CHAPTER IV
JANE REPTON
Mrs. Carruthers kept her promise. She went in herself with Henry Thresk,as she had always meant to do, but she placed Mrs. Repton upon his leftjust round the bend of the table. Thresk stole a glance at her now andthen as he listened to the rippling laughter of his hostess during thefirst courses. She was a tall woman and rather stout, with a pleasantface and a direct gaze. Thresk gave her the age of thirty-five and puther down as a cheery soul. Whether she was more he had to wait to learnwith what patience he could. He was free to turn to her at last and hebegan without any preliminaries.
"You know a friend of mine," he said.
"I do?"
"Yes."
"Who is it?"
"Mrs. Ballantyne."
He noticed at once a change in Mrs. Repton. The frankness disappearedfrom her face; her eyes grew wary.
"I see," she said slowly. "I was wondering why I was placed next to you,for you are the lion of the evening and there are people here of moreimportance than myself. I knew it wasn't for my _beaux yeux_."
She turned again to Thresk.
"So you know my Stella?"
"Yes. I knew her in England before she came out here and married. I havenot, of course, seen her since. I want you to tell me about her."
Mrs. Repton looked him over with a careful scrutiny.
"Mrs. Carruthers has no doubt told you that she married very well."
"Yes; and that Ballantyne is a remarkable man," said Thresk.
Mrs. Repton nodded.
"Very well then?" she said, and her voice was a challenge.
"I am not contented," Thresk replied. Mrs. Repton turned her eyes to herplate and said demurely:
"There might be more than one reason for that."
Thresk abandoned all attempt to fence with her. Mrs. Repton was not ofthose women who would lightly give their women-friends away. Her phrase"my Stella" had, besides, revealed a world of love and championship.Thresk warmed to her because of it. He threw reticence to the winds.
"I am going to give you the real reason, Mrs. Repton. I saw herphotograph this afternoon on Mrs. Carruthers' piano, and it left mewondering whether happiness could set so much character in awoman's face."
Mrs. Repton shrugged her shoulders.
"Some of us age quickly here."
"Age was not the new thing which I read in that photograph."
Mrs. Repton did not answer. Only her eyes sounded him. She seemed to bejudging the stuff of which he was made.
"And if I doubted her happiness this afternoon I must doubt it still morenow," he continued.
"Why?" exclaimed Mrs. Repton.
"Because of your reticence, Mrs. Repton," he answered. "For you have beenreticent. You have been on guard. I like you for it," he added with asmile of genuine friendliness. "May I say that? But from the first momentwhen I mentioned Stella Ballantyne's name you shouldered your musket."
Mrs. Repton neither denied nor accepted his statement. She kept lookingat him and away from him as though she were still not sure of him, and attimes she drew in her breath sharply, as though she had already takenupon herself some great responsibility and now regretted it. In the endshe turned to him abruptly.
"I am puzzled," she cried. "I think it's strange that since you areStella's friend I knew nothing of that friendship--nothing whatever."
Thresk shrugged his shoulders.
"It is years since we met, as I told you. She has new interests."
"They have not destroyed the old ones. We remember home things out here,all of us. Stella like the rest. Why, I thought that I knew her wholelife in England, and here's a definite part of it--perhaps a veryimportant part--of which I am utterly ignorant. She has spoken of manyfriends to me; of you never. I am wondering why."
She spoke obviously without any wish to hurt. Yet the words did hurt. Shesaw Thresk redden as she uttered them, and a swift wild hope flamed likea rose in her heart: if this man with the brains and the money and theperseverance sitting at her side should turn out to be the Perseus forher beautiful chained Andromeda, far away there in the state of Chitipur!The lines of a poem came into her thoughts.
"I know; the world proscribes not love,Allows my finger to caressYour lips' contour and downinessProvided it supplies the glove."
Suppose that here at her side was the man who would dispense with theglove! She looked again at Thresk. The lean strong face suggested that hemight, if he wanted hard enough. All her life had been passed in thesupport of authority and law. Authority--that was her husband'sprofession. But just for this hour, as she thought of Stella Ballantyne,lawlessness shone out to her desirable as a star.
"No, she has never once mentioned your name, Mr. Thresk."
Again Thresk was conscious of the little pulse of resentment beating athis heart.
"She has no doubt forgotten me."
Mrs. Repton shook her head.
"That's one explanation. There might be another."
"What is it?"
"That she remembers you too much."
Mrs. Repton was a little startled by her own audacity, but it provokednothing but an incredulous laugh from her companion.
"I am afraid that's not very likely," he said. There was no hint ofelation in his voice nor any annoyance. If he felt either, why, he was onguard no less than she. Mrs. Repton was inclined to throw up her hands indespair. She was baffled and she was little likely, as she knew, to getany light.
"If you take the man you know best of all," she used to say, "you stillknow nothing at all of what he's like when he's alone with a woman,especially if it's a woman for whom he cares--unless the woman talks."
Very often the woman does talk and the most intimate and private factscome in a little while to be shouted from the housetops. But StellaBallantyne did not talk. She had talked once, and once only, under agreat stress to Jane Repton; but even then Thresk had nothing to do withher story at all.
Thresk turned quickly towards her.
"In a moment Mrs. Carruthers will get up. Her eyes are collectingthe women and the women are collecting their shoes. What have youto tell me?"
Mrs. Repton wanted to speak. Thresk gave her confidence. He seemed to bea man without many illusions, he was no romantic sentimentalist. She wentback to the poem of which the lines had been chasing one another throughher head all through this dinner, as a sort of accompaniment to theirconversation. Had he found it out? she asked herself--
"The world and what it fears."
Thus she hung hesitating while Mrs. Carruthers gathered in her hands hergloves and her fan. There was a woman at the other end of the tablehowever who would not stop talking. She was in the midst of some storyand heeded not the signals of her hostess. Jane Repton wished she wouldgo on talking for the rest of the evening, and recognised that the wishwas a waste of time and grew flurried. She had to make up her mind to saysomething which should be true or to lie. Yet she was too staunch tobetray the confidence of her friend unless the betrayal meant herfriend's salvation. But just as the woman at the end of the table ceasedto talk an inspiration came to her. She would say nothing to Thresk, butif he had eyes to see she would place him where the view was good.
"I have this to say," she answered in a low quick voice. "Go yourself toChitipur. You sail on Friday, I think? And to-day is Monday. You can makethe journey there and back quite easily in the time."
"I can?" asked Thresk.
"Yes. Travel by the night-mail up to Ajmere tomorrow night. You will bein Chitipur on Wednesday afternoon. That gives you twenty-four hoursthere, and you can still catch the steamer here on Friday."
"You advise that?"
"Yes, I do," said Mrs. Repton.
Mrs. Carruthers rose from the table and Jane Repton had no further wordwith Thresk that night. In the drawing-room Mrs. Carruthers led him fromwoman to woman, allowing him ten minutes for each one.
"He might be Royalty or her pet Pekingese," cried Mrs. Repton inexasperation. For now that her blood had cooled
she was not so sure thather advice had been good. The habit of respect for authority resumed itsancient place in her. She might be planting that night the seed of a veryevil flower. "Respectability" had seemed to her a magnificent poem as shesat at the dinner-table. Here in the drawing-room she began to think thatit was not for every-day use. She wished a word now with Thresk, so thatshe might make light of the advice which she had given. "I had nobusiness to interfere," she kept repeating to herself whilst she talkedwith her host. "People get what they want if they want it enough, butthey can't control the price they have to pay. Therefore it was nobusiness of mine to interfere."
But Thresk took his leave and gave her no chance for a private word. Shedrove homewards a few minutes later with her husband; and as theydescended the hill to the shore of Back Bay he said:
"I had a moment's conversation with Thresk after you had left thedining-room, and what do you think?"
"Tell me!"
"He asked me for a letter of introduction to Ballantyne at Chitipur."
"But he knows Stella!" exclaimed Jane Repton.
"Does he? He didn't tell me that! He simply said that he had time to seeChitipur before he sailed and asked for a line to the Resident."
"And you promised to give him one?"
"Of course. I am to send it to the Taj Mahal hotel to-morrow morning."
Mrs. Repton was a little startled. She did not understand at all whyThresk asked for the letter and, not understanding, was the more alarmed.The request seemed to imply not merely that he had decided to make thejourney but that during the hour or so since they had sat at thedinner-table he had formed some definite and serious plan.
"Did you tell him anything?" she asked rather timidly.
"Not a word," replied Repton.
"Not even about--what happened in the hills at Mussoorie?"
"Of course not."
"No, of course not," Jane Repton agreed.
She leaned back against the cushions of the victoria. A clear dark sky ofstars wonderfully bright stretched above her head. After the hot day acool wind blew pleasantly on the hill, and between the trees of thegardens she could see the lights of the city and of a ship here and therein the Bay at their feet.
"But it's not very likely that Thresk will find them at Chitipur," saidRepton. "They will probably be in camp."
Mrs. Repton sat forward.
"Yes, that's true. This is the time they go on their tour of inspection.He will miss them." And at once disappointment laid hold of her. Mrs.Repton was not in the mood for logic that evening. She had been afraid amoment since that the train she had laid would bring about aconflagration. Now that she knew it would not even catch fire she passedat once to a passionate regret. Thresk had inspired her with a greatconfidence. He was the man, she believed, for her Stella. But he wasgoing up to Chitipur! Anything might happen! She leaned back again in thecarriage and cried defiantly to the stars.
"I am glad that he's going. I am very glad." And in spite of herconscience her heart leaped joyously in her bosom.