The Native Born; or, the Rajah's People Part 28

"I don't care what you say," he thought, "you are getting a conscience. Now, I wonder whom you caught it from? Not from me, I'll be bound."

He laughed out loud, and shaking himself up from his half-lounging att.i.tude against the window cas.e.m.e.nt, he proceeded to follow in Beatrice's footsteps. At the door he was met by three men--the Rajah, Stafford, and a new-comer whom he did not recognize and for the moment scarcely noticed. He had a quick and sympathetic intelligence, which was trained to read straight through men's eyes into their minds, and in an instant he had cla.s.sed and compared, not without a pang of real if very objective regret, the two familiar faces and their expressions. Gloom and suns.h.i.+ne jostled each other.

On the one hand, Nehal Singh had never looked better than he did then.

The old film of dreamy contemplation was gone from his eyes, which flashed with energy and purpose; the face was thinner and in places lined; the figure, always upright, had become more muscular. From a merely handsome man he had developed into a striking personality, released from the bonds of an enforced inactivity and an objectless destiny. By just so much Stafford had altered for the worse. His character was too strong and rigid to allow an absolute breakdown. He still carried himself well; to all intents and purposes, as far as his duty was concerned, he was as hard-working and conscientious as he had ever been, but no strength of will had been able to hinder the change in his face and expression. He looked years older. There was grey mixed with the dark brown of his hair; the eyes were hollow and lightless; the cheeks had painfully sunken in. A friend returning after a two months' absence would have said that he had gone through a sharp and very dangerous illness; but Marut, who knew that he had not been ill, wondered exceedingly.

They wondered all the more because, though nothing was known for certain, they suspected a rupture in the relations between Stafford and the Carmichael family, and Beatrice was recognized as the undoubtable cause. Her engagement with Stafford had been kept secret, but the Marut world had its ideas and was puzzled to distraction as to why he seemed to shun her society and had become morose and taciturn.

"It is his conscience," said the busybodies, whose inexperience on the subject of conscience excused the mistaken diagnosis. Travers knew better. He felt no sort of regret, but he was rather sorry for Stafford and sometimes Stafford felt his unspoken sympathy and shrank from it.

"We have been looking all over the place for you, Travers," he said, after the first greeting had been exchanged. "Nicholson arrived here last night, and he has already been on a tour of inspection. He wants to know the man who has built the modern settlement."

Travers turned to the new-comer and held out his hand.

"Glad to meet you," he said cordially; "but please don't run off with the idea that I have anything to do with the innovations. I am no more than the artisan. The Rajah is the moving spirit."

Nehal Singh's expression protested.

"If money is the moving power, you may be right," he said; "but if, as I think, the conception is everything, then the credit is wholly yours."

"You have been the energizing spirit," Travers retorted.

"Well, we will divide the honors. And, after all, it does not matter in the least who has done it, so long as it is done."

"Well spoken!" Adam Nicholson said. "If that's your principle, I'm not surprised at the marvels you have brought about."

Nehal Singh turned to the speaker.

"You think the changes are for the good?" he asked eagerly.

"Without a doubt. The new Bazaar is a model for Indian civilization."

"And the mine?"

"Excuse me--is that part of the reform? I understood that it was merely a speculation."

The prince's brows contracted with surprise.

"It is part of the reform. I wish to give my people a settled industry. There is no idea of--personal gain."

"I see. Well, I don't know about that yet. I haven't looked into the matter; I must to-morrow--that is, no, I won't. You know,"--with a movement of good-tempered impatience--"I've been sent here on a rest-cure, and I'm not to bother about anything. Please remind me now and again. I always forget."

Stafford smiled grimly.

"You don't look as though you knew what rest is," he said.

Travers, who stood a little on one side, felt there was some truth in the criticism. During the brief conversation between Nehal Singh and Nicholson he had had ample opportunity to study the two men and to glean the esthetic pleasure which all beauty gave him. Both represented the best type of their respective races, and, curiously enough, this perfection seemed to obliterate the differences. Travers could not help thinking, as he glanced from one to the other, that, had it not been for the dress, it would have been difficult to decide who was the native prince and who the officer. Nehal Singh's high forehead and clean-cut features might have been those of a European, and his complexion, if anything, was fairer than that of the sunburnt man opposite him. It was doubtful, too, which of the two faces was the more striking. Travers felt himself irresistibly drawn to the new-comer. The bold, aquiline nose, the determined mouth under the close-cut moustache, the broad forehead with the white line where the military helmet had protected from the sun, the black hair prematurely sprinkled with grey--these, together with the well-built figure, made him seem worthy of the record of heroism and ability with which his name was a.s.sociated.

"If you want a rest, your only hope is with the ladies," Travers said, as he turned with Nicholson toward the garden. "They are the only people who haven't got mines and industrial progress on the brain. Are you prepared to be lionized, by the way? We are all so heartily sick of one another that a new arrival is bound to be pursued to death."

"I don't care so long as I get in some decent tennis and polo,"

Nicholson answered cheerfully. "Not that I've starved in that respect.

I got my men up at the Fort into splendid form. We made our net and racquets ourselves, and rolled out some sort of a court. It was immense fun, though the racquets weren't all you might have wished, and the court had a most disconcerting surface." He laughed heartily at his recollections, and Travers laughed with him.

"No wonder the men wors.h.i.+ped you," he said, and then saw that the remark had been a mistake.

"They didn't wors.h.i.+p me," was the sharp answer. "That sort of thing is all rubbish. They respected me, and I respected them--that's all."

"It seems to me a good deal," Travers observed.

"It is a good deal, in one sense," Nicholson returned. "It is the only condition under which native and European can work in unity."

Nehal Singh and Stafford were walking a little ahead, and Travers thought he saw the Rajah hesitate as though about to join the conversation. Almost immediately, however, Nicholson changed the subject.

"I've had no time to look up my old friends," he said to Travers.

"Perhaps you could tell me something about them. Colonel Carmichael is, of course, still here. I had a few words with him this afternoon.

Do you know if that little girl, Lois Caruthers, is with him, or has she gone back to England?"

"No, she is still in Marut."

"That's good. When I was a young lieutenant, she and I were great pals. Of course she is grown-up now, but I always think of her as my wild little comrade who led me into the most hairbreadth adventures."

He smiled to himself, and Travers, looking sharply at him, felt that there was a wealth of memories behind the pleasant grey eyes.

"Things change," he said sententiously.

"Do they? Well, perhaps; though the change, I find, lies usually in oneself, and I never change. Is she married?"

"No--not yet."

He saw that Nicholson was on the point of answering, asking another question, and he went on hurriedly:

"She is not here this afternoon. If you are anxious to meet her, how would it be if I ran over to the Colonel's bungalow and persuaded her to come? I dare say I could manage it."

"Excellent, if you wouldn't mind. Or I might go myself. We shall have any amount to say to each other."

There was a scarcely noticeable pause before Travers answered:

"I think it would be better if I went. I know a short cut, and could get there and back with Miss Caruthers in half an hour. Would you mind telling the Colonel what I have done?"

"Certainly. In the meantime, I'll have a talk with the Rajah about this mining business. He seems to have an exceptional individuality, and--"

"Remember the doctor!" Travers warned him.

"Oh, yes, thanks! I forgot again. By the way, when you see Lois--Miss Caruthers--tell her for me, the cathedral still lacks the chief spire, but otherwise is getting on very nicely."

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"No, but I dare say she will. Good-by."

Travers borrowed a buggy from one of the other guests, and started impetuously on his self-imposed errand. He had lied about the short cut, and about the half-hour. He would have lied up to the hilt if it had been required of him, because his instinct--that instinct which had saved him untold times from blundering--warned him that danger was at hand. It told him that it was now or never, and the realization filled him with a reckless resolve which was ready to ride down all principles and honor. He was still sufficiently master of himself to hide the storm; it showed itself only in so far that, when he stood before Lois, he seemed more moved and agitated than she had ever seen him. She had just returned from a long and lonely ride, and was about to retire to change her white habit, when he came upon her in the entrance hall. Had he not found her himself, she would have refused to see him, for she dreaded his message. She felt that he had come to urge her attendance at the opening ceremony, and old fondness for social pleasures of that kind had given place to dislike. It was the only change that sorrow had wrought upon her character. Otherwise she was the same as she had always been. For one week she had suffered something like despair, and then the brave spirit in her despised itself for its weakness, and set to work on the rebuilding of her life on new foundations. To all appearances, she had succeeded admirably in her task. There was no drooping hopelessness in her att.i.tude toward the world. And if beneath the surface there lay hidden the dangerous flaw of purposelessness, no one knew--at least, so she believed.