Benifett Bindane was seated on the front verandah of the Residency one
afternoon, when Lord Barthampton drove up to the door in his high
dogcart. He rose from his chair, and going to the steps, shook hands
with the younger man somewhat less limply than was his wont.
"Is Lady Muriel in?" asked the visitor.
Mr. Bindane shook his head. "I'm afraid not; but I think she'll be home
to tea. Come in and have a drink."
He led him into the library, and rang the bell. "What will you have?" he
asked. "A whiskey and soda?"
"Thanks," Lord Barthampton replied. "I've given up the temperance stunt.
I think one needs something with a punch in it now that the weather's
getting hot."
A servant entered the room, and Mr. Bindane, playing the host with
relish, ordered the refreshments.
Charles Barthampton had seen Muriel more than once since her return from
the desert, and now he had come with the determination to make her a
proposal of marriage. He was nervous, therefore, and soon he was helping
himself liberally from the decanter and with marked moderation from the
syphon. While doing so he thought he observed the older man's eye upon
him, and felt that candour would not here come amiss.
"I'm fortifying myself," he laughed, holding up his glass. "Fact is, I'm
going to pop the question this afternoon."
Mr. Bindane nodded slowly, with seeming abstraction, and his lordship
decided that a little drama ought to be added to his words.
"Yes," he said, bracing his shoulders bravely, "this suspense is too
much for me; so I'm going to rattle the dice with Fate, and win all or
lose all at a single throw. What d'you think of my chances?"
"Not much," replied Mr. Bindane, gloomily. "Lady Muriel is a difficult
sort of girl. Still, she may be suffering from a reaction: you may catch
her on the rebound."
The words slipped from him without intention; but as soon as they were
spoken he realized that he would either have to explain them or cover
them up as best he could.
"How d'you mean?" came the inevitable question, and Mr. Bindane's brains
were immediately set rapidly to work. He knew that Lord Barthampton was
running after the girl's fortune: such a chase seemed a very natural
thing to his business mind; and he did not suppose that the suitor would
be deterred by hearing that the lady's hand had already been given
temporarily to another.
"Well," he replied, "you know, of course, that she was by way of being
in love with your cousin a short time ago."
His visitor scowled. "No, I didn't know that," he muttered. "Confound
the fellow!--he's always getting in my way. I wish he'd stay in the
desert, and not come back."
"Yes, so do I," Mr. Bindane remarked. "I want him to live out there, and
manage this Company I'm trying to launch. Frankly, that is why I wish
you success. At present it is Lady Muriel who attracts him to Cairo; and
if by any chance she should marry him, my plans would be spoilt."
"Oh, I see," said the other, a look of cunning coming into his red face.
"So we both want the same thing."
"Yes," replied Mr. Bindane. The conspiracy interested him, the more so
because he felt that he was acting in the best interests of Daniel, for
whom he had conceived an unbounded admiration. He thought that he was
wasted at the Residency: there was no money in his present work,
whereas, if he entered the proposed Company's employment, he might rise
to great wealth. Nor would he ever be happy in Cairo, certainly not if
he were tied to Lady Muriel: she was not the right wife for him. She was
too flighty, and this escapade of hers in the desert stamped her as a
woman of loose morals, who would bring only sorrow to a man of Daniel
Lane's temperament.
Lord Barthampton leaned forward. "Did she see much of him in the Oases?"
he asked.
Mr. Bindane hesitated. He did not like to give the secret away; yet he
felt that if this burly and rather unscrupulous young man were in
possession of the facts, he might terrorize Lady Muriel into marrying
him. Then Cairo would cease to have any attraction for Daniel Lane. "She
saw a great deal of him," he replied at length.
"Why, was he with your party?"
Mr. Bindane's lips moved flabbily, but he did not speak.
"I thought you told me the other day that he wasn't with you," Lord
Barthampton added.
"Yes, that's so," the other answered. "He wasn't."
His visitor got up suddenly from his chair. "Do you mean that _she_ was
with _him_?" he asked, incredulously.
"That is a secret," Mr. Bindane replied, a little scared, but at the
same time calming himself with the assurance that he was acting for the
best.
Lord Barthampton paced the floor, chewing his lips, his heavy brows
knitted. "I see," he said, at length. "And you think that it will help
me if I hold this piece of information over her head."
Mr. Bindane's blank expression indicated that nothing of the kind had
entered his head--in fact, that nothing of any kind had ever entered it.
"You could have heard it from the natives," he said. "They all know she
was at El Hamran while we went north. If I hadn't let it slip out like
this, no doubt you would have heard it from somebody else in time."
"No doubt," the other answered, and he drained his glass once more.
Benifett Bindane also rose from his chair. He was alarmed, and the
qualms of conscience were upon him. "Of course it was just an escapade,"
he murmured. "I don't suppose there was anything wrong in it."
"Well, I won't use the information, unless I've got to," said Lord
Barthampton.
As they issued from the library, they heard the sound of an automobile
driving up to the door. "That's probably her," Mr. Bindane remarked.
"You'd better go and wait in the drawing-room, and I'll make myself
scarce."
He patted the young man on the shoulders and hurried up the stairs to
his room, while Charles Barthampton, nervously tidying himself, went
into the drawing-room, where a footman was arranging the tea-table.
He had not long to wait. In a few minutes Muriel entered, and, seeing
him, held out her hand.
"Hullo!" she said. "You here again?"
"I don't seem to be able to keep away from you for long," he sighed.
"Can I see you alone?"
Muriel glanced at him quickly. There was an expression of ludicrous
agony upon his face, and she knew full well what he had come to say to
her. "Let's have tea, first," she answered. "It will fortify us."
He stared anxiously at her, but all further preliminary remarks were
checked by the entrance of Kate Bindane; and soon two or three callers
were ushered in.
It was a long time before he managed successfully to outstay the other
visitors; but at length he found himself alone with Muriel. The removal
of the tea-tray caused another interruption; and he refrained with
difficulty from cursing aloud when the footman again entered to switch
on the lights.
At last, however, the moment for his declaration arrived, and Muriel
settled herself down upon the cushions of the sofa to hear him, as
though she were preparing to listen to a recital upon the grand piano.
"Now tell me," she said, "what it is that you want to say to me."
He was standing in front of her, the fingers of his hand scratching his
ear. He cleared his throat. "Well, it's like this," he began. "Ever
since I've known you I've felt that there was something lacking in my
life...."
"I was wondering how you'd begin," she said, interrupting him.
He flushed, and hastened on with his prepared speech. "Even soldiers,
you know, long for the comforts of home. I suppose every Englishman
likes to think of his own fireside...."
"Not in this weather, surely," she put in, again interrupting him.
He hurried on. "... With the woman he loves, seated before him, after
the day's toil is over."
"Are you proposing to me?" she asked, wishing mercifully to cut him
short.
"Well, yes, I am," he answered, with a deep sigh. "Ah, don't be cruel to
me. You know that I love you. I'm quite well off: I can give you a
fairly comfortable time of it."
"Yes, but they say you have led a very wild life," she told him. "You
said yourself that you drank."
"I've sown my wild oats, little woman," he sighed.
"But drink is such a dreadful thing," she murmured. "I wonder your
conscience hasn't pricked you. Or are you one of those people who have
no conscience, only a religion?"
Without waiting to reply he returned to the speech which he had
memorized, and drew a picture of his English home: the snow on the
ground at Noel, the bells of the little church ringing, the Yule log,
and his tenants singing carols to them as they dined in the great hall.
It reminded Muriel of a Christmas-card--something with sparkling stuff
powdered over it, and "Hark, the herald angels sing" printed in the
corner.
Lord Barthampton, however, was very much touched by his own eloquence;
and, coming close to her, he held out his hands. "Will you?" he said,
brokenly.
"I must have time to think," she answered. "This is so sudden." Then,
with deep seriousness, she added: "Yes, I want to think it over."
"Well, I'm going off to the Fayoum tomorrow to shoot," he told her. "May
I come for my answer in three days from now?"
"Very well," she replied.
He seized her hand in his, and pressed it fervently to his lips. Then,
as though overcome with emotion, he whispered, "God bless you, little
woman," and, turning, walked slowly out of the room.