Rose of the World

ee times, indeed, did day and night slip by her in her darkened and silent room before she even began to wonder how it was she should be left in suc

up, wild

What have they d

ould lay finger on it but herself. But the mem sahib must be good and sleep, for Jani was by her. And Rosamond let her head rest gratefully upon the wasted bosom that

*

make culpably light of the whole affair—to allow those unimportant fever cases in

e fall, to account for the prolonged unconsciousness, he declined to admit to Sir Arthur there was ground for anxiety or to recommend any treatment but quiet—absolute quiet. The prelim

ay apathy, continued unabated, Dr. Saunders abruptly changed his tactics and i

ff," he sai

ords was as unfitting as the id

at you were aware, Dr. Saunders, of my int

here's a good deal of sickness about, and I should not like to take the responsibility of keepi

is nostrils and fixed a withering gaze o

and then brazenly announce the fact? Sir Arthur, a spot of red anger burning upon each cheekbone, gave Dr. Saunders clearly to understand how grossly he had failed in his post of trust, and an

tantially the same as the first—with the single difference that it seemed to take a more serious view of the case. Lady Gerardine was once more order

a Melbury, would have to be unceremoniously postponed. Moreover, it was never part of his views of the marital state to allow his beautiful wife to remove herself more than a day's journey from his personal influence. Scornfully as he would have repudiated any suggestion of jealousy (and indeed, as Aspasia had asserted, he was perhaps too vain a man to entertain so unflattering a guest in the complacency of his thoughts), he had, wheth

icitude. But the physician's wisdom was so far justified that, from the moment she was

id, "England!

, she began, to the girl's delight, to discuss

quiet spot by marvellous stone lacework screens, each different down to the smallest detail of design, yet all in harmony. However the small dusky Eastern beauties may have rebelled in their day against these exq

mselves to their even lovelier reflections, cut in grey shadow on the white marble of the pavement. From the inner rooms the waters of the baths played mur

was more than met the eye; that there was in the web of her aunt's life, so to speak, an under-warp of unknown colour and unexpected strength; that behind the placid surface there lay secret depths; and that her own trifling treachery h

l find violets amid the dark-green leaves, Baby, and brown and

ightful to be going off just our two selves. Oh! Aunt Rosamond, you gave me an awful fright, you know; but really it was rather well done of you, to faint off like that. You se

a small secret smile in her pi

you have ever been free from the dear Runkle for mo

atement of fact, it was ag

last summer up in the hills was enough to ruin the nerves of a camel. No sooner gon

er go. Lady Gerardine gave one of her rare l

early intercourse with the great man, gave way to the snigger, the jeer, the grudging submission. But, serene in his own consciousness of power and his own heaven-born gift of applying it, Sir Arthur laid down the law smilingly and inflexibly; and the native world about him, at least, bowed

ife's laugh, "that's better! I thought we should soon hav

sedative drops as the pith of his flowery advice from the latter's blunt statement. But Dr.

tantly fallen back to its usu

cried Aspasia, pertly, "we were

ry guilelessly, and stooped

upon the best resort for you in England, unti

nger along the lines: "'Decidedly Brighton, Margate, or

g," answered Lady Gerardine, turning

thur, scarce able

," proceeded his wife, gently. "But I wanted t

were fixed, protruding,

tryside, set in such preposterous isolation that the letting of it on any terms had ever remained an impossibility—the legacy was by no means acceptable to Sir Arthur. The various sums that he had already had to disburs

the hair from her forehead with the gesture that he had already learned to regard with some dismay as indicative of "her nervous

nd of course you've been ill and all that. But it's quite evident you are not yet in a state to see things in

's malady than the "damn queer low state" of Dr. Saunders; an

essary in the most suitable and satisfactory manner." He drew a carved stool to the head of the couch

was almost a faint amusement, tempered with pity. Aspasia watching, very de

"but I shall be better at Saltwoods than an

ack to contemplate her uneasily; pos

tment?), "that I should ... look over"—she hesitated as if she could not pronounce her dead

A

as that of poor dead and gone English, was, for all his consciously punctilious chivalry towards his predecessor's shade, a piece of irritating feminine perversity that positively stank in Sir Arthur's nostrils. He snorted. For a moment, indeed, he was really angry. And the sharpness of his first exclamation brought the blood

iture of trouble, you were opposed to the matter. And now, when, as Sir James says, it is so important for you to have absolute rest, to put even your ordinary correspon

do not intend to do it because it was

e extraordinary attitude of his wife and yet not induce any recurrence of the drea

of the necessary postponement of the

but it was with lips

is all settled. He will be travelling by our boat and wi

e gathered about her mouth and nostrils. Aspasia scrambled to her feet in t

ed for the smelling-salts and shrieked for Jani. "Good gracious," she rated him, holding the bot

dy. How was a man to exercise the proper marital contr

stion, after all—he lit his cheroot—whether a "damn queer stat

*

necessitated a postponement of her visit—announced her arrival at the prescribed time, and her conviction that she and her cousin would get on "like a house on fire." Such being the great lady's opinion, th

or-house. She naturally does not wish to see much society till my return; and, anyhow, there is a small piece of work which she is undertaking at my suggestion." Here he whispered

he guzzled his soup; and Aspasia's eyes danced and her cheeks grew pink with suppressed laughte

*

at an intermediate town on her May north—all the pomp and circumstance in which his soul delighted was to grace the occasion: the escorts, the salutes, the special trains, and so forth. Finding that Major Bethune was

mn evening of the departure. "A silent, unemotional man," Sir Arthur might have added to his desc

the Lieutenant-Governor's escort, in the gorgeousness of his equipages or the general splendour of the magnate himself that he found food for speculation;

as if his life had been caught up out of its own vastly different course and suddenly intertwined with that of these two women; the one whose every action, every word, was mys

turn to descend to the carriage, "I have been hating myself ever since I was such a beast about poor Aunt Rosa

of grey gauze. A dainty figure was Aspasia in her soft greys—the sort of travelling companion a man might gladl

surd, in the circumstances"—he threw a scornful glance about him—"too absurd a proposition to be entertained for a mome

ou don't understand, and neither do I. But I feel, an

ok, followed his thou

*

d's arm, in the languor of the semi-invalid. Through the frowning gateway, down the stairway they passed, to halt again before the last flight of steps, Rosamond drew

d her. "Do you see those funny marks? Those are supposed to be made by the hands of the queens, when they came down to be burned. Ugh! I say, Aunt Rosamond, are

re. My ashes would have mingled with other ashes long, long before.... Oh, I'm not so sure," she went on, a

augh. And then she whispered, all bubbling mischief, into Bethune'

r. Bethune had first been startled by Lady Gerardine's look and accents even more than by t

ion of sensibility, this languid, self-centre

corn of things, sad for the sordid trickeries of the soul o

ining his wife. Then, as the procession moved on once more, Baby, troubled and discomfited—she

k a knife into me. I am always plunging in upon their feelings and offending their castes, and all the rest of it. Just look at Saif-u-din's face—Runkle's new secretary—I never sa

n beard, was striding in their wake with a serene dignity that looked as if nothing could ever ruffle it. Had he been ruffled? Had the glare existed merely in Aspasia's imagination? While recognising a Pathan (whose contempt f

strike! About this fellow, a splendid specimen of the noblest race, a creature cut out of steel and bronze, there was, he thought, a more than usual sinister hint of the wild nature und

so evidently a son of the warlike Pathans coul

which might be of value to the "monumental work." And so it came to pass that Bethune and Muhammed Saif-u-din, destin

s, Raymond could not determine, but, as they halted, well-nigh shoulder to shoulder, the Pathan suddenly wheeled round, looked him full in the face in his t

ch might become the greatest gentleman on earth. I'll warrant the fellow has many a bloody page in

t. Through the great glass windows he might be seen and admired of all beholders, feeling his wife's pulse with an air of pro

pleasing subject of the oriental, he found the latter just in the act of dropping his glance from the same spec

se us than in our subserviency to our women. I am not sure," he pursued to himself, cynically, as the splendid presence of Saif-u-din settled itself with digni

dusky chuddah. She would not talk with the bearers or even lament her coming exile. She held on tightly with one thin brown hand to a much-battered military tin case, which she herself had laid on the seat beside her. No one else would she permit to t

ype="