he protested.
"There may be nothing gained unless you will believe me."
It was scarcely possible that he could miss the pathos of the words, even if he missed the pathos in the tone. Yet his only answer was a cynical smile.
"I want you to know that the shot which hurt you was not intended for you."
Then he laughed cruelly. "No?" he questioned with feigned surprise. "Still, you must admit that your lover's habit of firing at random through drawing-room windows isn't a perfectly safe amusement at best. He's liable to pot some one, you know."
Her face was crimson. "He's not my lover," she denied indignantly.
"Pardon me. I judged only from what I saw. It was quite evident he was not your husband. I am curious, seeing that he is not your lover, or one of them, what privileges you reserve for them."
"I have no lover or lovers," she protested.
"Dear me!" he said with mock astonishment. "How dreary your poor life must be! I had fancied quite the contrary."
"It was I who told him to shoot," she confessed. "He shot at a bronze cobra in the corner."
"Then he's a worse shot than I thought."
"Oh, he hit the cobra, nevertheless. The bullet glanced."
"Yes," he agreed. "I know. It glanced at me and caught my hand. I suppose the possibility of such a thing didn't occur to either of you."
"I didn't want him to kiss me," she defended at some sacrifice of truth. "In another second he would have, and I told him there was a cobra in the corner to distract him. Besides I meant to frighten our khitmatgar. I thought it was he who was spying. And it happened to be you."
"Yes," he admitted calmly. "I came all the way from Melanesia to spy. But I'm rather a novice at it, and got winged the first time. Too bad, I say."
"Then I'm not sorry. You deserved it."
"At all events," he told her, "I saw enough to send me back. I'm not fitted for civilization. I prefer the real savage to the counterfeit. I infinitely prefer the original tigress with her stripes to the reincarnated creature with her soft hands and her rose-leaf cheeks."
She didn't hear the last. It was quite lost upon her.
"You – you are going back?" she questioned, her breath short.
"To-night," he told her. "I've had enough. I'll get the boat at Calcutta that brought me."
She tried to realize the situation, but she couldn't in the least. It was all most extraordinary – she knew that. Nine years ago she had been tumultuously in love with this hulking cousin of hers.
Then, on sheer impulse, instigated by the devil within her, yet without the faintest thought of disloyalty, she had flirted riotously with the new curate, and Nibbetts had gone away to war in South Africa in a pet, without so much as a word of farewell.
In an incredibly short time had come the tidings of his death, and what with her crushing sense of irreparable loss and her ravening conscience all the world changed its colors from gay to dun.
Now the nine years of intervening space had rolled themselves into a pellet and dropped out of the actual. There was nothing real in time or place but this – he was there across the little room, alive, whole; and she was here, and they were talking as if yesterday had dated their parting. It was most extraordinary.
He was going so soon, too, and she had so much, so very much, to say.
"But you mustn't," she said simply.
In his answering look was amused amazement. "Oh, I mustn't, eh? And why mustn't I?"
"Do I have to tell you?" But her eyes were turned away.
"Yes, if you wish me to understand."
"Have – have you forgotten – everything?" And still she did not face him.
He turned sidewise and laid his left arm along the mantel-shelf to rest his injured hand.
"Most things," he answered, "thank God!" And when she did not speak he added: "You set me so fine an example in expeditious forgetting, remember, I had to profit by it."
"I never forgot," was her denial.
"For one who never forgot, you managed to mess things up a great deal, it seems to me."
"I think I was mad," she admitted, her eyes on the floor.
"I doubt if you were ever anything else," he told her bluntly. "And a man's a fool to trust a mad woman."
"Oh, I'm sane now," Nina told him. "Quite, quite sane. And I was hoping – " She paused, uncertain of her phrasing.
"Yes," he encouraged dubiously.
"That you might help me to put things straight," she finished.
He was not altogether sure of her meaning, but he chose to put upon it the worst possible construction.
"Why not let your friend of last night assist?" he asked coolly. "He seems rather expert with firearms. Mistakes are so easy, you know. He could shoot at the bronze cobra again, for instance, and aim a little high."
And at that she faced him.
"You never used to be so bitter," she said. "You can't think what you're saying."
"I've fed on bitterness. I always think the worst, and I'm usually justified. I can't see any way to undo your tangle except by murder!"
Nina shivered, and Kneedrock saw it; but she said nothing.
"I'm glad you didn't pretend to be shocked," he told her. "Only as a rule you're not very keen on quick deaths. You prefer the cat-and-mouse process. You like to play with your victim before adding the final finishing stroke."
"Who's catty now?" she asked simply.
But he made no answer. He moved over to the sofa where lay his hat and walking-stick and took them up.
"Better wait until I'm out of India," he went on cynically. "I might be brought back to testify, and that would be awkward."
"You're going now?" she asked distressfully.
"Only to the hotel. I can't sail until the twenty-seventh. Would you mind waiting until after the first?"
"But you haven't told me a thing," she deplored, ignoring his cruel implication. "Where have you been all the years? What have you been doing? Why have you hidden yourself? There is so much I want to know."
"There is so much you'll never know," he returned. "Why bother with any of it? The title dies with me. I'm not robbing any one, remember."
"You're robbing me," she said desperately, and took a step toward him. "Oh, Hal, if you only knew!"
He retreated a pace, smiling grimly.
"I'll have to ask you to stop that sort of thing, Nina," he said gravely. "You may as well know at once that I won't listen to it."
She sank down upon
