He thought she hesitated a moment. "Tony"s not coming till later," she told him. "He guessed we should have a lot to talk about together, so he stayed away. Nice of him, wasn"t it?"
Behind the commonplace sentences, the hidden wordless Play also drew on towards its Curtain.
"Well, it is my turn rather for a chat, perhaps," he returned presently with a laugh, taking his cup of steaming coffee from her hand. "I can see him later in the day. You"ve arranged something, I"m sure. Your wire spoke of a picnic, but perhaps this heat--this beastly Khamsin----"
"It"s pa.s.sing," she mentioned. "They say it blows for three days, for six days, or for nine, but as a matter of fact, it does nothing of the sort.
It"s going to clear. I thought we might take our tea into the Desert."
She went on talking rapidly, almost nervously, it seemed to Tom. Her mind was upon something else. Thoughts of another kind lay unexpressed behind her speech. His own mind was busy too--Tony, Warsaw, the long long interval he had been away, what had happened during his absence, and so forth? Had no cable come? What would she feel this time to-morrow when she knew?--these and a hundred others seethed below his quiet manner and careless talk. He noticed then that she was exquisitely dressed; she wore, in fact, the very things he most admired--and wore them purposely: the orange-coloured jacket, the violet veil, the hat with the little roses on the brim. It was his turn to look her up and down.
She caught his eye. Uncannily, she caught his thought as well.
Tom steeled himself.
"I put these on especially for you, you truant boy," she said deliciously across the table at him. "I hope you"re sensible of the honour done you."
"Rather, Lettice! I should think I am, indeed!"
"I got up half an hour earlier on purpose too. Think what that means to a woman like me." She handed him a grape-fruit she had opened and prepared herself.
"My favourite hat, and my favourite fruit! I wish I were worthy of them!"
He stammered slightly as he said the stupid thing: the blood rushed up to his very forehead, but she gave no sign of noticing either words or blush.
The strong sunburn hid the latter doubtless. There was a desperate shyness in him that he could not manage quite. He wished to heaven the talk would shift into another key. He could not keep this up for long; it was too dangerous. Her att.i.tude, it seemed, had gone back to that of weeks ago; there was more than the mother in it, he felt: it was almost the earlier Lettice--and yet not quite. Something was added, but something too was missing. He wondered more and more . . . he asked himself odd questions. . . . It seemed to him suddenly that her mood was a.s.sumed, not wholly natural. The flash came to him that disappointment lay behind it, yet that the disappointment was not with--himself.
"You"re wearing a new tie, Tom," her voice broke in upon his moment"s reverie. "That"s not the one _I_ gave you."
It was so unexpected, so absurd. It startled him. He laughed with genuine amus.e.m.e.nt, explaining that he had bought it in a.s.souan in a moment of extravagance--"the nearest shade I could find to the blue you gave me.
How observant you are!" Lettice laughed with him. "I always notice little things like that," she said. "It"s what you call the mother in me, I suppose." She examined the tie across the table, while they smoked their cigarettes. He looked aside. "I hope it was admired. It suits you." She fingered it. Her hand touched his chin.
"Does it? It"s your taste, you know."
"But _was_ it admired?" she insisted almost sharply.
"That"s really more than I can say, Lettice. You see, I didn"t ask Sir William what he thought, and the natives are poor judges because they don"t wear ties." He was about to say more, talking the first nonsense that came into his head, when she did a thing that took his breath away, and made him tremble where he sat. Regardless of lurking Arab servants, careless of Mrs. Haughstone"s windows not far behind them, she rose suddenly, tripped round the little table, kissed him on his cheek--and was back again in her chair, smoking innocently as before. It was a repet.i.tion of an earlier act, yet with a difference somewhere.
The world seemed unreal just then; things like this did not happen in real life, at least not quite like this; nor did two persons in their respective positions talk exactly thus, using such ba.n.a.l language, such insignificant phrases half of banter, half of surface foolishness.
The kiss amazed him--for a moment. Tom felt in a dream. And yet this very sense of dream, this idle exchange of trivial conversation cloaked something that was a cruel, an indubitable reality. It was not a dream shot through with reality, it was a reality shot through with dream.
But the dream itself, though old as the desert, dim as those grim Theban Hills now draped with flying sand, was also true and actual.
The hidden Play had broken through, merging for an instant with the upper surface-life. He was almost persuaded that this last, strange action had not happened, that Lettice had never really left her chair. So still and silent she sat there now. She had not stirred from her place. It was the burning wind that touched his cheek, a waft of heated atmosphere, lightly moving, that left the disquieting trail of perfume in the air.
The glowing heavens, luminous athwart the clouds of fine, suspended sand, laid this ominous hint of dream upon the entire day. . . . The recent act became a mere picture in the mind.
Yet some little cell of innermost memory, stirring out of sleep, had surely given up its dead. . . . For a second it seemed to him this heavy, darkened air was in the recesses of the earth, beneath the burden of ma.s.sive cliffs the centuries had piled. It was underground. In some cavern of those mournful Theban Hills, some one--had kissed him! For over his head shone painted stars against a painted blue, and in his nostrils hung a faint sweetness as of ambra. . . .
He recovered his balance quickly. They resumed their curious masquerade, the screen of idle talk between significance and emptiness, like sounds of reality between dream and waking.
And the rest of that long day of stifling heat was similarly a dream shot through with incongruous touches of reality, yet also a reality shot through with the glamour of some incredibly ancient dream. Not till he stood later upon the steamer deck, the sea-wind in his face and the salt spray on his lips, did he awake fully and distinguish the dream from the reality--or the reality from the dream. Nor even then was the deep, strange confusion wholly dissipated. To the end of life, indeed, it remained an unsolved mystery, labelled a Premonition Fulfilled, without adequate explanation. . . .
The time pa.s.sed listlessly enough, to the accompaniment of similar idle talk, careless, it seemed to Tom, with the ghastly sense of the final minutes slipping remorselessly away, so swiftly, so poignantly unused.
For each moment was gigantic, brimmed full with the distilled essence, as it were, of intensest value, value that yet was not his to seize.
He never lost the point of view that he watched a picture that belonged to some one else. His own position was clear; he had already leaped from a height; he counted, as he fell, the blades of gra.s.s, the pebbles far below; slipping over Niagara"s awful edge, he noted the bubbles in the whirlpools underneath. They talked of the weather. . . .!
"It"s clearing," said Lettice. "There"ll be sand in our tea and thin bread and b.u.t.ter. But anything"s better than sitting and stifling here."
Tom readily agreed. "You and I and Tony, then?"
"I thought so. We don"t want too many, do we?"
"Not for our la--not for a day like this." He corrected himself just in time. "Tony will be here for lunch?" he asked.
She nodded. "He said so, at any rate, only one never quite knows with Tony." And though Tom plainly heard, he made no comment. He was puzzled.
Most of the morning they remained alone together. Tom had never felt so close to her before; it seemed to him their spirits touched; there was no barrier now. But there was distance. He could not explain the paradox.
A vague sweet feeling was in him that the distance was not of height, as formerly. He had risen somehow; he felt higher than before; he saw over the barrier that had been there. Pain and sacrifice, perhaps, had lifted him, raised him to the level where she dwelt; and in that way he was closer. A new strength was in him. At the same time, behind her outer quietness and her calm, he divined struggle still. In her atmosphere was a hint of strain, disharmony. He was positive of this. From time to time he caught trouble in her eyes. Could she, perhaps, discern--foreknow--the shadow of the dropping Curtain? He wondered. . . . He detected something in her that was new.
If any weakening of resolve were in himself, it disappeared long before Tony"s arrival on the scene. A few private words from Mrs. Haughstone later banished it effectually. "Your telegram, Mr. Kelverdon, came as a great surprise. We had planned a three-day trip to the Sphinx and Pyramids. Mr. Winslowe had written to you; he hoped to persuade you to join us. Again you left a.s.souan before the letter arrived. It"s a habit with you!"
"Apparently."
The poison no longer fevered him; he was immune.
"Mr. Winslowe--I had better warn you before he comes--was disappointed."
"I"m sorry I spoilt the trip. It was most inconsiderate of me. But you can make it later when I"m gone--to Cairo, can"t you?"
Mrs. Haughstone watched him somewhat keenly. Did she discover anything, he wondered? Was she aware that he was no longer within reach of her little shafts?
"It"s all for the best, I think," she went on in a casual tone.
"Lettice was too easily persuaded--she didn"t really want to go without you. She said so. And Mr. Winslowe soon gets over his sulks----"
Tom interrupted her, turning sharply round. "Oh," he laughed, "was that why he wouldn"t come to breakfast, then?" And whether it was pain or pleasure that he felt, he did not know. The moment"s anguish--he verily believed it--was for Lettice. And for Tony? Something akin to sympathy perhaps! If Tony should ever suffer pain like his--even temporarily. . . .!
The other shrugged her angular shoulders a little. "It"s all pa.s.sed now,"
she observed; "he"s forgotten it, I"m sure. You needn"t notice anything, by the way," she added, "if--if he seems ungracious."
"Not for worlds," replied Tom, throwing stones into the sullen river below. "I"m far too tactful."
Mrs. Haughstone looked away. There was a moment"s expression of admiration on her face. "You"re big, Mr. Kelverdon, very big. I wish all men were as generous." She spoke hurriedly below her breath. "I saw this coming before you arrived. I wish I could have saved you. You"ve got the hero in you."
Tom changed the subject, and presently moved away: it was time for lunch for one thing, and for another he wanted to hide his face from her too peering eyes. He was not quite sure of himself just then; his lips trembled a little; he could not altogether control his facial muscles.
Tony jealous! Lettice piqued! Was this the explanation of her new sweetness towards himself! The position tried him sorely, testing his new strength from such amazing and unexpected angles. It was all beyond him somehow, the reversal of roles so afflicting, tears and laughter so oddly mingled. Yet the sheet-anchor--his self-less love--held fast and true.
There was no dragging, no shuffling where he stood.
Nor was there any weakening of resolution in him, any dimming of the new dawn within his heart. He felt sure of something that he did not understand, aware of a radiant promise some one whispered marvellously in his ear. He was alone, yet not alone, outcast yet companioned sweetly, bereft of all the world holds valuable, yet possessor of riches that the world pa.s.sed by. He felt a conqueror. The pain was somehow turning into joy. He seemed above the earth. Only one thing mattered--that his ideal love should have no stain upon it.
The lunch he dreaded pa.s.sed smoothly and without alarm. Tony was gay, light-hearted as usual, belying Mrs. Haughstone"s ominous prediction.
They smoked together afterwards, walking up and down the garden arm-in-arm, Tony eagerly discussing expeditions, picnics, birds, anything and everything that offered, with keen interest as of old; he even once suggested coming back to a.s.souan with his cousin--alone . . . Tom made no comment on the adverb. Nor was his sympathy mere acting; he genuinely felt it; the affection for Tony somehow was not dead. . . . The joy in him grew, meanwhile, brighter, clearer, higher. It was alive. Some courage of the sun was in him. There seemed a great understanding with it, and a greater forgiveness.