As she watched the little procession bearing pillows and blankets file
down the stairs, with the ayah in the rear, protesting that 'big storm
come kill missy baba for laugh old Fuzli,' she felt glad to be left
alone. Her head did ache; what is more, her pulses were bounding with a
touch of sun-fever. It would be gone by morning; yet Lewis, perhaps,
had been right also in saying that she had been exposing herself too
much. The inclination to rest her hot head on the cool marble
balustrade and sit there under the restful sky was strong, but with an
instinct of fight she set it aside almost fiercely, and after looping
back the curtains of the corner-room so as to let in what air there
was, lay down decorously. But not to sleep. A dreary disturbing round
of thought kept her awake, sending her back and back again to the same
point--the assertion that she had certainly been overdoing it. That was
the cause of her depression. Until suddenly, causelessly, her native
truth rebelled against the self-deception, and she sat up in the dark
pressing the palms of her hot hands together. What was the use of lying
to herself? Was it not better to confess frankly that with all his
faults Lewis Gordon interested her more than any one else in the world?
Perhaps it was love--yes! she cared for him as she cared for no one
else in the world, and was it not detestable to blush and deny the fact
instead of being straightforward? At any time this indictment of her
honesty would have been intolerable; now, with fever running riot in
her veins it forced her to exaggerated action. She had been behaving
like a romantic school-girl in a novel. In future there should be no
possibility of her denying the fact that she had wilfully, and without
due cause, fallen in love with a man who did not love her. Yes, fallen
in love! Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining when the light of
the candle she lit fell on them. As she passed quickly into the
mirror-room the thousand facets gave back her eagerness, her
determination, as she deliberately chose out Lewis Gordon's photograph
from a folding frame standing below the Ayôdhya pot. She stood for a
moment looking at it, struggling with her pride, then she passed back
into her room again and thrust it under her pillow. That was an end of
all lies at any rate. After that she would never be able to deny the
truth. She gave an odd, almost happy little laugh as she crept into her
bed again, where, after a time, she fell asleep with one hand guarding
something under the pillow: just as Gwen had guarded something in her
corner-room a few nights before.
No doubt it was the growing coolness of the night which soothed the
girl; on the other hand, it may have been the testimony of a good
conscience not ashamed to confess facts. The lightning shimmered over
her sleeping face, and, as it shimmered, showed a black arch of cloud
looming from the east. By and by the wind rose, bringing with it the
fresh earthy smell of distant rain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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