Far to Seek Part 61

"I--made you?"

"Yes; simply by being what you are--so gifted, so detached ... so different from the others ... the service pattern...."

"Oh yes--in a way ... I'm different."--Strange, how little it moved him, just then, her frank avowal, her praise.--"And now you know--why. I'm sorry if it upsets you. But I can't have ... that side of me accepted ... on sufferance----"

To his greater amazement, she leaned forward and kissed him, deliberately, on the mouth.

"Will _that_ stop you--saying such things?" There was repressed pa.s.sion in her low tone, "I'm not accepting ... any of you on sufferance. And, really, you're not a bit like ... not the same...."

"_No!_" She smiled at the fierce monosyllable. "All that lot--the poor devils you despise--are mostly made from the wrong sort of both races--in point of breeding, I mean. And that's a supreme point, in spite of the twaddle that's talked about equality. Women of good family, East or West, don't intermarry much. And quite right too. I'm proud of my share of India. But I think, on principle, it's a great mistake...."

"Yes--yes. That's how _I_ feel. I'm not rabid. It's not my way. But ...

I suppose you know, Roy, that ... on this subject, many Anglo-Indians are."

"You mean--your people?"

"Well--I don't know about Pater. He's built on large lines, outside and in. But mother's only large to the naked eye; and she's Anglo-Indian to the bone."

"You think ... she'll raise objections?"

"She won't get the chance. It's my affair--not hers. There'd be arguments, at the very least. She tramples tactlessly. And it's plain you're abnormally sensitive; and rather fierce under your gentleness----!"

"But, Rose--I must speak. I refuse to treat--my mother as if she was--a family skeleton----"

"No--not that," she soothed him with voice and gesture. "Of course they shall know--later on. It's only ... I couldn't bear any jar at the start. You might, Roy--out of consideration for me. It would be quite simple. You need only say, just now, that your father is a widower. It isn't as if--she was alive----"

The words staggered him like a blow. With an incoherent exclamation, he swung round and walked quickly away from her towards the house, his blood tingling in a manner altogether different from last night. Had she not been a woman, he could have knocked her down.

Dismayed and startled, she hurried after him. "Roy, my dear--dearest,"

she called softly. But he did not heed.

She overtook him, however, and caught his arm with both hands, forcing him to stop.

"Darling--forgive me," she murmured, her face appealingly close to his.

"I didn't mean--I was only trying to ease things for you, a little--you quiver-full of sensibilities."

He had been a fakir, past saving, could he have withstood her in that vein. Her nearness, her tenderness, revived the mood of sheer bewitchment, when he could think of nothing, desire nothing but her. She had a genius for inducing that mood in men; and Roy's virginal pa.s.sion, once roused, was stronger than he knew. With his arms round her, his heart against hers, it was humanly impossible to wish her other than she was--other than his own.

Words failed. He simply clung to her, in a kind of dumb desperation to which she had not the key.

"To-morrow," he said at last, "I'll tell you more--show you her picture."

And, unlike Aruna, she had no inkling of all that those few words implied.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 28: Early tea.]

CHAPTER VIII.

"The patience of the British is as long as a summer's day; but the arm of the British is as long as a winter's night."--_Pathan Saying._

They parted on the understanding that Roy would come in to tiffin on Sunday. Instead, to his shameless relief, he found the squadron detailed to bivouac all day in the Gol Bagh, and be available at short notice.

It gave him a curious thrill to open his camphor-drenched uniform case--left behind with Lance--and unearth the familiar khaki of Kohat and Mespot days; to ride out with his men in the cool of early morning to the gardens at the far end of Lah.o.r.e. The familiar words of commands, the rhythmic clatter of hoofs, were music in his ears. A thousand pities he was not free to join the Indian Army. But, in any case, there was Rose. There would always be Rose now. And he had an inkling that their angle of vision was by no means identical....

The voice of Lance, shouting an order, dispelled his brown study; and Rose--beautiful, desirable, but profoundly disturbing--did not intrude again.

Arrived in the gardens, they picketed the horses, and disposed themselves under the trees to await events. The heat increased and the flies, and the eternal clamour of crows; and it was nearing noon before their ears caught a far-off sound--an unmistakable hum rising to a roar.

"Thought so," said Lance, and flung a word of command to his men.

A clatter of hoofs heralded arrivals--Elton and the Superintendent of Police with orders for an immediate advance. A huge mob, headed by students, was pouring along the Circular Road. The police were powerless to hold them; and at all costs they must be prevented from debouching on to the Mall. It was brisk work; but the squadron reached the critical corner just in time.

A sight to catch the breath and quicken the pulses--that surging sea of black heads, uncovered in token of mourning; that forest of arms beating the air to a deafening chorus of orthodox lamentation; while a portrait of Ghandi, on a black banner, swayed uncertainly in the midst.

A handful of police, shouting and struggling with the foremost ranks, were being swept resistlessly back towards the Mall--the main artery of Lah.o.r.e; and a British police officer on horseback was sharing the same fate. Clearly nothing would check them save that formidable barrier of cavalry and armoured cars.

At sight of it they halted; but disperse and return they would not. They haggled; they imposed impossible conditions; they drowned official parleyings in shouts and yells.

For close on two hours, in the blazing sun, Lance Desmond and his men sat patiently in their saddles--machine-guns ready in the cars behind them--while the Civil Arm, derided and defied, peacefully persuaded those pa.s.sively resisting thousands that the Mall was not deemed a suitable promenade for Lah.o.r.e citizens in a highly processional mood.

For two hours the human tide swayed to and fro; the clamour rose and fell; till a local leader, after much vain speaking, begged the loan of a horse, and headed them off to a ma.s.s meeting at the Bradlaugh Hall.

The cavalry, dismissed, trotted back to the gardens, to remain at hand in case of need.

What the Indian officers and men thought of it all, who shall guess?

What Lance Desmond thought, he frankly imparted to Roy.

"A fine exhibition of the masterly inactivity touch!" said he, with a twitch of his humorous lips. "But not exactly an edifying show for our men. Wonder what my old Dad would think of it all? You bet there'll be a holy rumpus in the city to-night."

"And then----?" mused Roy, his imagination leaping ahead. "This isn't the last of it."

"The last of it--will be bullets, not buckshot," said Lance in his soldierly wisdom. "It's the only argument for crowds. The soft-sawder lot may howl 'militarism.' But they're jolly grateful for a dash of it when their skins are touched. It takes a soldier of the right sort to know just when a dash of cruelty is kindness--and the reverse--in dealing with backward peoples; and crowds, of any colour, are the backwardest peoples going! It would be just as well to get the women safely off the scene."

He looked very straight at Roy, whose sensitive soul winced, at the impact of his thought. Since their brief talk, the fact of the engagement had been tacitly accepted--tacitly ignored. Lance had a positive genius for that sort of thing; and in this case it was a G.o.dsend to Roy.

"Quite so," he agreed, returning the look.

"Well--you're in a position to suggest it."

"I'm not sure if it would be exactly appreciated. But I'll have a shot at it to-morrow."