The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India
soul to help me. You imagined me in a whirl of conviviality, no
doubt--feted, courted, the catch of Gaya----" He laughed out. "You
fool!" he flung at her, in a paroxysm of exasperation.
She gasped, as though he had struck her across the face, but she was no
longer crying. Her voice sounded flat and tired like a child's.
"I was lonely," she reiterated patiently. "I had the Mazzinis and the
Aostas. I saw them every day, and they were very kind. But they were
not you, Jim. I wanted you all the time, night and day, worse and
worse. I thought I should have died, wanting you. And I did imagine
things. I couldn't help it. I thought how brilliant and handsome you
were, and I knew you'd win through and climb--ever so high--and I should
be left behind. I couldn't bear it, Jim, dear. I had to come."
Barclay did not answer, but now his silence was no longer the tense,
savage thing it had been. She could see his tall, slight figure dimly
outlined against the paler darkness of the garden. Presently he turned
and drew up, the Chesterfield to the shadow's edge.
"Come here!" he said authoritatively.
She came, groping blindly towards him and knelt down at his knees. She
put her hands up, touching his face his shoulders, his whole body.
"Oh, Jim!" she whispered huskily. "Just to feel you again--just to know
you're there--near me. It's like slaking an awful thirst--you don't
know what it's been----"
"Hush!" he whispered back. She had flung aside her hat, and he bent and
kissed her hair. A curious fragrance rose to meet him--Eastern,
sensuous, intoxicating. He flung his arms round, dragging her close to
him, kissing her eyes, her lips with a ruthless desire.
"And haven't I thirsted--haven't I wanted you? Do you think I haven't
been lonely--among these strangers who turn their backs on me, shrink
from me as though I were a leper? Hush, don't cry! I'm not angry now.
I'm glad. We shall have these few hours together. Tomorrow----"
"Tomorrow?" she interrupted fearfully.
"Tomorrow you must go back." He laid his hand on her lips, stifling her
involuntary cry of pain. His own voice grew clearer and less
passionate. "You must. We can't let ourselves be carried away by our
feelings like this. It would be ridiculous to sell the whole future for
the present."
"We were happy before," she whispered. "What more can one be than
happy?"
He made a little impatient movement.
"You were happy. But I--couldn't you see for yourself--I didn't belong
there--not among your set or the set I'd been brought up in--poor, mean,
petty folk, squabbling and wrangling over the degrees of their
insignificance. Who was your father?--a rotten little clerk, sweating in
a Government office, too poor to get an English wife. But my
father----" He broke off, and then went on rapidly. "I'm different,
Marie. I've got good blood in my veins--good English blood. It's
restless in me. It won't let me rot like the others. I've got to get
on. I've got to win through--back to my own people. Don't you
understand?"
"Yes," she said dully, "and I am afraid."
He went on, with gathering determination:
"So you must go back and wait. I shall pull through, but you couldn't,
and I couldn't help you. You'd drag me back. You must have patience
and faith. When I've made my position safe here----"
"You will not want me," she interrupted gently. "You'll have climbed
too high for me, Jim. That's why I am afraid."
He laughed a little. His hand brushed the tears from her hot cheeks,
and passed on caressingly down her arm to her wrist and lingered there.
"You're tired and fanciful, Marie. Some one's been putting ideas into
your head. You've got to trust me and help me----"
"Jim--what are you doing?" she whispered.
"The bracelet--the one I gave you--you're still wearing it----?"
"Always. Night and day. It's been like a bit of you----"
"I want it back----"
She tried to wrench herself free from him. "Jim--don't--don't, dear."
"I want it. Hush, don't make a fuss. You shall have it back, I promise
you. Heavens--what a child----!"
She was crying now convulsively. He put his arms round her and pressed
her closer with an impatient tenderness.
"It was all I had of you," she sobbed. "It was our luck--a sort of
link--now it's gone----"
"--into my pocket," he retorted, good-humouredly, "and in a week or two
it'll be back on your wrist. I'll put it there if I have to come all
the way to Calcutta. Hush, for God's sake; don't cry like that----"
She became suddenly very quiet. Instinctively she knew that he was
trying to listen to something beyond her sobbing, and she too listened,
intently, with the alertness of a frightened animal.
"Jim--what is it----?"
He freed himself deliberately from her arms.
"It's down at the dak-bungalow. Some one playing. It's a long way off.
The wind must be in the east----"
"The dak-bungalow? Who lives there?"
"Sigrid Fersen----"
"A woman. Jim, do you know her?"
He got up. It was as though she no longer existed for him. The D minor
valse came down to them on the breath of the night-breeze--maddening and
exhilarating--a song of life at its full tide.
"Yes--I--I know her," he said.
"Jim, where are you going?"
He turned on her, thrusting aside her clinging hands with a cold
violence.
"Stay there!" he said. "Don't let any one see you. Stay there----!"
He pushed past her and went down the verandah steps. It was as though he
had thrust a dog out of his path. She called to him, but he did not
hear her--a minute later, he had vanished into the shadow of the trees.
*CHAPTER X*
*AN ENCOUNTER*
Ayeshi, with his face buried in his arms, had neither seen nor heard,
and it was Mrs. Smithers who stepped challengingly into the man's path.
Her old heart beat terrifyingly, but she held herself with a very dour
and acrimonious determination.
"Of all the impertinence!" she hissed at him. "Go away with you, you
nasty, maraudering heathen----"
But it was then that Sigrid saw him, and the D minor valse broke off
sharply, leaving a flat and drear silence, as though some splendid,
glowing spirit had fallen lifeless. She herself had risen and stood with
one hand on the keys, the other at her side. Her mouth was still a
little open, but no longer with her wide smile of joyous living. She
looked tired, and rather wan.
"Who are you?" she asked, breathlessly. "What are you doing here?"
"I beg your pardon." Barclay bowed to her. "I assure you, I did not
mean to interrupt your playing, but this--this lady caught sight of me
and I had to present myself at once or be taken for a burglar. I hope I
am forgiven?"
She shrugged her shoulder, studying him with an impassivity before which
his suave manner faltered and became uncertain.
"I neither know you nor your business," she said. "When I have heard
your explanation, it will be time to consider whether I can accept your
apology."
"Meantime, I accept the reproof," he retorted. "But we are old
acquaintances--at least, we have met before. That is the first paragraph
of my excuse. We met at the dinner Lord Kirkdale gave in honour of your
return, and I was introduced to you. My name is Barclay--James
Barclay."
"There are many thousands of people who have been introduced to me and
whose names and faces I have forgotten," she said, simply. "That does
not warrant their walking into my drawing-room at odd hours of the
night."
His smile, uneasily ingratiating, persisted.
"Haven't I apologized, and won't you make some allowances? I had missed
you this afternoon at Colonel Boucicault's--business detained me--and
was bitterly disappointed. Passing your bungalow, I heard you
playing--I was mortally tempted--and, relying on the fact that we are in
India and not in stiff-necked England, I ventured to present myself at
once."
"You relied on the facts that I am a dancer, that you once paid half a
guinea for a stall to see me dance, that you cadged for an introduction
where introductions were valueless, and that, once a woman ventures out
into publicity, men of a certain type consider her fair game." She
spoke quietly enough, but there was a whiteness about her distended
nostrils which betrayed a rising anger. "Well, as you rightly say, we
are not in England. The half-guinea stall is of no value here. My
privacy is my right, and I beg of you to respect it."
He held his ground. His impulse had carried him into an _impasse_ from
which he could not possibly retreat with dignity.
"You are like royalty, Miss Fersen," he said fluently. "People whom you
don't know, know you. It's the penalty of greatness. You can't be hard
on us poor mortals who take the sunshine when they can get it. Besides,
I have only forestalled events. Sooner or later, I should have met
you----"
"I have lived in Gaya for two months," she interrupted, "and I have
neither met you nor heard of you, Mr. Barclay."
She closed the piano, sighing impatiently. Had she looked at him at
that moment she might have repented her only half-intended cruelty, for
his insolent ease had become a desperate and rather pitiable
humiliation. He had committed a blunder which he had neither the art
nor the social adroitness to cover over, and he looked to her to make
his escape possible--decent. And she ignored him. Whereat what little
self-possession he owned deserted him, leaving him to the mad guidance
of a raw and quivering pride.
"You know very well who and what I am, Miss Fersen," he stammered, "or
you wouldn't behave like this. If I'd been one of the others, you'd
have welcomed me. You wouldn't have dared treat the merest subaltern as
you've treated me. If Rajah Rasaldu, a full-blown native, from whom you
accept----"
She turned like a flash.
"Will you go, Mr. Barclay?" she said, scarcely above her breath.
He remained stubbornly unmoved. A minute before, he had been merely a
tragi-comic figure, a victim of a midsummer night's ambition, and his
own intoxicated senses. He might, to himself at least, have pleaded
many things in extenuation--certainly a fundamental harmlessness and
even a rather painful humility. Now he had become dangerous.
"I'll go at my own time," he said unevenly. Mrs. Smithers had once more
intervened and he pushed her back.
"I can afford a scandal--you can't----"
It was at that moment that Tristram stalked in through the open
verandah. Sigrid saw him first, and laughed.
"So it's your turn to play _deus ex machina_," she said gaily. It was
as though his advent had swept away every vestige of her annoyance. She
looked at Barclay with bright, malicious eyes. "You've just come in
time to show Mr. Barclay the way out," she said. "He was unable to find
it for himself."
The two men stared at each other. At that moment either of them could
have passed easily for the villain of the little drama, Barclay's
quivering, passion-distorted features being balanced by the Englishman's
general appearance, which was ragamuffinly, not to say ruffianly. His
white clothes had been washed since Sigrid had seen him last, but had
not been ironed, an unfortunate omission, since the result was one of
soiled inelegance. The stubble on his unusual chin had become a reddish
beard, in itself an unlovely object, and lent his countenance a look of
aggression and truculence.
Barclay laughed. He was beside himself, less with anger than with panic
before the inevitable _debacle_, and he groped round for any weapon
which might deliver him with a semblance of dignity.
"I appreciate my blunder, Miss Fersen," he jerked out. "I had no idea
that I interrupted an--an appointment. I can quite understand your