Loe raamatut: «The Tigress», lehekülg 11

After they had gone the guests continued very merry. A great quantity of champagne had been consumed in drinking the health and happiness of the launched voyagers on the matrimonial sea, and every one's spirits were keyed high.

Every one's, that is to say, except Kitty Bellingdown's and Kneedrock's.

"Poor dear Caryll!" sighed his aunt, who, like some others, always chose to weep over those that were given in matrimony. "Well, and so he's married at last!"

"And such a surprise!" exclaimed the duke. "I say, Doody, wasn't it a surprise?"

Doody didn't say anything. She was trying a new dance-step with Waltheof.

"And so now there's an end to the gossip," contributed Charlotte Grey.

Kneedrock, who had his back turned, wheeled around.

"Oh, is there?" he observed in his characteristic ringing undertone.

The duchess gave over trying the dance-step, and joined the group.

"His mother-in-law will be after them, of course," she said. "There'll be no keeping it from her. Such a dreadful person she is!"

"She rides races in boy's clothes," put in the duke. "She does – doesn't she, Doody?"

"And she bathes in one-piece, Continental bathing-suits," volunteered Waltheof. "I've seen her at Ostend. Ripping figure for the mother of such a big girl!"

"I wonder what will happen next?" mused Lady Bellingdown, who loved Carleigh like a son and was more than a little frightened.

"Nina will happen next," said Lord Kneedrock, sotto voce.

He was wondering why it was that the new Lady Carleigh reminded him so much of that Ramsay girl he had met through Nina at Simla.

CHAPTER XXII
The Interrupted Honeymoon

The Carleighs went to Madeira for their honeymoon. It is a popular place for honeymoons; but not so popular as some others, because it's farther away.

No one knew but they, and they hoped that the mater wouldn't find out. They didn't in the least see how she was to find out.

Rosamond went so far as to write her a letter, omitting all mention of her wedding, of course, dating it from San Remo, and sending it there under cover to a confidential friend, to be mailed to "dear mama," who, it so happened, was still in Dublin.

Having thus taken every precaution to guard against pursuit, they threw care to the winds and reveled in their new and blissful companionship, amid tropical surroundings.

Everything amused them – the natives, the bullock-sledges, the rêdes– hammocks swung on poles and carried by native bearers.

They explored the long ravine, visible from the windows of their rooms in the hotel at Funchal, riding on the backs of gaily-harnessed mules and sampling the wines of the vineyards along the way.

Of evenings there were always the botanical gardens, with their palms and rhododendrons, and the light-hearted Madeirans making a fiesta of the hour.

There had been two weeks of it now – rapturous weeks – with Mrs. Veynol so far from their thoughts that even momentary memories had ceased to obtrude.

They sat in the half light of the gardens, a giant palm nodding above them, a soft breeze in their faces, lovers of another land – but still lovers like themselves – sauntering by, the men swinging malacca-sticks, the women's bright eyes shining beneath becomingly arranged mantillas, and believed paradise their very own.

And that was the moment that Fate chose for dropping a shadow. It descended while their heads were turned the other way, and their first warning was when a voice they both knew and recognized instantly fell like the knell of doom on their joy-attuned ears.

"Aren't you going to kiss mother, son?"

Carleigh seemed propelled to his feet. It appeared to him that he came up with a whirling motion. If he could only have gone on whirling and rising, like certain cardboard toys he remembered to have seen, it would have been such a satisfaction.

But, instead, he seemed to whirl straight into his mother-in-law's open arms, which closed affectionately – oh, so affectionately! – around him. And it wasn't at all a nice kiss she gave him or he gave her.

There was nothing maternal about it. It was so ardent that he felt ashamed, and when he was at length released and caught sight of Rosamond's eyes he was more ashamed than ever. He couldn't understand himself.

He didn't love Sibylla Veynol. He was sure he didn't. He would have been delighted never to see her again. And he did love her daughter. Yet this was the way it had been before.

Then their kisses had been in secret. Now that she had the right she chose to demand them openly. Heretofore she had told her daughter things. Now she meant to show her.

"I don't know whether to kiss you, Rosamond, or not," she said. "That letter you sent me from San Remo was a very low piece of work."

"But, mama – " began Lady Carleigh, and got no farther.

"What must the world think," her mother went on, "when it learns that you are married and that I was not bidden to your wedding?"

"Why, mama – " the bride attempted once more.

"I don't blame Caryll in the least," mama continued. "I am sure that he had nothing to do with it. He would have been only too glad to have me there. It was you, my ungrateful daughter – my own flesh and blood – who was at the bottom of it all."

"Oh, I say – " It was Carleigh who made the attempt this time.

"No, you needn't speak," Mrs. Veynol checked him. "You are a gentleman and wish to take the blame on your own shoulders; but, no matter what you said, I shouldn't believe you. Fortunately, I know my own daughter at last."

"It – it was the only way," Rosamond faltered.

"It was a very wicked way. Still, I don't see how I am to blame you. Caryll is so fascinating it is all I can do to resist him myself. But – oh, dear, I had quite forgotten!"

She turned abruptly to where a fair-haired young man, slightly round-shouldered, stood hat in hand behind her. "Let me present Mr. Miles O'Connor, Lady Carleigh – Sir Caryll Carleigh."

Rosamond inclined her head, and Carleigh bowed a little stiffly. Mr. Miles O'Connor withdrew a tentatively advanced hand.

"Mr. O'Connor," explained Mrs. Veynol, "is the sub-editor of British Society. It was through him that I located you. How he managed it I don't know. I am curious myself; but he tells me it is an office secret, which is equivalent to a secret of the confessional."

Neither Sir Caryll nor his wife spoke. Both would have liked to cut out the tongue that had betrayed them.

"Mr. O'Connor came with me from London. He has been most kind and considerate. I can never hope to repay him."

"Has British Society ceased publication?" asked Carleigh bitingly.

"It's a little vacation I'm taking," ventured the sub-editor.

"Sorry you delayed it so long," rejoined the baronet, still more acidly.

"We were fortunate enough to secure rooms on the same corridor with you at your hotel," Mrs. Veynol disclosed.

"Mr. O'Connor again, I assume," said Carleigh. "As capable a courier as an editor – I mean as a sub-editor."

"Sir Caryll is pleased to be ironical," snapped the young Irishman, boiling.

"I'm not pleased at all," Sir Caryll replied equivocally. "Ordinarily I am most complacent, but I can't bear a sneaking, snooting busybody who's always attending to every one's business but his own."

O'Connor's fists doubled, but Mrs. Veynol laid a quieting hand on his curving shoulder.

"Caryll, dear," she soothed, "you are unjust. You are, really. Mr. O'Connor has served me at great personal sacrifice. I don't know what I should have done without him. When I learned that Rosamond was not at San Remo – had never been there – I was torn with anxiety. Fancy the feelings of a fond mother! I applied to Mr. O'Connor in my extremity, and he proved himself a friend in need."

Carleigh turned away, but no less vexed. In his wife's eyes he saw tears glistening. And they had been so inexpressibly happy.

He was tempted to allude to British Society's theory of why his engagement had been broken – to inquire about the convict first husband – his Rosamond's own father – but he resisted the impulse, determining, nevertheless, to thresh out the matter with Mrs. Veynol privately at the first opportunity.

But there was no opportunity that evening. He managed it, however, the following morning. He was astir early, leaving Rosamond, who had been wakeful from nervousness, to get some compensating slumber.

And he met his mother-in-law, as if by prearrangement, in the hotel gardens while the dew was still on leaf and flower. To his delight she was unattended.

"You grow younger every time I see you," he said, kissing her hand in the Continental fashion he knew she liked. "You might be Rosa's sister."

It was odd how against his will such pretty speeches were wrung from him by this woman who in one way repelled him.

They strolled about for a while, and then sat down on a bench, which Carleigh did not observe was in full view from his wife's windows. But it was.

"Couldn't you have come here alone, mater?" he asked. It was the first time he had called her that, and it didn't please her. He saw it before she spoke.

"For Heaven's sake, Caryll dear, don't!" she begged. "You make me feel a hundred. If you can't find a pet name for me you may call me Sibylla, or Sibyl, or just Sib. But I'll hate you if you mater me. And I don't want to hate you. I don't really."

"No more than I wish to hate you," he laughed. "But I will unless you send that Irish bounder about his business. Fancy you fetching a cad like that, Sibyl – dear!"

"But I didn't," she protested. "It was he who fetched me. He would find Rosamond for me on no other terms. We came by train to Lisbon, you know. And he never mentioned Funchal until we were on the steamer."

"He's even more of a cad than I thought then."

"He's in love with me," Sibylla said.

"And you have encouraged him. Good Lord!"

"For a purpose. Purely for a purpose."

"And after what he did – after that vile screed he published."

She colored softly. "Then you saw it?" she asked.

"It was sent to me in Scotland. Of course I knew it wasn't true. I was tempted to horsewhip the beggar."

"But it was true," she declared boldly. "That was the worst of it."

And at that Carleigh sat suddenly upright, whereas he had been lounging. "I never knew it. I never threw Rosamond over for it. You know that."

"That was its only inaccuracy. The prison part was quite true. Your wife's father is still serving his sentence in the United States Federal Prison at Atlanta, Georgia."

"And you never told me! She never told me!" he cried reproachfully.

"It was a secret we thought buried. Why should we have dug it up?"

"Because I was marrying into the family. I was entitled to – "

"I had no intention of permitting you to marry into the family. You must grant I did all in my power to stop it. I even resorted to attracting you myself. I felt sure that my daughter would never marry a man who flirted with her mother. It was shameful perhaps, but I could not afford to be too discriminating."

"You had far better have told me," he protested.

"You mean that if you had known you would not have married?"

"No. I am not sure. But I should have had the chance to consider. Now it is too late."

Mrs. Veynol laughed ringingly.

"Not at all," she denied. "Marriage is the least irrevocable of steps. Give my daughter the grounds and I promise you she will divorce you."

"I have messed things up," mused Carleigh dismally.

"You see, I've lost neither time nor effort to let you know," said Mrs. Veynol. "As a gentleman, though, you will preserve my confidence. As a son-in-law I have told you what I could not even as a futur."

"But the whole world knows it," he retorted. "It has been published."

"And it has been denied – retracted with an apology – a very abject apology. Mr. O'Connor did it. He was most kind."

Carleigh fell to musing again. Finally he said: "What was your first husband's name?"

"The same as always," she answered, smiling at his past tense. "He hasn't changed it. It was only I that changed mine and Rosamond's. His name is Ramsay – J. Sprague Ramsay."

"You divorced him before or after he went to prison?" Caryll asked.

"I divorced him when he went to prison," was her precise answer. "Then I took back my maiden name, called my daughter Rosamond instead of Jane – she had been christened Jane Rosamond – and deserted the world that knew us for Cape Town, where I met Mr. Veynol and married him."

"You are an ambitious woman, Sibyl," observed her son-in-law thoughtfully.

"Yes, I am," she admitted candidly. "And, you see, my ambition runs higher than a mere baronet. Let the girl divorce you, and I'll marry her to an earl."

"But I'm not going to let the girl divorce me." He had reached a decision. "I love her too much, and – " His eyes dwelt appraisingly for a moment on the woman beside him. In her dark, Spanish, almost gipsy way, she held a lure that for the susceptible Carleigh was well-nigh irresistible. "And," he added, "her mother is far too fascinating."

Mrs. Veynol laughed, but his flattery was not lost. "Kiss mother, son," she commanded and leaned toward him.

He glanced furtively from right to left. Not a soul was in sight. Then he took her in his arms and pressed her close, and the kiss was that of the night over again. If anything it was warmer.

The sub-editor left Madeira by the next calling steamer, liberally remunerated for his services.

Relieved of his presence, the Carleighs and Mrs. Veynol stayed on. They stayed for another fortnight. Then they traveled to Nice, arriving a little in advance of the season.

No one of them, however, was quite happy. The serpent had entered paradise, and its sweetest fruits had turned acrid.

In these days Sir Caryll talked more with his mother-in-law than he did with his wife. Her experience was wider, and she had more imagination.

Occasionally there were revelations that were like sudden drops into icy waters. For instance, one day when they had gone to Monte Carlo together, leaving Rosamond at Nice with a headache or some other ill, she surprised him by saying:

"It's odd Nina Darling never told you of us."

"You mean she knew?" he asked in astonishment.

"I'm not sure. We've never met – since. But we were great friends five years ago in Simla."

"It isn't possible she knows?" said Carleigh.

"I wouldn't be certain," said the whilom Mrs. Ramsay. "She can keep a secret. None better. You know, there's no doubt she shot poor Darling. They were alone in the gun-room together, and he couldn't have done it himself."

"I'll never believe that," he returned.

"Then you'll never believe the truth."

"But why? What was her object?"

"She wanted him out of the way to marry Lord Kneedrock, who was supposed to be dead, but was only buried for eight years in the South Seas."

"Nonsense!" said Carleigh. "She doesn't love Kneedrock. Never did. I've seen them together. I've heard them both talk, and I know."

"I told you she could keep a secret," said Sibylla Veynol.

They returned to Nice before dinner, and Carleigh found his wife reading.

"Feeling more fit?" he asked.

"I shall never feel more fit," she answered without looking up from her book.

"You don't mean it's incurable? Have you had in the physician?"

"Oh, it's not physical," she replied petulantly. "It's mental. It's the conditions. I'm sick of everything. You don't care in the least for me any more. You haven't since mama came back. You had an assignation with her in the gardens of the hotel at Funchal the very next morning, and you kissed her there under my window. I saw you."

The thing took him so by surprise that he couldn't muster a single word for defense.

"I do wish you'd leave me," she went on. "Why don't you ask mama to bolt with you? I'm sure she would, and then I'd be rid of you both."

He nearly reeled under the shock of that speech. It held him still mute. It was painfully plain that something was wrong in a social fabric which made it possible for a wife to say such a thing – a young and pretty wife, too. And to say it without seeming to find it very heinous.

He noticed that she yawned and went on reading her book.

When he fully sensed it all, hours later, alone on the promenade, he decided to go off. But not with "mama."

CHAPTER XXIII
A Mysterious Widow of Bath

Just as soon as she could possibly manage it Nina left the Dalgries, and alone with her maid hied herself to that stupidest of all English resorts – Bath.

There she took a flat and secured two servants, and kept herself so secluded that the story went abroad that the blind beggar in the famous poem was a beauty beside her.

Some said that she was sightless and some that she had been scarred beyond all recognition; but nobody really knew because nobody had really seen her.

Nobody, that is to say, except her surgeon and his assistant, and Delphine, the French maid.

Nina chose Bath because of this wonderful surgeon, Dr. Pottow, who was connected with the chief hospital there, and knew more about the skin and cutaneous affections than any man in England.

He promised to restore her if restoration were possible, but he was very reticent about the method until his success was assured. Then he told her that it had been necessary to resort to the grafting of new and healthy skin to take the place of that which had been scorched practically to a cinder.

"But where did you get it?" Nina asked, deeply interested. She knew that it had not been taken from her and transplanted.

"I was fortunate enough to find a volunteer," answered the surgeon.

"I suppose she required some fabulous price," Nina rejoined. "But if it has given me back an unmarred countenance I shall be only too glad to pay."

"There is nothing to pay," Dr. Pottow told her. "He gave it gratuitously, and was glad to."

"He gave it!" exclaimed the patient, starting up, impelled by flooding emotions.

"Yes, he."

"Shall I have to shave?" she asked, seriously startled by the dread possibility.

"No," came the answer with a smile. "The skin wasn't from his chin. There'll be no beard to bother you."

"I'd much rather had it from my own sex," she pouted.

"My sex is less selfish," said the surgeon. "Few women would sacrifice their cuticle that an afflicted sister might regain her beauty."

"Still I don't like the idea of being even that much man," she insisted. "I have always been so thoroughly – so entirely feminine."

"The cells are constantly renewing themselves." It was the scientist speaking. "You will wear these only temporarily."

Nina thought for a moment. Then she said: "Of course I shall pay him. I shall insist on it."

"I'm sure he won't accept. He regarded it a great privilege, he was delighted at the opportunity."

And at that she became really alarmed. It was some one she knew, of course. It was one or another, no doubt, of the army of lovers she had sent about their business when their ardor grew too oppressive.

But which one? Ah, that was the question – which one?

"But you've put me under a terrible obligation," she complained. "I think you should have consulted me, Dr. Pottow, before accepting such a sacrifice. I am very uncomfortable over it."

"You would have been more uncomfortable disfigured for life," he replied sagely.

Of course it wasn't Nibbetts. He would delight in seeing her hideous. The cabinet minister was out of the question, too. He'd be sure to get into the newspapers. Besides, he was very bitter.

The soldier of fortune was out of the country. And Carleigh was married and honeymooning. The American aviator had been killed volplaning.

"It might be the poet," she said aloud.

"I don't think he's ever been guilty of sonnets," observed Pottow. "Still we never know. He's most interested now in sheep-raising and in quarrying freestone."

"Good Heavens!" cried Mrs. Darling. "He isn't even a gentleman. How could you? Oh, how could you, Dr. Pottow?"

He smiled quizzically and excused himself with: "I hadn't any choice, you know. To tell the truth, I've done so much of this sort of thing that I've reduced the visible supply of skin, here in Bath, to the minimum."

"I don't see how he knew me," she went on, puzzled. "I'm very secluded here. I don't know a soul in the place, except you."

"You know him, or did. He says he owes you something, and – "

"What is his name?" she demanded, interrupting.

"I thought you'd ask that before. But you wished to place him for yourself, didn't you? And I'm afraid you'll have to. You see, when he volunteered it was on certain conditions; and that he was not to be known in the premises was one of them."

"But you've told me everything but his name."

"That was especially stipulated."

"And I am never to be any the wiser?" she inquired. "That seems hardly fair. Since I can't pay him I certainly should be permitted to thank him."

"I'll take your thanks to him."

"No. I wish to thank him myself, in person."

"You want him to come here?"

"I want him to come here – just as soon as I am fit to be seen."

"He'll come to-day, if you say so," he surprised her with.

"Oh, no, no, no. Not while I'm like this."

"But he's seen you worse than this, remember. He's been in this room a dozen – a score of times."

"Here!" she exclaimed, amazed.

"Of course. While your eyes were bandaged. While the transfer was made."

"Then he saw how awful I was?"

"I fancy he didn't regard you as awful. He seemed – "

But she wouldn't let him go on. "Send him this evening," she commanded, "and I'll have the lights arranged so that I can see him while I myself am veiled by the kindly shadow."

When the surgeon was gone Nina fell to wondering once more. There were flirtations she had totally forgotten; there was no question about that. But she had always been rather a stickler for caste, and she couldn't at all reconcile the sheep-raising and the stone-quarrying with any of her lightly amorous adventures.

Perhaps, after all, she had been on the wrong track. Certainly she had been on the wrong track. This man owed her something, the perplexing Pottow had said, meaning evidently a debt of gratitude.

Then it couldn't be one of those. They were the last persons to think themselves in arrears of that kind. It must be some one she had befriended. She supposed she had befriended poor men on occasions, but she couldn't recall individual cases.

Possibly it was a coachman or gardener, or one of the tenantry at some place she had been years agone.

Or – why, to be sure! – some private from the ranks, who had completed his service, fallen heir to a little farm and a little quarry here in Somersetshire, and settled down to the prosaic life of a plodding civilian.

The idea robbed the prospect of the meeting of most of its interest. And it was the only idea she could accept. She even forgot to tell Delphine that she was expecting a caller, and she forgot, too, to have the lights arranged as she had planned.

When, therefore, her maid came to her with the announcement that a gentleman was calling – a gentleman who wouldn't give his name, but said that he came at Dr. Pottow's suggestion – she was not in the least prepared.

"Does he seem a gentleman, Delphine?" she asked, interested afresh.

"Oh, oui, madame! A young gentleman, and good-looking."

"Have you ever seen him before?"

"Of a certainty, madame. Here, with Dr. Pottow."

"But you never heard his name?"

"Never, madame."

Then, hastily, she had her arrange the lights and give her a fan with which to mask the lower part of her features where the now healing burns were still more or less unsightly.

And then she waited – sure still that she was to be disappointed.

She heard the steps at length in the passage, and fixed her eyes upon the door. But the light was not very good there, either – she had had it concentrated as far as possible on the chair placed for the visitor at least four yards from her bedside, toward the foot and facing her.

He was in the room now, just over the threshold, bowing at what must have seemed to him just a black shadow, and save that he was tall, and that his figure was gracefully slender, what she saw meant nothing to her whatever. He hadn't even spoken, so there was no voice to recognize.

As he came forward, though, there was something in his walk and carriage that seemed familiar, though she couldn't place them for the life of her.

"Do sit down," she urged. "There! I'd rather you wouldn't come nearer."

Still he didn't speak. But he sat down as she bade him with the light full on his face, and she saw he was Gerald Andrews.

It was quite a minute before she could speak. Then, "You – of all the persons in the world!" she breathed barely above a whisper.

"It is odd that we should meet again here under such circumstances," he agreed, pleasantly amused over her astonishment. "And yet not so singular, either. It's a tight little island, this, and any two persons on it are more or less likely to run across each other in time."

"But I thought you were still in India," she said.

"It's three years since I came home. The governor died suddenly, and – well, there were things to be looked after."

Nina smiled, thinking of what Dr. Pottow had told her.

"Where's little boy blue that looks after the sheep?" she quoted. "Was that it?"

"Yes," he answered, "the sheep were part of it. But the quarry is the biggest job."

She wondered how she could be so rude to him after all he had done. Somehow it didn't just seem to her a gentleman's work. But he wasn't ashamed of it, evidently. And she was glad of that.

"I read in the newspapers about your misfortune," he told her. "I'm glad you came to Pottow. He's the best man on scars in all England."

"Scars," she repeated, remembering. But it would be ruder still to ask him about his. She wondered whether he really did think of her every time he shaved.

"He took an old scar out for me – a very delicate bit of work, too."

"How vain you must be!" she exclaimed.

"No; it was hardly vanity. I was ashamed of it, not for what it was, but for what it meant. It symbolized cowardice, and I was ashamed of that."

"I remember," she said; "but I'll forget it, if you'd rather."

"I would rather."

"You're stronger now, aren't you? I'm so glad."

Then for the first time came something of that old boyish lilt in his voice that recalled the Simla days – days prior to the night of the season's last dance at Viceregal Lodge, which wasn't the end of everything, after all.

"Are you glad, really?" he asked, delighted. "Do you care just that little bit?"

"Indeed I am," she told him. "I care a great deal – for your happiness. I want you to be happy."

"I'm hardly that," he confessed. "That is, I haven't been. But I'm very nearly so this evening."

She must have experienced some little emotion, for she forgot her fan for an instant and left her chin unmasked. But she lifted it again almost instantly.

"How good you have been to me!" she murmured. "I didn't deserve such sacrifice."

"It wasn't a sacrifice. It was a delight. Besides, it was the least I could do to make good for being a cad when you were in trouble."

Even in the shadow he could see that she didn't understand. Her eyes showed him that.

"I lost my head," he confessed. "I wasn't only weak; I was half wild. It was I that told Dinghal all you'd ever said to me. It was I, really, who started the horrid stories that got about. I feel I can never do enough to wipe that out."

To his surprise she showed no resentment. "I dare say that all you said wasn't half the truth. I did kill poor Darling, you know."

His brow contracted to a frown.

"You didn't," he protested. "You couldn't – you couldn't have meant to. If you had any part in it, it was accidental."

She didn't insist. All she said was: "I don't see why you should think so well of me, Gerald. I was perfectly horrid to you."

"Were you?" he asked, dreaming. "You were very good to me, too. I can't forget that. I don't want to. It's that and that only I care to remember."

"Would you think it good of me if I should let you come every day to see me?" she asked suddenly, with fresh impulse. "It's a privilege I've allowed no one."

"Oh, will you?" he cried, delighted. "I would be glad."

"I've seen no one but Dr. Pottow, you know; not even my oldest, dearest friends. Not my own people."

His smile was rapturous.

"I know it," he said. "Have you heard what you are called here? No? Well, you are 'the mysterious widow of Bath.'"

"Isn't that funny?" she laughed. "Fancy how dull I have been! You will come and amuse me, won't you, Gerald?"

"Every day. And if ever I bore you, or you'd rather not see me, say so. You'll do that?"

"I'll do that. And" – she hesitated just an instant – "and you mustn't neglect your sheep or your freestone, you know. If you don't come I'll know a lamb has strayed from the fold and you're out on the hill looking for it. Do you carry a crook?"

"My shepherds do," he said solemnly.

"Send me some south-down mutton, Gerald. I'm so fond of chops." And at that he laughed.

"I'm not going to be teased," he said and stood up. But Nina made him sit down again. She was enjoying his call so much. She made him stay another hour.

He came every day after that, as she bade him. She usually set the hour herself, and he arrived on the minute.

He sent her the magnificent skin of a tiger he had shot in India, and sometimes it pleased her to crouch on this, sensuously delighted by the contact, while remembering with a curious mingling of emotions how Kneedrock had declared her to be the reincarnation of just such another creature of the jungle, cruel, remorseless, blood-lusting – a tigress in the guise of a woman.

But she could never bear to look on that skin again after events that were soon to come.

Kneedrock himself never saw the rug.

As he was leaving one afternoon Andrews heard voices in the vestibule. The housemaid was sending away an insistent caller.

"Mrs. Darling doesn't see any one," he heard her say.

"But I'm sure she'll see me," the persistent male voice continued. "You just take her my card."

"She forbids me to fetch cards," rejoined the housemaid. "I'm sorry, sir."

He heard the jingle of silver coin. The caller was about to resort to bribery. As a privileged one, out of compassion for Nina, he would lend his aid. He might pretend he was the attending surgeon or physician, and that it was by his orders that the patient was denied visitors.