CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
LIGHT.
"After months--which seemed years--of the most abominable hardship,wearying anxiety, and constant danger, the security and restfulness ofthis sort of thing is simply beyond all words to define."
Thus Campian, clad in irreproachable evening dress, with a wave of thehand which takes in the lighted table and trophy hung walls. The onlyother occupant of Upward's dining room has just entered, likewise infull panoply--with opera-cloak, and fan and gloves.
"Yes. That is indeed true. Do you know, I wish we had not got to goout to-night."
"Then why do we; for as it happens I entirely share that wish. Supposewe stay at home instead. Or are you going to say `Duty'?"
Vivien does not at once reply. Something in the tone, in the scarcelyveiled meaning wherewith he emphasises the word, strikes home to her.The Upward party and her uncle have gone on, bound for a regimentaltheatrical performance at the Assembly Rooms, and they two are left tofollow. Not many days have gone by since Campian's return to Shalalai;not many more are to go by before he leaves it--almost certainly forever.
"Shall we stay at home then, dear?" answers Vivien, a little wave ofunsuppressed tenderness in her voice. "We may throw duty overboard foronce, for the sake of a poor returned wanderer. But--I have made youthis, and in any case you must wear it." "This" being an exquisitelittle "button-hole" which she is now carefully pinning on for him. Thegreat tiger jaws on the walls seem to snarl inaudibly in the lamplight--as though to remind both of the multifold perils of the beautiful,treacherous East.
Now, the act of pinning on a button-hole under some circumstances isbound to lead to a good deal, therefore in this case, that an arm shouldclose around the operatrix seems hardly surprising.
"Do you still venerate that vacant old fetish? It parted us once,Vivien."
Again she is silent, and her eyes fill. The great black and orangestripes of the tiger skins seem to dance in angry rays before hervision. Her voice will not come to her. But he continues:
"Has it never occurred to you that you--that we--made a veryconsiderable mistake that time? We each found our counterpart in theother. Surely such an experience is unique. Then what happened? Youset up a fetish--a miserable fraud--a mere whimsical conception of anidol--and called it Duty--while I--I was fool enough to let you do it."
"I don't know why things were ordered that way," he continues, for stillVivien makes no reply--"or for what purpose, of earth or heaven, fiveyears of happiness should have been knocked off our lives. But forwhatever it is, I don't believe for a moment it was arranged we shouldmeet so strangely and unexpectedly in this out of the way part of theworld--all for nothing. We have been brought together again, and wehave tried to keep up the _role_ of strangers--of mere acquaintances--and the whole thing is a most wretched and flimsy fiasco. Is it not?"
"Yes."
She is looking at him now, full and earnestly. Her fingers are toyingwith the "button-hole" she has pinned on his coat. Unconsciously she isleaning on him as he holds her within his embrace.
"Our love showed forth in every moment, in every word, in every actionof our lives," he continues. "The mask we tried to wear was quiteunavailable to stifle the cry of two aching hearts. Listen, darling.There is no room for affectation between us now. Our love is as ever itwas--rather is it stronger. Am I right?"
"Yes. You are the one love of my life, and always have been. And youknow it--dearest."
So sweet, so soft comes this reply, that the very tones are as an allpervading caress.
"Those five years are beyond our reach," he continues. "They are gonenever to return, but we can make up for them during the remainder of ourlives. And--we will. Will we not?"
"Yes--we will."
The reply, though low, is full-voiced and unhesitating. Luminous eyes,sweet with their love light, are raised to his, and the man's head isdrawn down to meet again that kiss which seemed to join soul to soul inthe dread hour of peril and of bloodshed and self-abnegation. And, withthe moment, the long years of desolation and heart-emptiness are asthough they had never been--for after the drear gloom of their wearylength--the sharp and fiery trial of their culmination, Love hastriumphed, and now there is light.
And here with the doings of our two principal characters we have nofurther concern, and if this holds good of them, still more does it holdgood of those among whom their lot has been temporarily cast. But iflife, in its fatefulness, has refrained from dashing the cup ofhappiness--tardily yet finally grasped--from the hands of these two, itsnormal grimness of irony is not likely to suffer in the long run. ForUmar Khan is still at large. Force and diplomacy alike have failed tobring that arch-free-booter and murderer within measurable distance ofthe gallows and faggot pyre, which he has so richly earned a score oftimes over. For the twenty-first time the wily evildoer has escapedretribution, and in all probability will continue to do so. Which--ifnot exactly satisfying to our reader's sense of poetic justice--is Life.
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THE END.
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