"After months--which seemed years--of the most abominable hardship,
wearying anxiety, and constant danger, the security and restfulness of
this sort of thing is simply beyond all words to define."
Thus Campian, clad in irreproachable evening dress, with a wave of the
hand which takes in the lighted table and trophy hung walls. The only
other occupant of Upward's dining room has just entered, likewise in
full panoply--with opera-cloak, and fan and gloves.
"Yes. That is indeed true. Do you know, I wish we had not got to go
out to-night."
"Then why do we; for as it happens I entirely share that wish. Suppose
we stay at home instead. Or are you going to say `Duty'?"
Vivien does not at once reply. Something in the tone, in the scarcely
veiled meaning wherewith he emphasises the word, strikes home to her.
The Upward party and her uncle have gone on, bound for a regimental
theatrical performance at the Assembly Rooms, and they two are left to
follow. Not many days have gone by since Campian's return to Shalalai;
not many more are to go by before he leaves it--almost certainly for
ever.
"Shall we stay at home then, dear?" answers Vivien, a little wave of
unsuppressed tenderness in her voice. "We may throw duty overboard for
once, for the sake of a poor returned wanderer. But--I have made you
this, and in any case you must wear it." "This" being an exquisite
little "button-hole" which she is now carefully pinning on for him. The
great tiger jaws on the walls seem to snarl inaudibly in the lamplight--
as though to remind both of the multifold perils of the beautiful,
treacherous East.
Now, the act of pinning on a button-hole under some circumstances is
bound to lead to a good deal, therefore in this case, that an arm should
close around the operatrix seems hardly surprising.
"Do you still venerate that vacant old fetish? It parted us once,
Vivien."
Again she is silent, and her eyes fill. The great black and orange
stripes of the tiger skins seem to dance in angry rays before her
vision. Her voice will not come to her. But he continues:
"Has it never occurred to you that you--that we--made a very
considerable mistake that time? We each found our counterpart in the
other. Surely such an experience is unique. Then what happened? You
set up a fetish--a miserable fraud--a mere whimsical conception of an
idol--and called it Duty--while I--I was fool enough to let you do it."
"I don't know why things were ordered that way," he continues, for still
Vivien makes no reply--"or for what purpose, of earth or heaven, five
years of happiness should have been knocked off our lives. But for
whatever it is, I don't believe for a moment it was arranged we should
meet so strangely and unexpectedly in this out of the way part of the
world--all for nothing. We have been brought together again, and we
have tried to keep up the _role_ of strangers--of mere acquaintances--
and the whole thing is a most wretched and flimsy fiasco. Is it not?"
"Yes."
She is looking at him now, full and earnestly. Her fingers are toying
with the "button-hole" she has pinned on his coat. Unconsciously she is
leaning on him as he holds her within his embrace.
"Our love showed forth in every moment, in every word, in every action
of our lives," he continues. "The mask we tried to wear was quite
unavailable to stifle the cry of two aching hearts. Listen, darling.
There is no room for affectation between us now. Our love is as ever it
was--rather is it stronger. Am I right?"
"Yes. You are the one love of my life, and always have been. And you
know it--dearest."
So sweet, so soft comes this reply, that the very tones are as an all
pervading caress.
"Those five years are beyond our reach," he continues. "They are gone
never to return, but we can make up for them during the remainder of our
lives. And--we will. Will we not?"
"Yes--we will."
The reply, though low, is full-voiced and unhesitating. Luminous eyes,
sweet with their love light, are raised to his, and the man's head is
drawn down to meet again that kiss which seemed to join soul to soul in
the dread hour of peril and of bloodshed and self-abnegation. And, with
the moment, the long years of desolation and heart-emptiness are as
though they had never been--for after the drear gloom of their weary
length--the sharp and fiery trial of their culmination, Love has
triumphed, and now there is light.
And here with the doings of our two principal characters we have no
further concern, and if this holds good of them, still more does it hold
good of those among whom their lot has been temporarily cast. But if
life, in its fatefulness, has refrained from dashing the cup of
happiness--tardily yet finally grasped--from the hands of these two, its
normal grimness of irony is not likely to suffer in the long run. For
Umar Khan is still at large. Force and diplomacy alike have failed to
bring that arch-free-booter and murderer within measurable distance of
the gallows and faggot pyre, which he has so richly earned a score of
times over. For the twenty-first time the wily evildoer has escaped
retribution, and in all probability will continue to do so. Which--if
not exactly satisfying to our reader's sense of poetic justice--is Life.
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