Her visitor moved impatiently on her chair. "Oh, don"t tell me such fibs," she exclaimed. "My dear Muriel, I am a woman of the world. I only want to help you."
Her words only served to accentuate the girl"s alarm.
"But it"s true," she cried. "I swear to you there was nothing of that kind between us."
Lady Smith-Evered stared at her. "You can"t expect me or anybody else to believe that. Why, the man is a notorious bad character in regard to women."
"No, he"s not," she answered. "He may be a brute in other ways, but all this rot about his Bedouin harim is just the silly talk of Cairo. I"m not going to beg you to believe me. I"m just telling you the truth; and if you don"t think it"s the truth you can go to ..."
She checked herself suddenly.
"But what are we to do?" said the elder woman, spreading out her hands.
"I"m not a prude; but the whole thing is shocking in a country like this. How are we to prevent it ever coming to your father"s ears?"
"I"m going to tell him as soon as he comes back," Muriel replied.
"Oh, you"re incorrigible," exclaimed Lady Smith-Evered, angrily. "You hav"n"t got the sense even to know when to hold your tongue." She rose to her feet and paced up and down the room. "What"s to be done? Will you please tell me what"s to be done?"
"Nothing much," Muriel answered. She was becoming calmer now. She saw herself in a new light, and her humiliation was extreme. Lady Smith-Evered belonged to that world which Daniel had tried to teach her to despise; and in this woman"s eyes she appeared merely as a foolish, naughty girl, whose rash actions had to be covered up by some sort of lie. She would have infinitely preferred it if she had been instantly ostracized and cut.
"Of course," Lady Smith-Evered went on, "I shall tell my maid that the whole thing is nonsense; and it"s just possible that the story will go no further. But you ought to be ashamed of yourself for taking such risks. And I have no words to express what I feel about Mr. Lane."
"Oh, please leave him out of it," Muriel exclaimed. "He never asked me to come, or knew I was coming."
Lady Smith-Evered sniffed. "He knows his own power over women," she said.
Muriel turned upon her fiercely. "I tell you he is in no way to blame."
Her visitor bowed. "I respect you for trying to defend him," she answered. "We women always defend the men we love."
"But I don"t love him," she cried. "I hate the sight of him."
Lady Smith-Evered spread out her hands again, evidently baffled. "That makes it all the worse," she said. "Romance is whitewash for the sepulchres of pa.s.sion: it makes these things presentable; but if you say the affair was not prompted by love, then I absolutely fail to understand you. It sounds unnatural, indecent."
She moved towards the door. "I"ll do my best to hush it up," she concluded; "but the sooner you get married to some nice easy-going Englishman the better. These sort of things are more _comme il faut_ after marriage, my dear."
And with that she left the room.
CHAPTER x.x.xII-THINKING THINGS OVER
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 gla.s.s. "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 a.s.surance that he was acting for the best.