Alone in the quaint un-English bedroom Katrine bathed and made her
toilette. Dorothea's loving hands had already opened the box which had
come safely through so many perils, and there, upon the topmost tray,
lay the clothes which had been packed with careful forethought for this
special occasion. A fine white gown of an elaborate simplicity which
bore the hall-mark of Grizel's taste, dainty shoes and stockings, the
touch of blue which was necessary to the success of any costume intended
for Katrine, even the large tortoise-shell pins for her hair. With what
expectation, what fond, shy hopes had they been laid together! It had
been with something like the reverence of a bride for her wedding robe,
that she had smoothed those folds. Katrine shivered. An overwhelming
pity rose in her heart, not alone for herself, but also for the good,
tender man for whom was stored so bitter a disappointment. Patient,
trustful Jim Blair, who was even now awaiting her coming with a lover's
eagerness and impatience! A moment later, her thoughts had flown back
on the wing of a feminine impulse to a still dearer personality.
On shipboard it had been difficult to attain a delicacy of toilette; she
had been swathed in veils, hot and wind-blown,--it was impossible to
strangle a truant wish that Bedford might see her now!
Katrine stood rigid by the doorway, gathering courage, then desperately
flung it open. The unfamiliar scent of the East assailed her nostrils,
that scent which even more than sight proclaimed a change of country.
She paced the long corridor, and caught the sound of Dorothea's voice.
She was talking; a deeper tone was heard in reply. Jim Blair had
arrived! In another moment she would meet him face to face. It seemed
to Katrine as if at that sound every pulse in her own body ceased
beating; there came a moment of breathlessness, of almost swooning
inability to think or move, then once again she braced herself, and
opened the door.
Against the light, his back turned towards her, stood a tall, uniformed
figure. Dorothea, flushed and trembling, swept forward and enveloped
her friend in a fervid embrace. "_It is Jim_!" she whispered in low,
intent accents. "Jim Blair. Be kind to him, Katrine, _be kind_!"
She slid out of the retaining arms, a wraith-like embodiment of the
Dorothea who had been, and sped from the room. The door closed behind
her, and Katrine stood, a motionless figure, watching another,
motionless as her own. Had he heard? Did he realise her presence?
He was tall and broad; the lines of his uniform fitted tightly to his
figure. He looked a man of whom a woman might be proud, but he was a
man without a personality; a man whose face was hidden.
Katrine laid her hand on the back of a couch and spoke two trembling
words:
"Captain Blair!"
At the sound of her voice he turned, wheeling towards her with a swift
light movement, so that she might see his face, might look in his eyes--
grey, magnetic eyes, curiously light against the sunburn of his face...
Five minutes later, seated upon the huge bamboo couch, supported by
strong arms which seemed to bound the world, Katrine slowly recovered
collected thought.
"You--are--_Jim_! ... Jim is--You! ... Then what of Captain Bedford?
Where is he? _Is_ there a Captain Bedford? Is he a real living man, or
just a fictitious person invented for--"
"Indeed no! He is real enough, poor fellow, but in Egypt still, laid by
the heel; unable to move. I only--only took his place!"
"I think," announced Katrine slowly, "I am very angry!"
It seemed an incongruous statement to make, considering the position and
appearance of the speaker, but the hearer received it with a gravity
which showed that his own conscience was not altogether at ease.
"Dearest, before you judge, let me speak! Hear what I have to say! I
had no intention of deceiving you. Such an idea never entered my head
until at the last moment a cable arrived to say that Bedford was
incapacitated, and could not sail. We were worried, all of us, to think
that you should miss his help. I was racking my brains to think what I
could do, when the inspiration came to meet you myself. It was an easy
matter to get off for a few weeks, as there was leave owing to me, and I
had started almost before I had time to think. Then came misgivings! I
did not know how you would take it, if it would seem to you like going
back on my promise. I had promised to keep on neutral ground for three
months, and a _tete-a-tete_ on shipboard seemed hardly playing the
game.--I started on the heat of an impulse, afire to see you at the
first possible moment; I landed at Port Said in a blue funk, the joy at
the thought of meeting swallowed in dread of what you might say. I
would have given a pile at that moment to have been safely back in
India. Then--you know how! we met on shore. I knew you at the first
glance, and, Katrine! you knew _me_. No matter who I was, or by what
name I called myself, you belonged to me, _and you knew it_!
"At that moment, for the first time, it flashed into my head to take
Bedford's place in Bedford's name. I had seen the list of passengers,
and I knew no one on board. Ours is an out-of-the-way station, and I
have seldom been home these last years. It seemed to me that if I kept
close and avoided the smoke-room, I might very well get through the rest
of the voyage without an explanation as to name. And I remembered what
you had said--all the little feminine arguments you had used rose up and
argued with me as they had never done before. You said that to meet a
man with whom you were expected, almost pledged, to fall in love, was a
big handicap to success; that if we could have a chance of meeting in
the ordinary way, as strangers pledged to no special interest, we could
test the strength of the mutual attraction far more surely. And another
time you said (I think this influenced me more than anything else!) you
said that one glance at my face, five minutes in my society, would tell
you more than a hundred letters! Do you remember saying that? The
inference was that the shape of my nose or ears was to count more than
character."
His strong hands pulled her round, so that her eyes met his.
"Katrine! do you like my ears? Are you satisfied with them now that you
see them in flesh?"
"I take no interest in your ears. What are your ears to me? I was
thinking of Jim Blair's ears, and you are,--I don't know _what_ you
are--a compound person, more strange than a hundred strangers... Oh,
_Jim_! how could you? If you realised so much, why couldn't you realise
more? If I was already yours, then why trouble to play a part? Yes, I
am angry; _I am_! I think you were wrong."
"Sweetheart, I know it! Nobody knows it better than I. I am not
excusing myself, only explaining how it came about. One false step, and
then it seemed impossible to go back. I could not face the thought of
owning up on board, we were so happy, so innocently happy, that it
seemed criminal to break it all up. Confess now that I behaved well,
that I made an exemplary escort?"
"You--you--made me dreadfully in love with you," protested Katrine,
stiffening her back, and holding him off with determined hands, when his
delight at the confession took an active form. "_And_ unhappy! Did you
think it was a light thing to me to feel my loyalty slipping from me day
by day--to be obliged to love one man, when another man was waiting?
Did you think I had _no_ heart for Jim Blair?"
"I knew you had, and I loved you for it. Do you remember how you put me
on my guard? But I _was_ Jim Blair, you darling, so all was well. I
was afraid you'd worry, but at the worst it was a matter of _days_, and
those days were going to save us months of waiting. That's the way I
put it, trying to convince myself that all would work out for the best.
We should have remained on terms of the strictest friendship, if--if it
hadn't been for--"
Katrine shuddered. It would be long before she could talk calmly of the
awesome experience through which she had passed. Her arms relaxed, she
sank back, and they clung together in silence for long healing minutes.
"You never told me," she whispered, "even at the end--what we _thought_
was the end! You let me leave you, not knowing... Why did you not tell
me then, and let me die in peace?"
His eyes met hers, gravely, questioning.
"_Would_ it have made for peace? Would death have seemed more easy, or
less? Was your brain clear enough to grasp explanations, or to have
felt any comfort, if you _had_? And, beloved,--in the face of death
what was a _name_? I loved _you_, you loved me, what did it matter by
what name I was called? If it had been the end,--well! it would not
have been as Miss Beverley and Captain--anything, that we should have
met on another plane.--If we were saved, it was only a matter of two or
three days..."
"One can suffer a good deal in two or three days! How do you suppose I
felt in that train, looking forward to meeting you--_both_!"
His eyes twinkled; the grave face broke into a smile.
"Exactly as you would have done, for months instead of days, if we had
kept to the original agreement! No! beloved, I apologise, but don't
expect me to be abject. I've thought it out, not once, but a dozen
times, and I can't see that on the whole you've suffered more than you
were bound to do in any case. And what have you been saved? Three
months of uncertainty and waiting. And what have you gained? Three
months of happiness to add to the score of life. It's a big haul, my
Katrine! It is worth a few pangs?"
"You twist things about; your arguments are specious; they are arguments
without premises. Who said I was going to waive three months? I'm not
at all sure that I shall. What would they say at home? They know I'm
not the sort of girl to fall in love on a few days' acquaintance."
"Why bring Cranford into the question? Does it matter one button what
they think? Besides, I don't wish to be boastful, but as a matter of
fact, you _did_!"
"I didn't!" Katrine contradicted. "No! thank goodness, I am restored
to my own confidence. I understand now that it was only because you
_were_ Jim, because I recognised _yourself_ in spite of disguises that I
did--fall! I was really absolutely loyal throughout, but other people
won't understand--Mrs Mannering, for instance! I told her there was
`some one else.'"
"And I went one better, and told her who I was! We had a heart-to-heart
talk that morning in Bombay before I left, and cleared up all
misunderstandings. She's a good sort. We owe her a lot. Perhaps some
day we may be able to pay some of it back, to her boy."
Katrine nodded dumbly. She was occupied in reviewing her journey up
country in the light of the revelation, and seeing in it an explanation
of her companion's idiosyncrasies, her mysterious chuckles of laughter,
her tenderness, alternated with raillery, her suppressed excitement at
the moment of arrival. She had known all the time, even in Bombay, when
the letter arrived! Katrine started, confronted by another mystery.
"The letter! The one at Bombay--"
"What about it?"
"You wrote it, of course, but how, when? Not before our voyage. You
_knew_ when you wrote--"
"Yes; I knew," he said softly. "It was written on the night we arrived.
I trusted to your ignorance of the country in the matter of postmarks,
and to your femininity to pass the absence of date! Was it selfish of
me to send it? I knew you would be expecting to hear, and it was a
comfort to me to write. Besides, I felt that a moment would come when
it would be a comfort to you, too. You had trained me to understand
that your mind worked in flashes, and that at a glance you could grasp a
situation which would petrify a poor male thing. Remembering this, I
believed--I _hoped_ that at the very moment of discovery you might
remember what I had said, and realise that all was right between us--
always had been right, always would be to the end! I wanted you to
realise that that letter had been written _after_ we had met, and that
my love had changed only to grow deeper."
Katrine sighed; a deep, long-drawn sigh in which was the sound of
immeasurable content.
"Oh, I am glad," she sighed. "I am _glad_! Even at the height of my
love the thought of Jim Blair tugged at my heart. It hurt me to hurt
him. He had wound his life so closely with mine that I couldn't drag
them apart. And a bit of me loved him still, went on loving, and
wanting his love. After having accepted so much, I could never have
been really satisfied to throw him over, even for--_Jim_! I was going
to say for `_you_' but you _are_ Jim, and I can have you both! There's
no one to throw over; no one to be unhappy--"
Katrine paused; in her deep eyes a gleam of laughter awoke and danced.
"There's only one drawback, Captain Bedford--Blair--Jim--John--whatever
you chose to call yourself, and for _that_ you have yourself to blame!"
"I'll bear it. I'll bear anything! What is it now?" asked Jim,
smiling.
"I shall always," replied Katrine demurely, "I shall always feel that I
am married to _two_ men!"
The End.