CHAPTER IX
THE OASIS
For two months Tommy possessed his impulsive soul in patience. For twomonths he watched Monck go his impassive and inscrutable way, asking nofurther question. The gaieties of the station were in full swing.Christmas was close at hand.
Stella was making definite plans for departure in the New Year. Shecould not satisfy herself with an idle life, though Tommy vehementlyopposed the idea of her going. Monck never opposed it. He listenedsilently when she spoke of it, sometimes faintly smiling. She often sawhim. He came to the Green Bungalow in Tommy's company at all hours ofthe day. She met him constantly at the Club, and he never failed to cometo her side there and by some means known only to himself to banish thecrowd of subalterns who were wont to gather round her. He asserted noclaim, but the claim existed and was mutely recognized. He never spoketo her intimately. He never attempted to pass the bounds of ordinaryfriendship. Only very rarely did he make her aware that her company wasa pleasure to him. But the fact remained that she was the only womanthat he ever sought, and the tongues of all the rest were busy inconsequence.
As for Stella, she still told herself that she would escape with herfreedom. He would speak, she was convinced, before she left. She evensometimes told herself that after what had passed between them, it wasalmost incumbent upon him to speak. But she believed that he wouldaccept her refusal philosophically, possibly even with relief. Sherestrained herself forcibly from dwelling upon the thought of him. Againand again she reminded herself that he trod the way of ambition. Hisheart was given to his work, and a man may not serve two masters. Hecared for her, probably, but in a calm, judicial fashion that couldnever satisfy her. If she married him she would come second--and a verypoor second--to his profession. And so she did not mean to marry him.And so she checked the fevered memory of passionate kisses that hadburned her to the soul, of arms that had clasped and held her by a forcecolossal. That had been only the primitive man in him, escaped for themoment beyond his control--the primitive man which he had well-nighsucceeded in stifling with the bonds of his servitude. Had he not toldher that he would have given all he had to forget that single wild lapseinto savagery? She was sure that he despised himself for it. He wouldnever for an instant suffer such an impulse again. He did not reallylove her. It was not in him to love any woman. He would make her aformal offer of marriage, and when she had refused him he would dismissthe matter from his mind and return to his work undisturbed.
So she schooled herself to make her plans, leaving him out of thereckoning, telling herself ever that her newly restored freedom was toodear ever to be sacrificed again. In Mrs. Ralston's company she attendedsome of the social gatherings of the station, but she took no keenpleasure in them. She disliked Lady Harriet, she distrusted Mrs. Burton,and more often than not she remained away. The coming Christmasfestivities did not attract her. She held aloof till Tommy who was inthe thick of everything suddenly and vehemently demanded her presence.
"It's ridiculous to be so stand-offish," he maintained. "Don't let 'emthink you're afraid of 'em! Come anyway to the moonlight picnic atKhanmulla on Christmas Eve! It's going to be no end of a game."
Stella smiled a little. "Do you know, Tommy, I think I'd rather go tobed?"
"Absurd!" declared Tommy. "You used to be much more sporting."
"I wasn't a widow in those days," Stella said.
"What rot! What damn' rot!" cried Tommy wrathfully.
"There is no altering the fact," said Stella.
He left her, fuming.
That evening as she sat on the Club verandah with Mrs. Ralston, watchingsome tennis, Monck came up behind her and stood against the wall smokinga cigarette.
He did not speak for some time and after a word of greeting Stellaturned back to the play. But presently Mrs. Ralston got up and wentaway, and after an interval Monck came silently forward and took thevacant seat.
Tommy was among the players. His play was always either surprisinglybrilliant or amazingly bad, and on this particular evening he waswinning all the honours.
Stella was joining in the general applause after a particularly finestroke when suddenly Monck's voice spoke at her side.
"Why don't you take a hand sometimes instead of always looking on?"
The question surprised her. She glanced at him in momentaryembarrassment, met his straight look, and smiled.
"Perhaps I am lazy."
"That isn't the reason," he said. "Why do you lead a hermit's life? Doyou follow your own inclination in so doing? Or are you merely provingyourself a slave to an unwritten law?"
His voice was curt; it held mastery. But yet she could not resent it,for behind it was a masked kindness which deprived it of offence.
She decided to treat the question lightly. "Perhaps a little of both,"she said. "Besides, it seems scarcely worth while to try to get intothe swim now when I am leaving so soon."
He made an abrupt movement which seemed to denote suppressed impatience."You are too young to say that," he said.
She laughed a little. "I don't feel young. I think life moves faster intropical countries. I have lived years since I have been here, and I amglad of a rest."
He was silent for a space; then again abruptly he returned to thecharge. "You're not going to waste all the best of your life over amemory, are you? The finest man in the world isn't worth that."
She felt the colour rise in her face as she made reply. "I hope I am notgoing to waste my life at all. Is it a waste not to spend it in afeverish round of social pleasures? If so, I do not think you are in aposition to condemn me."
She saw his brief smile for an instant. "My life is occupied with otherthings," he said. "But I don't lead a hermit's existence. I am going tothe officers' picnic at Khanmulla on the twenty-fourth for instance."
"Being a case of 'Needs must'," suggested Stella.
"By no means." Monck leaned forward to light another cigarette. "I amgoing for a particular purpose. If that purpose is not fulfilled--" hepaused a moment and she felt his eyes upon her again--"I shall comestraight back," he ended with a certain doggedness of determination thatdid not escape her.
Stella's gaze was fixed upon the court below her and she kept it there,but she saw nothing of the game. Her heart was beating oddly in leapsand jerks. She felt curiously as if she were under the influence of anelectric battery; every nerve and every vein seemed to be tingling.
He had not asked a question, yet she felt that in some fashion he hadmade it incumbent upon her to speak in answer. In the silence thatfollowed his words she was aware of an insistence that would not bedenied. She tried to put it from her, but could not. In the end, morethan half against her will, she yielded.
"I suppose I shall have to go," she said, "if only to pacify Tommy."
"A very good and sufficient reason," commented Monck enigmatically.
He lingered on beside her for a while, but nothing further of anintimate nature passed between them. She felt that he had gained hisobjective and would say no more. The truce between them was to beobserved until the psychological moment arrived to break it, and thatmoment would occur some time on Christmas Eve in the moonlit solitudesof Khanmulla.
Later she reflected that perhaps it was as well to go and get it over.She could not deny him his opportunity, and it would not take long--shewas sure it would not take long to convince him that they were betteras they were.
Had he been younger, less wedded to his work, less the slave of hisambition, things might have been different. Had she never been marriedto Ralph Dacre, never known the bondage of those few strange weeks, shemight have been more ready to join her life to his.
But Fate had intervened between them, and their paths now lay apart. Herealized it as well as she did. He would not press her. Their eyes wereopen, and if the oasis in the desert had seemed desirable to either fora space, yet each knew that it was no abiding-place.
Their appointed ways lay in the waste beyond, diverging ever more andmore, till presently even the green
ness of that oasis in which they hadmet together would be no more to either than a half-forgotten dream.