oliver drew a breath of relief. She raised her face towards his.
She spoke with pleading lips.
"I am forgiven then?"
"Hush!"
And in a moment she was in his arms. Passion swept her away. It seemed to
her that new worlds were opening before her eyes. There were heights to
walk upon for her--even for her who had never dreamed that she would even
see them near. Their lips touched.
"Oh, Dick," she murmured. Her hands were clasped about his neck. She hid
her face against his coat, and when he would raise it she would not
suffer him. But in a little while she drew herself apart, and, holding
his hands, looked at him with a great pride.
"My Dick," she said, and she laughed--a low sweet laugh of happiness
which thrilled to the heart of her lover.
"I'll tell you something," she said. "When I said good-bye to him--to the
Prince--he asked me if I was going to marry you."
"And you answered?"
"That you hadn't asked me."
"Now I have. Violet!" he whispered.
But now she held him off, and suddenly her face grew serious.
"Dick, I will tell you something," she said, "now, so that I may never
tell you it again. Remember it, Dick! For both our sakes remember it!"
"Well?" he asked. "What is it?"
"Don't forgive so easily," she said very gravely, "when we both know that
there is something real to be forgiven." She let go of his hands before
he could answer, and ran from him up the steps into the house. Linforth
saw no more of her that night.