FHE UNKNOWN 
 STEERSMAN 
 
 IRENE BURN
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN
 
 THE UNKNOWN 
 STEERSMAN 
 
 BY 
 
 IRENE BURN 
 
 AUTHOR OF "GENEROUS GODS" 
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 1912
 
 (All rights resetvcd.)
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 TO ALL THE SET, AND ESPECIALLY TO 
 A. B. 
 
 A. C. 
 
 M. B. G. AND 
 
 K. 
 
 IRENE BURN 
 
 2134223
 
 The Unknown Steersman 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE hill station lay in a cup of the Himalayas. 
 It was not quite a perfect cup, for in one place 
 the steep green slopes failed their complete circle 
 and left the way to the plains open. Here alone 
 the eye looked downwards instead of up, and 
 saw far below a wide golden expanse cleft by 
 a silver sword -blade that meant a great river. 
 
 Few troubled to stand on the edge of the 
 precipice and look downwards. Everybody knew 
 that the golden plain turned into molten dust on 
 nearer acquaintance. Green is ever a favourite 
 colour in India, so Society lifted its eyes up 
 to the hills. Society in the tea-cup was always 
 very busy over its work and its pleasure. Every 
 year when the hot wind began to devastate 
 fields and gardens and complexions, the Govern- 
 ment of the province migrated into kindlier hill 
 regions so that the business of State might receive 
 the better attention. 
 
 In the mornings the secretariat buildings 
 hummed with activity. In the afternoons heads
 
 8 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 of departments rode up and down the hill paths 
 on scrambling ponies, or played a conscientious 
 game of tennis with an eye to increasing girth. 
 Under-secretaries plunged madly about the flats 
 playing polo with officers from the depot or men 
 up on leave. After polo they upset each other 
 from canoes into the lake, and then drank tea 
 and whisky -pegs on the boathouse veranda, where 
 the station met at dusk for bridge, gossip, 
 and flirtation. The lake nearly filled the bottom 
 of the tea-cup, but it left room for the flats with 
 their polo-grounds and tennis-courts, a row of 
 shops and a ballroom. Hotels and bungalows 
 perched on shelves dug laboriously from the hill, 
 and when the rain fell too heavily they slid down 
 the khud into the waiting lake. 
 
 Eve Lang peered between the wooden balus- 
 trades of the hotel veranda. Along the road 
 beneath her coffin-like litters swung under the 
 steady jog-trot of the coolies, wild hill-men tamed 
 for the season to the bearing of burdens. Her 
 long, idle hands held sheets of notepaper covered 
 with difficult handwriting. It was a letter from 
 her husband, and she had read it twice, a com- 
 pliment she seldom paid him. Moreover, not 
 content with reading it twice, she was conning 
 it over now in her mind and finding no small dis- 
 comfort in it. 
 
 As she looked and pondered, four coolies 
 ceased to trot, and lowering the cross-bars from 
 their shoulders deposited their burden on the
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 9 
 
 ground below. Out stepped a woman, shaking 
 her crumpled skirt, and with upturned face 
 seeking to be greeted from the veranda. Eve 
 waved her letter and waited for the footsteps 
 on the creaking staircase. The sound came in 
 a moment, heralding the approach of a woman 
 with the unmistakable stamp of Cheltenham 
 upon her. Her heels were just a little too high 
 and her toes just a shade too pointed and her 
 hair just a trifle too exuberant. 
 
 She drew up a basket chair by the side of 
 Eve and proceeded to take a flamboyant tur- 
 quoise pin from her sun helmet. 
 
 " Post's in, I see," she began. " Any news 
 from Gehenna? I don't feel it's worth while to 
 open my husband's letters nowadays. Their 
 entire interest centres on the thermometer, and 
 I really can't get up any enthusiasm over tem- 
 peratures some one else is grousing at." She 
 laid her helmet on the ground and proceeded to 
 poke at her exuberant head with fingers and 
 hatpin. 
 
 " You look as if you'd had worrying news," 
 she continued. "What is it? Your husband 
 coming up? " 
 
 " Denis can't get leave till September," said 
 Mrs. Lang without being aware of her com- 
 panion's fleer. " But it is his letter that is 
 worrying me. It's about a: girl." 
 
 Connie Young turned from' her hairdressing 
 with a giggle.
 
 10 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 " Surely the absorbed Denis hasn't started a 
 hot -weather flirtation? The wily Mrs. Com- 
 missioner is keeping Clare down, I hear. Well, 
 those Indian ' county families ' don't feel the 
 heat as we English born. But I'm surprised at 
 Denis." 
 
 "Eve flushed a little angrily. At times she felt 
 Mrs. Young a trifle too vulgar. 
 
 " It isn't a girl in India at all," she returned 
 coldly. " It's a kind of cousin of my husband's, 
 an ingenue straight from a Lincolnshire village. 
 She has lived under a clergyman's care all her 
 life, and now he is dying and has written to ask 
 Denis to adopt her." 
 
 " Perhaps he won't die," suggested Connie 
 helpfully. " But of course he will, padres are 
 always annoying. Can't you send her to some 
 nice cheap finishing school? " 
 
 " She is too old for school eighteen last 
 birthday. And as for finishing, she doesn't seem 
 to have been begun yet. The padre's letter has 
 amused even Denis, and detached his mind from 
 Gonds and things for quite five minutes." Eve's 
 tone was a little bitter, her husband's letter was 
 usually but a grim synopsis of grey doings. 
 Quite early in her married life she had realised 
 that Denis never seemed to need or claim her 
 presence. She had begun by maintaining with 
 heroic fervour her intention to " stay down " 
 with him in the hot weathers. Other women did 
 it, sacrificing thereby their complexions on the
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 11 
 
 altar of duty. But Denis welcomed the long 
 hot -weather days for the leisure they gave him 
 to devote to those ethnological studies which 
 were the background of his strenuous civilian 
 life. He seemed actually horrified at the prospect 
 of sharing this hot -weather leisure with a wife 
 who would insist on wasting it in feminine ideas 
 of amusement. So after a first hurt protest, Eve 
 left the plains every March and spent the six 
 hot-weather months in a hill hotel. 
 
 "The letter looks vast," said Connie; "he 
 seems to have prepared you extensively for the 
 kind of girl you are to expect." 
 
 " It seems that her parents were rather awful 
 people, and the padre has brought her up on a 
 system of his own guaranteed to defy heredity 
 and produce a saint. A perfectly appropriate 
 training for a Lincolnshire village, but a little 
 wearing for her future chaperon, I imagine. 
 Here is his letter; you'd better read it." She 
 tossed the crumpled sheets of foreign notepaper 
 to her friend, who read them with increasing 
 merriment. 
 
 " * She has read no classics '; that won't hurt 
 her, rather an advantage ; she might have hurled 
 improper quotations at your head. Learned girls 
 never possess a particle of tact or manners. ' I 
 have never permitted her to peruse novels.' 
 Heavens ! what an innocent ! But it isn't true, 
 of course. I know that sly type of good girl 
 I met them at school. She probably smuggled
 
 12 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 them into the house and hid them among her 
 linen, French novels under unbleached calico 
 trimmed with crochet. ' She knows nothing of 
 the evil of the world.' She will rather match you 
 there, Eve ; for a married woman you are quite 
 the most innocent creature I've ever met." 
 
 Eve was hardly listening, she had taken back 
 an odd sheet and was reading it once again. 
 
 44 1 hate people who are brought up on systems, 
 it makes them so self-conscious, like simple-life 
 enthusiasts, who are really much more com- 
 plicated than ordinary folks, because they make 
 such a business of living," went on Mrs. Young. 
 44 But this girl is so young, she will gladly throw 
 a system like this overboard. You may find your- 
 self regretting the loss of it in time when she 
 begins to get in your way. I should marry her 
 off to some nice old crusted civilian, a widower 
 perhaps, who has killed his first wife with hot 
 weathers and new babies in the plains." 
 
 44 Even that kind of man doesn't want to marry 
 a raw child," said Eve, although she brightened 
 a little at this plan for transferring a burden. 
 44 Denis pretends he is consulting me, but of 
 course I know I must say ' yes/ and trust that 
 the padre won't die yet and spoil this hot weather. 
 I only hope he isn't dead already, and the girl on 
 her way out provided with a Lincolnshire village 
 trousseau." 
 
 44 1 should write at once," advised Mrs. Young, 
 14 if you've really got to have her, and tell her
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 13 
 
 what kind of an outfit she needs. Do you remem- 
 ber that strong-minded cousin of the Dunlops 
 who strode about in sensible boots and a horrible 
 tweedy skirt that sagged and showed the outlines 
 of her knees. Implore your ingenue not to be 
 sensible in her feet. I notice that in some women 
 all the sense runs into the soles and toes of their 
 boots and never rises again." 
 
 Eve began to conjure up a blend of every 
 caricature of the learned Englishwoman and 
 the Englishwoman abroad, a thing of bones and 
 boots and teeth. Dress is likely to be an 
 important factor in the life of a woman who 
 spends six months of her year houseless and 
 dutiless on a hilltop, where there is not even 
 a slum to attract vague aspirations to good 
 works. A barren life for many women, this 
 of the hilltop, but Eve had not chosen it of her 
 own free will at the beginning. Now she had 
 grown to call it necessity. 
 
 " It is no use worrying," went on Mrs. Young. 
 " Just write by this mail and tactfully suggest 
 stays and good petticoats and decent shoes, and 
 leave the rest to Providence. Meantime I'm 
 dying for tea." 
 
 " Captain Staniforth is coming up for it. I 
 believe that is his pony coming round the corner." 
 She gathered up her letter with a sigh, then 
 with an effort regained optimism. " She mayn't 
 be such a frump after all, Connie." 
 
 " I wouldn't pray too fervently for her to be
 
 14 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 beautiful," said Mrs. Young. " She might get 
 in your way." She was smiling significantly at 
 the chestnut pony that stopped under the 
 veranda. Everything about Mrs. Young was 
 over -emphasised, even to the assisted line of her 
 arching brows, which seemed to find and give 
 away new meanings in everything. 
 
 " I shall have to arrange about her passage 
 and get some one to look after her," went on 
 Eve, without noticing the pony or the smile. " A 
 voyage out by P. and O. with a well -chosen 
 companion is often a good preparation for 
 India." 
 
 The outside wooden steps creaked again, and 
 the typical well-groomed head of a British officer 
 appeared. There must be something about the 
 climate of India which bakes men and women 
 into certain moulds. Nature having once decided 
 on a type, uses the same mould over and over 
 again, and it is possible in any assembly of Anglo- 
 Indians to guess each man's department from 
 his outward appearance. Famine works, hot 
 weathers, and little frontier shows work their 
 will on his mental apparatus, but his exterior 
 remains true to its type. Externally Captain 
 Staniforth was exactly like a thousand others 
 of his rank; that is to say, he was lean (majors 
 are stouter, but colonels often thin again) and 
 brown (subalterns are pinker, and colonels yel- 
 lowish), with a white chin -strap mark, and his 
 legs were beautifully moulded into Jodhpur
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 15 
 
 breeches. Behind him trotted a white fox-terrier 
 with flopping tan ears. He licked Eve's hand 
 ecstatically and flopped on the boards at her 
 side with his brown eyes fixed unwinkingly on 
 his master." 
 
 '* Did I hear you philosophising over the 
 voyage out? " he asked, depositing his long form 
 in one of the infirm' chairs that lined the 
 veranda. Anglo-Indians never shake hands 
 except at a party, and his easy greeting was but 
 a nod. "I believe women enjoy it; I, per- 
 sonally, am' bored to shrieks, develop a liver 
 and have to skip, a loathly form of exercise." 
 
 " I never can really enjoy myself on board 
 ship," said Eve sadly, " because of the mis- 
 sionaries." 
 
 " They certainly are plain," he assented, " but 
 distinctly worthy. Anyhow, they don't block the 
 whole horizon. How do they interfere with your 
 enjoyment? " 
 
 " They pray. And the prayer of the righteous 
 availeth much; in fact, it availeth horribly." 
 
 " What do you mean? " asked Connie. 
 
 "It starts with my smile and my voice," ex- 
 plained Eve. " You may have noticed that I 
 have a particularly gentle voice. Then when 
 I get on a ship I 'm so happy that I smile broadly 
 on every one, even on the plain but worthy 
 mission lady who infests Eastward-bound ships. 
 At once I make a conquest, each female mis- 
 sionary falls madly in love with me, and culti-
 
 16 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 vates my acquaintance. Then after Gibraltar, 
 when I begin to disappear forrard to look for 
 phosphorus, and aft to admire the wake and 
 always with the same man she begins to 
 interfere." 
 
 " I should say that you were capable of losing 
 the most zealous missionary lady on the way 
 forrard or aft," said Connie dryly. 
 
 "Oh, she doesn't try to come with me; she 
 stays behind and prays." 
 
 " But how " exclaimed her audience in 
 
 duet. 
 
 " Her prayer is heard," replied Eve drama- 
 tically, " because she is so righteous. The man 
 forgets all about wakes and phosphorus, and 
 takes to bridge in the smoking-room, or worse 
 still, chooses some one else to disappear with, 
 and I have to begin all over again. I wish I 
 wasn't so attractive to missionary ladies, or else 
 that Providence wouldn't be so fussy." Eve 
 looked sadly at the teacups, while Staniforth 
 admired her with an unabashed gaze, and Mrs. 
 Young's eyebrows seemed to proclaim that she 
 knew much of board-ship flirtations. 
 
 " Pour out the tea quickly, there's a dear," 
 she said. "I'm playing bridge at the boathouse. 
 I suppose you two are going* on the lake? Don't 
 let her be late dressing for the Moles worths' 
 dinner, Captain Staniforth. They live miles up 
 the khud. Sheer cruelty to invite us, I think. 
 You are going too, I suppose? " She did not
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 17 
 
 wait for an answer, but dispatched her tea 
 quickly and disappeared to her room to change 
 her sun helmet for a flowery hat. 
 
 When she had finally pattered down the steps 
 and had folded herself into her waiting " dandy," 
 Captain Staniforth heaved a sigh of relief. 
 "Thank God for bridge! " he said fervently. 
 " Now we can go on the lake and really talk."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IT is an unfortunate truth that, so far, no via 
 media has been discovered in feminine educa- 
 tion. Women are either over-educated or totally 
 uneducated. The over -educated woman takes 
 her learning over-seriously, viewing her know- 
 ledge of Greek or of mathematics as an earth- 
 shaking miracle. When she is snubbed or feels 
 plain she finds real comfort in reminding herself 
 that she has read ^Eschylus, while her pretty 
 rival opposite can with difficulty spell English. 
 She sits in scornful judgment on the mind and 
 brain of her uneducated sister, who in turn con- 
 demns the educated woman's hats and boots. 
 
 Such, at least, is the position in England, 
 but Indian Society knows little of the over- 
 educated woman. The missionary lady is often 
 a Girton student, but the missionary as a social 
 factor counts not at all. Feminine Anglo -India 
 can ride and shoot and bear utter loneliness 
 and heat that cannot be described. She is fine 
 at a crisis and a marvellous nurse of dread sick- 
 nesses. She can influence Lieutenant -Governors 
 or a Viceroy, but frequently she cannot spell ;
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 19 
 
 she can make love to Chief Secretaries, but she 
 never reads a line except the colonial edition of 
 the latest novel. 
 
 Eve Lang was a woman who deserved educa- 
 tion. Greek could not have spoiled her, and it 
 would have afforded a way of escape from the 
 chafing straitness of a woman's interests. But 
 she had received no real education at all. Of 
 course she had been to school, where they taught 
 her French history, and painting, and music, and 
 to read Racine and Moliere, whom her school- 
 girl judgment condemned as ranting bores. 
 Nothing of this was education, and she emerged 
 from school with a few badly assorted rags of 
 knowledge that did little to clothe the nakedness 
 of her mind. 
 
 Thus she had no background, no pleasant 
 recesses where her mind, bruised and wearied 
 by the ever-present world, might find rest in 
 quiet communion with the spirits of the great 
 dead. The contemplative faculty is atrophied 
 nowadays. Eve had never a chance of possess- 
 ing it. If she had lived in England the possi- 
 bilities of music and art might have induced a 
 habit of contemplation, but Denis Lang met her 
 as she stepped over her schoolroom threshold. 
 He had a straight nose, romantic dark eyes, and 
 a sufficient income. She found nothing wanting, 
 adored him immediately, and departed for India 
 with a soul -satisfy ing trousseau. 
 
 Her trousseau and her rags of education were
 
 20 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 all she had in hand as a preparation for life. 
 She had no understanding of the joy in wide 
 spaces and unending skies, a joy which India 
 bestows for the consolation of certain of her 
 step -children, bereft of their English lane. She 
 had no delight in books that were not novels, 
 she could not draw or play. No one had ever 
 helped her to understand the possibilities of an 
 unawakened brain, no one had taught her to dig 
 channels for the better cultivation of her garden 
 of life. 
 
 People are fond of discussing the nature of 
 a woman's handicap. In India it needs no dis- 
 cussion, it is so obvious to the idlest inquiry. 
 A woman's handicap is her leisure. There is 
 little to fill the long Indian day. In an up- 
 country station there are no theatres, no concerts, 
 no books but the strange conglomeration of 
 " remainders " that furnish the club library. 
 Little is left but the open air, and the interest 
 afforded by the scaling of that barrier which lies 
 between East and West. Space and sky can win 
 the soul of a man, but they remain alien to most 
 women's affections. Eve was not one of the 
 few of her sex who exulted to gallop free over 
 a wide brown plain that met a wide blue sky 
 on a definite horizon's edge. She certainly never 
 wished to become intimate with her " Indian 
 sister," as the jargon of the moment put it, and 
 she pained even her husband's indifference by 
 lumping all Easterns together as " natives," a
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 21 
 
 word freighted with curious horror for those 
 whose due it happened to be. 
 
 She certainly possessed a baby, a boy of three 
 years, but unfortunately the interesting moments 
 of an infant's life those of his bathing time 
 came when society gathered at the Club. A 
 woman who was a sun prisoner for most of 
 the day wanted to go out and find society in the 
 evening, and in India this is only to be gained 
 at that general meeting-place for both sexes. 
 Eve's maternal interest, therefore, remained 
 unfed by daily surprises of growth and by un- 
 veiled beauties of toes and fingers. 
 
 But there is always one unfailing interest open 
 to a pretty woman, and Eve dabbled earnestly 
 in what she ignorantly called " platonic affairs." 
 Denis made the mistake common to many 
 Anglo-Indian husbands ; he thought that the 
 administration of the British Empire was more 
 important than the preservation of certain leisure 
 hours for the benefit of his wife. He really 
 believed he was doing his duty when four o'clock 
 left him still wrestling with files, so that his wife 
 must needs ride and drive alone. 
 
 No woman wishes to ride and drive alone, and 
 other women are rather dull, or at any rate very 
 feminine, so the wife, widowed by the file, sends 
 a note to some less busied worker and gains her 
 a companion. And this is the beginning of 
 scandals : nemo repente every woman begins 
 by feeling aggrieved because her husband pays
 
 22 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 more attention to files than to the necessities of 
 her evening drive or her game of tennis. 
 
 Captain Staniforth helped Eve into a canoe 
 and arranged the soft silk cushions he had had 
 made for her. Eve luxuriated in small atten- 
 tions, and she smiled gratefully at him as he 
 took up his paddle and pushed off from the little 
 landing-stage. 
 
 " I was feeling all rasped and horrid," she 
 said, " but you and the lake have smoothed 
 me down and made me wish I could purr." 
 
 "You see too much of Mrs. Young; she's 
 rather rasping, I imagine." 
 
 " Her rooms are next mime, you see, and one 
 is so caged in the hills ; it's necessary to love 
 one's neighbour, for one can't escape her. She 
 amuses me sometimes, though I know she's 
 vulgar." 
 
 " She never amuses me. Women never did 
 interest me till I met you." His ardent tone 
 struck warm at Eve's heart. Staniforth was 
 exactly what she needed, some one to look after 
 her and take thought for her whims and wishes, 
 some one to arrange her amusements and 
 engineer delightful little surprises, some one to 
 play the devout lover without undue or un- 
 comfortable warmth. 
 
 She had hardly altered, mentally, since the 
 day she shut the schoolroom door, and she was 
 delighted to find herself " in love " after her 
 realisation of married dullness. Staniforth had
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 23 
 
 made her love him by his " courtship made 
 perfect." As with Browning's lover, it was a 
 case of " no least line crossed without warrant," 
 and Eve had not the slightest understanding of 
 the progressive nature of a love content for the 
 moment with hands clasped or a kiss lightly 
 stolen at dusk. When she mattered so little 
 to Denis it was comforting to feel that she meant 
 so much to this man that he even neglected polo 
 for her sake. She understood that he could 
 hardly have given a greater proof of devotion. 
 
 He really ought to have been playing at this 
 moment, but his eyes and thoughts were too 
 busy to regret the plunging life and scattering 
 hoofs on the Flats beyond the lake. 
 
 "Do you like girls?" asked Eve abruptly. 
 
 "Girls? No. I bar them. They always 
 dance vilely and never get their programmes 
 full, but stand and look imploring so that you 
 have to pay for last week's dinner and ask for 
 a pleasure that you know will be a pain." 
 
 " There 1 That's another thing," exclaimed 
 Eve with seeming irrelevance. " I'm certain 
 that system never allowed anything so frivolous 
 as dancing lessons, and of course she has never 
 learnt to dance." 
 
 " Then use your influence to prevent her look- 
 ing imploring in the ante -room. I don't know 
 who ' she ' may be, but if she's a girl, of course 
 she can't dance. There's some magic in the 
 Marriage Service, for no girl can ever dance
 
 24 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 decently and all married women can. What's 
 the explanation? " 
 
 Eve stared tragically at the sunset. For the 
 moment she had forgotten the disturbing letter 
 from the plains, but suddenly Mrs. Young's 
 malicious words rang again in her ears. The 
 girl might " get in her way." Her swift imagi- 
 nation, illogical as ever, blotted out the picture 
 of the new cousin, dowdy and a frump, and 
 painted her in a new pose, young, fresh, with 
 the English complexion of eighteen. She 
 watched her usurp the elder woman's meed of 
 admiration. Eve had seen it happen so often, 
 devotion transferred in a week from a mature 
 woman to some pretty pink and white idiocy 
 newly arrived by the mail. 
 
 She went through the whole gamut of despair, 
 and then suddenly burst into low laughter at the 
 sight of his anxious face. 
 
 "I'm not cross and I'm not ill," she hastened 
 to reassure him. "I'm only seeing worried 
 visions of something that may never happen. 
 My husband has a girl cousin called Celia 
 Ferriby. She has no belongings in England 
 except an old guardian who is very ill. If he 
 dies she will be left alone in the world, and we 
 must take her." 
 
 " A girl ! What a horrid nuisance ! I see 
 precious little of you as it is in the cold weather. 
 If it had been a married woman it wouldn't have 
 been so bad. She'd have her own interests, but
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 25 
 
 you've got to look after a girl. When you take 
 to chaperoning you'll do it thoroughly, as you 
 do everything, and I shall get abominably left. 
 I do call it hard lines." 
 
 He kicked an ill-tempered foot that rumpled 
 the strip of carpet along the canoe. John Stani- 
 forth had always taken his own way ever since 
 he could remember ; he had always had money 
 enough for the best of polo ponies and for all 
 kinds of sport. He felt evident dismay at the 
 proposed check in his intimacy with the first 
 woman he had had time to adore. Life had 
 always been so easy that he was almost 
 childishly annoyed at the first rub. Eve was 
 comforted by the dismay and not repelled by 
 the childishness . 
 
 " It will be far worse for me," she declared. 
 "If you have a woman to stay with you she has 
 the sense to go and write letters or lie down, 
 but a girl is just there all the time. I've never 
 understood the joy in sticking a needle into one 
 side of a bit of stuff and pulling it out another, 
 so I never do fancy work, which I believe is a 
 great help when two women share a drawing- 
 room for the long ages between meals. You 
 can always show each other new stitches, and 
 you don't look so appallingly bored with the 
 woman opposite when your hands are busy and 
 your eyes are bent on your work instead of 
 roving round the room from the clock to the door 
 by which tea ought to be coming in and isn't."
 
 26 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 " You never want to do fancy work when I am 
 there." He spoke with exultant assurance as 
 he shot the canoe deftly under the hanging trees 
 that edged the far end of the lake. Then he 
 crumpled himself up in the bottom of the boat 
 facing her. She had not replied to his assertion. 
 
 " I think a double sculler is nicer after all," 
 he went on meditatively. " I hate not being 1 
 able to sit near you ; being opposite is nothing." 
 
 Eve smiled to think of her silly fears, based 
 on Mrs. Young's idle malice. Staniforth was not 
 the man to be caught by pretty rusticity, and Celia 
 might even be plain. Her thoughts came back 
 from the unknown cousin with her problematic 
 powers of fascination to the handsome dark head 
 that faced her across the little space of the 
 canoe. 
 
 "I've a horrid confession to make," she said 
 gaily. " Firsjt I was afraid that the cousin might 
 be dowdy and wear awful boots, and then some- 
 thing Connie Young said made me whirl round, 
 afraid that she won't be dowdy, and that every 
 one will fall in love with her, every one . . . 
 even you ! " 
 
 "I 1 " Staniforth's eyes proclaimed the 
 stability of his affections. He was afraid of 
 the crudity o'f words, and there were very few 
 of their conversations which might not have been 
 read aloud without a tremor, but eyes had grown 
 swift to intercept and dispatch meanings. It 
 is doubtful whether Staniforth's tongue "had ever
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 27 
 
 said " I love you." His tones and his eyes 
 assured her daily. " I have never fallen in 
 love in my life except once," he went on, and 
 searched her face for the blush which did not 
 fail him. 
 
 " And you didn't marry her? " she said 
 perversely. 
 
 " No, I haven't married, as you know," he 
 replied. " Tell me all about the girl. We will 
 find somebody to take her off your hands ; we 
 can't have you worried with infant female 
 cousins, and I absolutely refuse to make a third 
 in the new menage. I shall play polo regularly 
 again ; the team are frightfully sick with me as 
 it is, although I've been lending my three best 
 ponies." 
 
 This was another view of the case. Celia 
 might not attract Staniforth, she might drive 
 him away, and Eve be left to arrange her own life 
 again. Quickly she decided that Mrs. Young's 
 advice must be taken and a marriage arranged 
 with all decorous speed. 
 
 " If she is clever she may suit Denis, and he 
 may look after her and take her out a bit," said 
 Eve hopefully. Glamour had 'faded before the 
 trousseau frocks were out, but she still admired 
 her husband in a certain detached manner. He 
 hardly seemed to belong to her, but she put 
 down his aloofness to the fact that he could not 
 be bothered with women who were not " clever." 
 She had once shrugged at the thought that he
 
 28 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 might have found that out before marriage. He 
 had not seemed to expect this mysterious attri- 
 bute during their short engagement, her beauty 
 and her golden voice had seemed to suffice. 
 
 Staniforth never liked talking about Denis, so 
 he hastily changed the subject now. 
 
 " You must promise to get her into a flapper 
 set that will keep her busy," he said. " Let her 
 play tennis with Dolly Philpot and encourage her 
 if she feels drawn to good works. She may like 
 assistant chaplains if she is used to a country 
 parson. But remember that I can't do without 
 you, and that my trap only holds two. I shall 
 certainly put off buying a car if you insist on 
 running female cousins." His ill-humour was 
 gone, things could always be arranged. He 
 wanted Eve's society, and nothing should stand 
 in his way as long as the only man who had a 
 right over it drowsed at his files and his tribal 
 customs . 
 
 Thus the two afloat on the translucent green 
 lake made ready to play Providence for the 
 unwelcome third. Of tiie girl's side of the 
 question they never thought at all. She existed, 
 not as a human girl demanding her own right 
 to life and happiness, but as a possible bar 
 to their pleasure and comfort. Kindness to 
 Celia would be treasonable to Staniforth. Eve 
 was bound to make the easier choice, even as 
 her devout lover was bound to exact it. 
 
 Over the darkening bulk of Cheena Mountain
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 29 
 
 glowed the first splendid star. In the narrow 
 oval valley lights sprang out one by one, and 
 lamps like glow-worms danced by hidden paths 
 up and down the hillsides. Celia was forgotten 
 as the magic of the Himalayan night fell with 
 gentle healing on souls a little tarnished by 
 contact with a garish world. Only in the East 
 can the night be truly loved. By day the sun, 
 no friend but an enemy, wearies the earth with 
 an importunate glare, but at evening when the 
 hot wind dies and the dew falls on the dusty 
 land, darkness lays a comforting touch on 
 wrinkling eyes and smooths the lines from brain 
 and face alike. Night in the East is the image 
 of life, not death. 
 
 "They hardly spoke as he paddled slowly over 
 the dark lake towards the lighted boathouse. 
 Both, for the moment, were unconscious thralls 
 to the magical night.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE front door banged heavily. Through the 
 streaming panes of the station omnibus Celia 
 caught her last view of the Nottingham lace 
 curtains that draped the Rectory windows with 
 mathematical exactness. Between their parted 
 whiteness the Rectory housekeeper nodded in 
 tearful farewell. 
 
 There were no tears hi Celia's blue eyes. 
 Exultation, mingled with a glint of fear, shone 
 from her face. As the omnibus bumped its 
 way along the cobbled streets she pressed her 
 nose close against the blurred pane that she 
 might the better catch sight of old landmarks. 
 iWith an ecstasy of delight she was bidding fare- 
 well to her childhood. Only when the church 
 came in sight her expression smoothed out 
 suddenly into decorous melancholy. In the 
 churchyard just underneath the wall a raw 
 mound showed a new-made grave that held her 
 dead guardian, the rector. She could not see 
 it from the omnibus, but her mind pierced the 
 bricks and saw the farewell wreath of white 
 chrysanthemums she had twined and laid there 
 yesterday. No longer pure and white, she could
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 31 
 
 imagine them flattened into the slimy earth, 
 stained and spotted and flecked by the pelting 
 rain. 
 
 With a groan and a jerk, the omnibus stopped 
 at the curate's lodgings. The opened door 
 showed him struggling into his coat, and 
 cramming an old felt hat on his bald forehead. 
 As he scrambled into the omnibus his bulging 
 pockets betrayed numerous small parcels. 
 
 "It is kind of you to come and see me off," 
 said Celia sedately, the memory of the muddy 
 grave tempering her joy. " I wouldn't let 
 Barrett come, she would have broken down and 
 made a scene in the station, and there was 
 nobody else, you know." 
 
 " Poor little lonely child ! " ejaculated the 
 curate huskily. He had read the service, with 
 its words of " sure and certain hope," over that 
 mound in the churchyard, and he did not realise 
 that the rector had been far more to him than 
 to the girl at his side, to whom her guardian's 
 death meant peace for a tired old man but 
 broken bars for an eager child. 
 
 Celia looked at him wonderingly. "But I'm 
 never going to be lonely any more," she said 
 with a lilt in her voice. " I've never had any 
 mother or brothers or sisters. I've had 
 governesses and Barrett, of course, and they've 
 been kind; but governessy kindness is a chill- 
 some sort of thing, after all. They call you 
 ' dear ' to keep from calling you ' Jane ' or
 
 32 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 ' Evelyn ' after their last pupil, and they're not 
 a bit understanding. Now there's going to be 
 Eve and Eve's baby. You saw her photograph 
 and how lovely she is, and what a frock she 
 had on." Involuntarily her eyes strayed to the 
 ill -cut coat and skirt of heavy black cloth which 
 was the local dressmaker's idea of a suitable 
 travelling dress for a young lady in mourning. 
 
 " I knew in a moment that my clothes are 
 all wrong," she continued soberly, " and I hope 
 she won't hate me when she sees me." 
 
 The curate embarked on a platitudinous mur- 
 mur, but she cut him short ruthlessly. 
 
 " Don't begin saying that favour is deceitful 
 and beauty vain," she implored, "or I shall 
 count you in with all the dead dull things I'm 
 so happy to leave." 
 
 " You're not fair to us, Celia," said the curate 
 miserably. "It is your own fault if your life 
 has been dull. You've had your books, and 
 your music, and all the church flowers to see 
 after and visits to make." His recital of the 
 joys of life lacked conviction, aiid Celia, turn- 
 ing sharply round from the window, proceeded 
 to rend him asunder. 
 
 " Books ! " she ejaculated scornfully. " What 
 books? Snuffy old Christian Fathers that are 
 enough to make any one turn heathen, and 
 Josephus, and bound volumes of sermons, rows 
 and rows of them. I used to steal the house- 
 maid's novelettes when I could, but that wasn't
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 33 
 
 often. Why, I've never read anything except 
 the reviews of books in the Church Times, and 
 you can't make much up out of them." 
 
 The omnibus clattered over the cobblestones 
 in the station yard. Oblivious of the rain and 
 her new frock, Celia stood watching the trans- 
 ference of her trunks from the tarpaulined roof 
 to the porter's truck. They were glaringly new 
 trunks, and her initials stood out, " C. E. F.," in 
 scarlet paint on the shiny black leather. The 
 curate took her purse and fussed into the ticket 
 office, which served also as waiting-room and 
 smelt of past ages. Celia wandered out to the 
 platform and watched the rain slant its pitiless 
 spears athwart the glistening rails that stretched 
 through the monotonous fenland. 
 
 A few of the country folk bobbed or pulled a 
 forelock in the old-fashioned manner that still 
 obtained in this forgotten Lincolnshire back- 
 water. They had known Miss Celia from her 
 babyhood, and had taken an interest in her first 
 appearance at church, her measles, her Con- 
 firmationdull milestones in a life as flat as 
 -one of their own fen roads. Now she was going 
 to leave them, going to a heathen country 
 entirely peopled by black men and snakes. Even 
 to Fendyke missionary fervour had penetrated 
 on occasion, and the inhabitants had contributed 
 pennies to aid a Zanana, magical word of which 
 few knew the meaning. 
 
 The curate joined her and paced at her side. 
 3
 
 34 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 The roof leaked so that the water lay in greasy 
 pools on the uneven flags of the platform. There 
 was no sign of the train. Clocks in the village 
 were always kept fast, and railway time was 
 an unknown measure. 
 
 The drear outlook struck at the curate's heart. 
 The one ray of sunlight in his life would fade 
 out when the train carried Celia away from 
 Fendyke for ever. Yet he had a duty to perform. 
 The child was going out into the world alone, 
 and she had no mother to hand her a stirrup-cup 
 of wisdom. India loomed ominously before his 
 eyes as a modern Babylon full of strange 
 temptations against which Celia had only her 
 innocent ignorance to serve as shield. True there 
 was Eve; but his heart misgave him for Mrs. 
 Lang as a guide for youth. He had seen her 
 photograph, and knew from lifelong experience 
 that while a dowdy woman is always virtuous 
 and a crown to her husband, hair waved in the 
 unprincipled manner of Mrs. Lang carried with 
 it a conviction of sin. 
 
 Celia's hair, fine and silky, touched with sun 
 even on this grey day, was brushed neatly back 
 and coiled in exactly the wrong spot, neither 
 high nor low, round the crown of her head. Her 
 ugly felt hat, hard and round, was trimmed with 
 expensive velvet, already spotted with the rain. 
 The skirt of her black cloth dress showed her 
 clumsy boots in front, but at the back seam it 
 dropped heavily and touched the pools as the 
 two paced up and down.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 35 
 
 The signal clicked suddenly at this point in 
 his meditations, and he knew that what he had 
 to say must be said quickly. 
 
 " Celia, dear," he began" Celia, out in 
 India it won't be like your sheltered home 
 at the rectory. You may you will meet 
 temptations." 
 
 Celia took the words out of his mouth. 
 
 " Temptations ! " she cried, clasping her hands 
 in an ecstasy of longing. " How I do hope I 
 shall 1 " Her blue eyes gazed raptly up into his 
 astonished face. " I am so deadly tired of being 
 good," she continued apologetically. " I want 
 to live now, and see things and do things, and 
 be able to be wicked if I want to." 
 
 It was too late for remonstrance. Appeals to 
 remembrance of her Confirmation vows, her 
 Sunday-school class, the saintly example of the 
 dead rector, all flashed into his mind, but the 
 train was sliding along the platform, and his 
 opportunity was gone. Without a word he 
 opened a carriage door and put her in, forgetting, 
 to her delight, to choose an elderly feminine 
 travelling companion as he had intended. 
 
 He emptied his pockets of their bulges, and 
 put the parcels on the seat by her side without 
 saying a word. Then he clattered away to the 
 luggage -van to see her boxes stowed; when he 
 came back, the guard was already unfurling his 
 green flag, and the parting was come. 
 
 Celia leaned at the window and gave him both
 
 36 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 her hands. She was sorry to leave him after all, 
 and in spite of herself a tear trickled. 
 
 " Goodbye, dear Mr. Poynter," she said, " and 
 thank you for being so kind to me and coming 
 to see me off and everything." 
 
 " God bless you, little Celia 1 " He stood back 
 from the carriage, and the train began to move 
 with a grinding and squealing of wheels on the 
 wet metals. 
 
 The Curate stood there, his shapeless felt hat 
 crushed in his bony hands, the rain falling un- 
 heeded on his bald head. \VJien only the tail 
 van was visible far away along the straight track 
 he passed out again into the station yard. 
 
 The omnibus was waiting for the down train, 
 so he strode away along the flat, straight road 
 to the village. On either side the dykes, poplar- 
 fringed, were sullen with brown rain-water, the 
 mud was plastered with fallen leaves. But as 
 he walked, head bent forward, hands thrust into 
 sagging pockets, he was recking nothing of the 
 dreary autumn day. He was thinking of Celia, 
 little Celia whom he had known as a tiny baby, 
 as a child, as a girl, Celia who wanted to be 
 wicked and knew not what she said. 
 
 For the first time the curate wondered if her 
 guardian's plan of education had been right 
 after all. Would it fit her for India and Mrs. 
 Lang? Then a shamed feeling of blasphemy 
 overcame him. He turned in at the lych-gate 
 and ploughed through the sodden grass to the
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 37 
 
 grave of his dead friend. Celia's draggled 
 wreath lay there. He bent down and pulled 
 away one of the defaced blossoms. 
 
 " It isn't robbing the dead," he said to himself 
 in answer to some wordless criticism as he 
 tucked the muddy petals inside a pocket-book. 
 "It is to remind me of both of them Celia and 
 the rector." 
 
 Then, bereft of both, he let himself into his 
 lodgings and sat in his gloomy sitting-room to 
 write his Sunday's sermon. 
 
 Meanwhile as the train sped towards London, 
 Celia examined her parcels. For literature there 
 was the Church Times, the parish magazine, and 
 the organ of the Gleaners' Union. For nutriment 
 there was a damp bag of gingernuts, some 
 oranges, and a pale slab of chocolate. She 
 examined them all with a smile half mocking, 
 half tender. Barrett had given her a packet of 
 sandwiches, and letting the sash down, she 
 scattered a shower of gingernuts to mingle with 
 the rain outside. She nibbled the chocolate and 
 opened the Church Times. Hitherto it had been 
 quite the most interesting of the reading matter 
 allowed to her; at any rate, it was modern, and 
 even the advertisements contained thrills of 
 interest. But to-day she was too restless, too 
 excited to plunge into its long columns, and she 
 cast it aside for the Church Magazine. The 
 body of this delectable literature was supplied 
 from London; the cover, bearing a picture of
 
 38 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 Fendyke Church, and the outside pages were 
 produced locally, and dealt with the times of 
 services, the amount of collections for the month, 
 and a list of churchwardens and sidesmen. The 
 rector's obituary, framed in black lines, leaped 
 out at her, but she did not want to read it again, 
 and she passed hastily to the unctuous sacred 
 poems of minor canons, the articles on bee- 
 keeping and the habits of ants described by the 
 pens of bishops the strange mixture of heavenly 
 and earthly pursuits that is fortunately found 
 nowhere but hi a church magazine. 
 
 An article on caterpillars and a poem of 
 resignation proved too much for Celia, and the 
 Church Magazine followed the gingernuts out 
 of the window. There remained the organ of 
 the Gleaners' Union, but she did not even look 
 at it. It lay dusty and trampled by her rapid 
 movements from window to window. 
 
 At Peterborough Celia darted to the bookstall, 
 and with a fearful joy perpetrated her first act 
 of wickedness. Snatching up a volume alluringly 
 bound in red and gold, she asked its price. Four 
 and sixpence seemed cheap for the deliberate 
 breaking of one^s first bond. Celia hastened 
 back to her compartment, and was soon deep in 
 the delights of the first novel she had ever 
 read.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IT was, perhaps, unfortunate for Celia Ferriby 
 that she was born in an hour when Environment 
 was spelt with a capital E, and Heredity with a 
 capital H . She came into the world at a time 
 when the most broad-minded people became 
 social Calvinists and predicted damnation for the 
 luckless children of sinful parents. Now, poor 
 Celia's parents were very sinful. Jack Ferriby 
 drank and gambled and never went to church, 
 and when, after various scandalous affairs, he 
 married, his choice fell on a chorus girl who 
 danced and sang at the Gaiety theatre. 
 
 She was not a nice girl, and Jack was by 
 no means the first of her admirers. In fact, she 
 had not one redeeming quality except her love 
 for Jack. Wjhen he appeared on the scene she 
 forgot what manner of woman she had been, and 
 made him forget it also. Whether her refor- 
 mation would have outlasted the first bloom of 
 love is uncertain. It was not tested ; Cissy 
 Ferriby died at the birth of her daughter, and 
 Jack Ferriby put a bullet through his brains. 
 
 Neither thought of the stranded baby. They 
 left it to the mercy of chance. Cissy had cut
 
 40 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 her family when she married, and Jack had few 
 relations in England. Of these the rector of 
 Fendyke was one, and he journeyed up from 
 his Lincolnshire village accompanied by his 
 housekeeper. He had never married, and he 
 knew nothing of babies except their evil manners 
 and customs when presented to him at the font. 
 But he saw only the workhouse, or, at best, a 
 godless home before Jack's baby, so he rescued 
 it with a side glance of dismay at the thought of 
 the wrecking of his peace. 
 
 Yet after all it was Barrett's peace which was 
 wrecked, for she took the baby and mothered it, 
 and was inclined to rebel at the rector's strict 
 rule of life arranged for Celia when she was still 
 in the cradle. 
 
 Religiously, the rector was not a Calvinist. 
 That would have been impossible in view of 
 the magnificent Norman church which domi- 
 nated the fenland. But he was saturated with the 
 doctrine of heredity and the fear of environ- 
 ment. Celia came of a bad stock ; her mother 
 had been unspeakable and her father a vicious 
 fool. There was but small chance that she could 
 escape damnation, but the rector set himself to 
 hedge her soul from the wiles of a ready devil. 
 
 It was an easy task in the fen village, for 
 there were no young people to instil the poison 
 of frivolity into Celia's open mind. The 
 Stukeleys at the Hall had no children, and the 
 curate was unmarried. The youngest person
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 41 
 
 with whom she came into daily contact was 
 Phoebe the housemaid, who read penny novelettes 
 and flirted with the gardener. 
 
 When Celia was five Barrett taught her to 
 read, and then came a succession of governesses 
 on whom the rector's system of education was 
 rigorously impressed. He had hesitated long 
 over the wisdom or unwisdom of teaching the 
 child Classics. Of course he knew that an 
 education without Greek was no education at 
 all ; and yet, how could he teach her Latin when 
 Catullus and his Lesbia lurked to put thoughts 
 of kisses into her head, or Greek when Homer 
 talked shamelessly of white-armed goddesses? 
 Classics, then, were banished from Celia's curri- 
 culum, but she learnt French (with a Lincoln- 
 shire accent), and German (with no accent at 
 all), from various exponents of the system. 
 
 The rector banished novels. When Celia was 
 still busy with " the fat cat on the mat " of her 
 first reading book he weeded his bookshelves of 
 the few stories they contained, and when, later, 
 the child wearied of her lesson books, the library 
 offered its rows of musty volumes on theology. 
 It was a great concession that she was allowed 
 to learn music : perhaps the rector had a thought 
 for the Sunday-school harmonium and the 
 Church organ when the organist took his holiday. 
 
 The rector watched daily for signs of 
 depravity, and was almost disappointed to find 
 none. Celia told the truth, came punctually to
 
 42 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 breakfast, and arranged the church flowers in 
 the stiff decorum required by ecclesiastical vases. 
 Certainly she gave no sign of interest in the 
 Early Fathers, and was lamentably ignorant of 
 Norman architecture, but she expounded the 
 story of Daniel in the lions' den on Sundays 
 to the lint -locked fen children, and on week- 
 days cut out numberless flannel petticoats for 
 their rheumatic mothers. 
 
 The rector had planned out the child's whole 
 life. When she was twenty-one he would tell 
 her something of her parents and the pit from 
 which she had been digged. He would warn 
 her of snares ; being feminine, she would not 
 understand all that he meant, but she must be 
 warned ; and then, when he died, the curate 
 would marry her and continue the sheltering 
 system . 
 
 When Celia was seventeen her guardian 
 viewed her with pride. He offered this soul, 
 snatched from destruction and endowed with 
 salvation by his own labour, for the approbation 
 of the Almighty.* " Such unpromising material," 
 he would meditate ; " and such a result, all 
 through a little care, a little thought." 
 
 And then an unforeseen thing occurred. His 
 health began to fail. A London specialist con- 
 firmed the local verdict : his life's tenure was to 
 be measured by months. Celia's future must 
 be settled at once. The rector sent for his 
 curate, and Mr. Poynter rose to the highest of
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 43 
 
 self-abnegation, for he refused to marry Celia, 
 offered to him as a sacred charge to complete 
 his friend's system. 
 
 " I love her," he said in a queer choked voice. 
 " And she would marry me if you told her to 
 do so, she is so accustomed to obedience. But 
 it is not fair to the child. She is young and 
 pretty and gay, and I am old and sober." He 
 passed his hands slowly over his bald head and 
 cast an involuntary glance into the ancient 
 gilt -framed mirror that hung over the study 
 mantelpiece. 
 
 The curate was quite wrong. Even Celia's 
 habit of obedience would have broken down if 
 she had been told to marry him. But the con- 
 viction of his self-sacrifice lay warm at Tris heart 
 all his life, and cheered many a grey day when 
 thoughts of failure shadowed him. And so it 
 was not wasted. 
 
 Since Celia's marriage to an unwilling swain 
 seemed impossible, there was only one hope left. 
 Jack Ferriby's cousin was an Indian civilian, 
 married, with one child ; he would perhaps take 
 charge of Celia for a year or two. The rector 
 read no modern novels, so he knew nothing of 
 the reproach of Anglo-India. Rather he pictured 
 Eve Lang as passing from zanana to zanana or 
 sitting in the shade of a palm-tree surrounded by 
 an absorbed group of neatly petticoated ladies 
 with coal-black complexions. His India was the 
 India of Little Henry and Mrs. Sherwood,
 
 44 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 flavoured by a dim recollection of Bishop 
 Heber. 
 
 When his death sentence was pronounced, the 
 rector wrote to Denis Lang. He did not linger 
 over the circumstance of Celia's birth, but he 
 gave a clear account of the system as though to 
 prove to her suggested guardian that danger 
 in adopting her no longer existed in view of 
 so excellent a training. 
 
 Denis Lang read the letter with a pang of 
 regret for Jack Ferriby, and a sudden recollec- 
 tion of his cousin's popularity in the football 
 field at school. The files on the crowded writing- 
 table melted away, and in place of the white- 
 washed office walls and a swaying punkah the 
 school playing-fields stretched grey beneath a 
 December sky. Jack Ferriby walked by his side 
 explaining with joyous eagerness that he had 
 been chosen to play in the team. He had 
 been gay, light-hearted, irresponsible always ; 
 and Denis, quieter, older, and a student, had yet 
 admired his cousin's strength and grace of body, 
 had been proud of his successes in the playing- 
 fields. 
 
 He smiled at the system, and felt a little 
 curious to see the result of its ponderous tedium. 
 But he could not adopt youthful daughters of 
 scapegrace cousins without first consulting Eve, 
 and after sundry misgivings he sent the rector's 
 letter to her with a brief explanation of the 
 case.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 CELIA'S voyage passed passed like a procession 
 of pictures that grew brighter in colour one by 
 one until the chill discomfort of the grim London 
 dock seemed like a dream to be forgotten at 
 the gorgeous dawn of Bombay painted on a 
 sparkling foreground of sea, a luminous back- 
 ground of gold and turquoise sky. The mail 
 that carried her up-country gave Tier kaleido- 
 scopic visions that shattered one into the other 
 amid the deafening rattle of an Indian train. 
 She hung, breathless with delight, at the window 
 without heed of the grime that overspread face 
 and hair and clothes. The black cloth coat and 
 skirt still served as a travelling dress ; but the 
 day was hot, so the coat swung from a peg and 
 the hideous black and white check flannel blouse 
 had nothing to hide its evil cut. On the black 
 skirt dust lay thick and brown. 
 
 But Celia recked nothing of dress as she hung 
 at the window and gazed at the endless plain. 
 She marked the unfamiliar combination of 
 initials painted on the trucks, the fortified 
 appearance of the heavily shuttered carriages 
 on the trains as they passed. Once she turned 
 
 45
 
 46 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 abruptly to her fellow-passenger, who reclined 
 on her green-leather couch propped by cushions. 
 
 " What does G. I. P. and O. R. R. mean? " 
 she asked eagerly. 
 
 " Oh, Indian railways," returned her com- 
 panion, lifting vague eyes from the paper - 
 covered novel she was reading. Celia faced 
 round and sat down to look at her. She was 
 almost as wonderful as a landscape which held 
 monkeys performing gymnastics on wire fencing, 
 and strings of camels, and elephants swaying 
 their huge bulk under trees. Although they 
 had left Bombay the evening before and had 
 slept in the train, Mrs. Cunningham had not 
 a hair, not a fold out of place. Her holland 
 frock, trimly belted with scarlet leather, re- 
 mained uncreased. Under her panama hat her 
 hair was netted firmly down in its appointed 
 curves. Neither hot, nor worried, nor dishev- 
 elled, she leaned back on her cushion with 
 an occasional glance of horror at begrimed 
 Celia. She had found the girl a distinct 
 nuisance during her morning toilet. The bath- 
 room was too small for the comfortable com- 
 pletion of her style of hairdressing, and propping 
 up a mirror, she had essayed the marvellous 
 erection sitting on the edge of her berth. 
 
 Celia gaped with wide-eyed interest at the 
 process. She watched Mrs. Cunningham insert 
 rolls and pads, pin on unexpected curls that 
 had spent the night in a dressing-bag, and cover
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 47 
 
 the whole confection with a spreading net. She 
 had never assisted at a woman's toilet before. 
 
 " I wonder if I shall ever learn to do my hair 
 like that," she had said. 
 
 Mrs. Cunningham had looked at the shining 
 masses that framed Celia's youthful freshness 
 of complexion and sighed for her own girlish 
 charms offered up long ago as a sacrifice to the 
 Indian climate. But she did not hasten to re- 
 assure Celia, most Anglo-Indian women dislike 
 girls with complexions, so she only returned her 
 interest by a cold gaze of critical scrutiny while 
 the hair was roped together and lumped up on 
 that exactly wrong spot chosen for it. 
 
 Their intimacy had proceeded no farther. 
 Her toilet once complete and her bedding rolled 
 into the unsightly, bulging sausage from which no 
 Anglo-Indian is ever parted, Mrs. Cunningham 
 had subsided among her cushions with a pile of 
 novels. She had selected an innocuous romance 
 for her fellow-traveller, but Celia had been much 
 too busy to read, and the book lay on the floor. 
 
 But now she felt she wanted companionship. 
 Her question about railway initials had not 
 gained her much satisfaction, so she returned to 
 the charge again. 
 
 " Couldn't you talk to me a bit? " she said. 
 " I do so want to hear about India and Eve and 
 everything. It's so difficult to start living all 
 different, and I wouldn't like Eve to be ashamed 
 of me the very first minute."
 
 48 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 Mrs. Cunningham's eyes softened a little. 
 She had really been quite a kind-hearted woman 
 before hot weathers had caused her to disapprove 
 of most womenkind and all menkind except 
 adoring subalterns or attentive majors. Her 
 particular craze was order. She was acutely 
 miserable if a stray hair escaped its netted 
 thraldom, played only the mildest of tennis 
 because she disliked getting hot and untidy, 
 and suffered the acutest discomfort in the hot 
 weather because she would not relax half an 
 inch of the rigour of her trim belts. Her health 
 suffered, of course, and so did her husband's 
 happiness, but she remained neat in all circum- 
 stances, and wrote interminable letters about her 
 daughter's corsets to a disquieted headmistress 
 who hailed from Girton and disapproved of waists . 
 
 To a woman of this type Celia's dishevelled 
 appearance was nothing less than criminal, and 
 there was no softness in her voice as she replied 
 to the girl's anxious questioning. 
 
 " First of all," she returned, " let me entreat 
 you to wash your hands and face, scrub them. 
 Then brush your skirt if you don't want Mrs. 
 Lang to disown you on the platform." 
 
 " But my clothes-brush is packed up," said 
 Celia doubtfully. 
 
 " You can take mine." An impatient jerk 
 guided Celia to a" smart dressing-bag. She 
 opened the catch carefully and gazed at the 
 lavish display of silver mountings.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 49 
 
 " What a lot of bottles and brushes and 
 things 1 " she said in an awestruck voice. " Do 
 you use them all? In Fendyke I had one comb 
 and a wooden-backed brush and a threepenny 
 bottle of vaseline for chapped hands, you 
 know." 
 
 Mrs. Cunningham laughed in spite of herself. 
 She was conscious of a little feminine pleasure 
 in the thought that Eve Lang was to be saddled 
 with this raw child, but she could not help feel- 
 ing sorry for Celia, whose education lay before 
 her, a thorny track of worries and astonishments. 
 
 " Never mind my powder puffs," she said, 
 more kindly than she had yet spoken. " Get 
 out that clothes-brush and clean up your skirt." 
 Celia extracted the brush and gazed in admira- 
 tion at the cherubs' heads that adorned it. Then 
 she applied it so vigorously that dust rose in 
 clouds, and Mrs. Cunningham regretted her 
 spasm of good-nature. When she had restored 
 a semblance of cleanliness she attacked her 
 companion again. 
 
 " I know you want to read," she said, " and I 
 am sure you must dislike travelling with girls, 
 but, after all, it is rather important that I should 
 begin right and that Eve should like me. Won't 
 you please explain life a little for me." 
 
 Mrs. Cunningham closed her book with an 
 
 impatient air. At Celia's age she had needed 
 
 no explaining of life, she had understood 
 
 everything, known everything with the sad 
 
 4
 
 50 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 omniscience of many an Anglo-Indian girl who 
 possesses no bloom of ignorance. The astonish- 
 ing innocence of this child was a new experience, 
 and she hated new experiences of a feminine 
 gender. But she could not withstand Celia's 
 appeal, and the mem-sahib's passion for giving 
 advice was, of course, strong within her. 
 
 " Well, you'd better forget first of all that you 
 possess a will of your own or a desire of your 
 own. Let Mrs. Lang do your hair and dress 
 you just as she likes, and never put yourself 
 forward or get in her way." 
 
 " But that will be just like Fendyke," inter- 
 jected Celia. 
 
 " Then, of course, you'll have dances and 
 dinners and badminton parties and subalterns 
 to tea in the Club. Subalterns are safe enough ; 
 I don't think Eve has the usual Anglo-Indian 
 Schwdrmerei for them." 
 
 This piece of scholarship did not impress 
 Celia, who had read everything in German that 
 did not mention kisses. 
 
 " And a lover," she put in ardently " don't 
 you think I shall have a lover? " Mrs. 
 Cunningham looked startled. In her set the word 
 had passed from its ancient high estate and no 
 longer sounded well on a girl's lips. 
 
 "I've no doubt you will get engaged if you 
 manage properly and follow Mrs. Lang's advice 
 in every way," she said a little stiffly. 
 
 "Oh, engaged," repeated Celia blankly.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 51 
 
 " That would be dull ; I could have got engaged 
 to the curate at home." She smiled a little at 
 the thought of her last sight of him his cold 
 blue knuckles tightening over his shapeless hat 
 as he waved goodbye to the train that bore 
 her from Fendyke. He and her guardian had 
 been the only men she had known, but she had 
 gathered something from stolen novelettes in the 
 time of her imprisonment and the books she 
 had devoured on board ship. " I don't want 
 just to be engaged," she went on. "I want 
 some one to love me passionately like they do 
 in books and crush my shrinking form to his 
 hungry heart." 
 
 Mrs. Cunningham stiffened all over ; she did 
 not recognise the style of the " Kitchen 
 Myosotis," and did not expect this indelicate 
 style of conversation from a girl newly come 
 from a country vicarage. 
 
 " Girls don't usually talk like that," she said 
 with forced mildness. 
 
 " Don't they? " Celia remained unimpressed. 
 " Other girls are different ; they meet people 
 and read and talk. I've been shut up all my 
 life and I've never had a chance. Don't you 
 understand how excited I am at the thought of 
 being free at last before I get too old and ugly 
 to care? I want to see everything and feel 
 everything, feel especially. Why, I've never felt 
 in my life, except bored or tired. I've never 
 felt love or hate or passion or any Interesting
 
 52 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 feelings like that, and I simply must learn what 
 it's all like. Oh, do say you understand." 
 
 She had left her seat and flung herself im- 
 petuously on Mrs. Cunningham, actually shaking 
 her in her excitement. Mrs. Cunningham looked 
 a little frightened. 
 
 " My dear, you really must not talk like that," 
 she said. " You will learn things quite soon 
 enough ; but you must marry first and let your 
 husband teach you." 
 
 " I certainly shan't marry for ages," said 
 Celia decidedly. " I want to have lots of lovers 
 first and men simply dying for me, then when 
 I'm sick of it I'll just marry and be solemn ever 
 after." 
 
 " You are an extremely foolish child," said 
 Mrs. Cunningham, now really severe. " Let me 
 warn you that if you said to Mrs, Lang a quarter 
 of the stuff you've talked to me to-day she 
 would simply refuse to have you in her house. 
 You would be packed off home at once." 
 
 " Do you mean to say I've got to bottle it all 
 up inside me and never tell Eve how I want to 
 fall passionately in love and all that? I'll simply 
 have to go on thinking about it ; but if you 
 really say I oughtn't to mention it well, I'm 
 sure you know best. I rather thought she 
 might help, but if you honestly think she'd be 
 angry " 
 
 " I'm certain of it," said Mrs. Cunningham, 
 fully convinced of a good deed in checking the
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 53 
 
 child's terrifying aspirations after unrighteous- 
 ness. "You will soon learn that girls don't 
 talk about passionate kisses and lovers in the 
 way you have been doing." 
 
 " I may learn not to talk, but I certainly 
 shan't learn not to think about them. How- 
 ever, it is very kind of you to tell me, and 
 I'll remember that Eve wouldn't like it. I think 
 I understand what you want me to be sort of 
 ' speak when I'm spoken to, come when I'm 
 called ' girl. That's what Barrett used to tell 
 me, but I did hope India would be different." 
 
 "So it will when you are a little older. And, 
 of course, Mrs. Lang will be tremendously kind 
 to you, so you must be a good girl." Mrs. 
 Cunningham dismissed the subject and began to 
 attend to her complexion. She warned Celia 
 that the train was due in ten minutes, setting 
 the child's heart beating with a mad excitement. 
 
 Presently they clattered through the ironwork 
 of a high hung bridge spanning a wide river that 
 washed a great red fort. The journey was over 
 and the train slid along a platform a century's 
 distance from Fendyke. 
 
 Celia's eager eyes scanned the brown, raucous 
 multitude seething past the windows. They 
 sought and found a tall and graceful woman 
 attended by a man with a tired, dark face. It 
 was the woman o'f the photograph she had loved 
 at first sight. Swarming coolies had leaped 
 upon the step and flung open the door. She
 
 54 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 pushed past the odorous crew and ploughed her 
 way towards her advancing cousins. 
 
 Eve, gazing inquiringly at the arrival, realised 
 that both of her forebodings had come true. 
 Celia was hopelessly dowdy, but she was also 
 hopelessly pretty. She clasped the girl's out- 
 stretched hands, smiling a little coldly, and 
 handed her on to Denis, who greeted her with a 
 ready warmth that comforted her vague dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 Eve was thanking Mrs. Cunningham for 
 taking care of her cousin, and she whispered a 
 hasty question. 
 
 "What is she like?" repeated the wearied 
 traveller. " You'll soon see. I'm simply 
 shattered." 
 
 Eve turned away disconsolately, prepared to 
 be shattered also.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 CELIA surveyed her first dinner-party. At one 
 end of the long table Eve's beautiful head was 
 bent towards the General, whose face showed 
 appreciation of her gay mood. At the other end 
 Denis struggled with his partner, who was always 
 so busy making other women remember she was 
 a General's wife that she had no time for any- 
 thing else. As a mere Captain's wife she had 
 been bright, and popular with everybody except 
 married subalterns. As a Colonel's wife she 
 had been only bearable ; as a General's consort 
 she was insufferable. It was unfortunate that 
 in appearance she was stout and motherly, con- 
 veying an impression of boundless good-nature 
 that had caused discomfiture to many a shy 
 stranger who had dared to approach her Olympic 
 solitude in the Club drawing-room. She sat 
 solitary because the supply of her peers was 
 so scanty ; imagine, then, her wrath when an 
 ignorant woman, newly come to the station, and 
 only in the Public .Works Department, cheerily 
 invited her to share her coffee-pot and toast - 
 dish. 
 
 Between the opposite poles of greatness sat
 
 56 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 two long lines of assorted guests. To Celia's 
 share had fallen a stray subaltern who detested 
 " flappers " and admired Ethel Cunningham. 
 Their conversation progressed heavily, but he 
 could not escape, for he had omitted to call on 
 the woman who sat at his other hand, and she 
 turned a resolute shoulder to his feeble attempts 
 at social intercourse. He had begun with polo, 
 but Celia had not even heard of it, and though 
 she showed a polite readiness to be instructed, 
 he plainly did not consider her worth the trouble. 
 The dinner was good, and he ate it thankfully, 
 knowing that dull people and bad dinners 
 usually go together, and that when there is no 
 food for the mind the body also is apt to go 
 hungry. 
 
 Presently he tried dancing as a topic, but Celia 
 said she could not dance, at which he brightened, 
 glad that Mrs. Lang could not exact payment 
 for her hospitality by causing him to help in the 
 filling of Miss Ferriby's programme. 
 
 Celia realised with disappointment that her 
 first masculine acquaintance was extremely dull. 
 He showed not the slightest sign of falling 
 passionately in love with her, and he was fat 
 and red-haired, two insuperable obstacles to 
 romance. So she stared at the other women and 
 listened to the snatches of conversation that 
 buzzed round her. She was astonished at Eve's 
 calm acceptation of her General. 
 
 " I should never dare to talk like that to
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 57 
 
 Generals," she said confidentially to Mr. Mac- 
 intyre, nodding in the direction of Eve, who was 
 telling a story of humorous import. The General 
 laughed as Eve's hands portrayed the final 
 despair of the climax. 
 
 " He admires Mrs. Lang tremendously," re- 
 turned the subaltern, glad to find a source of 
 common interest at last. 
 
 " But he married the fat red woman by Cousin 
 Denis," said Celia. 
 
 " She made him." Mr. Macintyre's tone was 
 vindictive. '* She makes every one do just exactly 
 what they don't want. She even sends for me 
 to make up a four at tennis on polo days mixed 
 tennis, too." 
 
 Celia realised that this crime, in some mys- 
 terious way, was enormous. She looked at the 
 subaltern with a dawning interest as some one 
 who might help her to understand India. 
 
 " Is polo the wonderfullest thing in the 
 world? " she questioned. Mr. Macintyre sus- 
 pected sarcasm, but a glance at Celia's unclouded 
 child's eyes reassured him. 
 
 " .What do you like doing best of anything 
 in the world? " 
 
 Celia plunged into deep meditation, then came 
 to the surface again with serious brows. 
 
 " I don't know yet," she replied. " I have 
 never done anything nice in all my life until 
 three weeks ago, so I haven't tried things. 
 Riding will be jolly, and reading novels I like,
 
 58 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 and tennis will be nice when Eve has time to 
 teach me. But I really think I shall enjoy falling 
 in love best of all." 
 
 Mr. Macintyre started violently. He enjoyed 
 improper conversation as much as any one whose 
 literary tastes are guided and formed by picture 
 papers and novels of a vivid prurience. But, 
 like Mrs. Cunningham, he was shocked to hear 
 this callow child talk in so unveiled a manner. 
 She did not mean to be funny, he decided, after 
 a glance at her earnest face, and she certainly 
 did not intend her remark as an invitation for 
 him to begin to make love at once. It was pure 
 ignorance, he concluded, and began to feel that 
 there was sport for him after all. He was framing 
 a question that should sound artless and convey 
 volumes, when Celia's face clouded in obvious 
 vexation. 
 
 '- There ! " she exclaimed. "I've been talking 
 about it again, and I promised Mrs. Cunningham 
 I wouldn't." 
 
 "Wouldn't what?" 
 
 " Wouldn't talk to Eve about wanting to fall 
 in love. And now I've gone and done it to you, 
 and I expect she'd say that was worse." 
 
 " I expect she might," agreed Macintyre. 
 " But do you mean to say Mrs. Cunningham 
 lectured you on your topics of conversation? 
 Lord I how rich." 
 
 " Why shouldn't she? She knows better than 
 I do what girls don't talk about."
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 59 
 
 44 Probably she does ; but, look here, don't 
 you mind what she said; talk to me as much 
 as you like, I won't tell." 
 
 Celia looked inquiry which merged into dis- 
 taste. It was obviously time wasted to discuss 
 love with a young man whose face was fat and 
 whose hair was red. To her relief and to 
 the ingenuous Macintyre's disappointment, Eve 
 smiled a message down the table to the General's 
 wife, and the ladies rose fluttering towards the 
 door. In the drawing-room she was joined by 
 the only other girl of the party. The two had 
 been introduced before dinner with injunctions 
 from Eve to make friends. 
 
 The elder girl surveyed her; she was not 
 at all inclined to dislike Miss Ferriby because 
 she was badly dressed. Dorothea Philpot's 
 serious business in life was to marry a civilian 
 and flirt with soldiers ever after; she distrusted 
 and disliked new girls likely to claim admiration 
 and diminish her own chance of marrying a 
 pension, but Celia did not look dangerous. 
 
 " iWho did you get? " she inquired, motioning 
 Celia to a chair at her side. " The flowers hid 
 your partner." 
 
 " A fat boy, red-haired," returned Celia 
 briefly, 
 
 "Mr. Macintyre; Indian army, not much 
 catch, puts on side for nothing. I had Mr. 
 Hemingway, frightfully dull and stodgy like all 
 civilians. It is a nuisance to be poor."
 
 60 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 "Yes; isn't it? But what has that to do 
 with civilians? " 
 
 " Because if you're poor you have to marry 
 one, and they're so appallingly dull. You can't 
 marry a soldier unless he or you have private 
 means, and soldiers with private means always 
 seem to be snapped up by pretty widows. A 
 girl never has the ghost of a chance." 
 
 This was a new light on India. Girls did not 
 talk of love-making, but evidently they might 
 discuss marriage, a topic which was over Celia's 
 horizon. Meantime the General's wife oppressed 
 Eve. 
 
 " I thoroughly approve of Mrs. Larkin," she 
 domineered. " She is a sweet woman, you never 
 hear a word of gossip fall from her lips." 
 
 " She prides herself on that," admitted Eve. 
 " I know she doesn't subtract from her friends' 
 characters, but she does a far more evil thing, 
 she adds to the size of their waists. I hate a 
 woman who won't gossip healthily but will say 
 in a hushed whisper that Mrs. Lang is really 
 getting fat. It's a monomania with her because 
 she is so scraggy (she calls it ' slim ' herself), 
 and I wish she would drop it and take to the 
 kind of gossip which is quite good enough for 
 the ordinary woman. I'd much rather be accused 
 of a lover than of an extra inch in my corsets." 
 
 Mrs. Limousin had forgotten all the inglorious 
 past when other women were Generals' wives, 
 and she was unimportant enough to dare flirta-
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 61 
 
 tions ; she considered the mention of corsets even 
 more indecorous, and decided silently that this 
 came of dining with civilians, who could not be 
 expected to realise the respect due to her. Of 
 course Archibald insisted on coming ; he never 
 had a previous engagement when a pretty woman 
 wrote a dinner invitation, and he was strangely 
 prone to forget the rank she upheld so vigorously. 
 
 Celia forgot Miss Philpot for the moment, 
 and listened to Eve, trying to understand the 
 new ideas that crowded in upon her impression- 
 able mind. But Mrs. Limousin looked meaningly 
 towards her with a gesture pregnant of remarks 
 concerning little pitchers. Eve turned the con- 
 versation, and they talked peacea,bly of the price 
 of mutton, which is several annas dearer to 
 the General's wife than to a humble civilian. 
 Although she loved money, Mrs. Limousin prided 
 herself on the enhanced price her state forced 
 her to pay, and lost no opportunity of discussing 
 her cook's account in public. 
 
 The men came in and Miss Philpot, for once 
 evading duty and the civilian bearing down on 
 her, escaped into a corner with Mr. Macintyre. 
 The disappointed civilian turned his choice to 
 Celia, and talked to her solidly about a new 
 Irrigation Bill. Celia's blue eyes apparently ex- 
 pressed enthralled interest. He had never found 
 so good a listener, and would have been horrified 
 to learn that Celia had not the faintest con- 
 ception of the meaning of irrigation, and her
 
 62 THE .UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 rapt air was due to fanciful flights over the 
 days to come, not to any present interest in 
 civilian conversation. 
 
 The after-dinner ordeal was not long; there 
 was no music, and Archibald was seen to be 
 hovering near Mrs. Tinsley, whose prettiness 
 could not atone for the fact that her husband 
 was only in the police. Mrs. Limousin, there- 
 fore, rose earlier than she intended and bore 
 her General a: way from temptation. 
 
 When the last guest was gone and Eve stood 
 rather wearily in front of the fire, Denis came 
 in from the veranda to say good-night to his 
 guest. 
 
 " How did you get on? " he asked. " I'm 
 sorry we didn't raise any one better for you 
 than Macintyre, but I got him at the last moment, 
 and I didn't quite know whom to choose for 
 you. I haven't had time to decide what kind 
 of a young lady you are going to turn out not 
 a Dolly Philpot, I hope? " 
 
 " Isn't Miss Philpot nice? " inquired Celia 
 anxiously. " I rather thought I might copy the 
 way she does her hair." 
 
 " I know nothing about her hair. Don't copy 
 her manners, that's all." 
 
 Celia turned to Eve. 
 
 "What do you think about her?" 
 
 41 1 think it is time to go to bed, and wait 
 for to-morrow for any lessons in deportment 
 and hairdressing you may crave." Eve's charm-
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEEKSMAN 63 
 
 ing smile lighted her face and put to flight 
 Celia's recurring suspicion that she was not quite 
 welcome in her cousin's house. The second day 
 of her Indian life was spent ; she meant to stay 
 awake to think it all over, but her youthful 
 weariness conquered, and she was soon asleep 
 and dreaming of the coming lovers.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE morning after the dinner-party Eve and 
 her new cousin sat in conclave in Eve's 
 dressing-room. Celia's openly humble phase of 
 adoration provided a little balm for her cousin's 
 irritable spirit. 
 
 " You must tell me everything, and I'll try 
 my best to be what you want. I might even 
 grow like you in time," she remarked with 
 flattering hopefulness. 
 
 Eve was gazing at her companion's head, and 
 with a sudden movement she swept her to the 
 chair in front of her dressing-table. 
 
 " I can't evolve new frocks in five minutes, 
 but I might improve your Lincolnshire style of 
 hair-dressing," she said, her quick fingers busy 
 with the black skewers Celia called her hair- 
 pins. The soft flix and floss was soon about 
 her shoulders, and between the golden mesh 
 anxious blue eyes peered at the reflection in the 
 looking-glass. Neither spoke as Eve manipu- 
 lated the strands, pinching, puffing, pinning in 
 unexpected places. At last, with a final dive 
 into her own hairpin box, Eve gave her hand- 
 glass into Celia's eager grasp and watched the
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 65 
 
 child's face as she peered this way and that, 
 holding her chin at impossible angles and cran- 
 ing her neck to realise all effects. At last she 
 put the glass down with a sigh of delight. 
 
 " I've got a shape to my head now ; you are 
 clever, cousin Eve." 
 
 " It isn't so lumpy as it was, certainly," said 
 Eve with a critical eye. "The next thing is 
 to see about giving you a shape to your body 
 before you clothe it with decent garments. As 
 for your mind, I'm afraid I can't be responsible 
 for that." 
 
 " It's just as lumpy as my hair, I'm afraid," 
 returned Celia gloomily. " It has been fed so 
 badly. But I'll do some serious reading, French 
 and things, every morning if you like." 
 
 Eve looked a little frightened at the thought 
 of directing serious reading for a youthful mind, 
 and she made a hasty suggestion that Denis 
 should be consulted after dinner. 
 
 " Cousin Denis works dreadfully hard, doesn't 
 he?" went on Celia. " Does he ever let you 
 help? " 
 
 " Never ; I don't know anything about his 
 work." 
 
 " I helped my guardian a lot," said Celia 
 importantly. " I am awfully clever at cutting 
 out flannel petticoats. I could make one for 
 Dicky any time you liked, with scalloped edges 
 too." 
 
 " I don't think I will bother you just yet, 
 5
 
 66 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 You must just enjoy yourself. But this morning 
 I am going to Government House to call, so 
 please be ready at twelve o'clock." 
 
 Soon after the midday gun had boomed from 
 the artillery lines Eve's walers trotted swiftly 
 across the park and past the native guard at the 
 twisted iron gates of Government House. Then 
 they slackened into the steady stream of carts 
 and carriages bearing the station to its first duty 
 call for the season on the Lieutenant-Governor's 
 wife. Under the portico Celia watched Eve 
 extract her cards from a silver case and put 
 them on a tray held by a chaprassi gorgeously 
 apparelled in scarlet and gold. The cards pre- 
 ceded them up the steps and were delivered into 
 the hands of the most beautiful personage she 
 had ever seen. 
 
 The perfect A.D.C. is not often found. Sir 
 George Kendall, with his usual talent, had dis- 
 covered one to pick up Lady Kendall's pocket- 
 handkerchief and arrange the flowers for the 
 dinner-table. Captain Riplingham picked up 
 handkerchiefs better than any other A.D.C. 
 Gazing raptly at the fallen morsel of lace and 
 muslin, he would bend deferentially towards it, 
 touch it as one fingering a sacred relic, and 
 restore it to Lady Kendall with a sacramental 
 air. His other claim to perfection was his wel- 
 coming smile, which could outlast the hot 
 minutes from twelve to two on a Monday morn- 
 ing, when Lady Kendall received and Sir George
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 67 
 
 fled with his secretary to the innermost shrine. 
 Truly his method was perfection. Raising 
 the cards from the tray tendered by the 
 uppermost of the string of chaprassis that 
 extended from the carriage door to the top step, 
 Captain Riplingham always read the names with 
 the surprised delight of one upon whom too 
 much joy is suddenly showered. Looking down 
 upon the advancing face that belonged to the 
 card, his radiant smile showed the caller that she 
 was the one woman for whom he waited. Clasp- 
 ing her hand and edging her swiftly through the 
 entrance hall, with his beautiful curls bent 
 towards her hat, he murmured intense assur- 
 ances of his pleasure in her coming, until they 
 were actually in the presence, and he had 
 delivered his charge to Lady Kendall. Then he 
 glided back with all speed to repeat his tireless 
 smile . 
 
 Celia, coming up the steps behind Eve, was 
 caught in the glamour of it, for her cousin turned 
 aside suddenly to greet a fellow-caller. She 
 smiled back at the beautiful man in his beautiful 
 uniform, and blushed with the tender pink that 
 proclaimed her lately come from England. Miss 
 Celia Ferriby's name, written in pencil under 
 Eve's, told him nothing, but he had time to 
 catch an indifferent murmur of "a young cousin 
 of my husband's." 
 
 Celia thought the long journey up the state 
 drawing-room would never end. At last, between
 
 68 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 the lines of brocade sofas and stiff chairs, she 
 found herself stopped in front of a merry-faced 
 little old lady with silvery hair. She had but 
 stammered a word when Eve's hand at her elbow 
 moved her firmly and deposited her on a vacant 
 sofa. There she sat and stared at the room. 
 The walls were dark with heavy oil paintings 
 of long dead Governors and rajahs. From the 
 ceiling hung enormous glass chandeliers with 
 lustres like those which had still decorated 
 certain of the rectory mantelpieces. The pre- 
 vailing tone of the room was pale ginger, but 
 there was something imposing, after all, in its 
 proportions, and even Celia's ignorance realised 
 the costliness of the yellow brocaded furniture. 
 A subdued hum filled the room. Captain 
 Riplingham conveyed a new party between the 
 lines of chairs, and presented them, like a costly 
 offering, to Lady Kendall, from whom they 
 dropped aside, right and left, after a moment's 
 conversation, to give place to the next comers. 
 Five swift moments passed and Celia was again 
 before the presence, this time clasping its 
 diamond rings in a too hurried farewell. It was 
 not thus that visits were paid in the Fens, but 
 Eve knew best of course, and the girl soon found 
 herself in the entrance-hall where the sacred 
 books lay open on tables, and Eve spoiled her 
 gloves during the careful inscribing of their 
 names. The two streams met here ; the anxious 
 faces of those entering looked up at those who
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 69 
 
 had been presented and lingered idly now at the 
 top of the great flight of steps that gave on 
 to the portico. 
 
 Eve turned to greet her friends, and Celia, 
 left to her own devices, fell to gazing at Captain 
 Riplingham, till a divine moment came when he 
 returned to the hall and found no carriage under 
 the portico, his office for one moment vacant. 
 He looked away from the smiles eager to attract 
 his, and stood at Celia's side. The most modest 
 soul could not have mistaken the import of the 
 child's gaze. Admiration sat in her shining eyes 
 and excitement summoned the flush that recalled 
 an English springtide : Captain Riplingham 
 knew his own value, but he had never seen it 
 so openly estimated as this. As a rule he dis- 
 liked girls, the Anglo -Indian variety who were 
 a care to him at Government House balls and 
 possessed the knowledge of married women 
 curiously linked with the crudity of youth. 
 
 He looked down now into the uplifted blue 
 eyes and infused a sudden tenderness into his 
 smile . 
 
 " You have just come out, haven't you? " The 
 commonplace words came with an eager lilt that 
 impressed her callowness. "And how are you 
 going to like India? " 
 
 Last night, or even early this morning, Celia 
 had not been certain. She had breathed a tiny 
 sigh at the thought of the rectory boiled eggs 
 and marmalade when noiseless khitmatgars
 
 70 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 poked successive unknown dishes round her left 
 arm. She had shrunk a little from the jingling 
 ayah who had insisted on putting her stockings 
 on for her, after presenting her with a boiling- 
 hot bath instead of the cold water she had vainly 
 asked. 
 
 But now a sudden interest held her, and her 
 tone was fervent as she replied with eyes and 
 voice . 
 
 "I'm going to like it most awfully," she said. 
 " People look so nice, and I'm sure they will 
 be kind." 
 
 " People always are," said the A.D.C. menda- 
 ciously" at any rate, to the latest damsel 
 out from home. You must tell me next time 
 we meet." A fresh carriage swept up and 
 Captain Riplingham posed once more at the top 
 of the steps. 
 
 Celia drove away with his words ringing in 
 her foolish ears ; they were to meet again, and 
 when they met he would talk to her. Eve's 
 silence allowed a lengthened reverie, and the 
 child's vain imaginings ran far afield as they 
 busied themselves with hunting the future. 
 
 As a matter of fact the chase was bound 
 to prove unsatisfying. An A.D.C. lives and 
 moves in the white light that beats about ;the 
 drawing-rooms of Government House. The 
 smiles of the perfect A.D.C. must be care- 
 fully distributed. Though he may lavish his 
 more fervid efforts on the wives of Chief Secre-
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 71 
 
 taries or High Court Judges, his only business 
 with girls is to see their programmes are full 
 when His Honour gives a ball. And if they 
 be attractive they need no attention of this kind. 
 
 No girl, therefore, should fall in love with 
 an A.D.C., however beautiful his uniform, 
 however winning his smile. It is time wasted. 
 He cannot sit with her in the farther corner of 
 the club veranda where the electric light has 
 not yet penetrated and the chaperones find the 
 elderly wicker chairs uncomfortable. At garden 
 parties he must hover near His Honour and 
 His Honour's consort. 
 
 He is, in fact, a slave with beautifully gilded 
 chains. But Gelia was ignorant, and she did 
 not know all this. In the stories of the " Kitchen 
 Myosotis " girls had it all their own way ; the 
 final defeat of the married and designing 
 villainess with scarlet lips and flashing eyes 
 invariably came at the hands of the unsophisti- 
 cated maiden. The thought comforted her later 
 when at times she realised her inferiority to the 
 married women round her when she crept into 
 a room feeling obscured by Eve's compelling 
 personality, found herself tongue-tied while Eve's 
 golden voice lent a charm to the merest idleness 
 of conversation . Celia's temperament was hopeful, 
 and she possessed a dogged tenacity beneath 
 her yielding exterior of pink and white. She 
 bided her time while her childish blue eyes 
 probed and balanced the issues of the daily
 
 72 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 events of her new life. Even Mrs. Lang's 
 indifferent composure would have been stirred 
 had she realised the absorbed interest that her 
 cousin took in her affair with Captain Staniforth. 
 The child seemed so unformed, so crudely 
 ignorant, so incapable of taking in the subtle 
 meaning of their friendship. Eve could not 
 understand that the vicar's system of education 
 had trained her little cousin's mind hopelessly 
 awry. 
 
 A woman's dominating principle is sentiment. 
 The warm fountain gushes spontaneously from 
 her heart ; properly directed the waters flow 
 into appointed channels, and flowers of wifely 
 affection, sympathy, maternal instinct spring up. 
 Choke the spring of natural sentiment and the 
 waters turn sour and the suffragette is born, 
 or they overflow and doctors diagnose neurotic 
 tendencies . 
 
 Celia's abundant sentiment had been checked 
 from babyhood ; she had not even been allowed 
 a puppy to caress. All unconsciously the vicar 
 had played into the hands of the devil he meant 
 to checkmate. Instead of passing harmlessly, 
 away in girlish friendships, instead of being 
 lavished, foolishly enough but safely, on pets 
 and babies, Celia's sentiment grew silently into 
 an obsession , 
 
 The old man could lock many "doors, but if 
 he had read fairy tales he would have known 
 that the highest tower, the strongest prison, is
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 73 
 
 not proof against the evil fairy's curse. Also he 
 trusted in God, and he had never read " The 
 Blot on the 'Scutcheon." Thus life conspired 
 against Celia, gave her the ill -printed pages of 
 the " Kitchen Myosotis " to guide her un- 
 mothered steps, and brought her to an environ- 
 ment in which the woman she admired rejoiced 
 openly in the attentions of a man who was not 
 her husband.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 To fall in love with an A.D.C. is usually hope- 
 less, but sometimes it happens that he comes 
 down from his pedestal, and, returning to his 
 regiment, is once more on a level with common 
 men. This happened to Captain Riplingham. 
 
 Not many days after Celia's arrival there came 
 a great crisis in Indian politics. Labour 
 Members at home, who knew nothing even of 
 England except their little back street in Hoxton, 
 attempted to meddle with the destiny of a million 
 brown brothers of theirs, scratching with their 
 primitive ploughs the surface of a strange 
 country across the sea. The Labour Members 
 were insistent on the term " brother," ignorant 
 of the fact that the brown men would have 
 refused to break bread with them, would have 
 seen pollution in their very shadow fallen 
 unwittingly across a prepared meal. 
 
 Sir George Kendall had given his life to India. 
 He had slaved through famine districts and 
 plague -infected areas, he had learnt as much 
 about the brown brother as a patient genius with 
 an infinite capacity for overwork can attain in one 
 strenuous lifetime. Then the Labour Members,
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 75 
 
 weary for a moment of heckling their white 
 brothers at home, turned to help Sir George 
 Kendall to administer his province. 
 
 They made as much noise over this as they 
 had made in London over subjects they under- 
 stood as little. They were helped by a few men 
 of a different calibre, but quite as dangerous, 
 for they had held office in India and retired, 
 imagining themselves insufficiently rewarded for 
 their services, to wreak spite against more 
 fortunate colleagues. 
 
 The cables began to bring heated messages. 
 Sir George Kendall went calmly on his path. 
 His authority was questioned, undermined, 
 broken. Lady Kendall saw her state threatened, 
 and pictured retirement to West Kensington 
 without her A.D.C., but she had not been an 
 Indian civilian's wife for nothing, and she was 
 a brave woman . When the final cable announced 
 the acceptance of her husband's resignation she 
 faced it unbroken and bade an unfaltering fare- 
 well to the ginger -coloured state drawing-room. 
 
 White and brown brothers thronged the rail- 
 way station to say goodbye, white clad in the 
 frock-coats of ceremony, brown in wonderful 
 brocades and aigretted turbans stiff with 
 emeralds and rubies. The white women sat in 
 rows on a red-carpeted dais built along the 
 station platform ; their brown sisters sat at home 
 behind the parda lest by chance they might risk 
 the contamination of a male gaze.
 
 76 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 The echoing whitewashed station was bright 
 with strings of flags and red carpet. Amid the 
 seething throng of salaaming Indians and 
 Englishmen who were stiff with repression of 
 their true regret, Captain Riplingham stood 
 deferentially bearing Lady Kendall's little silk 
 bag, from which he extracted smelling salts and 
 handkerchiefs as the occasion demanded. 
 
 When the last farewell was said, the last 
 salaam acknowledged, and the special train 
 began to glide past the platform, Celia's eyes 
 were fixed on the saloon set apart for the 
 A.D.C. and the private secretary, journeying 
 to Bombay to prolong the Kendalls' state for 
 two poor days more. When he came back, he 
 would be a free man again, and they two could 
 ride and drive together like Eve and Captain 
 Staniforth.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 CAPTAIN RIPLINGHAM journeyed back from 
 Bombay, and his smile, unfettered at last, warmed 
 Celia's waiting heart into a glow. He suddenly 
 found himself weary of married women ; he 
 had so long been heavily oppressed by the 
 pomp and state of the ginger -coloured drawing- 
 room that he turned joyously to the new 
 experience of an infantile, dewy, pink-and-white 
 girl ready to topple head over ears in love 
 with him. 
 
 On his behalf it may be said that he did not 
 understand what he was doing. No man, one 
 must think, can fully realise the whiteness of a 
 girl's mind, the unsullied ignorance she brings to 
 face the world. If he could but realise the 
 complete blank that exists, he would shrink from 
 being the first to scrawl on it the ugly words 
 and sentences of his own imaginings. 
 
 'There is argument at times on the amount of 
 sexual knowledge a mother should teach her girl . 
 She might leave the white mind white if only 
 a man could understand its whiteness. But he 
 is beyond its realisation for two reasons : his 
 
 77
 
 78 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 own mind has been smirched so long that white- 
 ness does not occur to him as a possibility, and 
 the woman who might explain things to him, 
 looking back half in surprise, half in pity, wholly 
 regretful at her strange ignorance before he took 
 her in hand, keeps silence. 
 
 The point of this little disquisition is not that 
 any special virtue is claimed for the girl's white 
 mind, nor that the man is to be blamed when 
 his shadow has passed over it ; but simply that 
 no man believes in the intact purity he cannot 
 understand. 
 
 Celia was foolish, vain, and self -centred, but 
 her ignorance of life was incredibly complete. 
 Passion was a mysterious power that fell upon 
 a man and made him adore a woman ; it would 
 be " fun " to be adored, so Celia intended to 
 awake passion. She even knew a little how it 
 was to be done, her very touch was to make a 
 strong man tremble. 
 
 Pure idleness of thought drew Celia to Captain 
 Riplingham at first, but soon a heavier shackle 
 was wrought . She discovered that she was 
 musical. At home she had hated choir practices 
 and the harmonium, and though she sang about 
 the house when the vicar was out and the air 
 clear of sermons, she had known nothing to sing 
 except hymns and chants, and possessing no 
 devout spirit, the words and tunes had looked 
 colourless to her. 
 
 Then in Eve's lamplit drawing-room Captain
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 79 
 
 Riplingham sang a foolish little song about a 
 woman's eyes, and the passion in his voice woke 
 something in Celia so that she listened with all 
 the young soul in her out at doors. The plead- 
 ing passion in the notes seemed to beseech her, 
 to drag her heart against its will. It almost 
 dragged her body, and she found herself longing 
 to go nearer the piano where the singer swayed 
 with the insistence of his passionate devotion 
 to a pair of sad grey eyes. When the song was 
 over his gaze, directed somewhere towards the 
 ceiling cloth, came back to Celia's level, and 
 he saw that he had harped the soul out of 
 her. 
 
 Henceforth she knew music as a lure, and 
 the man's practised eye saw that by his voice 
 he could command her anything. The most 
 foolish drawing-room song was the music of 
 Venus berg to her ; and he loved to work upon 
 her harpstrung nerves and make her his for the 
 five -minute space his ballads took in singing. 
 
 Eve encouraged his visits by Captain Stani- 
 f orth's advice . 
 
 " You see," said the warrior ardently, " I can't 
 spare you. You mustn't waste your beautiful 
 self looking after a little country girl. She's raw, 
 too raw for anything yet. Riplingham seems to 
 have taken a fancy for bread and butter ; let 
 him have his fancy. He will tone your cousin 
 down in no time, teach her no end, and he's 
 a good sort, you know."
 
 80 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 It was in Eve's nature to take a man's advice, 
 to believe that he knew better than a woman 
 on every conceivable subject, and as in this case 
 the advice marched with her own inclination, she 
 bowed to his wisdom. 
 
 " He isn't a marrying man, of course, which 
 is a good thing," she returned. " Celia must 
 marry some one quite old and sedate, like Denis. 
 I don't think she'll ever grow up ; she is too 
 delicious sometimes." And forthwith she told 
 him one or two stories of Celia's infantile speech 
 and behaviour, stories which had a strange 
 effect on her listener, who felt a sudden desire 
 to gather a few such gems of innocence at first 
 hand. When the child appeared a moment later 
 in the drawing-room, fresh and shy, he realised 
 that his first distaste for her was gone. Rip- 
 lingham was a man of sense and discrimina- 
 tion ; his unexpected fancy for bread and butter 
 showed that something might be said for its 
 flavour. 
 
 The dawning interest suffered eclipse when 
 Celia found herself too shy to frame an excuse 
 for leaving the drawing-room, and even too shy 
 to talk, so that she sat wide-eyed, staring uncom- 
 fortably at the interesting couple who sat rather 
 near together on the sofa. She damped the 
 atmosphere so completely that Staniforth rose to 
 go an hour before his intention, and once more 
 Eve lamented the fate that had sent a half- 
 fledged girl into her house. She could say
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 81 
 
 nothing, of course, and the burden must be 
 borne, but she resolved to let Captain Riplingham 
 enjoy the mawkish taste of his bread and butter 
 just as much as he liked.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 WITH but little contrivance people can meet very 
 often in an Indian station. There is the early 
 morning ride, when any girl may be free from 
 a chaperon ; there is the afternoon tennis at 
 the Gymkhana, or the garden party, where with- 
 out reproach a man may convey tea and ices 
 to little tables discreetly set apart under the 
 trees. There are the weekly dances and the 
 innumerable dinner-parties at which a kindly 
 hostess may send the right couples in together. 
 And these are only the casual, uncontrived 
 opportunities. Eve and Captain Staniforth were 
 ingenious enough to discover other methods of 
 passing the hours together, and presently they 
 found that the existence of Celia, when palliated 
 by the co-existence of Riplingham, was actually 
 in their favour. 
 
 The two men arranged a day on the river. 
 In the divine freshness of a cold-weather morn- 
 ing they ploughed across the sands to where 
 the river flowed in its shrunken channel. The 
 boat was of barge-like construction with a roof 
 of thatch, stretched awning-wise to fend the rays
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 83 
 
 of the sun. Celia stepped cautiously up the 
 rickety plank which served as gangway. Then 
 she exclaimed with joy, for the deck was 
 carpeted and lounge chairs invited to restful 
 ease. At one end the shikari opened gun-cases 
 and arranged cartridges ; in the well-like spaces 
 fore and aft of the deck the boatmen baled with 
 fine tortoise shells. From the top of the mast a 
 spider web of ropes, each with a human fly 
 clinging to it on the bank, resolved itself 
 into tow-lines, and the clumsy barge began to 
 move up-stream, while the little brown flies 
 clambered along the uneven river bank. 
 
 Eve and Celia lay back in their deck-chairs, 
 each perfectly happy in her own way. Although 
 her lack of introspection kept her from realising 
 it Eve was curiously swayed by her environment. 
 The slow, gliding motion ; the monotonous 
 outlook of blue sky, dun banks, and yellow 
 crops ; the unspoken knowledge that for a long 
 day she was free from restraint of mind and 
 body all induced in her a calmness of enjoy- 
 ment, allayed the inward restlessness that was 
 apt to spoil her life. 
 
 Celia at her side was radiant. For a long 
 day Riplingham was hers without the dread of 
 beckoning married women to interrupt her 
 enjoyment. She had not yet reached that stage 
 when the mere presence of others was irksome ; 
 she did not yet crave to be alone with the man 
 she had decided to love. The stages of a girl's
 
 84 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 incipient love affair are easily traced. First, she 
 wonders lightly if he will be present at the 
 dinner or the dance she goes to that night. 
 While she is even yet shaking hands with her 
 hostess, her ingenuous eye wanders round the 
 room seeking for the face which has begun to 
 interest her. His presence, though it be re- 
 moved by irritating banks of flowers, renders 
 a dull dinner bright, and the few commonplace 
 words exchanged in the hearing of half a dozen 
 other women redeem the conversational desert 
 with the glimpse of an oasis. Presently the 
 world is lost if she cannot sit beside him half 
 the evening. Any one may listen to what they 
 say to one another ; but she must be within 
 reach of his eye and voice. Then he kisses 
 her ; and while he knows he has gone too far 
 and repents him of sudden madness, she 
 wonders when he is going to kiss her again, 
 and craves for the necessary solitude which 
 seems so long in coming, Now at last the 
 presence of men and women irk her* No longer 
 joy enough to catch sight of him across a tennis- 
 court ; it is positive pain to watch him irre- 
 coverably caught in the toils of another woman's 
 tea-party. 
 
 A girl is so helpless without the freedom, the 
 knowledge of a married woman to aid her in 
 tracking her prey. The wise girl knows this, 
 and if her mother prove useless she will attach 
 herself to the nearest married woman who
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 85 
 
 possesses a kindly heart and the desire to give 
 select tea-parties. 
 
 Celia's untouched lips did not, as yet, long for 
 kisses, her untouched mind did not realise 
 the charm of solitude companioned by the one 
 man. So she sat in the boat smiling in- 
 discriminately at Eve and the two men and the 
 half -naked chocolate -hued beings who swarmed 
 round the clumsy tiller. 
 
 The towed barge towed in its turn a duck 
 punt in which a squatted cook balanced a 
 brazier. Over the little pan of charcoal which 
 served him as oven he cooked a wonderful 
 meal, and a khitmatgar swarming up the bulging 
 stern produced a camp table and a tiffin basket 
 which held the luxurious necessities of an Indian 
 picnic. 
 
 Thus they feasted as they slid between the 
 Ganges sandbanks, laced with the skulls and 
 bones of Hindu burnings, while here and there 
 a shadow of darker dun upon the dun bank 
 showed a basking crocodile that called for slay- 
 ing. The shikari, scornful of their slackness, 
 continually pointed an eager finger at the 
 ominous shadows and disturbed the meal by 
 offering a loaded rifle. The shooting was good, 
 and when finally a wedge-shaped flight of dark 
 bodies against a glowing blue sky aroused ex- 
 citement in the hungriest, Celia felt a love for 
 sport must be added to her new experiences. 
 
 Her childish enthusiasm waxed with the
 
 86 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 waning light. In the distance they could already 
 descry the shining minarets and domes of the 
 mosque which marked their landing ghat. The 
 sapphire sky had turned opal, and the blue calm- 
 ness of the untroubled river was tinged with 
 answering streaks of fire and gold. The brown 
 men on the bank were seen like mediseval saints 
 bathed in translucent gold, haloed, sacrosanct, 
 though stumbling yet through their strange task 
 of pulling a golden boat on a tide of fiery glass. 
 
 " I wish the day would never end," breathed 
 Celia. "Isn't it just like Revelations? The 
 curate used to read that chapter about the city 
 so beautifully, and when I was a child I used 
 to long to get away from Fendyke and live in 
 a place where the streets were pure gold, and 
 the gates were jewels, and the river you "know, 
 it must look just like this. I always thought 
 Revelations much the pleasantest book in the 
 Bible to live in." 
 
 " I once read the Song of Solomon printed 
 separately as a love poem, and I was tremend- 
 ously astonished to find anything so interestingly 
 improper could come out of the Bible," said 
 Staniforth. 
 
 Celia looked shocked. 
 
 "Of course it isn't a love song," she said 
 a little primly. " We are taught that it is a 
 figure of Christ's love for the Church." 
 
 The three laughed at her changed mood and 
 the expression that recalled her earlier phase.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 87 
 
 " Read it as a love song and you'll find it 
 a far more interesting book to live in, as you 
 call it, than Revelations. Gold and pearls and 
 jewels are frightfully hard and cold, but the 
 Song of Solomon is full of flowers and kisses 
 and pomegranates ; it might have been written 
 by a forerunner of Rossetti." 
 
 Staniforth's last words were directed towards 
 Eve, but Celia drank them in eagerly and stored 
 them for future reference. Something in her 
 eager face and in Riplingham's suddenly kindled 
 glance made Eve change the subject. 
 
 '* I hope the carriage will meet us at the ghat 
 all right ; the bearer has fever and the 
 chaprassi I gave the order to is the most hope- 
 less idiot. It would be awkward to be stranded 
 at this time of the evening." 
 
 " You won't be stranded," said Staniforth con- 
 fidently. " My trap will be there, that takes 
 two, and we can easily get a ticca out of the 
 bazar ; it's just on the ghat." 
 
 As the darkness came on the swift chill of the 
 Indian winter night enfolded them. Riplingham 
 bent to cover Celia with his rug. He looked 
 down into her blue eyes, at the half-open red 
 mouth that suddenly allured to kisses. And she, 
 looking up into his face, caught a glance that 
 she did not fully understand, though it sent 
 little quivers of pleasure through the blood in 
 her veins. 
 
 14 1 believe," she thought delightedly " I
 
 88 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 believe he wants to kiss me. What fun ! " And 
 suddenly Eve and Staniforth were terribly in 
 the way, and she fell to dreaming of what it 
 would feel like if they two were on the boat 
 alone together and his arms were round her 
 waist and her head on the rougli tweed of his 
 shooting coat. The warm colour flooded up 
 into her face, and in another moment the quivers 
 had concentrated into a veritable electric shock, 
 for under cover of the sheltering rug Riplingham's 
 prying fingers had sought and found her little 
 cold hand and were fondling it as if it were 
 never to be let go again. 
 
 It was at this moment of unimaginable bliss 
 that the barge slid heavily alongside the landing- 
 steps, and the voyage was over. Celia rose in 
 a dream. Love was even nicer than she ex- 
 pected. If it gave one such pleasant sensations 
 to have one's hand held, what must it be like to 
 be kissed? She looked up into Riplingham's 
 eyes as he helped her down the plank, and her 
 innocent gaze of surrender seemed to give him 
 all he could ask and more. He was on fire 
 now, and unconsciously her looks, words, actions 
 fed the flame. 
 
 Eve's forebodings about the carriage were ful- 
 filled. On the dusty grass of the river bank 
 only one ghostly horse strayed the length of 
 his tether, only one small trap loomed through 
 the misty darkness. Staniforth's groom, indeed, 
 was full of information. The mem-sahib's coach-
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 89 
 
 man had met him in the bazar and given much 
 abuse when told that the order was for the 
 city ghat. He had taken the mem -sahib's 
 carriage many miles away to the black regi- 
 ment's ghat, saying that such was the order 
 he had received. 
 
 Staniforth swiftly reviewed the situation. " It 
 would take hours to fetch your phaeton "from 
 there. You must drive Miss Ferriby home in 
 the turn -turn, and Riplingham and I will get a 
 ticca in the bazar." 
 
 Eve shook her head. 
 
 "I'm not going to drive Daredevil through 
 the city at night," she said. " Celia and I will 
 go in the ticca, or Captain Staniforth can drive 
 me, and Captain Riplingham can go in the ticca 
 with Celia." 
 
 '' Certainly," said Staniforth with alacrity ; 
 " there's no reason why both the ladies should 
 be uncomfortable, and a ticca from this far 
 corner of the city is sure to be a terror." 
 
 While they waited for the return of the syce, 
 dispatched for a hired carriage, they perched 
 in a row on the plinth of a little Mohammedan 
 tomb rising ghostly from the maidan. There 
 was not much room for four, and once more under 
 a shared rug Riplingham's hand sought and 
 found Celia's. She had put on her gloves for 
 warmth's sake, but his groping fingers undid 
 the clasps and drew the glove gently away. Her 
 heart beat up into her throat, and she was glad
 
 90 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 of the misty dark which hid her glowing cheeks 
 as her hand crept inside his eager palm. 
 
 She did not attempt to take it away, and did 
 not disguise her pleasure at his touch. To him, 
 even, the old game "had a fresh savour ; he had 
 never played it with untouched youth before 
 how untouched the youth he little understood, 
 but its freshness charmed him. He kept up a 
 light conversation with the other two and covered 
 Celia's blissful silence. 
 
 Then two gleaming eyes heralded the lumber- 
 ing vehicle. A ticca is very much like a 
 bathing van, and it moves with an equal ease 
 and grace. Two rat-like ponies tied to doubtful 
 shafts with al maze of string amble along in 
 imperfect accord. Instead of windows woo'den 
 slatted shutters are intended to slide up and 
 down, but they are always broken, just as the 
 ponies are always lame. 
 
 The syce quickly harnessed Staniforth's pony, 
 and Eve got into the turn-turn. 
 
 ''We'd better get off first, so that we shan't 
 have to pass you in the bazar," she said. 
 " You'll be all right with Capta'in Riplingham, 
 Celia." But a sudden thought shot across her 
 calmness as the pony turned on to the road. 
 " I am a' bad chaperon," she said uneasily. " I 
 really oughtn't to have left Celia alone like that." 
 
 " Oh, she's all right," he comforted her. 
 " You can't make love in a ticca. Fancy yell- 
 ing sweet nothings above the bang and rattle
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 91 
 
 of the wheels. Riplingham will ask if he may 
 smoke, and your cousin will sleep peacefully in 
 a corner, and in the meantime I've got you all 
 to myself at last. I owe your coachman some- 
 thing for that. Do you realise I've not been 
 alone with you for two whole days? " 
 
 So Eve's conscience slumbered again, arid she 
 did not interfere when the pony was induced 
 to take the longer road home. 
 
 Meantime, Celia clambered into the black 
 interior of the ticca and settled into her corner 
 with a joyous prevision of what should come 
 of this dark solitude. In a moment her com- 
 panion's form blocked the oblong of the door 
 and window, then he was at her side and the 
 van-like vehicle clattered forward, urged by the 
 shouting individual who drove the ponies. 
 
 For a moment neither moved. Riplingham, 
 with a spasm of conscience, sat stiffly in his 
 corner that he might escape contact with her 
 soft warmth. Celia sat motionless, waiting, but 
 when he came no nearer she thought he must 
 be afraid of her anger, and to encourage him 
 her hand, still ungloved, stole out and caught 
 at his. 
 
 He had not often denied his senses. Now it 
 seemed unkind to disappoint hers. He flung 
 her hand aside and gathered her up into his 
 arms, taking his fill of the sweet lips that were 
 so ready for him, unkissed as yet, hungry with 
 the abstinence of an unmothered child's lifetime.
 
 92 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 The rector's system of defeating Nature was 
 avenged. The wooden framework of the ticca 
 creaked and groaned, inside it smelt of warm 
 oil and musty straw, outside the ponies bit each 
 other, squealing. A more hopeless substitute for 
 a golden chariot could not well be imagined, 
 but Celia's heart and mind and senses sang 
 for joy. Throughout the long dark journey the 
 two did not speak, but just as the clatter 
 slackened with the ponies' speed, to turn into 
 Eve's compound, and he put her from him, he 
 bent down towards her ear. 
 
 " Are you happy, darling? " he asked. The 
 banal words just reached her as the ticca jerked 
 to a stop under the porch. She had no time 
 to answer, even if she had known what words 
 to use, poor little Celia, eager to live in the 
 Book of Revelation, misunderstanding the pur- 
 port of the Song of Solomon,
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 CELIA woke to a gay consciousness of a new 
 channel for pleasure. The sensation of Ripling- 
 ham's kisses came back with a little' shudder of 
 delight all the morning. She wondered whether 
 he was remembering as vividly as she, and if 
 he were making plans for a renewal of last 
 night's delicious solitude. She sat in a long 
 chair in the veranda, deep in idle dreams. Eve 
 passed to and fro, interviewing the cook, playing 
 in a detached, unmaternal manner with her small 
 son ; writing a succession of notes, busy in 
 her cool, unhurried, uninterested manner. Morn- 
 ings were necessary evils, to be passed with as 
 little worry as possible, stepping-stones to the 
 afternoons and evenings which brought a cessa- 
 tion of dullness. 
 
 In spite of her apparent lack of interest, Eve 
 was too clever a woman to be a bad house;- 
 keeper ; she was too sensitive to beauty and 
 order to leave her rooms to the untended 
 mercies of the gardener and indoor servants. 
 Generally Celia helped her to arrange the flowers, 
 but to-day she rolled her rumpled head among 
 the cushions and her blue eyes saw nothing but
 
 94 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 visions of last night's episode. The memory 
 of it was even pleasanter than the actual moment 
 had been. For one thing, memory lasted longer 
 and there was no fear of detection for her brain 
 puppets, moving in their languorous dream. 
 
 She could spend a whole morning playing out 
 last night's drama, inventing passionate utter- 
 ance for Riplingham, passionate surrender for 
 herself while her body lay, apparently, idle, on 
 the busy veranda. 
 
 Even James obtained no favour of notice at 
 her hands . 
 
 James had belonged to Staniforth, who had 
 given him to Eve, but her aloofness left him 
 ever dissatisfied, and it had been Celia who had 
 opened the doors of a dog's paradise to him. 
 James called himself a fox-terrier with a cross 
 of bull ; no other, dog believed in his preten- 
 sions, but his powerful shoulders and jaws com- 
 pelled outward respect even for a dog who 
 was not always sent to the hills in the hot 
 weather, a sure test of human belief in English 
 breeding. 
 
 James was a dog with a temperament. He 
 had a smile as of a London gamin, and was 
 of an incurable optimism. He believed he could 
 catch squirrels, and the squirrels believed it too, 
 and fled from him, chattering angrily while he 
 leaped with open, frenzied jaws about the trunk 
 of the wrong tree. 
 
 James loved Celia. She understood that dogs
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 95 
 
 are very lonely unless human beings will talk 
 to them. It would never have entered Eve's 
 head that an animal could be lonely, but Celia 
 had spent so many uncompanioned days that 
 her heart went out to the square-built fox-terrier 
 that begged so earnestly to be taken for walks 
 and was a thorough gentleman at meals, when 
 he lay by her chair, blunt head on outstretched 
 paws, only his bright eyes to witness that he 
 watched her plate and had hopes. 
 
 James watched her now, although there was 
 no food to be seen, and he sat up, alert for the 
 moment when she would jump from her chair 
 and take him for an enthralling scamper in the 
 compound. Sometimes he put out a tentative 
 paw and prodded her gently ; but there was 
 no room for dogs on Celia's narrow horizon 
 this morning, so he sighed himself to sleep at 
 last and dreamed of rats. 
 
 Thus Celia failed her cousin and her dog 
 because Riplingham had kissed her and she had 
 attained the first step of her ambition. She 
 would have been hurt and astonished could she 
 have realised the man's condition of mind. For 
 last night's lover went about his work without 
 a thought of either repentance or exultation. He 
 never remembered Celia at all until, parade 
 over, orderly-room over, and breakfast eaten, he 
 lounged in the mess and talked of the afternoon's 
 polo. 
 
 Then with a half smile he savoured the
 
 96 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 memory of last night's childish abandonment, 
 and wondered that unripe crudity could yet 
 be so sweet. But he decided to " go slow/' 
 for she seemed so generous too generous,, in 
 fact, for one who despised school-girl gifts. 
 
 His resolution outlasted the day, and Celia's 
 joy wore a little thin when his return from polo 
 took him only as far as Mrs. Cunningham's 
 tea-party on the Club veranda. The travelling 
 companions had scarcely spoken to each other 
 since their day in the train together, but Celia 
 sent a tremulous little smile across the tables 
 with a faint hope that she might be invited to 
 join the party that included Riplingham. 
 
 Her smile was wasted as regards an invita- 
 tion, for Mrs. Cunningham detested girls and all 
 their works. But it had an effect in another 
 direction ; for the woman's keen eyes, trained by 
 practice, had seen Riplingham's latest interest, 
 and a sudden recollection of Celia's conversation 
 in the train gave her an unexpected sympathy 
 with youthful ignorance. Perhaps a memory of 
 her own daughter at school in England and an 
 ever-present dread to a heart untrained to 
 maternal cares, perhaps a thought of the future 
 pricked her conscience. At any rate, she bent 
 her neatly tired and netted head towards his 
 crisped curls and made an astonishing mistake, 
 for she warned Riplingham against Celia. 
 
 " Give it up, Cuthbert," she said in a low 
 tone. " A girl's not fair game. Married women
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 97 
 
 are the only legitimate sourqe of amusement for 
 a man like you with expensive tastes and no 
 money. Girls have a nasty little habit of expect- 
 ing you to marry them. Then in a twinkling 
 you receive twins and have to advertise your 
 polo ponies. It isn't worth it ; she isn't worth 
 it ; why she isn't even pretty, or won't be when 
 her English colour has gone. And you know 
 you're quite mistaken in her, she isn't the inno- 
 cent baby she looks. She said the most 
 appalling things to me coming up in the train 
 things I wouldn't say to another woman, and 
 you know I'm not too Puritan." 
 
 Riplingham's admiration of blue eyes and 
 apple -blossom skin received a sudden jar, and 
 he looked swiftly across at Celia, who sat sulkily 
 huddled in a chair while Mr. Macintyre worked 
 hard to get her to run a conversation on the 
 unforgotten lines of her first dinner-party. But 
 Celia had progressed since then and had read 
 quite a number of novels which she took as 
 guides to dialogue. It is true that the book 
 club happened to be run at the moment by the 
 General's wife, who exacted what she called " a 
 clean moral tone " from each book she put into 
 circulation, so that Celia's literary guide to know- 
 ledge of manners was of a chastened and 
 domestic kind. Nevertheless she had learnt to 
 talk without undue attention to subjects of love 
 and passion, and as she refused to be drawn 
 by Macintyre's suggestions for conversation he 
 7
 
 98 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 found her dull and she wished he would go 
 away. 
 
 Riplingham caught an imploring glance, but 
 he hardened his heart and turned back to his 
 companion . 
 
 " What sort of things did she say, Ethel? " 
 he inquired in a tone that tried to be light. 
 
 " Quite horrid things about having lovers- 
 strings of them, apparently." 
 
 This uncomfortable rendering of Celia's inno- 
 cently absurd aspirations came upon Riplingham 
 with a genuine shock. He recalled her trustful 
 face and the confiding hand that crept into his, 
 and he revolted against the elder woman's 
 judgment . 
 
 "She can't have meant it, she didn't know 
 what she was saying," he said uneasily. 
 
 " Perhaps not, but she said it, and she's said 
 that sort of thing to other people. Ask Mr. 
 Macintyre. Now, Cuthbert, I'm not saying this 
 out of spite or jealousy or any feminine cattish- 
 ness. I'm not jealous ; you've never made love 
 to me in your life (I wonder why), and if she 
 wins you I lose nothing. But I'm sorry for 
 both of you if you get entangled. Let the girl 
 have a fair chance. I believe she is learning 
 common-sense and settling down to ordinary sub- 
 jects of conversation, so she may have taken 
 you in ; but she can't be so overpoweringly 
 innocent to talk to me as she did, and you may 
 find yourself in a hole."
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 99 
 
 " Why doesn't some one tell Mrs. Lang? " 
 
 " Tell her what? That her cousin talked on 
 improper subjects when she first came out? I 
 can't imagine any one telling Eve Lang that. 
 Besides, I thought Miss Ferriby would treat her 
 to some of her gems of thought in time, and I 
 didn't want to interfere." Mrs. Cunningham 
 forgot that she had impressed Celia with the 
 necessity of silence towards Eve on the subjects 
 that had been their topic. She did not know 
 Celia's overpowering anxiety to be a success in 
 her new life and her eager reception of advice 
 concerning her cousin. 
 
 Riplingham looked gloomily at the tea-cups. 
 His enjoyment of infantile attractions showed 
 suddenly more explicable from this new stand- 
 point. He had not, then, really gone back 
 to bread and butter ; Celia had but used a 
 new lure. Her childlike gaze masked a purpose 
 in a brain that mocked him for credulity. To 
 his astonishment he found himself sad with an 
 abounding disappointment. He had not meant 
 to marry Celia, but her sweet youthfulness had 
 attracted him beyond any expectation. He felt 
 as if he had lost something very precious, a new 
 zest which had chased the dullness of a line of 
 days. To lose her like this was hard to bear, 
 and he felt justly aggrieved with the pretty 
 hypocrite. 
 
 Then a more evil thought struck him, a 
 thought which was the lawful offspring of former
 
 100 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 dealings in so-called love. If Celia were that 
 sort of girl, he need not deny himself his desire 
 of kisses. She knew what she was about, could 
 take care of herself as well as any of the married 
 women in the station. He might have quite a 
 good time after all. His depressed spirits 
 rose a little, but his sense of loss was still 
 keen. 
 
 He believed Ethel completely ; she had a pre- 
 cise manner of thought which matched her hair 
 and dress and had no leanings towards feminine 
 exaggeration. Then he had a lightning flash 
 of recollection in which he heard Macintyre des- 
 cribing a dinner-party weeks ago and the curious 
 Conversation of his dinner companion. The 
 subject had been completely dropped from his 
 mind, and he had never connected it with Celiau. 
 Now he remembered and was quite sure. 
 
 Thus on Celia's idle words and the rector's 
 laborious system of education, and not on the 
 scapegoat heredity, rests the blame of the child's 
 first propulsion towards evil. 
 
 Mrs. Cunningham had intended to be kind. 
 In spite of herself Celia had stirred her cold- 
 ness a little, and she did not want the girl to 
 meet with a stumbling-block at the very outset of 
 her life . Celia had asked humbly for advice, and 
 had received it. Now the man who showed 
 signs of playing with her had received advice 
 also, advice given in a spirit of straight friendli- 
 ness. Ethel Cunningham wanted to do her best
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 101 
 
 for both* Riplingham's pursuit of Gelid, was to 
 be discouraged, so she chose the wise method 
 of showing him that he had mistaken his quarry. 
 She did not understand that his added knowledge 
 did but salve a conscience that might soon have 
 smarted. Riplingham had lost his idea of Celia, 
 but after all he was more impressed by flesh 
 than spirit, and the child's apple-blossom tints 
 had not faded with her innocency. 
 
 Nevertheless he did not speak to her that 
 evening^ he must give decent burial to a dead 
 idea. 
 
 Celia went home with hatred for all married 
 women consuming her heart. She was angry 
 with Mrs. Cunningham for spoiling her after- 
 noon, realising but small part of her loss. 
 
 Half-way towards home Riplingham checked 
 his pony with a sudden doubt. Surely he had 
 believed too quickly. Ought he to have 
 believed a woman's gossip at all? He had a 
 wild desire to turn back and find Celia, but 
 common-sense told him she would have left the 
 Club. He could not even drop in at Eve's 
 bungalow after mess, as he sometimes did when 
 he knew she had no party, for it was guest 
 night and he had invited a couple of men. 
 Besides, one could not question a girl concerning 
 such accusations as Mrs. Cunningham had made. 
 
 He must watch carefully, learn for himself 
 whether Celia's childlike gaze masked something 
 less pure. It would be perfectly easy to find
 
 102 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 out the truth now that Ethel had put him on 
 the right track. 
 
 Riplingham dismissed the matter from his 
 thoughts, but a vague sense of loss remained 
 with him throughout the evening.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 To a suspicious eye, sharpened by a fatal readi- 
 ness to believe the worst, Celia's behaviour 
 seemed to point towards ill. She literally threw 
 herself at Riplingham's head, and her tactics 
 appeared the worse because she was careful to 
 appear nonchalant and indifferent in Eve's 
 presence. She clung to Mrs. Cunningham's 
 words of advice, and as she believed her cousin 
 capable of sending her back to Fendyke if she 
 incurred even a momentary displeasure, she 
 strove to mould herself into a faithful copy of 
 her cousin's detached manner. 
 
 But while she intended to please Eve, she 
 also intended to be loved passionately, the lurid 
 language of the *' Kitchen Myosotis " being more 
 to her taste than the domesticated banalities of 
 Mrs. Limousin's book-club heroines. iWhere- 
 fore she displayed marvellous ingenuity in 
 arranging meetings that gave solitude and an 
 opportunity for kisses. 
 
 Ethel Cunningham saw that for some reason 
 her advice had gone astray, and she broached 
 the subject again as she rode with Riplingham 
 one morning across the river fields. 
 
 103
 
 104 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 " I suppose that soon my Thursdays will be 
 Miss Ferriby's Thursdays,** she began. M I hear 
 she can ride quite well now, and has been seen 
 Careering on the racecourse, so I expect she 
 will soon be promoted to your morning Cross- 
 country rides." 
 
 "She rides all right," said Riplingham. 
 " Shall we gallop across this bit? " 
 
 " No ; there's a melon patch, and I dislike 
 galloping hi and out of pits and getting my 
 hair untidy. Besides, I want to talk. Don't be 
 sulky, Cuthbert. I really am interested, and you 
 know we're friends ; and if you want me to 
 I'll give up these Thursday rides without a 
 sigh." 
 
 A mechanically reproachful smile, trSvesty of 
 earlier days, bent his lips as he turned towards 
 his companion. 
 
 " If you desert me, dear lady, I swear I'll 
 ride alone." 
 
 "Doesn't Miss Ferriby like getting up early? " 
 Ethel's mischievous tone rasped his nerves. 
 
 " I haven't asked her," he said mendaciously, 
 with an uneasy memory of Celia's aspirations 
 after early morning rides on regimental holidays. 
 
 " tWell, you will soon, as you haven't taken 
 my advice. Did you find out I was mistaken? 
 I've been sorry ever since that I took her 
 character away all to no purpose. I might just 
 as well have kept my reputation for being down 
 on scandalmongers. As it is, I've not helped
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 105 
 
 you, tad I'm properly ashamed of myself for 
 defamiig a child like that." A veritable blush 
 rose on Mrs. Cunningham's pale cheek. Rip- 
 lingham looked away. Ethel seemed to be 
 taking his attitude towards Celia too much to 
 heart. Anyhow, he could not betray that her 
 scandal had apparently borne the demerit of 
 truth. 
 
 " I haven't so very much time to progress 
 farther in Miss Ferriby's good graces," he said. 
 " I take eight months' leave in July." 
 
 " We women are rather lucky in India," said 
 Ethel reflectively. " The men who admire us 
 haven't time to get tired ; they go home on 
 leave or get transferred before they come to 
 the end of us not a long journey in India, by 
 the way. You Can forgive a man forgetting 
 you when he is transferred out of ten days' 
 leave limits, especially when you've forgotten him 
 yourself, but it is horrid to watch him grow 
 tired and see another woman gently annexing 
 him." 
 
 Riplingham hardly heard her mild cynicism. 
 He had again and again caught himself wishing 
 that Ethel had never mentioned Celia ; he felt 
 he would rather be deceived than disappointed, 
 but the harm was done. 
 
 *' I wonder why all Anglo -Indian women get 
 hard and flippant," he said suddenly. 
 
 41 Do you think we are? I think it is chiefly 
 manner. We have so much time to talk in
 
 106 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 India, and when a woman has too much time 
 to talk she always takes herself as a subject. 
 Also Anglo -India prides itself on being smart. 
 Mrs. Hauksbee is answerable for a lot, vou know. 
 In their frantic efforts to be like her, women 
 talk, smartly as they fondly believe really flip- 
 pantly, unsympathetically." 
 
 " I know," he nodded. " To arouse real sym- 
 pathy you must start enteric or smallpox, and 
 your worst traducer will nurse you cheerfully. 
 Or lose all your money, and your favourite enemy 
 will buy in your furniture at enhanced prices and 
 pay your club bill with admirable tact." 
 
 .While he fell in with Ethel's mood, and talked 
 in her light strain, he was yet comparing her 
 mind with Celia's. In a few minutes he had 
 a further chance of comparison, for Celia rode 
 towards them with Macintyre, who drew rein 
 to speak for a minute with Mrs. Cunningham. 
 
 " So you are riding with Macintyre," said 
 Cuthbert, looking with displeased eyes at her 
 pretty disarray. 
 
 " Yes, you always ride with her on Thursdays, 
 and he asked me to come." 
 
 '* If I asked you, would you come with me? " 
 
 " Of course I would." Her delight was so 
 evident that it salved his slight displeasure. 
 " Will you take me next Thursday? " 
 
 This display of eagerness cooled him a little, 
 but he assented as he turned to obey Ethel's 
 " I'm ready, Cuthbert."
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 107 
 
 The younger couple rode away in a silence 
 which Celia, of course, was the first to break. 
 
 " Why is she so fond of Christian names? " 
 she asked resentfully. 
 
 "She? Who? Oh, Mrs. Cunningham, you 
 mean. She has known Riplingham for years, 
 been in the same stations lots of times. She 
 is quite a good sort, although she looks starched 
 and says beastly things." 
 
 " I wish I could look as tidy as she does at 
 the end of a long ride." 
 
 Macintyre looked at her judicially. " You do 
 get rather fuzzy," he said, " but never mind, 
 you look all right." All the same, he would like 
 to have changed partners and ridden with Ethel, 
 for he was too young to like girls, and was 
 always flattered by a belief in his attraction for 
 married women. He was quite pleased, there- 
 fore, when on dismounting under Eve's porch 
 she refused to ride with him next Thursday. 
 
 " I'm riding with Captain Riplingham," she 
 said importantly, "so you'd better engage Mrs. 
 Cunningham quick before any one else gets her." 
 With this parting shot she retired to dream for 
 a week of her coming joy, and made Denis take 
 her out every morning in between so that she 
 might impress Riplingham with her powers of 
 horsemanship. 
 
 When Thursday came they rode out beyond 
 cantonments to the jungle thickets where the 
 plain broke away to gentle undulations that
 
 108 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 caught a series of tiny lakes Into their embrace. 
 On either side of the winding 1 path babul-trees 
 flung the filmy green of their tiny leaves and 
 the golden balls of their mimosa-like blossom 
 against a sky of gleaming turquoise. 
 
 One seeks instinctively for a jewel name to 
 fit the splendour of the Indian cold-weather 
 sky, yet no blue jewel is so transfused with 
 golden light, so tenderly, yet divinely magnifi- 
 cent as the glowing dome which will soon merge 
 into a torture of bronze. As they rode onwards 
 the thriftless beauty of the babul-trees gave place 
 to patches of cultivation. Near the lake spears 
 of Indian corn shot high, swaying their mighty 
 heads of clustered grain. 
 
 " These are the only decent crops anywherfl 
 round/' said Riplingham, and Celia pouted 
 because solitude brought no more interesting 
 avowal from his lips. 
 
 " I am afraid it means famine this year," he 
 went on ; " the rains failed, and most of the 
 ground got too hard to sow any seed for the 
 spring harvest." Now, Celia had taken her cue 
 from Eve, who was wont to vouchsafe no word 
 but a faint smile to any observation concern- 
 ing crops or natives. Denis had so persistently 
 assumed these things to be outside feminine 
 cognisance, and what the head of the house 
 assumes tacitly is often accepted as a treasured 
 axiom. Crops and natives, then, were dull, and 
 Celia felt that her morning ride lacked its
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 109 
 
 expected interest. Few men care to make love 
 before breakfast, and Riplingham's feeling for 
 Celia was certainly not of the kind to glow 
 fervidly during an early morning ride. As she 
 seemed to expect it, however, he took advantage 
 of the sheltered field path and bent towards her 
 cheek. But the two broad-brimmed sun helmets 
 got in each other's way in an irritating fashion, 
 and when he lifted his eyes he became aware of 
 a scarlet-robed Indian woman peering at them 
 from between the lofty corn stalks with an air 
 of enthralled interest. 
 
 His feeble desire for Celia's kisses suffered 
 a severe check for the moment, and he was glad 
 to reach a patch of open country where they 
 could gallop without danger. At once her facile 
 emotions changed form. The joy and desire of 
 her heart centred in the swift rush of the air, 
 finding supreme bliss in headlong flight through 
 a golden world . When they checked their horses 
 at last, Celia was a little girl again, unmindful 
 of kisses, intent only on the joy of her gallop. 
 
 " I hope we'll be able to ride in heaven," 
 she said raptly. 
 
 * The golden streets might be a little hard 
 for the horses' feet. Are you so very keen on 
 heaven? You have mentioned it several times." 
 
 " Not exactly keen., I often think it sounds 
 dull ; but I've always heard such a lot about 
 It till I came here, of course ; Eve never 
 mentions it."
 
 110 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 Another curious phase in the girl's character, 
 thought Riplingham. She plainly believed in God 
 and heaven and hell ; was " good " and yet bad ; 
 no hypocrite, yet of irreconcilable moods. He 
 himself shrank from religious beliefs ; they 
 limited a man so sadly and choked so many 
 channels for enjoyment, but they were useful 
 in the case of a woman, for they tended to keep 
 her straight. 
 
 " We must start earlier next week," broke in 
 Celia, sure in her childish egoism that next 
 Thursday was to be hers too. "It is getting 
 very hot." 
 
 Riplingham's carefully nurtured chivalry was 
 in arms at once. " Have I taken you out too 
 far, little girl? " he asked anxiously. " Are you 
 feeling the sun? I am a thoughtless idiot." 
 
 " It is rather warm," sighed Celia, delighted 
 to have roused his interest at last, even if it 
 meant confessing to a weariness she did not in 
 the least feel. He was really worried to think 
 he had failed a woman in the every-day care 
 he prided himself on observing. He had made 
 love to Celia without a qualm, but he could 
 never forgive himself if she got a sun headache 
 through his f orgetfulness . He was, in fact, 
 almost feminine in his weak perception of 
 relative values . 
 
 Celia talked languidly the rest of the way 
 home and met his apologies with a beautiful 
 brave smile which touched him far more than
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 111 
 
 her sentimental glances of the earlier moments 
 of their ride. When they drew rein beneath the 
 porch and he lifted her from her saddle, his arms 
 tightened quite unnecessarily round her yielding 
 form. 
 
 But a second later she had brought back his 
 old suspicions again. " Next week we won't 
 go so far," he murmured. " I can't have my 
 little woman coming back tired out." 
 
 " We could always dismount half-way and 
 rest," she suggested, while her rising colour 
 reminded him of the difficulty of making love 
 on horseback. 
 
 For the moment he almost disliked her because 
 she made things too easy for him, and he rod^e 
 away determined to have important work on 
 Thursday morning. Nevertheless when Mrs. 
 Cunningham, eager to forestall his excuses, signi- 
 fied her intention of riding with Macintyre on 
 Thursday, he felt a distinct relief that he need 
 not undergo her gibes, for his mind had veered 
 again. 
 
 He rode with Celia, and she was so much 
 interested in the gallop that preceded their slow 
 walk through the thickets that she quite forgot 
 to suggest they should dismount. Relieved yet 
 disappointed, he listened to her gay chatter about 
 Fendyke and India. She looked almost plain in 
 the country-cut habit that had been quickly run 
 up for her, a fact which probably influenced his 
 mood more than he knew. He had long ago
 
 112 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 decided that she possessed no background, no 
 lights and shadows, but he realised that while 
 she left his mind cold she possessed at times the 
 strongest attraction for his senses. He did not 
 want to marry her, a penniless, 'gauche child, 
 but he had often a fierce desire to make love to 
 her, and he seldom denied himself anything. 
 
 In her ignorance she did not find it strange 
 that a man should play the lover in secret without 
 a word of engagement and marriage. She had 
 not the least wish to marry anybody for 
 years, but her desire to be loved flamed out 
 and met his passion half-way.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE cold weather drew to an end. Celia had 
 soon learnt to dance, helped by her eagerness, 
 her light foot, and her love for music. Even 
 Macintyre was glad, after all, to help to fill her 
 card at the weekly dances, while Riplingham 
 rejoiced that his A.D.C.-ship was over, and 
 he was master over his own programme. 
 
 But with the coming of March the season's 
 gaieties waned. A hot, dry wind seared the 
 garden until only petunias survived to lift their 
 hardy blooms along the water -channels. The 
 brain -fever bird sat in a tree outside the drawing- 
 room veranda and sang its fiendish notes up 
 the scale, " brain fever, brain fever, brain 
 fever" while near at hand the coppersmith bird 
 frenzied its hearers with an unceasing call of 
 " tonk, tonk," as of a hammer on brass. 
 
 Eve decided to hasten her annual departure to 
 the hills. This year Denis had hired a furnished 
 bungalow to save them from the six months' 
 discomfort of inferior hotels. He himself grew 
 all the busier as the hot weather drew nigh, and 
 the rumour of famine, growing more insistent, 
 left no hope of leave for months to come. 
 8 113
 
 114 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 Through one unbearable day and night they 
 journeyed, until the dawn showed the foot-hills 
 and the air grew fresher every moment. The 
 labouring engine crawled its last foot of rails 
 that stopped abruptly beneath the towering 
 mountain barrier. Then came the wild clatter of 
 a tonga drive along a road that leaped upwards 
 in marvellous zigzags until its courage, too, 
 seemed to fail like that of the railway lines. 
 The last few miles were traversed at an excru- 
 ciating jog-trot in coffin -like litters, and even 
 Celia's exuberance was checked when a final 
 struggle had brought them to their eyrie high 
 above the lake. 
 
 The bungalow was chiefly furnished with 
 decayed basketwork in the depressing manner 
 of most hill cottages. The garden was a mere 
 shelf from which the khudside fell away steeply. 
 Across the valley rose a corresponding slope, 
 its green flecked by half -hidden bungalows. 
 Caught in the hollow lay the lake where willows 
 dipped to shelter canoes and skiffs and the boat- 
 house perched to serve as meeting-place for the 
 dwellers in the hills. 
 
 The two men who meant so much to Eve 
 and Celia were both able to come up with detach- 
 ments of their regiments, so that life in the 
 hills went on very much as it had done in the 
 plains, save that they saw more of each other out 
 of doors. 
 
 But Eve, though she was really a careless
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 115 
 
 chaperon, was careful to give no apparent cause 
 for scandal even to the greedy mind of women 
 like Mrs. Young. 
 
 They sat together in Eve's bedroom one morn- 
 ing talking over the events of the cold weather. 
 Mrs. Young had the fatal habit of " running in 
 in the morning," a weariful custom dear to some 
 feminine hearts. She had looked at Eve's new 
 frocks and hats, and now, having 1 demanded 
 cigarettes, she lay full length on the bed and 
 asked questions . 
 
 " Well, how do you get on with your charge? 
 She's distinctly pretty. Any. signs of marrying 
 her off yet? Is there any hope of Captain Rip- 
 lingham succumbing at last? " 
 
 " Not the least," said Eve. " My Cousin is 
 young beyond belief, and you know the kind 
 of woman that appeals to him. I think, as a 
 matter of fact, that he found life a little plain 
 and dull when the Lieutenant -Governor resigned 
 and he went back to his regiment, and Celia 
 openly admired him and made him realise he is 
 beautiful even without his A.D.C.'s uniform. 
 She acts like a soothing cream when his brother 
 officers chaff him for his royal airs and that 
 smile of his. But as for marrying why, she 
 hasn't a penny, and he likes the best of polo 
 ponies. He goes home in July, and I fully 
 expect he will pick up an heiress then. That 
 smile and that air can't go unrewarded for ever." 
 
 " And in the meantime hasn't Miss Ferriby
 
 116 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 any admirers except the one useless follower? " 
 She flicked her cigarette asli on to the floor 
 and rolled over, crumpling Eve's embroidered 
 quilt anew. 
 
 " I don't know why you assume that I am 
 so anxious to get rid of my cousin," said Eve a 
 little irritably ; "I have grown fond of her in 
 the months she has stayed with us. I am not 
 at all keen on her marrying soon." 
 
 " A girl is sometimes useful," put in Mrs. 
 Young reflectively" a kind of permanent 
 chaperon who can be choked and blinded when 
 necessary." 
 
 " Don't, Connie, you jar," said Eve in such 
 an icy tone that her friend sat up in sudden 
 astonishment. 
 
 "My dear girl," she protested. "What has 
 happened to you in the months since I saw 
 you last? You haven't got converted by any 
 chance, or surely it isn't a baby? I've known 
 women become perfect saints while they were 
 expecting an infant. That's one of the reasons 
 I've always shrunk from having one." 
 
 " I don't think you need dread a sudden attack 
 of saintliness," said Eve with a faint smile, feel- 
 ing already ashamed at an outburst which was 
 almost as inexplicable to her as it had been to 
 her hearer. " The fact is," she went on slowly, 
 anxious rather to explain matters to herself than 
 to the uncomprehending woman on the bed. 
 " The fact is that Celia's coming has made me
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 117 
 
 stop to think. She is so young and unsophisti- 
 cated and I am so much older and wiser than 
 I need be. Don't laugh, Connie, but I feel 
 ashamed sometimes when she admires me." 
 
 Mrs. Young rolled over once more and 
 selected a fresh cigarette from a box at the 
 bedside . 
 
 " I see she hasn't started annexing your young 
 man yet/' she said dryly. "Don't blush in that 
 infantile way. You know you faced the possi- 
 bility of that when we discussed her coming 
 last year." 
 
 Eve's risen colour betokened anger rather than 
 embarrassment. Connie seemed insufferably 
 vulgar this year ; yet last season, staying in the 
 same hotel, they had been friends, spending 
 together those hours unclaimed for the one by 
 bridge and for the other by Staniforth. It was 
 surely impossible that the girl's mere presence 
 in her house had changed her taste in this extra- 
 ordinary manner, yet she could think of no other 
 cause for her sudden dislike of Connie's tone. 
 Even her relations with Staniforth, which she 
 had kept on ideal levels for so long, seemed 
 vulgarised by a feeble jest she would scarcely 
 have noted last year. 
 
 " I don't think Captain Staniforth shows the 
 slightest signs of being attracted by my cousin," 
 she said coldly. 
 
 "It has always been a source of wonder to 
 me that a cold woman like you has been able
 
 118 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 to keep a man, the same man, so long. We all 
 know you are good, we all know you are as 
 cold as ice. It is so clever of you to keep a 
 man dangling at exactly the right distance. With 
 most women he'd have come nearer or gone 
 away altogether by now. But these affairs don'1 
 last for ever.; already it has been unconscionabl) 
 long. As it's you, we know he can't come 
 nearer. When is he going to get up from his 
 knees at the exactly safe distance outside 
 your shrine and go away? Don't be cross. You 
 and I have known each other too long to beai 
 malice because of a little friendly interest ir 
 your affairs. Doesn't he even try to come an) 
 nearer? " 
 
 Mrs. Young's hard blue eyes scanned Eve 
 inquisitively, but they gained but little satis- 
 faction from the serene figure that lounged in 
 basket chair. Even her beautiful hands la) 
 perfectly cool and idle on her knee, and Connie 
 being an observant woman, knew how often the 
 face can wear a successful mask while the 
 forgetful hands betray, emotion deemed wel 
 hidden , 
 
 " You seem very sure that Captain Staniforth 
 is still at my shrine, as you poetically put it,' 
 said Eve, 
 
 Mrs. Young waved her cigarette impatiently 
 
 " Of course, if you don't want to confide in 
 me, say so frankly. You know you can trusl 
 me."
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 119 
 
 * 4 1 really have nothing to confide," said Eve 
 Coldly, and was relieved to find her guest took 
 her at her word and went on to calm discussion 
 of the Government House fancy ball. When 
 she at last put on her hat and summoned her 
 jhampanies to carry her home, Connie dared 
 one last shot, 
 
 Anyhow, you've always got your husband to 
 reconquer when you are tired of your present 
 amusement. He is miles handsomer than Captain 
 Staniforth, and they say he will be Lieutenant- 
 Governor before he has finished with India. It 
 must be such fun to fall in love with one's 
 husband for the second time and have a new 
 honeymoon without any of the discomforts and 
 unpleasantness of the first. A pity my husband 
 is bald and distinctly tubby, otherwise I'd go 
 home at once and begin to reconquer his wearied 
 affection for me. Goodbye, and remember what 
 I say., When he is tired hand him over to Celia 
 with your blessing and start flirting with your 
 husband. He can't get up and go away." 
 
 She stepped into her dandy and settled the 
 cushion at her back and the embroidered cover 
 over her knees. Then the jhampanies hoisted 
 the litter's cross bars to their shoulders and 
 swung off, two in front, two behind, down the 
 zigzag path that led to Mrs. Young's hotel. 
 
 Eve watched the bobbing turbans down the 
 hillside, her mind full of her friend's idle talk. 
 She had not forgotten all her earlier fears
 
 120 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 of Celia's youthful attractions, perhaps even she 
 had grown to underrate them, but the words that 
 condemned her of iciness held a barb. Once or 
 twice she had been afraid that her friend was 
 getting up from his knees, anxious to approach 
 the shrine, even at times to rifle it. 
 
 Staniforth loved her^that she knew and sjie 
 herself loved also. She thought that she was 
 in love with the actual man ; in reality her 
 loneliness had persuaded her into believing it. 
 She wanted to be admired, cared for, petted, 
 adored, and since Denis gave all his time to 
 India, the mere woman at his side looked beyond 
 him and stretched out her sceptre to another. 
 She would have been horrified if she could have 
 read Staniforth's mind, for he hoped some day 
 to gain everything. Sometimes he marvelled 
 that she took so long to win, counted the slow 
 milestones that marked the lagging progress of 
 their love affair. Once he had but held her 
 hands and excused his boldness by the plea of 
 their beauty. The first time he kissed her he 
 had been banished for a week until Denis had 
 gone into camp and sheer loneliness had ensured 
 his recall. Presently she had grown accustomed 
 to his kisses and returned them with a kind of 
 nun-like fervour miles removed from passion, 
 but she had no thought, no wish to go farther. 
 She gave him all her spare time after she had 
 fulfilled her social and domestic duties with 
 faithful punctuality. For, as befitted her
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 121 
 
 husband's position, she counted in the station, 
 was elected to serve on Committees that dealt 
 with Friendly Girls and Christian Young Women. 
 She went to church quite often, and with a queer 
 perversion of thought refused to kiss Staniforth 
 on Saturday night if she intended to go to early 
 service on Sunday morning. She did not think 
 her actions really wrong. Denis had no time 
 to kiss her and every woman wanted kisses, 
 so she took Staniforth's as a certain due, her 
 cold temperament realising nothing of the harm 
 she did. 
 
 And now Mrs. Young's words disturbed her 
 peace. What more could he want? He must 
 know she was not one of the vulgar women 
 who carried on ugly intrigues, or were even 
 foolish enough to leave a comfortable life on a 
 firm foundation for the stormy waters of divorce. 
 His tenderness was infinite, his broad shoulder 
 such a pleasant place for a tired, lonely head, 
 his kisses almost reverent in their dear adora- 
 tion. She shook off her trouble with an effort. 
 Connie vulgarised everything with her coarse 
 mind that could not understand the dainty charm 
 of platonic friendship. 
 
 The gong for tiffin dismissed her fugitive 
 thoughts, and at the same moment she descried 
 Celia mounting the path by the side of her small 
 son's dandy. " Nurse had a headache," she 
 cried when the cavalcade halted at the veranda 
 steps. " And you were shut up with Mrs. Young,
 
 122 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 so I took Dicky out myself. I thought you 
 wouldn't mind. And, Eve, you are lucky to have 
 a baby. I wish I could have one without being 
 married, I mean. It must be a bore to be 
 married and settled down for ever unless, of 
 course, you get some one like Denis," she added 
 as a polite afterthought. 
 
 " It is very kind of you to give up your 
 morning like this," said Eve warmly. 
 
 " It wasn't a scrap kind, for I simply loved 
 it. Children are such fun. I do hope I'll have 
 lots when I do marry. Dicky is a treasure ; you 
 must have been glad when he came." 
 
 Eve had a quick recollection of a " spoiled " 
 cold weather three years ago when the expecta- 
 tion of Dicky's arrival had been a source of 
 discontent mingled with a resigned conviction 
 that it was just as well to face maternity and 
 get it over and done with. She looked at her 
 little son critically. Of course he was a beauti- 
 fully tucked and embroidered baby, she had seen 
 to that herself, and his nurse was a paragon 
 who had mothered the children of Lieutenant - 
 Governors. He was pink and chubby, an 
 eminently desirable child, and a strange flutter- 
 ing stirred at her heart. Was Celia's presence to 
 teach her the beauty of maternity? She stretched 
 out her arms to the little lad, but he turned 
 aside and sprang at Celia with a delighted cry. 
 
 "Auntie Celia, Auntie Celia!" he cried. 
 " Take Dicky nuver walk to-morrow day."
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 123 
 
 " Isn't it ducky of him I " said Celia, mumbling 
 at his fingers in a way his mother had never 
 done. " I've seen such a lot of him lately, and 
 last night I made Captain Riplingham come in 
 after the picnic so that I could see him in his 
 bath." 
 
 " That was nice of you," said Eve, turning 
 away because she was suddenly jealous of the 
 pretty domestic scene. The same evening she 
 came away from the garish lights of the boat- 
 house and stole into her own dim bungalow like 
 a thief. There to nurse's intense surprise she 
 sat with brooding eyes and watched the ritual 
 of Dicky's bath. She even lifted him out of 
 the water and tried to dry him, but her unac- 
 customed hands possessed no deft touch for the 
 tiny limbs and she was obliged to hand the 
 shrieking morsel back to his nurse. 
 
 But Celia's words had their effect, and the 
 mother began to revive her interest in maternity.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 FAMINE was proclaimed in his district, and 
 Denis Lang went out to fight for the lives of 
 the black thousands committed to his charge. 
 Week by week he waged a battle such as no 
 home-keeping English wit can realise, fighting 
 amid the stark dread of cholera against loneli- 
 ness and a heat of the pit. 
 
 He lived in an erection playfully called " a 
 famine bungalow." Its architecture was that 
 of the first story of a house of cards, and it was 
 built entirely of thatch thinly whitewashed out- 
 side. The whitewash was not so much a hope- 
 less attempt to fend the heat as to guard against 
 starving cattle who ate up famine bungalows 
 with eager zest. 
 
 Inside, the dwelling consisted of one room, 
 its floor of unevenly stamped earth covered with 
 a tent durrie of drab and scarlet stripes. The 
 bed was of native manufacture, fashioned of 
 interlaced webbing tied to a wooden framework 
 on four short legs. The sheets that covered it 
 were dingy ; for when the wells fail at the relief 
 works and even the teapot holds a deposit of 
 
 124
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 125 
 
 mud, the efforts of the washerman become 
 perfunctory. 
 
 The other furniture had the wavering, un- 
 certain contours of chairs and tables that are 
 meant to take to bits and are well acquainted 
 with marching. A folding office table threatened 
 to fold unseasonably under its load of papers, 
 for the famine officer must render a weary 
 account of his weary stewardship, and the 
 Government requires a strict report of the 
 annas and pice that go to keep the life quick 
 in the skinny brown body of the cultivator. 
 
 In front of the writing-table was a cane- 
 seated chair of the Windsor type ; the only other 
 chair was built of dun canvas with a back which 
 nodded drunkenly towards the seat until one 
 braced it up by leaning against it. A yellow tin 
 box and two camel trunks gaped ready to hold 
 the office papers on their next march. 
 
 It was two o'clock, the hottest hour of the 
 insufferable day. Denis ought ' to have been 
 stretched on the glowing surface of the dingy 
 sheets, for he had been up before dawn and 
 had not returned to the famine bungalow until 
 long after midday. He had sat in front of a 
 nondescript meal of goat chops, custard pudding, 
 and hot soda-water, and had eaten with the 
 dogged intentness of a man who consciously 
 husbands his strength. 
 
 Now he sat before his office-table and tried 
 to write to Eve before he rested, but words
 
 126 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 refused to come and the muddy ink dried on his 
 pen before he could frame a sentence. There was 
 nothing to write about except heat and famine 
 and dead babies, and Eve had never been inter- 
 ested in his work, even when it lay in pleasant 
 places. To-day his life seemed unusually im- 
 possible of description when he looked round 
 the dusky squalor of his one room and thought 
 of Eve and Celia by their cool mountain 
 lake. 
 
 The pen slid from his wet fingers ; he rose 
 listlessly, then stood alert at the sound of hoof- 
 beats that unexpectedly broke the heavy silence. 
 A horseman arriving at two o'clock could only 
 bring ill news. Denis strode to the door that 
 shivered back on its string hinges and saw 
 Macintyre dismounting from his pony. The two 
 men did not speak as the subaltern loosened 
 girths and patted the heaving, streaming flanks 
 of his grey country-bred. A syce sprang from 
 some lair and led the beast away, then Macintyre 
 faced his chief and answered his dumb question- 
 ing in one word. 
 
 " Cholera." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " Deviganj, and they've sent a dispenser who 
 speaks Gujerati and not a word of Urdu, the 
 damned fools, and the coolies can't understand 
 him, and there'll soon be the usual panic, and 
 I'm awfully sorry , sir, but the only thing to do 
 was to fetch you."
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 127 
 
 " How many cases? " 
 
 " Three so far." 
 
 Denis motioned the boy to the camp chair 
 and opened a bottle of soda. '* You were quite 
 right to come, and I'll go back with you at 
 once, but you are looking a bit played out. It 
 is dangerous work facing a cholera scare unless 
 you're fit." 
 
 Macintyre drank thirstily. "I'm perfectly 
 fit," he said, and his voice lost its flat despair 
 as he realised that his responsibility for six 
 thousand bodies was now shared by his chief. 
 Already he was marvellously changed from that 
 Macintyre who had gone discreet morning rides 
 with Celia and flirted with Mrs. Cunningham. 
 His khaki uniform, dark with sweat patches, 
 looked frayed and disreputable, his brown boots 
 and gaiters were streaked in various colours. 
 But the deterioration of his outward appearance 
 was not manifest in his expression. The small, 
 pale eyes that had once looked dully out from 
 a fattish face had largened as the cheeks grew 
 thin. In her wasteful manner, Nature had killed 
 a few thousand brown men who had vainly tried 
 to wring a poor living from her barren breast, 
 but in the killing she had brought a new life 
 into the world. Macintyre had begun to grow 
 a soul. Had Fate allowed him to pass from 
 parade to polo ground and thence to the club 
 month in, month out, Macintyre would have had 
 no chance in life. But famine came and the
 
 128 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 Government was pleased to borrow the Indian 
 Army subaltern to help to fight it, because he 
 is young and strong, and there are plenty 
 of him, and he is used to handling the Indian 
 and knows his language. 
 
 Macintyre was glad to be borrowed because 
 he wanted some new polo ponies, and the kindly 
 Government offered a big increase on a subal- 
 tern's pay. In a month he had forgotten the 
 money and worked through long hot days as 
 only an Englishman can work. 
 
 While his assistant drank Denis piled the 
 official papers into their boxes, then he went 
 out to give orders for his journey. Very speedily 
 the sleepy camp was wide awake, horses saddled, 
 and sulky camels forced to their knees to 
 receive a hateful load. 
 
 " Your pony is done up ; you'll have to ride 
 one of mine," said Denis when he appeared 
 again, calm and unhurried, yet swift to his heart- 
 breaking duty. 
 
 The two mounted and rode out from the dense, 
 hot shadow of the mango -grove into the hotter 
 glare of the open fields. The piled earth of 
 the famine road was the only feature in the 
 dun nakedness of a barren landscape. Four 
 miles it had pushed its way ahead, and on the 
 four miles six thousand men and women climbed 
 and pattered, earning the daily bread that must 
 not be given as a free gift. 
 
 What the brown men really thought of the
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 129 
 
 famine road nobody could tell. When the sky 
 withheld the rain and presently the cultivator 
 squatted hopeless beside withered shoots that 
 could never bring him food or seed for next 
 year he would have accepted the fate of starva- 
 tion with apparent calm. But the Sirkar that 
 vast, vague engine which controlled destiny 
 would not permit any man to die sitting. The 
 undefined power sent messengers who told of 
 work, and of money to be given in exchange, 
 and soon the cultivators and their wives and 
 families found themselves set in the midst of a 
 wide plain away from their villages. 
 
 Here their work was prepared for them ; 
 surely a vain and useless task they must have 
 thought it, for the men dug earth out of one 
 place and the women carried the spaded soil 
 in baskets to pile a growing mound. 
 
 Everything was prepared for them. In the 
 evening when the measured clods were dug and 
 the appointed task fulfilled, the women cooked 
 an evening meal supplied by improvised grain- 
 shops. The Sirkar fed them and clothed them, 
 and gave strange milk to their babies, and fenced 
 off their wells from pollution, and dug graves all 
 ready for those who refused to live even under 
 this paternal care. 
 
 But how the Government had learnt of their 
 
 plight and why it cared to interfere was a puzzle 
 
 not to be unravelled. Apparently they did not 
 
 attempt it, by day at least, when the spare forms 
 
 9
 
 130 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 bent knotted spines over the clods and the line 
 of women trod the path zigzagging up the 
 mound, their heads unbowed by the great earth 
 baskets they bore. 
 
 Nothing could be learnt from the impassive 
 faces, many of clear cut and noble outline, 
 dowered with a curious innocence of expression. 
 Perhaps at night, when the families squatted 
 together over the cooking vessels, they made 
 guesses, perhaps at times they came to some 
 realisation of that burden which in some hours 
 becomes too heavy even for the white man's 
 shoulders. 
 
 The problem must remain unsolved ; it would 
 soon be forgotten wlien next year's rain fell 
 and the cultivator's ribs lost their staring out- 
 line and only the stark famine road cleft the 
 ripening landscape as a sign of past days. 
 
 Denis looked at his work with tired eyes 
 this organisation of his that toiled to spare 
 the souls as well as the bodies, the self- 
 respect as well as the stomach contours of 
 the brown men. 
 
 By the new-sunk wells Brahmins sat on guard, 
 their high-caste hands no source of offence to 
 Hindus fearful of pollution. Little flags stand- 
 ing stiffly out in the furnace wind marked the 
 position of each separate gang, controlled by 
 its chosen overseer. 
 
 " Your men are fatter than mine," said Mac- 
 intyre enviously, " but your women aren't as
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 131 
 
 well dressed. I gave out three hundred petti- 
 coats yesterday. The latest draft were literally 
 in rags. The worst is that the comparatively 
 well-dressed ladies who see the new clothes will 
 tear their own up and will come to me for more, 
 holding round them the most embarrassing 
 rags." 
 
 " They're splendid, the women," returned 
 Denis. " I came across one poor old lady 
 yesterday ; she looked about ninety, and she 
 was squatting on her haunches digging up about 
 a foot an hour carrying baskets of earth was 
 too heavy for her, so she dug with the men. 
 I spoke to her and told her she could go on the 
 gratuitous relief list, and she smiled all over 
 her corrugated face and said I was her father 
 and her mother but while she had breath she 
 must work or she could not eat." 
 
 " They're fine," assented Macintyre, " and yet 
 look how they desert their babies. I've got a 
 regular creche and use cases of Mellin's. The 
 little beggars lap it up like anything once they 
 get used to it ; my last little lot are as fat as 
 butter. But I can't think how I'll ever face the 
 regiment again after distributing petticoats and 
 mixing patent foods." 
 
 Thus they rode on, these two, over the iron- 
 bound earth, talking lightly and thinking heavily 
 of the burden they had shouldered because they 
 were white men. 
 
 At home in comfortable parlours men who
 
 132 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 knew little even of England read their morning 
 papers and noted the Indian telegrams with their 
 bare record of numbers on relief works. And 
 those of them who, in addition to being ignorant, 
 were also Radical explained that their own 
 countrymen were to be blamed for famines, and 
 that relief works were expensively run. 
 
 One day on famine work would have killed 
 any of them, so it was unfortunate that so many 
 miles of sea and plain separated the comfort- 
 able parlour from the aching desolation through 
 which the famine officers rode. 
 
 Dun-hued from helmet to boot heel they 
 crawled over a dun world lidded by a pitiless 
 shield of brass too near the earth it threatened 
 instead of protecting. 
 
 There are no words to fit the fierceness of an 
 Indian June. With ice and punkahs and a 
 shadowed house close shut from early morning 
 to sunset it is a burden almost intolerable. But 
 for one whose only roof -tree is a house of woven 
 twigs, for a man whose work is to ride over an 
 unsheltered plain the heat is as a Chinese 
 torture. After all, words are valueless, for the 
 man at home can never understand, and the 
 man who has fought with it is usually a man of 
 deeds and not words. 
 
 As they drew near to Macintyre's camp they 
 came to a piled mound pushing through the 
 desert to meet its counterpart in Denis's 
 road.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 133 
 
 With the sight of the famine hut there came 
 a sudden penetrating smell. Denis looked 
 inquiringly at his companion. 
 
 " I forgot to tell you," said Macintyre ; "one 
 of the elephants dropped dead last night and 
 we can't move him ; I'm afraid he'll be poison- 
 ing the whole camp by now." 
 
 It was unfortunate that the monster had 
 chosen to die within sight and smell of the 
 famine bungalow. Even its meagre roof -tree 
 could not be used to shelter them that day. 
 The camels were unloaded on the far side of the 
 grove, and even then wafts of decaying elephant 
 were mingled with the indescribable smell of 
 crowded Indian bodies. 
 
 The cholera seemed more a scare than an 
 epidemic, but the Gujerati dispenser was pleased 
 that he knew no Urdu and must be replaced at 
 once. A man had died and was already buried 
 in one of the graves which a business-like famine 
 officer digs before ever he has collected his 
 workers. A second lay in no hopeless condition, 
 for the disease, relaxing its clutch, left only 
 the fear of sudden collapse to be fought. The 
 third had recovered from a bad attack of unripe 
 mangoes stolen from the tree that sheltered 
 the bungalow, and he was already back at 
 work. 
 
 The spirits of both men were lighter when 
 they ventured near the elephant to see whether 
 he was sinking any deeper into the ground the
 
 134 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 coolies were digging round his putrefying bulk. 
 But they fled hastily and were very thoughtful 
 for half an hour in their open-air camp beyond 
 the grove.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE first week of July came and there was no 
 hope of the rains. At times the clouds banked 
 like fortresses, but they crumbled again and left 
 the fierce sky to its cruel oppression of the earth. 
 The burning loo died, and in its stead came the 
 insidious east wind which saps the Englishman's 
 vitality with its hot moisture. 
 
 The air was heavy as a wet feather bed, and 
 Macintyre, farther away from Denis, who was 
 now in a fresh camp, began to have a daily 
 headache. The native hospital assistant, who 
 saw to the health of the community still pattering 
 over an advancing mound, dosed him with 
 quinine and shook an oily head over daily 
 vagaries of the clinical thermometer. 
 
 He would have taken the matter more 
 seriously but that he had grown accustomed to 
 Macintyre and did not wish to receive a new 
 officer sahib from the black regiments. A new 
 official meant flurry and examinations of drugs 
 in the dispensary and endless trouble for a 
 blameless Bengali. 
 
 So he did not advise the boy to apply for sick 
 leave but spoke hopefully of the coming of the
 
 136 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 rains and the near disbandment of the coolies. 
 Naturally Macintyre was loth to leave the 
 glorious accomplishment of his task to another 
 who had borne none of its heat and burden. He 
 fought against his headaches with the dogged 
 pride of an Englishman on his mettle. 
 
 The headaches conquered him at last, but not 
 before he was well in the grip of a fierce attack 
 of enteric. When even the dispenser was con- 
 vinced, and no power moral or physical could 
 keep Macintyre on his feet any "longer, he sent a 
 message to Denis and lay back on his string 
 bedstead with a faint surprise that he was 
 really ill. 
 
 Through one pitiless day he stared at the 
 four walls of thatch, at the files on his office 
 table, at the holes and ink stains in the durrie. 
 Through one suffocating night his wits wandered, 
 and at dawn, having visions of the brook at 
 home, he leaped from his bed to find it and 
 plunge in the healing waters. 
 
 When the hospital assistant came on his early 
 morning rounds Macintyre lay before the door, 
 the big black ants running busily over his dead 
 limbs. 
 
 Fearfully the native waited for Denis Lang's 
 coming, but no sound of hurrying pony's 
 feet struck upon the mango-grove. The dead 
 sahib must be buried at sunset, and presently, 
 since the scanned horizon gave no promise of 
 help, the Bengali set about the funeral.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 137 
 
 Little work was needed. Unwashed, un- 
 shrived by woman's hands, shrouded but in a 
 torn and soiled sleeping-suit, Macintyre lay in 
 a rough box of mango-wood. At sunset out -caste 
 men, who alone consent to touch the dead, 
 lowered his coffin into one of the waiting graves. 
 
 No romantic figure, one might say, this red- 
 haired, fattish youth. The sword they sent to 
 his mother was unfleshed he had never seen 
 active service. His little meed of praise, shrined 
 later in a famine report, made mention only of 
 lives saved. Dying for his brown brother, he 
 lost all chance of a glorious slaying by a brown 
 man's arm. Like Saul who went out to find 
 asses and gained a kingdom, Macintyre had gone 
 out to find polo ponies and gained his own soul.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE Pioneer described in a cold little para- 
 graph the manner of Macintyre's death, and Eve 
 read it aloud as she sat at lunch with Celia. 
 Eve was sympathetic in her vague fashion, but 
 she only thought of the dead boy as a red- 
 haired subaltern useful to fill a gap at dinner- 
 party, and by some mysterious arrangement 
 given to her husband as an assistant for his 
 incomprehensible work. 
 
 But Celia was different. Her knowledge of 
 India' was short ; she had not yet gained 
 familiarity with the constant shadow of death. 
 Macintyre gained distinction in her mind as the 
 first man she had met in India, except Denis, 
 who did not count. They had ridden together, 
 she had watched him play polo, her heart afire 
 at the splendid rush of men and ponies. He 
 had even promised to come up to the hills when 
 the rains should be well started and the famine 
 works dropped. And now this memory, alive and 
 quick, must change suddenly into an imagination 
 that stopped short perforce with an untended 
 grave. 
 
 Celia's knife and fork dropped and she stared 
 
 138
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 139 
 
 into vacancy, conning a vision of Macintyre 
 dead. She had never seen a dead body, but she 
 pictured him as she had last seen him, only that 
 his pale eyes were shrouded now by dropped 
 white lids. Emotionalism had grown on her in 
 the last months, and although she had never 
 cared particularly for him, a sob rose in her 
 throat in pity, not so much for his death as for 
 the manner of it. 
 
 Eve looked up in surprise. 
 
 " I didn't know you were such a friend of 
 his. Of course it's sad, and Denis will miss him, 
 but it isn't worth while making your nose swollen 
 and pie-crusty. He's dead and buried, poor boy, 
 but Captain Riplingham is alive and is riding 
 up the path at this moment. Why are you start- 
 ing so early? " 
 
 " Oh, we're going miles and miles," said 
 Celia, diving for a handkerchief in a submerged 
 pocket of her habit. " That's why I dressed 
 before lunch. We're to have a picnic tea at a 
 forest bungalow ; he sent his man on this morn- 
 ing. You don't mind, do you? " 
 
 It did not occur to Eve to mind, she was too 
 busy over her own arrangements for the after- 
 noon. She went out to the veranda and talked 
 to Riplingham while Celia put on her hat, and 
 when the two were mounted and off down the 
 path she waved her hand with a perfunctory 
 " Take care of her," imagining her duty thus 
 completed.
 
 140 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 The two rode along the stony hill path that 
 wound like a shelf scooped out of the mountain- 
 side. They were still in civilised boundaries, 
 and here and there bungalows perched in clear- 
 ings on broader shelves a little away from the 
 main path. Black boards affixed to trees bore 
 in white lettering the names of the bungalows' 
 inhabitants, and little tin boxes, nailed hard by, 
 gaped for visiting cards while they proclaimed 
 with lying hardihood the fact that their owners 
 were " not at home." 
 
 Riplingham extracted two cards from a pocket 
 and leaning sideways from his horse, dropped 
 them rattling through a slit in a tin lid. 
 
 " It's long after two, but she'll never know 
 I called in uncanonical hours," he said as he 
 rejoined Celia pacing her horse ahead. As he 
 came up he noticed her drooping mood and 
 quenched gaiety. Her eyes, lifted to meet his, 
 showed a new melancholy that deepened their 
 blueness. His amative interest felt a new spur. 
 He could forgive a woman any sin save that 
 of an even temperament to charm him she must 
 change her moods with her gowns. His ideal 
 would have shown a certain affinity with a 
 chameleon. 
 
 Their intimacy had progressed swiftly with 
 the passing weeks. Celia's growing knowledge 
 of life was teaching her tongue a little of the 
 habit of restraint, she was no longer so flagrant 
 in her demand for kisses. And, naturally, as
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 141 
 
 she drew back the man felt an impulse to pursue. 
 It seemed to him a pity to waste these glorious 
 hours. Next month he was to go home on 
 leave, and when he returned his regiment would 
 be transferred, and the little episode must perish 
 from inanition. Of course, he had not the least 
 intention of pressing an engagement on her when* 
 she gave him all he wanted without a sign of 
 imposing fetters. 
 
 The last week or two, however, had seemed 
 to bring her disquiet. Several times she had 
 fled from his love-making, to-day she seemed 
 hardly aware of his existence. He bent towards 
 her with the appealing intensity she had admired 
 at their first meeting, but this time she realised 
 the existence of some deeper feeling. 
 
 ""Little woman, you are forgetting I'm here. 
 Is anything the matter? " he asked caressingly. 
 The tenderness in eyes and voice drove her back 
 beyond a frail barrier of self -protection. 
 
 '" You oughtn't really to call me that," she 
 said in a tone that fluttered with joy while it 
 strove to express offended dignity. 
 
 " Why not? Aren't you a dear little woman 
 my dear little woman? " He caught her un- 
 occupied right hand and kissed it with a fervour 
 that sent the blood coursing through her veins. 
 She seemed charged with emotion to-day, arid 
 her baby mouth quivered with some strange 
 mixture of gladness that warred with grief. 
 
 The sight of her moved face was too much
 
 142 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 for him. A swift backward glance showed no 
 one in sight down the tree -arched path ; in 
 front it climbed emptily under the green tunnel. 
 Once more he leaned from his saddle, but this 
 time his arm found Celia's waist. Shoulder to 
 shoulder the horses ambled upwards while their 
 riders bent towards each other. This time there 
 seemed to be no difficulty about hat brims, and 
 lips met in clinging accord as though they would 
 never part again. 
 
 But all too soon for her wishes he drew back 
 with another glance down the road. He liked 
 to do his love-making in comfort, and the flap 
 of Celia's saddle grazed his knee uncomfortably. 
 She bent her head to hide her cheeks and forgot 
 her sorrow for Macintyre in a tumultuous delight 
 that resented the calmness with which her com- 
 panion passed straight from paradise into the 
 common world, for he took out his cigarette- 
 case and lit a cigarette. She was half angry at 
 his action, seeing ill-treatment, not in his kiss 
 but in the every-day thought that followed hard 
 on it. 
 
 She was angry again when in ordinary tones 
 he repeated his earlier question. 
 
 " Nothing is the matter," she said, a little 
 fretfully because of her jarred young nerves. 
 " At least, nothing that can be helped ; poor 
 Mr. Macintyre is dead." 
 
 " Yes, I saw that, poor chap," he replied 
 soberly, then an unworthy thought made him
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 143 
 
 look at her with close attention. " What was 
 he to you? " he asked. "Did you care for 
 him. Did he ever kiss you as I do? " 
 
 This time the pulsing blood was driven in 
 anger, not in joy or shame. 
 
 " Of course he didn't. Why, he was hideous. 
 I wouldn't have kissed him for anything. 
 Nobody ever kissed me except you, and you 
 shan't again." 
 
 He smiled at her vehemence with the poisoned 
 recollection of Ethel Cunningham's advice crawl- 
 ing anew through his mind. Surely Macintyre 
 was the man who had listened to Celia's first 
 explanation of her views on love and passion. 
 And now she drooped at hearing of his death, 
 though she still looked so virginal, so innocent, 
 so unkissed. 
 
 " You are quite mistaken in one of your 
 remarks, Miss Ferriby." He paused and she 
 noted the change in his tone and the con- 
 ventional address. A sudden terror overcame 
 her that she had quenched him for ever, but 
 before she had time to say a wor'd he was speak- 
 ing again. " Yes, you're quite mistaken in your 
 last sentence, for I am quite resolved to kiss 
 you again. When we presently arrive at our 
 destination, you shall boil the kettle and we 
 will eat the sandwiches and the cakes, and I 
 shall send the coolie home, and then I shall take 
 you in my arms and kiss you repeatedly, and 
 you will enjoy it."
 
 144 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 To Celia the brutality of his words was the 
 sweetest sound she had ever heard. Up flooded 
 the pink again, and her blue eyes melted at the 
 strange riot of her senses. Her breath strangled 
 in her throat so that she could not speak, but 
 her brain told her that this was passion, and 
 she was really living at last. 
 
 The man at her side again felt a touch of his 
 former resentment at an easy victory. She nearly 
 always seemed to mean more than he did to 
 mean everything, in fact. He had evidently been 
 mistaken in her colder attitude of the last week. 
 She did not attempt to renew her feeble scold- 
 ing, but rode on with a trembling bridle hand 
 while he talked casually of their life in the hollow 
 by the lake, smoking the while in the detached 
 manner which annoyed and astonished her. 
 
 Presently they reached the pass and rode 
 through it into more open country. The hill- 
 sides, no longer covered with oak and rhododen- 
 dron, were ruled into the neat green lines of 
 tea plantations that climbed in steps down into 
 a far valley cleft by a shining blade of water. 
 The squat, round-headed bushes bordered the 
 widened pathway which now had no screen of 
 trees, so that the afternoon sun beat fiercely 
 enough on the exposed hillside and Celia grew 
 a little weary. 
 
 But already the forest bungalow was in sight, 
 tree-shaded on a rounded knoll, and presently 
 they pulled up before its whitewashed veranda.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 145 
 
 Three glass doors stood open showing the gaunt 
 interiors of three rooms side by side, in each 
 room a table, a string bedstead, a couple of 
 chairs. No one was in sight except the coolie 
 who had carried the tea basket, now balanced 
 precariously on the edge of the veranda, 
 
 " I didn't bring a servant," said Riplingham. 
 " I thought he might be in the way. You don't 
 mind boiling the spirit stove, do you? " 
 
 Celia was glad to be busy ; she unpacked 
 the basket and lighted the lamp while Ripling- 
 ham and the coolie dragged a table and two 
 chairs from one of the gaunt rooms . She spread 
 the little lace-trimmed tray cloth, so strange a 
 thing, she thought, to appear in a man's tea 
 basket, for she did not know how often he 
 had given little entertainments of this kind. 
 When the kettle began to fizz and spurt she 
 prepared the tea and they sat down to their 
 meal. 
 
 Celia could not eat because her heart took up 
 so much room in her throat. His words con- 
 cerning kisses buzzed through her head, and 
 again she was surprised at the interest he was 
 able to take in the composition of sandwiches and 
 the precise flavour of iced cakes. Her first love 
 episode in the ticca was to be repeated. She 
 was going to be kissed, not in that hurried, 
 uncomfortable, yet delicious embrace permitted 
 by the good grace of their ambling horses, but 
 kissed with an exciting, interesting completeness . 
 10
 
 146 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 She had really won a lover as beautiful as any 
 of the pictures in the " Kitchen Myosotis." 
 
 Meanwhile Riplingham ate and drank and 
 smoked with an outward calm. In reality he 
 was thinking of the coming moment. He had 
 not the slightest conception of the state of Celia's 
 mind. Everything pointed to the idea that she 
 knew all that could be known but adopted an 
 attractive pose of virginal innocence. 
 
 They sat for a few moments over the empty 
 cups, and then he looked across at her with a 
 smile as he threw away his cigarette end. 
 
 " We'll pack up the cups now and send the 
 coolie off, and then we shall be nice and comfy 
 by ourselves ; I told the chowkidar he could 
 go," he said. She could not reply, but piled the 
 things slowly together, anxious now to postpone 
 the minute she had longed to enjoy. But the 
 interval was quickly past ; within five minutes 
 the hill man was trotting away, his bare, gnarled 
 legs showing chocolate -hued beneath the brown 
 blanket that draped his shoulders, while one bare, 
 gnarled arm held the tea-basket safe on his 
 surprising head. Side by side on the veranda 
 they watched the gnome -like form trot out of 
 their world, leaving them in the Himalayan 
 solitude . 
 
 Even then he did not speak, but he drew her 
 towards him and her relaxed body nestled into 
 his arms. Her mind seemed to faint into dark- 
 ness, and she was a mere bundle of sense per-
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 147 
 
 ception with a heart that was almost suffocating 
 at every beat. .When the long embrace was 
 ended he drew her down to the edge of the 
 veranda . 
 
 ".We'll sit here and dangle our feet. You 
 don't mind sitting on the ground, do you? 
 Those chairs all have arms, and chair arms get 
 in the way so when you want to hold a little 
 woman quite close." 
 
 Again his every-day accents struck coldly, but 
 his actions were warmer than his tones. She 
 had taken off her hat, and now her bare head 
 rested on his shoulder, his lips were busy with 
 the silky waves of her hair. 
 
 "* You've got the dearest, sweetest hair I've 
 ever seen/' he murmured. Celia was so much 
 surprised that she disentangled herself and sat 
 up straight. 
 
 " Do you really like it? " she asked anxiously. 
 " I always want it to be dark like Eve's, and 
 it is such a worry, it's so soft the pins drop out 
 and it's always coming down." 
 
 " Let down now," commanded Kiplingham, 
 "I'd love to see it all over your shoulders." 
 But Celia's Fendyke education revolted at the 
 idea. Hair once put up became indecent in 
 any other guise. Even washing and drying it 
 in Fendyke had to be managed with a due regard 
 to the vicar's absence the other side of the 
 parish. 
 
 " Of course I couldn't let it down ; suppose
 
 148 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 some one passed and saw me," she said in a 
 shocked tone . 
 
 " But you let me kiss you," remonstrated Rip- 
 lingham, " and some one might have passed 
 then." 
 
 " There's a difference," said Celia helplessly, 
 and she really thought there was, so that she 
 resisted with a certain amount of firmness when 
 he began to extract the pins and lay them in 
 a row by his side. In a moment the shining 
 masses came tumbling about her face, gold to 
 lave eager hands and even more eager lips. 
 
 " Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss." 
 
 " Freshness and fragrance floods of it, too." 
 He quoted with a sudden recollection of life 
 before he became an A.D.C. and had no more 
 time for Browning. 
 
 " That's poetry, I suppose," said Celia. " I've 
 never read any. Say some more." But the 
 call of the flesh was gaining on him every 
 moment, and if he had quoted more poetry it 
 must have been Swinburne and not Browning, 
 whose methods would so easily have drawn a 
 convincing picture of the child at his side. 
 
 "I'm glad you like my hair," she went on 
 presently, " but isn't it time I put it up again? 
 iWe mustn't be too late or Eve won't let me 
 come next time you ask me." 
 
 " Come inside and we'll find a looking-glass," 
 he said, growing more unsteady as his companion 
 progressed towards calmness, her untaught capa-
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 149 
 
 city already growing sated by his lengthened 
 kisses. His encircling arm drew her over the 
 threshold of one of the rooms, but when she 
 made towards a square of looking-glass that 
 hung askew on a nail, he drew her away and 
 sitting down on the edge of the bare string bed- 
 stead perched her on his knee. 
 
 Over her head his eyes roved about the gaunt 
 room. The flaking walls, tarred to dado height 
 and orange -plastered above, were bare except 
 for the broken looking-glass and a printed list 
 of rules that governed the accommodation of 
 touring forest officers. Two wooden chairs with 
 cane seats and rounded arms were drawn stiffly 
 up at the head and foot of a battered table. 
 The floor was partly hidden by a gnawed and 
 stained durrie of incredible ugliness expressed 
 in drab and scarlet stripes. There was nothing 
 else in the room except the bare string bed- 
 stead on which they sat and clung together. 
 
 Suddenly Celia found herself flung to her feet 
 with a hoarse command thrown at her by Rip- 
 lingham as he dashed from the doorway. 
 
 "Do up your hair. It's late," came with 
 unaccountable harshness. Again somewhat 
 aggrieved, Celia walked over to the looking-glass 
 and did all she could with her flowing hair. 
 
 She did not know that but for the man's 
 fastidiousness the hour of her undoing had been 
 even now past. She was saved, not by virtue 
 of the rector's system of education, but because
 
 150 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 the sordid squalor of the room had suddenly 
 revolted the sensitive nature of an epicure in 
 emotional episodes. Not in such a setting could 
 Riplingham play the complete lover. And so, 
 but for the hot kisses she did not comprehend, 
 Celia went forth unscathed.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 OF course, he was glad next morning, and 
 blessed the repulsive room which had so oppor- 
 tunely jarred his sensitive nature. He was glad 
 also that his leave was nearly due. For one 
 brief moment he saw himself a chaste Hippolytus 
 flying before the demands of Celia, but a saving 
 grace of humour banished the absurd picture, 
 and he sat down to plan out a sane course of 
 action for the days that must intervene between 
 the hill station and safety. As he had repented 
 their first love passages on the evening of the 
 river picnic, so he now cursed himself for an 
 amorous lunatic who could not be trusted to 
 repel a girl of such a coming on disposition as 
 he believed Celia to be. 
 
 Conscientiously he invented engagements, 
 interesting himself in regimental football 
 matches and entering for a local polo tourna- 
 ment. Once, having departed from his usual 
 custom of settling dances with her beforehand, 
 he arrived in the ballroom late and deplored a 
 programme filled at the dinner-party at which 
 he had been a guest. Celia's eyes flinched from 
 
 161
 
 152 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 his excuses as though he had hurt her physically, 
 but she answered nothing. 
 
 She had saved three dances for him, and 
 since he did not claim them she sat out in the 
 dressing-room and swore that she would never 
 speak to "him again. With a heroism that 
 astonished herself she was able to allege a full 
 programme when he decided it would not look 
 well to neglect her at the next dance. It was 
 his turn to look hurt, but she smiled bravely. 
 And so the silly comedy went on, wearing its 
 way through to tragedy. 
 
 Only a week was left before he was to sail 
 from Bombay when Eve found occasion to groan 
 over a letter from her husband. 
 
 " Denis is really too thoughtless," she said 
 to Celia. " He has told the Rat-Catcher to come 
 and spend ten days with us, and he will arrive 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " A rat-catcher? " 
 
 " Yes, plague man, you know. He wanders 
 round the country setting rat-traps." Eve's 
 vague explanation hardly penetrated her cousin's 
 brain, for she was feeling with a heart -sick 
 realisation that the presence of a guest in the 
 house would spoil any chance of her coming 
 to an understanding with Riplingham. She had 
 meant to keep up her pose of offended dignity 
 until just near the end of the time when she 
 intended to force an explanation from the lover 
 who had suddenly drawn back his gift of love
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 153 
 
 and offered her neglect in its stead. And now, 
 perhaps, there would be no such opportunity. 
 
 Next day arrived the Rat-Catcher, a strenuous 
 young man who talked horribly of buboes, and 
 shouted plague statistics at the top of a raucous 
 voice. His enthusiasm was boundless, and 
 seemed unaffected by the fact that he had spent 
 the larger part of the hot weather touring round 
 villages and examining rat-traps. Nevertheless, 
 he gloried in the hill coolness and raced Celia 
 breathlessly up and down khuds, discoursing 
 on plague prevention while she dreamed of 
 Riplingham. 
 
 When she could bear it no more she wrote 
 a note to "him in her childish hand. " I think 
 I have made you cross with me somehow," it 
 ran. " If I have, I don't know how or why, but 
 I want you to forgive me because I don't 
 suppose I shall ever see you again after this 
 week. Ages ago you promised to come to dinner 
 on your last evening. We have a horrible man 
 staying with us, but we might find a moment 
 to say goodbye." 
 
 Riplingham did not try to withstand her 
 appeal. He knew that nothing compromising 
 could happen in Eve's drawing-room under the 
 eyes of other guests, and he felt he deserved 
 a little reward for his abstinence. Besides, it 
 would be unkind to the child to refuse her 
 pathetic request for a goodbye, so he wrote to 
 Eve and invited himself for his last evening.
 
 154 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 When the day came there were only the four. 
 Staniforth declared himself weary of the rat- 
 catcher's conversation and refused to join the 
 party, and Eve had not troubled to invite any. 
 one else. 
 
 " You'll have to talk plague all dinner-time," 
 said Eve, as she shook hands with her guest, 
 " but please deliver us after dinner and sing." 
 
 He turned to pay his respects to Celia, and 
 since he could not caress her, he put all his soul 
 into his eyes and the pressure of his hand made 
 her fingers ache. Her spirits rose with a bound ; 
 she was certain their misunderstanding could 
 be cleared, and fell to planning how she could 
 see him alone for five minutes. 
 
 Then the Rat-Catcher bustled into the drawing- 
 room, and they went in to dinner. Riplingham's 
 eyes sent messages without number to Celia. 
 All his old feeling for her came back the more 
 intensely for his abstinence, and he ached for her 
 lips and the softness of her yielding body. But 
 outwardly his attention was fixed on the steady 
 stream of plague information which poured from 
 the enthusiast's lips. 
 
 " There's no plague in the hot weather," de- 
 claimed the Rat -Catcher, " so I spend that time 
 in going round the villages and talking about 
 rats and distributing rat-traps. I pay a rupee 
 for every hundred rats caught." 
 
 "Do they bring you the bodies?" asked 
 Riplingham.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 155 
 
 "-No, only the tails. I've got a mound of 
 tails in my compound, six lakhs of them." 
 
 " Are you sure there isn't a! Birmingham rat- 
 tail industry? " 
 
 " They did bring me mock tails once, made 
 of leather soaked in oil, but I'm not a fool 
 and I spotted them. Personally, I don't believe 
 altogether in the rat theory of plague, but it 
 gives the people something to think about. Also 
 our energy in fighting the disease impresses 
 them. You know they believed at first that we 
 English introduced the plague to kill them off 
 without the worry and expense of a' big war. 
 They are beginning to realise now that a plague 
 officer works nearly as hard as a famine officer, 
 and that's saying a lot." 
 
 " Aren't you afraid of catching it? " asked 
 Eve with a shiver. 
 
 " Not a bit ; I'm no more likely to catch it 
 than you are. A rat flea might bite you and 
 infect you just as easily as it might jump 
 on me." 
 
 Eve plainly thought him rather vulgar, but 
 his hobby was dear to him, and Riplingham 
 encouraged the conversation which gave him 
 time to look at Celia as much as he liked. 
 
 " The Government gave me the rest-house 
 outside Chotapur for my observation work. I 
 kept my bottles in one room, slept in another, 
 and kept a third free for any passing traveller. 
 I was sitting on the veranda late one night after
 
 156 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 dinner when a peculiarly offensive Bengali 
 official rolled up. ' Sir/ he said, ' I claim my 
 right to a night's rest in this bungalow.' I 
 remarked that I didn't dispute it, and he went 
 into the vacant quarters. In a few minutes he 
 came to me again perfectly green with fear. 
 * Sir/ he began, ' in my bathroom are three 
 cages containing rats, all apparently in extremis. 
 Your servants say you are plague officer. Can 
 it be that these stricken rats are plague-infested 
 and will be dying in my bathroom? ' ' They are 
 plague rats, all right/ I replied, * but I'll have 
 them removed to my bathroom at once.' Before 
 I could finish my sentence that Bengali was 
 legging it into the Ewigkeit and I never saw 
 him again. I am afraid we get rather callous 
 over our work." 
 
 He paused for breath, but Riplingham 
 prompted him to fresh efforts. 
 
 " I suppose mortality from plague is very 
 high? " he asked guilefully. 
 
 " Very few Indians get over it, though the 
 percentage of recoveries rises every year. You 
 see, Indians haven't any stamina and they just 
 collapse. An Englishman would have a far 
 better chance. They won't declare infected 
 cases, either, especially in families where they 
 keep par da. They're afraid of our insulting 
 their women. It's heartbreaking work trying to 
 save an Indian from himself, whether he's 
 attacked by plague or by famine. I've known
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 157 
 
 a whole village wiped out, seven hundred of 
 them and only three left alive out of the lot, 
 just because they wouldn't clear out. Their 
 village was in a cleft of rock, and the plague ran 
 through like wildfire. We could stamp out 
 plague at once if we dared drive the folks out 
 of their villages into the fields at the first sign 
 of infection, and then burn the village to ashes. 
 Akbar or any of their old Moghul Johnnies would 
 have done it, but we English are too lily- 
 fingered." 
 
 " Think of the Radical papers at home," said 
 Riplingham. 
 
 " We plague officers are less interfered with 
 than most Anglo-Indian officials, simply because 
 they are afraid of us and all our works. Other- 
 wise, I should figure in Truth every week as 
 an awful example of English tyranny ; for, of 
 course, I conspire as hard as I can against 
 the rights of my Indian brother his right to 
 infect his neighbour with a filthy disease like 
 plague, and his right to be as dangerous after 
 he is dead as when he is alive." 
 
 " I wonder why you all do it," said Eve 
 suddenly ; " why, Denis wears himself to death 
 over famines, and you spend your time over 
 horrid research work, and prowl about in filthy 
 villages." 
 
 An astonishing sweetness came into the 
 Rat -Catcher's smile as he looked towards his 
 hostess .
 
 158 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 " I don't want to be blatant or even too 
 obvious," he said, " but a certain poet who 
 knows far more of India than you or I sang* 
 once of something he called ' the white man's 
 burden.' We don't talk about it overmuch, but 
 we've got to shoulder it. Some take a bigger 
 share than others. Your husband carries a 
 heavier weight than any man I know, Mrs. Lang. 
 People at home talk of high pay, but no pay 
 could compensate for some work that I know 
 of. I don't mean that we come out from home 
 as youngsters full of high and noble thoughts ; 
 but as we go on, India claims us, and we work 
 for something else than pay." 
 
 " I feel rather left out," said Riplingham with 
 a lightness that relieved the tension. " What 
 share of the burden do we soldier men assume? " 
 
 " You stand by to guard us while we work," 
 said the Rat-Catcher with a laugh, as he rose 
 to open the door for Eve, who passed through 
 with a whispered word to Riplingham not to 
 stay long in the dining-room. 
 
 In a very few minutes, even before Celia had 
 had time to grow restless, the men appeared, and 
 Riplingham sat down at the piano. 
 
 Celia chose a chair where she could see him, 
 and he sang to her as he had never sung in his 
 life before. The futile passion of drawing-room 
 songs took on a palpitating reality. Once more 
 he harped her soul out of her with his music. 
 By the time the evening was over and he rose
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 159 
 
 from the piano at last she was a mere bundle 
 of nerves vibrating to every note. 
 
 With a kindly desire to give the two a moment 
 for goodbye if they wished it, Eve called the 
 Rat-Catcher to look at the stars from the 
 veranda. Riplingham stood at Celia's side. 
 
 " Darling," he breathed, " how can I say 
 goodbye to you properly? I haven't seen you 
 a minute alone, and I want to kiss your sweet 
 lips again and feel your arms round me once 
 before I go." 
 
 Celia cast a quick glance at the two backs 
 visible on the veranda. 
 
 " You can't with them here," she said rapidly. 
 " But come back. Pretend to go home, and 
 come back in half an hour. I've given my room 
 up to the Rat-Catcher, and I've got the little 
 suite beyond the dining-room. It is away from 
 every one. I'll sit on the veranda outside my 
 room and wait for you. Go up round the road 
 and come down by the little back path." 
 
 There was no time for more. Eve's kindly 
 impulse did not last long in the chilly air outside. 
 Besides, she thought that Riplingham had 
 avoided Celia lately, and was glad to go away. 
 
 They shook hands and saw Riplingham off 
 down the khud. Fortunately for Celia's plan he 
 had sent his pony away when he arrived and 
 intended to walk home. In a few minutes all 
 was quiet in the bungalow. The Rat -Catcher 
 dreamed of rats ; Eve sank into a confused night-
 
 160 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 mare in which a procession of men passed her, 
 each carrying a heavy load. When Denis came 
 into sight she looked anxiously to see the nature 
 of his burden, and found to her disgust it was 
 her own body. Bowed by her weight, he 
 staggered past her without a word in reply to 
 her eager cries. 
 
 Meantime, curled up in her veranda chair, 
 Celia waited in the darkness. In the room 
 behind her the lamplight shone on the simple 
 appointments of her girlish room. The open 
 door showed everything in an oblong of light 
 framed in the black shadows of the veranda. 
 
 Riplingham saw it as he climbed cautiously 
 down the khud to keep the tryst of Celia's 
 making.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 RIPLINGHAM'S mare stumbled on a slithering 
 pebble. He jagged her mouth so fiercely that 
 the surprised beast walked several steps on her 
 hind legs, an unhealthy mode of progression on 
 a hill path. His wrath sobered while he patted 
 the pony into quiet again and she picked her 
 way daintily on the broken steep. 
 
 Riplingham was furiously angry. For once a 
 woman had proved herself in the right. Dis- 
 regarding Ethel Cunningham's advice, he had 
 trusted to his own experience and his mistake 
 appalled him. For Celia had not understood one 
 word of all that he had imputed to her, and now 
 he had made her understand only too well. She 
 had meant nothing at all and she had not under- 
 stood, until it was too late, that he had meant 
 everything. 
 
 Twenty miles of the stony, precipitous bridle 
 path lay between the lake and the railway that 
 ran close in under the foot-hills. Early in the 
 morning he had skirted the lake, casting one 
 wrathful glance up at the glinting walls of Eve's 
 bungalow. Up there hi that tree -embowered 
 cottage last night he had thrown away his free- 
 
 11 161
 
 162 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 dom for an idle pastime. At the end of the 
 lake he checked his mare and turned to fling 
 a disgusted farewell at the sleeping station. 
 Then he set his course downwards, and the 
 twenty long miles were embittered by repent- 
 ance. 
 
 For Riplingham had his own code of honour 
 of a curious kind. He firmly believed that all 
 women could look after themselves, and that 
 all women were lawful game. If they were 
 snared it was their own look-out. A woman was 
 always at liberty to refuse his love-making and 
 dismiss him from her acquaintance. It must be 
 owned that if she exhibited this strength of mind 
 he accused her of dullness and never troubled her 
 again. There were plenty of other idle women 
 to welcome his attentions. Ethel Cunningham 
 had been the one exception to his rule of life ; 
 he had permitted her to arrange their manner 
 of friendship instead of fixing the terms of it 
 himself. For years she had proved a restful 
 interlude between various episodes. 
 
 But this last episode here was no woman who 
 risked what she knew, he had blundered into the 
 ignorance of a mere baby. He had realised 
 that as he stole away in black shame down the 
 little khud path last night. Each mile of the 
 steep twenty brought the realisation more sharply 
 to his busy mind. Back over their acquaintance 
 he ranged as his little brown mare slid ,and 
 slithered downwards. He saw that he had been
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 163 
 
 taken at a disadvantage after his long spell of 
 duty as A.D.C. For months he had been 
 chained by Lady Kendall's pocket-handkerchief, 
 weighted by her little silk bag, bound to 
 diffuse his smiles equally on all his Lieutenant - 
 Governor's guests. 
 
 When he returned from Bombay, a free man, 
 Celia had been there ready with her alluring 
 nonsense and fresh youth. Different in appear- 
 ance from those other women who had been kind 
 to him, she must be of like mind and thought 
 with them. So he had believed, and his stupid 
 belief had brought tragedy tragedy not for her 
 but for himself. Of course he must marry her 
 now. His sense of honour demanded it ; he must 
 pay like a man for his own mistake. Celia 
 was everything he did not want in a wife. She 
 had no money, no position, nothing but her 
 young prettiness and a complexion of the type 
 that fades very soon in India. 
 
 It was time he married. He could afford it, 
 but he had not intended to marry in India. At 
 home this year he remembered the handsome 
 daughter of the man who owned the place next 
 to his own people down in the country. The 
 thought of her, as he had seen her on his last 
 leave, had lent an attraction to his trip this 
 year. But now all that was over ; his fate was 
 a stupid little pink and white girl who had made 
 a fool of him through her own foolishness. 
 
 The miles grew hot as well as stony. Fire
 
 164 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 seemed to rise from the furnace of the plains 
 growing nearer at every pace. He dismounted at 
 last in a fume of heat and wrath and stalked 
 into the tiny railway-station, where the shuttered 
 train stood blistering in the sun. 
 
 He had spent his journey time up till now 
 reviewing the past. As the train blundered 
 through the endless level miles of darkness he 
 lay on his green-leather berth and made plans 
 for the future. He must write to Celia from 
 Bombay. That would be a difficult letter. He 
 had no faith in the girl's discretion ; a freak 
 of memory told him that she still insisted on 
 pockets and sent her skirts to the wash stuffed 
 with treasures for a dhobi to ransack. Witlj 
 blatant honesty the washerman would bring back 
 letters to Eve. They had no exchange value in 
 the bazar, but a forgotten scrap of paper might 
 ruin Riplingham if it contained any word of the 
 plain truth of last night's episode. 
 
 He composed the letter in his head as the 
 weary night clattered by. He had no hope of 
 her refusal, and the hot day that followed was 
 made yet more uncomfortable by his angry 
 thoughts. Fortunately, there were but few 
 people travelling to the coast at that time of 
 year, and he had the compartment to himself. 
 The train rattled through the dun world and 
 shook as only an Indian train can. In the roof 
 of his furnace-like saloon a futile electric fan 
 buzzed and whirred. At intervals he climbed
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 165 
 
 down to a red-hot platform and swung himself 
 into the dining-car that jolted dizzily at the end 
 of the train. The desert silted in so that an 
 inch of dust lay thick on everything, and Rip- 
 lingham's hands and face grew comically black. 
 Of course the water in the bath-room soon failed. 
 Physically and mentally he had never been so 
 uncomfortable in his life. 
 
 At last came Bombay and a cool, airy room 
 high up in the hotel that looked out over the 
 sea. Much hot water restored to him his self- 
 respect of body, and presently he sat down to 
 write self-respect back into his mind. 
 
 The letter to Celia was written at last. If 
 it were mislaid and seen by any one else, the 
 verdict passed upon it would be nothing worse 
 than a smile at such a cold, matter-of-fact lover. 
 With chilly exactness he told her of his prospects 
 and requested the honour of her hand. He 
 would do his best to make her happy. 
 
 With a shrug he dropped his death-warrant, 
 as he styled it, into the hotel letter-box. There 
 was no time to get a reply before he sailed. 
 He might have telegraphed, but he shrank from 
 the absurdity of such an action. As it was, 
 the Langs would think it extraordinary that he 
 had proposed to Celia by letter when he had 
 the opportunities of so many idle days. Perhaps 
 Celia would have the sense to proclaim their 
 engagement to be of several days' standing, but 
 he hardly expected it, she was really too stupid
 
 166 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 to think of protecting herself against surprised 
 comment . 
 
 The thought of his entanglement spoiled the 
 voyage. There were very few ladies on board, 
 for the dreaded monsoon was blowing, but even 
 from these he held aloof, to their petulant dis- 
 appointment. One at least of them knew of his 
 reputation and promised herself an exciting 
 voyage. She referred to Riplingham ever after- 
 wards as " that most overrated man." 
 
 A week after he landed Celia's reply followed 
 and caught him up. He read it with relief 
 fighting astonishment in his mind, for the girl 
 refused him in definite words. 
 
 " I will not marry you," she wrote, " because 
 I know that you do not love me. I thought you 
 did once, but it was all a mistake. You need 
 not be afraid ; I don't want to marry you, and 
 I will not tell. I have been wondering if all 
 men are like you, but I don't think they <can 
 be. Of course it was my fault, but I didn't 
 know any better. I hope I shall never meet you 
 any more." 
 
 The neat, childish round-hand stretched evenly. 
 over the unblotted sheets. She had written 
 without any visible signs of emotion. He was 
 glad that she had taken it so well, and yet such 
 coldness seemed unnatural. He read it a second 
 time with a swift shock of regret at the thought 
 of her slain childhood. This time his repent- 
 ance was not for his own discomfort.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 167 
 
 When, after a decent interval of time for his 
 secret mourning, he rode over to begin his 
 courtship of the pretty neighbour, he went with 
 a humble mind. He had learnt something 
 from Celia's ignorance to distrust his own 
 omniscience concerning women. Henceforth he 
 would not regard them in the crude guise of 
 mere prey for idle hunters. He burnt the poor 
 little letter at once, but the spirit of it went 
 with him to the end of his life. Celia had 
 wrought better than she knew for certain other 
 women hi the world.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 DENIS took leave when the tardy rains sent the 
 villagers back from the unfinished road to their 
 own fields. He journeyed up to the hills gaunt 
 from under-indulgence in goat chops, and 
 hollow-eyed from gazing over the dun cruelty 
 of a barren plain. His coming caused a certain 
 readjustment in life at the little hill bungalow, 
 for Eve was no longer free to spend idle hours 
 afloat on the lake with Staniforth. The society 
 of the hill quarters of Government was official, 
 and now that her husband was in evidence the 
 two were bidden to a long round of dinners 
 and garden-parties at which it was necessary 
 to appear together. Denis had not even work 
 to serve as an excuse for refusing engagements, 
 for files were banished and he was taking a 
 complete rest after his months of toil. 
 
 Celia was rather a care to both of them. A 
 little to their surprise she had made no girl 
 friends. They expected a child of her youthfully 
 emotional type to have half a dozen feminine 
 admirers, but her affair with Riplingham 
 hindered all excursions in this direction. 
 
 Now Riplingham had gone home and Celia
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 169 
 
 wandered about with a lost air. She could not 
 always go with husband and wife, and Eve took 
 to arranging for Staniforth's escort when a 
 companion for the child was needed. 
 
 " You'll do this for me? " she pleaded when 
 her squire seemed likely to turn restive. " Look 
 after her for me, and when I have more time 
 I'll go out with you as much as you like." 
 
 He consented with an ill grace which warmed 
 her heart, yet he was not really unwilling to gain 
 better acquaintance of Celia. He was keen to 
 understand what a man like Riplingham had 
 seen in the child, and his memory still held 
 fragmentary rumours of her strange topics of 
 conversation. 
 
 Now Celia had plucked her apple and found 
 its taste disappointing. Her eyes were open, 
 too widely for a child, and she had understood 
 suddenly the meaning and the ugliness of the 
 passion she had spoken of in ignorance. Her 
 new knowledge drove her headlong into the 
 opposite extreme of coldness. She seemed to 
 Staniforth to be intensely virginal. Once when 
 his hand fell on hers and played with a turquoise 
 ring she wore he noticed that she pulled her 
 fingers away with a shiver of unfeigned repul- 
 sion. He could not know that the action recalled 
 the first step of her journey from childhood, 
 and liked her the better for a coldness he had 
 not expected to find. 
 
 Her emotional faculties had died down like
 
 170 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 scorched weeds. They might spring again in 
 time, but for the present her intellect began 
 to work unchoked by tares. Thus she was a 
 far more interesting companion to Staniforth 
 than she had been to Riplingham. 
 
 She was ever an eager listener, and now that 
 she craved no more to hear lessons of love, 
 she began to collect information on all manner 
 of subjects connected chiefly with the open air. 
 Soon there was no keener spectator of the polo 
 down at the Flats, and Staniforth took up his 
 game again with the more zest that a pink- 
 flushed face watched him eagerly from the 
 spectators' chairs. Eve hated watching games 
 even more than she detested playing them, so 
 he had had to choose between her society and 
 his polo. Now he had some one to admire 
 him, some one who could discuss the match 
 with him afterwards at tea on the boathouse 
 veranda when Eve delayed to join them until 
 Denis disappeared into the bridge-room. 
 
 There was no solitude in the packed and 
 clattering veranda that overhung the lake ; 
 indeed, there was hardly room to move between 
 the crowded tea-tables. Staniforth found him- 
 self back in a world of men again after his 
 prolonged dallying by Eve's side, and though he 
 protested his weariness in the few snatched 
 moments they achieved together, he began almost 
 insensibly to rejoice in a new spirit of freedom. 
 
 Eve applauded his patience and encouraged
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 171 
 
 Celia's discipleship, and it was left to Mrs. 
 Cunningham to recall an earlier speech of Mrs. 
 Young's, and to plant a fresh seed of doubt 
 in her untroubled mind. 
 
 An attack of fever in the rains persuaded 
 Ethel to desert her husband for a week or two 
 and accept the shelter of the Langs' hill 
 bungalow. Her gay tongue rattled through the 
 hours, and she was able to include even Denis 
 in her discussions on life and morals. 
 
 They sat together one morning at breakfast. 
 Glass doors opened on to a wooden veranda 
 bright with fuchsias in green tubs ; between the 
 supporting pillars lay green glimpses of a khud- 
 side aflaunt with single dahlias. Far below, a 
 corner of the lake, as yet untouched by the 
 climbing sun, showed the opaque green of 
 malachite set in the brighter jade green of the 
 tree-clad cliff that rose sheer from the water. 
 
 Ethel gazed at the green distances with tired 
 but happy eyes. 
 
 " Thank God for green 1 " she said. " You 
 understand, Mr. Lang, don't you? But your 
 wife can't realise the beauty of green since she 
 hasn't seen June in the plains, when you can't 
 even wear a green frock as a contrast to a 
 khaki world. I used to sleep put in the com- 
 pound under a gallows erection that carried a 
 punkah . And night after night I dreamed of ferns 
 and running brooks. Frequently I woke to find 
 a dust storm in progress and had to fly to the
 
 172 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 house in my nightie, clasping my pillows and 
 whatever else I could retrieve from the general 
 wreck. You don't know dust storms, Mrs. Lang. 
 It means pitch darkness and a howling wind 
 that blows out every light, and the air full of 
 dust devils. You spend the day after a dust- 
 storm washing your hair and your bungalow 
 indiscriminately ." 
 
 " >Were there many women down this hot 
 weather? " inquired Eve. 
 
 " Half a dozen. We sit outside in the Club 
 compound under the electric fans and compare 
 thermometer readings and our daily consumption 
 of ice. The hot weather is worse for a woman 
 than for a man because she has nerves and hair 
 and no work." 
 
 " Hair? " inquired Eve. 
 
 " Yes, hair. You see, one's hair is often as 
 wet as if one had washed it, and when one tries 
 to coil it, it sticks to a wet arm and hand. 
 Wet with sweat, you know. Forgive my 
 vulgarity, but ' perspiration ' is too delicate a 
 word to use in June." 
 
 " What do you do all day? " 
 
 " I ride at six, gently, and the house is closed 
 and darkened when I get back before eight. 
 And I am parda till nearly sunset." 
 
 "What a life I " ejaculated Eve. "I'm so 
 glad Denis doesn't want me to stay down in the 
 plains. You are a brave woman." 
 
 Ethel smiled a little grimly. She knew the
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 173 
 
 value of her presence to her husband, knew how 
 it made the servants work better, rendering the 
 hot-weather meals less hateful. She was never 
 too tired to put on a fresh white frock at tea- 
 time and welcome her man's return from office. 
 As the men sacrifice health and time to give 
 good measure running over in return for the 
 pay they earn hardly enough, so the women too 
 bring their little offering, comic enough, for it 
 means but a ruined complexion, a wrinkled pair 
 of eyes and faded hair, small things that rack 
 a feminine heart and may perhaps count for 
 something in the final reckoning. Much, one 
 would think, can be forgiven the woman who has 
 fought and conquered an Indian June. 
 
 "Mrs. Evans has written a book," went on 
 Ethel. " She had to do something to justify 
 her existence. A woman as plain as she is 
 has simply got to be clever or amusing. I 
 think she intends to be merely scandalous from 
 what she told me of the book. She wrote it in 
 the hot weather when no woman can trust her 
 nerves, and I believe we all figure luridly 
 in it, and that her husband is resigned to 
 spending the rest of his days fighting libel 
 actions." 
 
 " I rather sympathise with Evans," put in 
 Denis . 
 
 Ethel nodded. 
 
 " Yes, it's awfully uncomfortable for a man to 
 be married to an authoress," she said, " especially
 
 174 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 if she writes naughty books. I knew a shocking 
 case once. The man had proposed in a few 
 ill-chosen words by broad daylight on the East- 
 bourne promenade, with the band playing some- 
 thing horrible in the way of a music-hall song. 
 Then when his wife began to write impassioned 
 love scenes he knew he hadn't furnished any 
 copy and wondered who had. He used to pick 
 them out of each new novel she wrote and brood 
 over them, and try to identify the passionate 
 heroes with all the men he knew. Finally things 
 got so bad that for the sake of peace she gave 
 up writing novels and took to doing stories for 
 girls, the kind where the sweet young thing of 
 eighteen finds she has been in love for months 
 with her grey-haired old guardian and never 
 knew it, and marries him in a chastened state of 
 holy joy, and blushes purple with awful shame 
 a year later when she has to whisper the 
 embarrassing news that there's to be a baby 
 in two months only she didn't like to tell him 
 before, and of course he never guessed." 
 
 Here she was fortunately obliged to stop to 
 take breath. 
 
 " .Which paid best? " asked Denis gravely. 
 
 " Oh, the girly stories, by far, because all 
 parents and aunts and governesses bought them 
 for Christmas and birthday presents. You don't 
 buy a naughty book, you get it out of the library . 
 You see, the only time you think of buying a 
 book is when you're going on a railway journey,
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 175 
 
 and then you don't like being seen with a very 
 awful and well-known novel. My friend 
 realised this, and though she moaned a lot at 
 first about art for art's sake she grew reconciled 
 when the cheques came in, and her husband was 
 never jealous of the grey-haired guardian he 
 was always such a very sloshy character, and he 
 knew his wife hated slosh in men as much as 
 he hated bread and butter in women." 
 
 " I think India gives one rather a taste for 
 bread and butter," remarked Denis. " What's 
 the first thing you demand when you go home on 
 leave? Bread and butter, of course, and very 
 good it is after the sour grey stuff India pro- 
 vides. Often and often, when I was feeding on 
 goat chops and drinking hot soda-water in my 
 district while the famine was on, I had visions 
 of the Dover refreshment -rooms and my first 
 plate of bread and butter." 
 
 " I suppose you mean to insinuate that Eve 
 and I represent the famine goat chops of this 
 life, and girls like Celia the Dover bread and 
 butter," grumbled Ethel, " and that bread and 
 butter is infallibly more appetising to men out 
 here. Well, here comes some one who looks as 
 if he shared your opinion." 
 
 Celia and Staniforth passed between the 
 veranda arches, returning late from a morning 
 walk which was a work of supererogation on his 
 part and not arranged in Eve's programme. The 
 child ran in with her arms full of single dahlias.
 
 176 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 She was muddy and dishevelled, but youth tri- 
 umphant shone in her eyes. 
 
 " .We've been scrambling up khuds and pic'k- 
 ing flowers for you," she proclaimed. 
 
 " You needn't have troubled, the jhampanis 
 do it quite well," said Eve coldly. "And why 
 drag Captain Staniforth up and down khuds? " 
 
 "Drag him!" protested Celia. "He liked 
 it ; he asked me to go again, didn't you? " 
 Her appeal to her escort seemed to pass 
 unheeded, for he was paying belated homage 
 to Eve and craving her indulgence and break- 
 fast. He succeeded in dispelling her annoyance 
 after a few moments, in which he had glances 
 only for her, and Celia showed too healthy an 
 interest in breakfast to need attention from any 
 one but khitmatgars. 
 
 But the earlier mischief had been set working, 
 and Ethel blamed herself fiercely for a too ready 
 tongue . 
 
 " I'm a babbling fool," she told herself as she 
 stepped out on to the veranda. " And I seem 
 to have got that owl of a Celia on my brain. 
 First I try to play Providence between her and 
 Captain Riplingham. That has cured me of 
 speaking to people for their good. Now too 
 much hot -weather silence has driven me into 
 idiotic speeches about bread and butter to a 
 woman who passed the stage a dozen years ago." 
 She snapped off a fuchsia and twirled it idly 
 in her fingers. Presently Denis joined her with
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 177 
 
 his pipe, and they leaned together over the 
 wooden railing that edged the veranda. 
 
 " I shall be sorry to leave all this," he said, 
 waving his pipe at the landscape, " but I must 
 go down next week." 
 
 " So soon," she returned, wondering if his 
 going would be in time to check Staniforth on 
 his new path. Of course, theoretically, it would 
 be a good thing for the man to free himself 
 from an entanglement with a married woman and 
 turn back to youth and innocence. But she 
 remembered Eve's expression at her unlucky 
 speech over the breakfast table, and felt that 
 theories were apt to fail in the case of women 
 one liked. 
 
 .When the belated meal was over at last Eve's 
 face showed quite serene, and she turned to her 
 housekeeping duties with her usual calmly 
 detached air. Celia went off to change her 
 soiled gown, Staniforth disappeared to his 
 quarters, while stretched in long chairs on the 
 veranda Denis and Mrs. Cunningham rejoiced 
 because the world was ,green . They spoke little, 
 Denis because he was a man of few words, 
 and Ethel because she respected his silence and 
 also because she thought her tongue had done 
 enough execution for one day. 
 
 Once he broke the silence. 
 
 " ."VVihat are you reading? " he questioned with 
 a glance at the slim volume she held. 
 
 " Poetry. Aren't you surprised? Poetry about 
 12
 
 178 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 Nature too, to a great extent. As a matter of 
 fact, in my present state of bliss at being away 
 from the plains I keep on reading one line over 
 and over again. It's this : ' Ere I have thanked 
 my God for all the grass.' " 
 
 Denis smiled across at her. 
 
 " It's worth while staying down when the 
 plains teach you lessons like that about the hills," 
 he said gently.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 DENIS went back to the plains and Mrs. 
 Cunningham soon followed him. In Eve's mind 
 worked plans for compensating Staniforth's 
 docile behaviour, but the weather was against 
 her. The rains had dallied in their breaking, 
 giving long intervals of dry brightness between 
 days of storm, but when August was well begun 
 the monsoon showed its real power. Day after 
 day the rain thundered on the roof and fre- 
 quently trickled through it. Beyond the veranda 
 arches the eye descried nothing but a sea of 
 swirling mist that blotted out the world. If it 
 cleared at evening they made a dash for the 
 boathouse, borne in their dandies by grunting 
 coolies who smelt disagreeably of wet blankets. 
 Otherwise they spent long days in the damp 
 and depressing bungalow. 
 
 Polo was impossible, and, weary of inaction, 
 Staniforth often splashed his way up the stream- 
 ing paths and sat in front of Eve's drawing- 
 room fire. Presently he found himself resenting 
 Celia's habit of retiring to the nursery to play 
 with Dicky on these occasions. At the slightest 
 rift in the clouds he would invade that room
 
 180 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 and carry her off for a walk, from which they 
 invariably returned dripping but with brightened 
 spirits. 
 
 Eve hated rain, and never possessed a pair of 
 thick shoes to cope with it, but Celia's magnifi- 
 cent disregard for weather carried her rejoicing 
 through the worst storm. The only concession 
 the two made to Eve's climatic prejudices was 
 that they never started when it was actually 
 raining, but always alleged the existence of a 
 patch of blue sky through a hole in the mist. 
 Five minutes later the rain might come down 
 in torrents, but they always argued that once 
 wet one might as well go on ; to turn back 
 would be absurd. 
 
 Celia was changed, her crude childishness 
 merged into a kind of gracious youthfulness that 
 was full of charm. Looking at her sometimes, 
 Eve marvelled at the difference wrought in her 
 in the short month's space. She attributed some 
 of it to Riplingham's forming influence, and 
 wondered why the girl felt his absence so little. 
 He did not even write to her after a thick letter 
 which had borne the Bombay post -mark. Celia 
 had taken it to her room, where she had spent 
 the whole morning alone. When she joined 
 Eve at tiffin there were signs of tears about her 
 eyes and her voice was flat and dull, but she 
 had never said a word about the letter and Eve 
 had not liked to invite an unoffered confidence. 
 That week Celia posted her home letters herself,
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 181 
 
 and afterwards showed no increase of interest in 
 the arrival of the English mail. To all appear- 
 ance Riplinghain had passed out of her life 
 unregretted . 
 
 Her treatment of her new companion was 
 quite impersonal. She welcomed him as a 
 deliverer from a wet day indoors, and listened 
 gladly to his monologues on sport without 
 obtruding a glint of her own personality. 
 
 Youth seemed her chief characteristic in this 
 wet month when social gaieties languished, and 
 he saw her always in short skirts, playing on 
 the floor with Dicky, who adored her, or spring- 
 ing up the khud side with an untrammelled gait 
 and joyous brow. 
 
 The weather which suited Celia was hard on 
 Eve, who wilted for want of fresh air, and yet 
 would not brave the dripping khud side to find 
 it. Again, the waves of her dark hair were 
 achieved by a skill which could not withstand 
 the sodden atmosphere, and now fell in straight 
 and unpleasing lines. One was not wont to 
 think of years in connection with Eve > Stani- 
 forth knew that she must be over thirty, but he 
 never formulated his thoughts until he saw her 
 side by side with her cousin one afternoon. 
 
 Eve was just a little bit irritable, and her 
 golden voice, ever one of her chief charms, held 
 almost a rasping quality as she welcomed them 
 back from one of their afternoon rambles. 
 
 " I see you haven't got wet to-day," she said
 
 182 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 a little acidly, " but Celia looks rather like 
 Dicky's gollywog doll." Celia sprang to a silver 
 mirror on a side table and ran her fingers 
 through the silky mop of fuzzing hair. 
 
 "It is rather awful, but forgive it, Eve ; I 
 do feel so well and jolly." She did, indeed, 
 look the incarnation of joyous young health, 
 and Staniforth, glancing at Eve, was guilty of a 
 moment's disloyalty, for the thought flashed 
 that his divinity's complexion looked distinctly 
 yellow. 
 
 " I feel a mere worm," said Eve. " I wish 
 we could go back to the plains, but if we did 
 we should be worried to death with insects and 
 beasts of every description, and then the rain 
 would stop and we should get fever." 
 
 " You couldn't possibly go back yet," said 
 Staniforth quickly. " September is the un- 
 healthiest month of the year down below. The 
 rain must stop soon. In the meantime, why 
 not brave it sometimes? You must feel lonely 
 stuffed up in here all day. You've made it look 
 awfully nice with all the pretty things you 
 brought up yourself, but after all it is only a 
 hired bungalow and not like your own house. 
 Promise to come out to-morrow, wet or fine." 
 
 But Eve refused to promise ; when to-morrow 
 and to-morrow again came with a renewed 
 downpour she would not hear of going out, but 
 sat indoors nursing a cold in her head which still 
 further detracted from her beauty. Staniforth
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 183 
 
 felt a wave of positive dislike come over him 
 when Celia allowed herself to be led away by 
 Dicky, and he was left tete-a-tete with a swollen- 
 nosed goddess who expected him to make love 
 to her between her sneezes. 
 
 There was no walk that afternoon, for the rain 
 never ceased to thunder on the corrugated iron 
 roof. Eve's cold demanded shut windows, and 
 the little drawing-room seemed intolerably 
 stuffy. There was nothing to talk about, even 
 gossip failed them, for no news had penetrated 
 the mist wall for several days. Hitherto they 
 had never found the hours too long, for he had 
 talked of her perfections and she had listened 
 graciously. But to-day, alas I Eve looked very 
 plain . Her hair was flattened, her skin yellowish 
 and rather lined, while her eyes were dull with 
 cold. A man's memory for beauty is short- 
 lived. He forgot the loveliness he had praised 
 a short month ago, and thought only of her 
 present plainness. For her part, Eve felt 
 worried and not at her best. Jealousy of her 
 cousin tormented her at times, though, woman- 
 like, she would never believe her own reign over 
 until the man should put his weariness into plain 
 words. 
 
 A protracted silence got on her nerves. 
 Staniforth smoked a pipe sulkily and wondered 
 why Celia would have nothing to do with him 
 indoors. Eve played with a bit of fancy work 
 and wished tea-time would come, or that he
 
 184 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 would put away that abominable pipe and make 
 discreet love by her sofa. At last her irrita- 
 tion found vent in speech. 
 
 " Have I annoyed you in any way? " she 
 asked, "or is it only the weather that makes 
 you so dull? We don't seem to have so much 
 to say to each other as we did." 
 
 He knocked out the ashes of his pipe into the 
 grate. How fond women were of trying to 
 define situations in crude words 1 It was so 
 much better to drift quietly out of uncomfort- 
 able positions instead of calling each other to 
 witness their discomfort. For the first time he 
 owned frankly that he was growing tired of 
 Eve, but he thought it bad taste in her to force 
 him to such an uncomfortable conclusion. 
 
 Such thoughts sped through his brain as he 
 tended his pipe with exaggerated care. When 
 he straightened his back again he was ashamed 
 of his unbidden thoughts of disloyalty. He 
 crossed the hearthrug and knelt by her sofa, 
 kissing her with the gentle fervour she 
 permitted. 
 
 " Dear lady," he said, " if I seem strange and 
 dull and unloving it is only your fault. You 
 give me no hope of anything further. Are we to 
 go on like this indefinitely, seeing each other, 
 loving each other, until the regiment is trans- 
 ferred and it is all over? Is our love episode 
 just to fade out of existence instead of being 
 crowned as you can crown it? "
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 185 
 
 As he spoke he was afraid with a deadly fear 
 that she might give a definite meaning to his 
 idle words, but he was soon reassured. Eve 
 believed he was suggesting an elopement, and 
 though her heart thrilled at this new evidence 
 of the unfading character of his love she was not 
 the sort of woman to dream that such a solution 
 of their affair was possible. 
 
 Gently she disengaged herself from his 
 enlacing arms. Mournfully she looked into his 
 pleading eyes. 
 
 " I don't think you really meant to insult 
 me," she said, " and I suppose that by allowing 
 you to kiss me I have deserved this, but you 
 must know I could never leave my husband and 
 Dicky and disgrace everybody. I think until 
 you feel wiser we had better not meet alone." 
 
 She meant it for a punishment, meant to bring 
 him to his knees. She could not know that he 
 welcomed his sentence as a respite. It was 
 abominably difficult to make love just because 
 the woman expected it, and he hoped she would 
 not forgive him too soon. Life was much easier 
 when he was expected to wear an air of melan- 
 choly and talk to her in Celia's presence. 
 
 At last the rain ceased and she forgave him, 
 for she did not want to waste any of the sunny 
 days on the lake before the season was dead. 
 He missed his walks with Celia, and the girl 
 felt strangely depressed and lonely, for she 
 had been companioned first by Riplingham and
 
 186 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 then by Staniforth, and now nobody wa? left 
 to her. 
 
 Waiting one afternoon while Eve put on her 
 hat, Staniforth paused a moment on the veranda 
 threshold. Celia' sat there in a sunny corner 
 with Dicky in her arms. She was singing some 
 absurd nursery rhyme to him, and the boy, 
 chuckled with delight. Even Staniforth realised 
 that the picture was one to admire. Dicky was 
 a jolly little chap, and he hoped some day to 
 have a son like him. It would be rather 
 comfortable to settle down, marry a woman who 
 cared for babies like Celia, for instance. 
 
 The girl stopped her crooning and met his 
 admiring eyes with a blush. At that moment 
 she was wishing she had a baby all to herself ; 
 but whereas her thoughts of Dicky were un- 
 complicated by any visions of a husband, Stani- 
 forth's sudden visions of wedded bliss held Celia 
 in the centre of the picture. One fell in love 
 with married women, one philandered with them, 
 but a time came when a man wished to settle 
 down, and then it was the turn of unblemished 
 youth to triumph. Staniforth demanded un- 
 flecked whiteness in his bride, and it was to Celia 
 that he turned to supply it.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 BELOW on the Plains it grew cooler day by day. 
 Those two great rivers, Ganges and Jumna, sank 
 back into their channels, releasing the fields 
 from their wide grip. The heavy smell of decay 
 lifted from the wet atmosphere, and little airs 
 of reviving freshness blew fitfully at dawn and 
 at sunset. Down the hill came a steady stream 
 of wayfarers, eager to exchange cramped 
 quarters for the wide airiness of a Plains 
 bungalow. 
 
 With the rest came Eve and Celia and Dicky, 
 to be rapturously welcomed by James and with 
 due restraint by Denis. The famine had sadly 
 interrupted his monograph on the Gonds, but 
 he hoped to make up for lost time during the 
 cold weather. The first evening of their return 
 he resisted the call of ink and paper to sit with 
 them in the drawing-room, and listened with 
 polite but strained attention to their feminine 
 selection of interesting subjects for discussion. 
 But his duty once done, the drawing-room saw 
 him no more after dinner unless they had guests. 
 
 For the first weeks that followed on their 
 arrival in the Plains Eve was very busy. There
 
 188 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 was much to be done in the renewal of curtains 
 and chintzes for the bungalow, and long rounds 
 of calls had to be made between twelve and 
 two o'clock. Celia went with her to call at 
 Government House, remembering with a shiver 
 the first time she had been there and had met 
 Riplingham's ill-omened smile. The new 
 A.D.C. was an anxious youth whose furrowed 
 brow bore witness to the fractious temper of 
 Lady Kendall's successor. He flung callers at 
 her feet with a sulky air of overwork, and looked 
 absolutely repellent when he waited for new- 
 comers at the top of the portico steps. 
 
 " How one misses Captain Riplingham 1 " 
 breathed Mrs. Cunningham in Celia's ear as 
 they waited by the book where the chattering 
 women inscribed their names with the vile pens 
 peculiar to Government Houses and country 
 inns. 
 
 Celia's eyes faced her steadily. 
 
 " Yes," she replied. " He was certainly an 
 ornament to the top step. But I am not likely 
 to miss him as much as you, for I only saw him 
 once here. And I haven't had so much oppor- 
 tunity to compare notes on A.D.C.'s as you in 
 your years of experience." 
 
 Mrs. Cunningham's smile was positively 
 hilarious. She had been paid in her own coin 
 by this fresh-faced girl who had somehow left 
 her sloughed childishness behind her in the hills. 
 So interested was she in Celia's development
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 189 
 
 that she bore no malice for the thrust, but smiled 
 more kindly than she usually did on girls. 
 
 " That cousin of yours will go far," she re- 
 marked to Eve. " She has just insulted me 
 most deliciously. But you are looking fagged. 
 Why are you tired at the very beginning of the 
 season? " 
 
 " Don't tell me I look tired," said Eve 
 piteously. " You know ' tired ' means ' plain ' 
 in India, and I'm feeling positively hideous. I 
 think Celia must be a kind of vampire sucking 
 my youth out of me and flourishing exceedingly 
 on it. The more faded I get the brighter she 
 blooms." 
 
 " Why don't you marry her off and get rid 
 of her? " asked Ethel, and she did not meet the 
 snub administered to Mrs. Young's version of 
 the same idea a few months ago. 
 
 " Nobody shows the slightest intention of ask- 
 ing her to marry them. If she had had a penny 
 or two I think she might have managed Captain 
 
 Riplingham. As it is " She finished her 
 
 sentence with a shrug. 
 
 "As it is," went on Ethel to herself as she 
 climbed into her dog-cart, " as it is, Celia is 
 going to manage Captain Staniforth, and she is 
 cleverer than I thought." 
 
 Meantime Staniforth was torn two ways. He 
 still felt something of his devotion to Eve, but 
 she seemed unaccountably older in the last few 
 weeks, and he turned eagerly to Celia's abound-
 
 190 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 ing youth. The desire to settle down had laid 
 hold on him ; he could afford a wife and polo 
 ponies at the same time. Marriage meant no 
 self-sacrifice, and he was getting very weary 
 of life in the mess. Before his attachment to 
 Mrs. Lang grew to be treated as a visible fact 
 he had been hunted to weariness by eager 
 mothers of marriageable daughters. Celia did 
 not stir a finger to attract him ; now that she 
 understood things she thought she would never 
 try to attract a man again. 
 
 Difficulty added zest. He had to avoid Eve 
 who sought him, and to seek Celia who did not 
 even do him the honour of avoidance, but seemed 
 hardly aware of his presence. 
 
 The battle could only have one ending. Day 
 by day Eve saw her sovereignty slipping from 
 her and the sceptre passing into her cousin's 
 hands. She was too proud to fight, but presently 
 the uncertainty grew over-fretting for her nerves 
 and she determined to know the truth. 
 
 Coming back one day from a round of calls 
 she found Staniforth in the drawing-room with 
 Celia. He had meant to leave before she was 
 likely to return, but the time had sped more 
 quickly than he knew. His embarrassment 
 seemed unnecessary, for Eve met him with 
 perfect calm. 
 
 "I'm not going to ask you to stay to tiffin," 
 she said. "I'm dead tired after the most wear- 
 ing lot of bridal calls it has ever been my fate
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 191 
 
 to make. I hate brides ; they are always so 
 new and they will ask how much I give for 
 mutton. As if I knew 1 Anyhow, I'm worn to 
 tears, and I am going to bed this afternoon. But 
 do come in to tea after polo. I shall be alone, 
 for Celia' is playing feminine tennis with Dolly 
 Philpot and looking at her trousseau after." 
 
 He murmured something of delight, and 
 drove back to santonments with the feeling 
 that the crisis was at hand. That after- 
 noon he played polo shockingly, for his mind 
 was detached from the sunlit grass and the 
 elusive white ball, and the red and white 
 pennons fluttering atop of the toffee -stick goal- 
 posts. 
 
 He did not play in the last chukker, but drove 
 away without speaking to any one, and was soon 
 in Eve's drawing-room facing her across the 
 shining tea-table. He had intended to arrange 
 beforehand what he should say, but he was so 
 uncertain as to her line of thought that he gave 
 up his attempt, and met her unarmed and 
 defenceless . 
 
 At first there seemed no need for fear. Aware 
 of his embarrassment, that only fed the cold 
 dread at her heart, she treated him with the 
 gentle friendliness of their earlier meetings. 
 Almost he could have imagined himself back 
 in those first months long before Celia came. 
 He half wished it were so for one cowardly 
 moment, when he felt as he had done the day
 
 192 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 he rode in his first steeplechase. He had pulled 
 himself together that time, but to-day it seemed 
 more difficult, for those actual fences had only 
 involved hurting himself or his pony, while 
 to-day's course might mean the hurting of a 
 woman, and all his manliness revolted against 
 that. Writing would have been easier, for then 
 he need not have seen her mouth quivering and 
 her eyes full of tears. Heavens I If she were 
 to cry ! 
 
 He half rose from his chair, but Eve inter- 
 preted his movement as a desire for more tea. 
 She filled his cup with steady hands that 
 measured out exactly the right amount of sugar 
 and cream. Then she passed him a dish of 
 absurd cakes, selecting one herself with an 
 interest that appeared to him misplaced at such 
 a crisis. She was always well dressed ; but 
 to-day she wore a beautiful gown, and her hair 
 had regained all the soft waviness the hills had 
 stolen from it. Nothing was really altered in 
 her ; he was mistaken when he believed her 
 grown plain and old. Six months ago this lonely 
 hour in her drawing-room would have seemed 
 like heaven. And now Celia had come and 
 changed everything with the magic of her 
 youth. 
 
 All the while he sat there, pretending to eat, 
 Eve's golden voice carried its thread of words 
 through the dark fabric of his thoughts. She 
 talked gently of ordinary things, just as if there
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 193 
 
 were no Celia in the world to destroy the peace 
 of meetings such as these. 
 
 He became almost afraid that she might not 
 speak after all, and that it would be left for 
 him to broach the ugly subject of his changed 
 affections. One thing was certain ; if she did 
 not begin he intended of his own accord to 
 clear the way of the sentimental obstacle she 
 presented on his path towards marriage with 
 Celia. 
 
 Even while he made his mind up firmly on this 
 point, Eve put her cup down on the tray and 
 began to speak. 
 
 " Is it quite fair, John? " she asked ; and 
 while he yet stammered something incompre- 
 hensible, she went on, unmoved, to amplify her 
 question. " Is it quite fair to Celia or to me? 
 Either you are tired of me in which case why 
 not tell me so and finish with it? or you are 
 playing with Celia-; and it isn't fair to play with 
 a girl who may believe you are in earnest. 
 You are letting me go on thinking about you 
 as if we still both cared. That's not fair j I've 
 got to think of you differently if you don't want 
 me any more. If you want Celia you must give 
 me up you can't have both of us. Will you 
 please tell me the exact truth, without any veil 
 of politeness or cowardice. Do you care for 
 Celia? " 
 
 Dead silence hung in the room. Eve leaned 
 back in her corner of the sofa and waited for 
 13
 
 194 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 her sentence with her hands meekly folded. She 
 was very pale now, but her face was free from 
 any sign of emotion. Staniforth leaned forward 
 in his low basket chair and played with the strap 
 of his polo boots. The long seconds dragged 
 by until the silence became intolerable, and he 
 raised his eyes in a mood of defiant guilt. 
 
 "If you want to know the exact truth," he 
 said, " I do." 
 
 So it was over, and her sentence passed upon 
 her. Eve understood suddenly that she had never 
 really believed that her reign was over, and she 
 had planned this interview merely to hear his 
 asseverations of changeless love. She had not 
 honestly thought that Celia had won him away 
 from her, and now with a cold certainty of truth 
 his words dropped into her brain. 
 
 " I care for Celia very much," he repeated, 
 and went on playing with his boot-strap. Eve 
 still leaned back in her corner, for she felt 
 like one who has received a deadly physical 
 wound ; she was not in the least faint, but her 
 heart was icy within her and her limbs felt 
 leaden. And yet her voice did not tremble when 
 she put a new question. 
 
 " Have you told her you care? " 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 " You had some idea of fairness, then," she 
 said icily ; but her gibe brought no reply. 
 Plainly he intended to let her drag the truth 
 out by mere force.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 195 
 
 " Does she care for you? " she went on ; and 
 this time he looked up and met her eyes. 
 
 " How can I tell without asking her? " he 
 countered. " And how can I ask until I get 
 your permission to speak to her? " It was 
 cleverly done. He meant to acknowledge 
 nothing of their former relations, and he plainly 
 hoped that she would have tact enough to refrain 
 from funeral orations over his dead love for her. 
 But no woman is strong enough to see herself 
 supplanted without a word, for silence is the very 
 last lesson any woman learns. She even believes 
 that words and arguments can vitalise the 
 Lazarus -like body of a man's dead fancy, and 
 even when her former lover has set the seal 
 on his new passion by marrying her supplanter 
 she always believes that he keeps the dead love 
 sweet with frankincense and myrrh in a hidden 
 chamber of his heart, always trusts in the possi- 
 bility of resurrection. 
 
 " I always knew that it would come some- 
 time," she went on. "I always knew that you 
 would want to marry some one, but I never 
 thought it would come so soon, so suddenly. 
 When did you stop caring for me, and when did 
 you begin loving her? " 
 
 It was unfortunate that Eve had never read 
 Browning. An apt quotation is often a momen- 
 tary balm for a sore heart, and the little poem 
 called " In a year " would so exactly have met 
 her case. If she could only have quoted its
 
 196 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 hurt surprise at love's failure she would have 
 brought comfort to herself and ruth to him ; but 
 she knew no poetry, and had, perforce, to state 
 her case in prose. 
 
 But the pang was not brief, and Staniforth 
 seemed disinclined to do his part. 
 
 " I can't tell," he said wretchedly. " Don't 
 make things worse, Eve. I can't insult you 
 by apologising, and nothing I can say can make 
 me feel more ashamed of myself." 
 
 " Then why did you try to let things go on 
 as usual when you'd stopped caring? And why 
 won't you tell me when you did stop? " 
 
 " You seem to imagine that one day my love 
 for you just stopped ran down, in fact, like 
 an unwound watch. It didn't. It just " 
 
 " Just faded gently out of existence," put in 
 Eve. "Don't think I'm hurt or surprised or 
 jealous. It was bound to come. But I think 
 you might have told me you'd stopped 
 caring." 
 
 He began to feel baited. It was hardly play- 
 ing fair to put her anger on to that ground. 
 How could he tell when he did not realise it 
 properly himself? How tell her of the thousand 
 absurd trifles which had sapped at the roots 
 of his feeling for her? She could never under- 
 stand how the rainy days in her airless drawing- 
 room, her nose swelled with cold, her yellowed 
 skin, had been strong enough to impel him in 
 Celia's direction. His love, founded on idle-
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 197 
 
 ness and propinquity like many Anglo-Indian 
 affairs, had withered away, and not all her re- 
 stored beauty could give it root again now that 
 Celia's presence overshadowed her. 
 
 He could not offer her the futile reasons which 
 were yet the true causes of his falling away, so 
 he must needs coin false excuses. Suddenly he 
 straightened his back and looked her full in 
 the eyes. 
 
 " Why should I keep faithful to you all my 
 life when you never cared enough to give your- 
 self to me? " 
 
 Her pale cheeks flushed painfully. 
 
 " You know I could never do that," she said 
 in a low, shamed voice. 
 
 " Then why should I play tame cat in your 
 drawing-room and be rewarded with the chaste 
 and modest kiss your propriety allowed? Oh, 
 I know I am being a cad. I know that I laid 
 siege to you, that I made you care by the very 
 fact that I loved you. But, Eve, if you want 
 to keep a man like me you must give him either 
 more or less than you've given me. Once you 
 let me kiss you things could not remain at a 
 standstill ; we had either to go on further (and 
 that I know you never would do), or stop 
 altogether." 
 
 "So at the right moment Celia appeared," 
 said Eve. " And she is younger and prettier 
 and more good than I am. And you can marry 
 her because she is free, so I, having filled in
 
 198 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 an interval successfully, can retire with what 
 grace I may command." 
 
 " You have been an angel to me," began 
 Staniforth eagerly ; but she stopped him with a 
 contemptuous hand. 
 
 " No rhetoric, please, and no pity either. 
 Don't flatter yourself I'm heartbroken. I never 
 had a heart to break. I never loved you, you 
 know not with the kind of love men seem to 
 want from a woman. But I was dreadfully 
 lonely ; I needed some one to care whether I 
 exist. I wanted a man to admire me, to be 
 my playmate, in fact." 
 
 " But a man doesn't make a good playmate," 
 said Staniforth gravely. " We are all wild 
 animals with but a veneer of tameness. You 
 are much too beautiful to try to run friend- 
 ships on your present lines. If you had let me 
 love you really, everything would have been 
 different." 
 
 " And you would have been all the more 
 attracted by Celia's innocence afterwards," she 
 said, with a gentle smile. " Meanwhile we 
 understand each other. There is really no need 
 to be old-fashioned and consult Denis first ; just 
 speak to Celia when you like. Come to-morrow 
 afternoon and take her for a; drive. I haven't 
 the least idea whether she will accept you you 
 probably know that better than I do." 
 
 She rose with an air of concluding a business 
 interview, and in a moment he was bowling
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 199 
 
 down the road with a mighty weight lifted from 
 his heart and path alike. The episode with 
 Eve was definitely over, and his life with Celia 
 stretched ahead, a glistering path of whiteness. 
 He was not fit to touch her snowy purity, but 
 he meant to reform for her sake. 
 
 That evening he electrified his brother officers 
 by frowning at a story that was merely vulgar 
 and not in the least improper. 
 
 " He's cut loose," remarked one subaltern 
 to another, " and now he will marry Miss 
 Innocence." 
 
 " If Miss Innocence will have him," returned 
 the other doubtfully. 
 
 Next evening Staniforth did not dine at the 
 mess. He was engaged to Celia, and eating 
 an uncomfortable meal under Eve's calm eyes. 
 Denis had given his consent with a surprised 
 comment on the situation. 
 
 " I never thought he was attracted by the 
 child," he remarked. " I always thought he 
 belonged to you." 
 
 " Quite a mistake," said Eve airily. " He 
 was merely employed in performing those duties 
 husbands haven't time for in India."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 So youth had conquered. Celia would never be 
 beautiful in Eve's rather splendid fashion, but 
 her peach -blossom colouring and her skyey eyes 
 had thus easily snatched the man's vagrant 
 fancy. Riplingham had led the way, and, tired 
 now of a fruitless devotion to Eve, John Stani- 
 forth's thoughts had winged towards a more 
 practical attachment. 
 
 For a brief moment Eve wondered whether 
 the surrender he dared to speak of would have 
 held him to her. She could almost for that 
 one moment have thought it worth while, for 
 the empty days stretched grey before her and 
 her heart sickened at the loneliness they held. 
 But a moment later sanity returned. Surrender 
 or no surrender, it is given to few women to 
 hold an unauthorised lover. The fresher faces 
 intervene, and the years that should bind do 
 but unloose. " Grow old along with me " comes 
 but from a husband's lips. Age spells defeat 
 to the woman who dares to love without sanction 
 of bell and book. 
 
 Celia took her engagement calmly. It was 
 
 900
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 201 
 
 decided that her wedding should take place at 
 the end of the cold weather, so that her trousseau 
 could be received from England in time. Eve 
 threw herself into the preparations, hoping to 
 cheat her loneliness by hard work. The gap in 
 her life was hard to fill ; her only comfort lay 
 in the fact that no one realised its existence. 
 A reputation for coldness goes a long way 
 towards rendering a woman free from tongues 
 of gossip, and nobody hurt her with pity for 
 Staniforth's defection. 
 
 The man's attitude was typical of him. All 
 his life he had got his own way ; the difficult 
 moment once over he had taken his own way 
 again. He had wanted Eve's friendship and 
 taken it, when it suited him to hand it back 
 he had done so with a little irritation against 
 her because she made it difficult. 
 
 True, he had nothing but praise for her bear- 
 ing when once the uncomfortable interview was 
 over ; he found it admirable in every way. Not 
 a word, not a sign claimed his past. Some 
 women, he knew, would have made the position 
 impossible by a cruel assumption of authority 
 over the former days, but Eve had abdicated 
 with a full renunciation of all the rights she 
 might imagine she possessed over his memory. 
 
 She helped him to forget scenes and words 
 that might well have proved irksome to a 
 sensitive mind. By her tact alone he was able 
 to slip into his new place in the household
 
 202 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 without jarring his own comfort or hurting 
 Celia's new pride hi her engagement. 
 
 She was wonderful, and his feeling for her 
 changed, not into hate as it so easily could 
 have done, but into a kind of astonished admira- 
 tion, blended with a little pique that she felt 
 his loss so slightly. Once when they happened 
 to be alone he blundered into a reference to 
 her kindness a mistake she met with the raised 
 eyebrows of displeased surprise, crushing any 
 further reference to their past. Sometimes she 
 wondered if Celia felt any jealousy of Stani- 
 forth's earlier devotion, but her cousin presented 
 a blank wall to all surmise. It was not easy 
 to tell whether Celia cared for Staniforth, or 
 whether she had but accepted him as the first 
 man to offer marriage. 
 
 But for her difficult position in the triangle 
 Eve would have questioned her cousin definitely, 
 and, adopting a maternal role, have cautioned 
 her of loveless marriages . As it was she could do 
 nothing for Celia, beyond spending Denis's 
 money to the very best advantage on a 
 trousseau . 
 
 It is possible that Celia could not have 
 answered the questions Eve longed to put to 
 her. Dazed by her adventure on Riplingham's 
 last evening, she presented a numb soul to all 
 new happenings. When Staniforth had driven 
 her to the jungle thickets and had asked her 
 to marry him, she walked under the babul -trees
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 203 
 
 by his side wondering that the recollection of 
 her earlier visits there brought no poignant 
 hurt. 
 
 She decided swiftly that she could accept him. 
 The dullness she deemed inseparable from 
 marriage showed now as a safe haven. She 
 was glad to be engaged, and found Staniforth's 
 gentle love-making quite to her taste. 
 
 Resolutely she shut away all memories that 
 might cloud sunny days, finding that the many 
 congratulations she received helped to restore 
 her easy self-respect. 
 
 But some idle words of Dolly Philpot dis- 
 turbed what was really only a surface calm. 
 The two girls sat among a litter of trousseau 
 parcels, Celia taking notes from Miss Philpot 
 for her own guidance. 
 
 " I never thought I could be so happy," said 
 Dolly, fingering a lace petticoat affectionately. 
 " And to think I nearly accepted Mr. Heming- 
 way because he was such a good match. And 
 to think, too, that I nearly went to Naini instead 
 of Simla. If I'd gone to Naini I would never 
 have met Harold." 
 
 " I suppose you are frightfully happy? " put in 
 Celia, eyeing a camisole with undivided interest. 
 She was not really impressed by her friend's 
 ecstasies, though she enjoyed examining patterns 
 of underlinen. 
 
 " There is only one drawback," went on Dolly. 
 " I wish I were young like you. I don't mean
 
 204 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 I'm so much older in years, but you are going 
 to marry your very first love, and I'm not. Of 
 course I know it was fun to flirt, but I can't 
 help wishing I could have come to Harold 
 quite new. Now I don't suppose any one 
 kissed you in your life till the day you got 
 engaged." 
 
 Celia dropped the garment she was holding 
 and looked up with a strange question in her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Does a man care much if some one else has 
 kissed you? " she asked. 
 
 " You little innocent 1 " scoffed Dolly affection- 
 ately. " Of course he cares. He would like 
 to think he was the very first to make love to 
 you. He knows very often that he isn't, but 
 he'd always like it to be so. A man is dread- 
 fully jealous of the days before he knew 
 you." 
 
 This view of the question had never occurred 
 to Celia before. Dolly Philpot had cause to 
 grieve over the past, to regret kisses accepted 
 without rancour from idle men in search of 
 entertainment. But Celia looked now at her 
 own short past, opening the door of memory as 
 resolutely as she had shut it. The blot loomed 
 blacker than in those first dazed weeks when 
 forgetfulness had seemed the only way. Abruptly 
 she took leave of Dolly and her trousseau, court- 
 ing solitude to face this new problem. If a 
 man were likely to resent poor Dolly's rather
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 205 
 
 vulgar little affairs, in what light would he see 
 Celia's own conduct? 
 
 That evening Staniforth dined with them. 
 Denis was out in his district, whither Eve seldom 
 went because she disliked the discomforts of 
 camp life. This season she had the additional 
 excuse of work connected with the approaching 
 marriage. She toiled hard to sustain the con- 
 versation, for Celia said nothing all the evening, 
 but stared at Staniforth with puzzled eyes. 
 Ought she to tell him, and if she told him would 
 he ever forgive her? She found herself suddenly 
 aghast at the idea of losing him. .When it was 
 time for him to go, and she went out on to the 
 discreetly shaded veranda to say good-night, she 
 found herself clinging to him in puzzled 
 fear. His shoulder was so broad, his arm so 
 protecting for the child who had done with- 
 out loving care all her life. She wanted to 
 belong to some one wanted to be protected 
 and petted by some one nearer than a mere 
 cousin. 
 
 Eve had been kind in her detached way, but 
 there was not a sufficing welcome for an egoist 
 like Celia in her cousin's house. 
 
 The protecting quality of that farewell em- 
 brace decided her for the moment ; she could 
 not show that blot on her escutcheon to Stani- 
 forth. An excuse of a headache accounted to 
 her cousin for her silence during the day ; Eve 
 listened to it smiling.
 
 206 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 " Too much chatter with Dolly Philpot, I 
 expect," she said. 
 
 " I think that must have been it," assented 
 Celia gravely, as she went off to her room to 
 bed.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 CELIA went to bed, but she could not sleep. 
 Dolly's words rang in -her ears until her burden 
 grew too heavy for her to bear, and the impulse 
 to confession was too strong to be resisted any 
 longer. She dived under the mosquito net 
 hastily untucked from beneath her mattress. 
 Then, candle in hand, she crossed the Drawing- 
 room, the chairs and tables looming ghostly in 
 her path, and pulled aside the curtain which 
 veiled the open doorway of Eve's bedroom. 
 Within the dim white oblong formed by the 
 mosquito netting she could just descry a still 
 dim figure. Her cousin was asleep, but that was 
 a small obstacle to Celia's resolve. She put her 
 candle down on the small table by the bedside, 
 and insinuating one hand within the curtains she 
 gently shook Eve's shoulder. 
 
 Eve woke in a moment and stared at Celia's 
 white form. 
 
 " Are you ill? " she asked quickly. "I'll 
 unlock the medicine -chest in a second." 
 
 "No, I'm not ill, but I've come to speak to 
 you, Eve. Don't get up, lie where you are, 
 and I'll try to tell you." 
 
 207
 
 208 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 Eve lay back on her pillows again, her heart 
 beating strangely as she tried to see the expres- 
 sion of Celia's face down-bent amid her masses 
 of fine, soft hair. Had she come to say she had 
 mistaken her feelings towards Staniforth ; come 
 to plead for time, for deliverance from her 
 promise? 
 
 Celia turned away from the bed and paced 
 towards the doorway, which stood open wide 
 to the moonlit compound. Hollyhocks, wine red, 
 pearl white, blush pink by daylight, rose in a 
 hedge of silver spires beyond the lawn. Heavy 
 masses of foliage crowning the still trees lay 
 like ebony on a sky of enamelled silver. The 
 matchless purity of the flooding moonlight struck 
 with a sudden passionate regret at the heart of 
 the child who scarcely yet realised the value of 
 the treasure she had lost. She began to search 
 for the ugly words that must clothe her case, 
 that might lose Eve's hardly granted love. Turn- 
 ing from the abrupt lights and shadows of the 
 garden she faced the dim room again, and a 
 rustle from the bed told her that Eve was sitting 
 up among her pillows waiting. 
 
 " .What is it, dear? " asked the woman gently. 
 Celia had seldom heard that golden voice soften 
 before ; she wondered if the face too were 
 warmer, less aloof, shrouded there in the veiled 
 dimness. Then came a hasty plunge into the 
 luxury of confession. 
 
 " Eve, what is the worst thing a woman can 
 do?"
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 209 
 
 "The worst thing? " Eve's questioning tone 
 held nothing of horror ; she had no glimmer 
 as yet. 
 
 "Yes, the worst thing the wickedest." 
 
 "I don't understand you." The voice was 
 cold again. " Are you asking for a new set 
 of moral precepts? If so, why wake me up in 
 the night won't to-morrow do as well? " 
 
 " It has got to be now. I can't hide it any 
 more. It's too heavy for me to carry alone. 
 You must help me, Eve ; you've got to listen 
 and help me." 
 
 " What is it? I'm listening. What have you 
 done? " 
 
 " I let Captain Riplingham make love to me." 
 She thought her ordeal complete, her confession 
 done, and waited for Eve's disdain ; but to her 
 surprise a low laugh, which seemed strangely to 
 hold relief, came from the bed. 
 
 "You are a silly little girl. I was afraid he 
 flirted with you, but now you're going to be 
 married you must forget all that kind of 
 rubbish." 
 
 Celia turned swiftly from the doorway and 
 sprang towards the bed. 
 
 " Eve, you don't understand. You can't, or 
 you wouldn't treat it like that. It wasn't just 
 love, it was the worst the worst thing of all." 
 She stood panting by the bedside, her frightened 
 eyes close to the meshes of the net, intent on 
 Eve's slow rising. 
 
 14
 
 210 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 " You don't know what you're saying, Celia." 
 She pulled at the curtains with an uncertain 
 hand, and in a moment was at the girl's side, 
 holding the candle that made a little pool of 
 yellow light in the dim whiteness of the room. 
 
 " I know perfectly well what I'm saying. Try 
 to understand ; it is so difficult to say ; I don't 
 suppose any girl ever had it to say before. I 
 wanted to know everything, and Captain Rip- 
 lingham helped me." 
 
 Eve caught her roughly by the arm. " You 
 
 don't mean to say that he " The words 
 
 failed with her grip, and she turned aside. Celia 
 followed, eager for her comprehension. 
 
 " I suppose it was my fault," she went on. 
 "It was in the hills his last night. You 
 remember he came to dinner and the Rat-Catcher 
 was there, and I'd quarrelled with Captain Rip- 
 lingham at least, he hadn't been nice to me 
 for a long time and I wanted to make it up. 
 So I asked him to come back and say goodbye 
 to me when you'd all gone to bed ; and I waited 
 on my veranda for him, and he came." 
 
 There was no escape from the finality of her 
 words, but a foolish hope still mocked Eve. 
 
 " Are you sure you know what you are 
 saying? " she implored. 
 
 " Quite sure. I didn't know what I was 
 doing, and he thought I did. And when I knew, 
 I hated him. He wrote to me from Bombay 
 and asked me to marry him such a queer, stiff
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEEKSMAN 211 
 
 letter and I wrote back to say I never wanted 
 to see him again, and I could never marry him 
 as long as I lived." 
 
 " Celia, dear, do you really mean to tell me 
 that Captain Riplingham " 
 
 " Don't say it 1 " broke in Celia. " Don't say 
 it I it is too ugly ; only remember that it was the 
 worst thing that happened." Her tone brought 
 certainty at last. 
 
 " Child, how could you? " moaned Eve. 
 " Didn't you understand what you were doing? 
 Didn't you even understand the danger you were 
 in? It was my fault ; I oughtn't to have left 
 you so much when I was responsible for you, 
 but I thought you were a child, an innocent 
 baby." 
 
 " So I was," said Celia passionately ; " but I 
 wanted to know and feel and understand every- 
 thingI wanted to live, to get out of the dull- 
 ness of innocent childhood. I wanted to be 
 loved, I wanted to matter to somebody. It 
 seemed so splendid that a man had chosen me. 
 How was I to know what he had chosen me 
 for? I didn't know love meant that kind pf 
 thing. vWhen I knew I just tried to forget. 
 Tell me, Eve, may I go on forgetting? If 
 people never know, does it matter so dreadfully? 
 I told you because I wanted to ask your advice. 
 Must I tell John? " 
 
 An electric shock ran through Eve's veins. 
 The child's eager question showed her suddenly
 
 212 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 a new chance of happiness an idea that dazzled 
 with its swift brightness. She drew Celia to 
 a wicker sofa and sat by her side, gazing out 
 at the moonlit garden, her thoughts darting 
 lightning -wise from one point to another. 
 
 " Let me think," she said, to check Celia's 
 ready tongue. " Don't speak to me yet." James 
 had wandered in from his string bedstead on the 
 veranda and he lay down by Celia, pillowing 
 his head on her bare feet. She bent to caress 
 his flopping ears, and Eve felt a strange repulsion 
 from the girl who could make such a confession 
 and lavish idle affection on a dog a moment 
 later. 
 
 She turned to look at the childish figure at 
 her side, the down-bent face as yet unmarred 
 by remorseful tears, the slight load of care too 
 easily banished by confession. Celia had trans- 
 ferred her burden to Eve's shoulders. If Eve 
 thought fit, the weight must again be lifted and 
 the confession made to John. 
 
 Meantime Eve's busy brain was showing her 
 what that would mean. Jaded by custom he 
 had turned from her to the lure of the spring- 
 like charm of untouched youth. It was Celia's 
 whiteness, child-like purity, fresh sweetness 
 which had attracted John. If he knew that these 
 qualities of hers for which he loved her had 
 existed only in his imagination, he must turn 
 away from her. Celia's crudeness could be no 
 match for his knowledge of the world, she could
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 213 
 
 be no real companion for him. Eve's maturity 
 might attract him again after his straying were 
 proved but a mistaken foolishness. 
 
 Eve saw herself for a moment lapped again 
 in the warmth of John's care. The desire to be 
 first with somebody was even stronger in her 
 than in most women ; and she had felt so lonely 
 after his defection, so cold, so unwanted. She 
 was certain that it needed but Celia's confession 
 to regain all she had lost. She turned to deliver 
 the child's judgment. 
 
 James was lying in an ecstatic rapture on his 
 back, his four legs sticking stiffly in the air 
 while Celia tickled his chin. No pose of 
 repentant sinner met Eve's gaze, and suddenly 
 there welled a gush of pity in her heart, mingled 
 with the bitter waters of shame for her own 
 selfishness, shame for the responsibility she had 
 shirked. Her own idle carelessness had brought 
 about the tragedy by which a moment ago she 
 had meant to profit. For the first time in her 
 life Eve restrained her hand from taking what 
 she wanted, and in a moment she had rendered 
 Celia's lover to her again. 
 
 14 Listen to me," she said. " You must never 
 tell John . He would never forgive you, and your 
 wedding would never take place. Men think 
 about these things so differently ; and it's right 
 that they should. If John knew it, he would 
 never marry you ; but it is not necessary to tell 
 him. I couldn't say this to a girl ; but you are
 
 214 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 not a girl any longer after what you have done, 
 so I can tell you that many men have incidents 
 such as yours before they marry and they don't 
 tell their wives. So for once a woman can 
 act like a man and keep silence." 
 
 Eve's voice, wearied, hard and metallic after 
 her mental struggle, ceased its monotonous 
 words. She had given the right advice from 
 her own point of view, and she ignored the 
 general morality of the question. A man did 
 not really deserve more than he gave. Celia's 
 treatment at the hands of one man should be 
 avenged by the ignorance of another. 
 
 The girl had withdrawn her attention from 
 James and gazed eagerly at her cousin's dimly 
 seen face. She heard her decision with a sigh 
 of relief. 
 
 " I'm glad I needn't tell. Of course I believe 
 he would forgive me in the end, but it would be 
 horrid to tell him," she said, in a matter-of-fact 
 way. 
 
 Her cousin rose in a sudden gust of passion. 
 
 " Are you perfectly heartless, or are you 
 mad? " she cried. " You sit there calmly and 
 play with a dog while you tell me your horrible 
 story. Can't you realise what you've done? " 
 
 Celia settled herself squarely in her dogged 
 way. 
 
 " I don't see how I am responsible," she said 
 calmly. " Not altogether, anyhow. Nobody 
 ever taught me anything. I saw you and John
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 215 
 
 always together, and you let me see as much 
 of the other man as I wanted." 
 
 " You knew that what you did was wrong 
 you must "have done." 
 
 " Yes, but why was it wrong? How could I 
 tell it was wrong until I'd tried? I mean, how 
 could I tell whether it was worth it until I 
 tried? Rightness and wrongness seem to change 
 the whole time. Things that were wrong in 
 Fen dyke, like playing tennis on Sunday, are all 
 right here. Why, you play bridge for money 
 on Sundays I've seen you. The rector would 
 have said it was wicked to play cards for money 
 even on Saturday but on Sunday " 
 
 " Celia, there are certain things which are 
 always wrong," said Eve hopelessly. 
 
 " I've never found any. Even the Command- 
 ments are different in Fendyke." 
 
 " You are quibbling ; you must have known 
 you were wrong ; you said yourself that you had 
 done the worst thing a woman could do." 
 
 " I was frightened then," said Celia ; " and, 
 Eve, I'm really just a bit frightened now. You 
 don't hate me, do you? Remember I've never 
 had any one to love me in my life before, and 
 when I came here you didn't care for me as 
 I hoped you would. And now I've taken John. 
 Oh, I know you didn't really care for him as I 
 thought you did ; he has often explained what 
 friends you were, and how he never even kissed 
 your hand. Still he was your very own friend,
 
 216 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 and now he doesn't have so much time for you 
 as he did, and you must miss him. And I 
 know really, o"f course, that I've been fright- 
 fully wicked, but I've repented now, so you will 
 forgive me." 
 
 Her words tumbled out in anxious confusion, 
 and the last sentence was mumbled from her 
 refuge in Eve's arms. The elder woman stroked 
 the down-bent head and pressed the slender 
 form to her breast in an unavailing agony. 
 
 The downfall, hardly the less ruinous because 
 the child did not yet realise it, was the work of 
 her hands. Eve's idleness had murdered a soul. 
 
 Appalled by the uselessness of repentance, she 
 stared over Celia's head into the darkness, her 
 unseeing eyes reviewing her idle past. Then 
 she put the child gently from her. She was 
 young and so calm in her misdeeds, they seemed 
 to have made so slight an impression on her. 
 Perhaps there was hope. Outwardly she was as 
 untouched as ever ; perhaps the hurt soul within 
 might yet lay hold on life. For Eve herself 
 there could be no forgiveness, but for the child 
 Celia God might find some healing spring. 
 
 " Poor little one I " she whispered. " Don't 
 be afraid ; I've never loved you so much as I 
 do now. Go to bed, forget all this horror, and 
 never, never speak of it again, even to me." 
 
 Celia's candle had guttered out, and she took 
 the one Eve put into her hand and went away 
 without a word. In a moment she was sleeping
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 217 
 
 peacefully, her mind too deeply at rest to give 
 her any dreams. But Eve's mental burden was 
 heavy, and the hot stillness of her room weighed 
 on her physically, so that presently, she threw 
 a dressing-gown about her and stepped out into 
 the moonlit garden. 
 
 As she walked there she faced herself, awake 
 ^at last, searching depths that had passed for 
 shallowness. Behind her trotted James, soberly 
 delighted at this unexpected stroll, yet a little 
 puzzled in his mind at such strange proceedings.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 BY common consent neither of the women re- 
 ferred again to the secret that lay between them. 
 Once absolved of the duty of confession, Celia 
 appeared to shake misgivings from her heart 
 with astonishing ease. The transferred burden 
 weighed all the heavier on her cousin, for Eve 
 took on her own shoulders all the blame for 
 what had happened. With hot remorse she re- 
 membered how she had benefited from Celia 's 
 coming, recalled how the child had shown her 
 Dicky in a new light, had helped her to con 
 again the half -forgotten lore of motherhood. 
 
 Selfishly irresponsible, she had neglected Celia 
 to everlasting hurt. The child had brought 
 her nothing but good, for which she had returned 
 nothing but evil. Fantastic schemes of atone- 
 ment formed in her brain, to be rejected because 
 no one must ever know of Celia's wakeful night 
 of confession. 
 
 Cheerfully would Eve have offered her life 
 to buy back Celia's soul if the exchange had 
 been possible ; but as she could not die in
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 219 
 
 expiation she realised that life at any rate might 
 serve as a burnt -offer ing, and she cast about 
 for an altar and a flame. 
 
 She began with the Gonds. As henceforth 
 she must live for others, she decided to live for 
 Denis first. Dicky needed no embroidery ; he 
 was, in fact, progressing into his first sailor 
 suits, which refused maternal fancy-work. The 
 nurse who had dandled the children of 
 Lieutenant -Governors was far too good to 
 dismiss, but her authority extended over the 
 lucky mothers of the infants in her charge, and 
 she disapproved of frequent maternal visits to 
 the nursery. There was, in fact, very little to 
 be done for Dicky. 
 
 The Gonds proved wearing. To her 
 fastidiousness they were an unpleasant race with 
 disgusting customs, and she failed to understand 
 her husband's regard for them. When she 
 offered shyly to help him with his book in the 
 evenings he stared at her first in wordless 
 astonishment. Presently he inquired whether 
 she did not think it wise to take her temperature 
 an implication which effectually crushed any 
 desire to assist his literary evenings. 
 
 There remained Celia ; but she was com- 
 pletely immersed in her John. Thus all that 
 Eve could do for her was connected invariably 
 with Staniforth's presence. On polo days Celia 
 never claimed him, but she always wanted to 
 watch him play, so Eve drove her down to the
 
 220 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 ground and sat by her side through the tedious 
 progress of the game she neither liked nor 
 understood. 
 
 It proved a difficult matter to start living 
 for others when nobody seemed to need her ; so 
 heartbreaking a task to try the building of altars 
 without straws for her bricks. Christmas found 
 her burnt -offering still unconsumed, unaccept- 
 able in the sight of God and man alike as it 
 seemed to her anxious fancy. 
 
 One of Celia's Christmas presents gave her 
 a curious sensation of comfort. It was a volume 
 of Stevenson, sent by Dolly Philpot, who was 
 making a valiant effort to improve her own mind 
 and, incidentally, Celia's literary taste. Eve, 
 standing by while Celia wrote her letter of 
 thanks, opened the book with an idle finger. 
 Her eye fell on a' sentence marked by Dolly's 
 pencil. 
 
 '* Then I came about like a well-handled 
 ship," it ran. " There stood at the wheel that 
 unknown steersman whom we call God." 
 
 She read ho further, though the pencil -mark 
 still pointed the way down the page. The words 
 she had read held her with a swift fascination. 
 Her mental image of burnt -offerings and altars 
 gave place to Stevenson's metaphor of a ship. 
 Could it be that a Divine steersman had really 
 taken the direction of the rudderless ship of 
 her life? Long ago she had relaxed her grip 
 on a belief in a personal God. Providence had
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 221 
 
 loomed a dim, uncertain shape in the back- 
 ground, a nebulous fatality that dispensed good 
 and evil lots from mere unaccountable whim. 
 If she had read Greek the description of 
 the two jars of Fate would have attracted 
 her fancy, but unfortunately her fluid imagina- 
 tion had never been crystallised into an exact 
 form. 
 
 The idea of a Steersman suddenly dominated 
 her mind. She saw Celia's small bark drift 
 into her course, saw the signals she had failed 
 to read, her failure springing from idleness, 
 carelessness, egoism. Now that little ship which 
 ought by all laws of society to be a derelict was 
 sailing gaily for harbour with all sails aspread 
 to a favouring breeze and a following sea. 
 Perhaps the Steersman had come aboard that 
 ship too. Perhaps the lore of that unknown 
 pilot was proving stronger than the shoals of 
 heredity, more powerful than the fierce winds 
 of environment which had done their worst to 
 wreck Celia's ship of life. For the child there 
 was a near haven in sight, but for Eve a long 
 and stormy journey before she could regain the 
 port from which she had set out with Denis as 
 her companion. 
 
 Idly scanned in an idle moment, the words 
 were a strong foundation for a new philosophy 
 of life. Her work then was not to build altars, 
 but to get in touch with the Steersman so that 
 she might answer swiftly to every turn of the
 
 222 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 wheel. Not self-sacrifice alone was to be her 
 watchword henceforward ; mingled with the 
 spirit of atonement flowed the desire for growth, 
 for self -development.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 EVE wrestled with Gonds no more. With her 
 mind full of Celia's case, and lessoned by the 
 Rat-Catcher's remarks on burdens, she turned 
 her thoughts to her fellow -women. It seemed 
 certain that she could not help Denis with his 
 share of the load, so she cast about to discover 
 a task of her own. 
 
 She found it easily enough, for the talk at 
 the moment was all of panaceas for the ill- 
 feeling between Indians and Englishmen. Men 
 spoke solemnly of " bridging the gulf between 
 East and West," and gave badminton parties to 
 which the East came without its wives, but 
 enjoyed the untrammelled society of the white 
 women they heartily despised. As usual in India, 
 all the giving proved to be the Englishman's 
 task. He built the bridge upon which the Indian 
 ventured a doubtful foot. Ostensibly the Hindu 
 and Mohammedan gentlemen of good family put 
 aside their bitter racial prejudices when they 
 played clock glolf together on the Commissioner's 
 lawn. In glowing periods they hailed the 
 approach to the millennium to be brought about
 
 224 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 by this new spirit of affability among English- 
 men. They were very fond of the word 
 " affable." Then they went home and talked 
 eagerly of the time when the white race should 
 be left to its proper tasks of road-making 
 and bridge-building and forestry, and perhaps 
 a little soldiering, while the Indian took over 
 the government of his own country. 
 
 Certain Englishwomen who met the Indian 
 brother at these " bridging the gulf " parties 
 became fired with the desire to meet the Indian 
 sister ; so they formed a Parda Association and 
 held parties assiduously once a week. Eve had 
 joined the association, but she never troubled 
 to attend its meetings, putting forward as an 
 excuse her ignorance of the language and 
 Denis's fear of enteric. 
 
 Occasionally her husband's official position 
 had compelled her to attend one of the men's 
 gatherings, and she went one day with Denis 
 to the Commissioner's garden party. This time, 
 instead of a fixed determination to be bored, she 
 carried with her a hope that she might find 
 work, and she searched the crowded lawns for 
 guidance. 
 
 All kinds of costumes met her gaze, satin 
 coats brocaded with threads of real gold 
 promenaded among ill-cut frock-coats of cotton 
 tweeds. There were one or two Parsee ladies 
 whose floating, gauzy draperies were sewn with 
 fairy patterns of butterflies and flowers, but not
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 225 
 
 a Hindu nor a Mohammedan woman was to 
 be seen. 
 
 " Will you introduce me to a native, please, 
 Denis?" requested Eve. "Some one who 
 can talk English, of course." 
 
 " We don't speak of ' natives ' when we go 
 ' gulf bridging/ " said Denis dryly. " They are 
 Indian gentlemen and our brothers. Here 
 comes Mr. Justice Chatter jee. He is a High 
 Court Judge, and a high caste Brahman. He 
 will be glad to know you." 
 
 The introduction effected, Eve turned to walk 
 by the side of the Honourable Mr. Chatterjee. 
 He was dressed in a long tight-fitting coat of 
 black alpaca and wore a black pork-pie cap on 
 his head. His well-cut, high-bred face was not 
 so dark as many an Italian's complexion. Eve 
 was a little nervous at first, but Mr. Chatterjee 's 
 perfect manner and his perfect English accent 
 soon restored her confidence. 
 
 " I am afraid I was out when you called this 
 cold weather," she began. " I found your cards 
 in my box." 
 
 " I was very sorry to miss you. I always 
 enjoy a chat with English ladies," he returned. 
 " I admire the English manners of furnishing, 
 and have my own rooms done in that style." 
 
 '* Does your wife like it too? " asked Eve, and 
 
 then realised her mistake. She knew little of 
 
 Indian prejudices, but had learnt at least that 
 
 one may never ask after those who live behind 
 
 15
 
 226 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 the parda. The Hindu's impassive face betrayed 
 no annoyance, he merely stood still by a rose- 
 bush and bent down to inhale its fragrance. 
 
 "Mrs. Cardwell has beautiful flowers," he 
 remarked benignantly. 
 
 Eve's apologetic mood vanished into anger. 
 
 " It isn't fair," she said. 
 
 " Fair? " he bowed expectantly. 
 
 " It isn't fair. You come to these parties, 
 and we meet you more than half-way. I may 
 not even speak of your wife, but you may talk 
 of Mrs. Cardwell and her roses. You may stroll 
 with me alone out of sight and out of hearing 
 of my husband, but you would never let him 
 see your wife, even in your presence. Why 
 should we Englishwomen meet you natives when 
 you don't extend the same privilege to our men? 
 I am quite new to all this talk of East and West, 
 but it seems to me that your Eastern minds 
 pile the barriers afresh every time we try to 
 leap them or cut them down." 
 
 Mr. Chatter jee listened to her with an air 
 of mild surprise. 
 
 " These are our customs," he explained, with 
 the air of one soothing a fractious child, 
 Pardon me, but we are of an older race than 
 yours, and our customs are hoary with years. 
 Why should we alter them because the women 
 of your race go unveiled and say what they will 
 to men? You Englishwomen are, of course, 
 charming and preposterously clever. But we
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 227 
 
 do not require your qualities within the house. 
 It may be the climate. After the hot and noisy 
 glare of an Indian day we seek dim coolness 
 and quiet and restfulness. 
 
 "'Out of the dust and drive and din 
 A nook of Paradise.' 
 
 " You see, we read your English poets," he smiled. 
 Eve had never read Henley, and she was not 
 impressed by the idea of a Hindu lawyer being 
 able to quote from him. 
 
 " You leave cards on me once a year," she 
 went on, *' but I have never seen your wife. 
 If you cared to come and dine we would be 
 delighted to see you ; but, of course, I know 
 quite well that you would see defilement in that." 
 
 " You English connect all social intercourse 
 with eating," he objected. " Every friendly 
 thought and action is but the excuse for a dinner. 
 With us eating is not an action to parade, it 
 is not beautiful, and has nothing of the soul in 
 it ; why, then, should we eat in company? Why 
 should you think it unfriendly of us to refuse 
 to eat with you? " 
 
 " You prove my point. You will not come 
 any of the way to meet us, will not relax any of 
 the strictness of your customs to make inter- 
 course easy." 
 
 " But do you relax any of the strictness of 
 your customs? " he retorted, " Have you even 
 any strict customs at all? " Eve was silent.
 
 228 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 She felt she knew so little of the matter really, 
 had closed her eyes so long to the several atti- 
 tudes of Englishmen and Indians. They had 
 come to a pergola twined with Marechal Niel 
 roses. Beneath the yellow-starred bower two 
 chairs invited to restful conversation, and a table 
 held a' silver dish of sweets. 
 
 "Shall we sit down?" said Eve, and put 
 out her hand to the chocolates, mechanically 
 passing the dish to Mr, Chatter jee. She hardly 
 noticed his refusal as she returned to the charge. 
 "I'm too ignorant to argue," she went on. 
 " But one thing seems clear. The two races 
 are not on an equality with regard to women. 
 I am here, and your wife is not. I can under- 
 stand your not wishing her to come to a big 
 party perhaps ; but why may she not come and 
 call on me, and why may I not call on her? Or 
 if you are sure that she ought not to come out, 
 why do you call on me? " 
 
 No Englishwoman had ever spoken to the 
 honourable judge in this manner before. It was 
 Eve's very ignorance which had permitted such 
 an attack, and he felt almost hopeless against it. 
 Smooth words he had heard in plenty to match 
 the smooth speech he always used at these 
 absurd " bridging the gulf " parties, but no one 
 had ever ventured to attack the parda system 
 in his presence and to allege its existence as a 
 reason against calling on English ladies. He 
 sat woodenly in the basket chair and watched
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 229 
 
 Eve nibble chocolates while she waited for him 
 to speak. 
 
 " English ladies, as a rule, have no interest 
 in Indian ladies," he said feebly. 
 
 " I have. At least, I want to take an interest 
 in them. I am rather tired of living our isolated 
 English lives out here, and I want to see India 
 from within." 
 
 " My family speak no English," 
 
 " And I speak no Urdu," said Eve regret- 
 fully. " I suppose I shall have to learn if I 
 want to do any good." 
 
 "If you are curious to inspect a zanana, many 
 are open to you. A new-fashioned family 
 receives English ladies and missionaries and 
 women doctors and so on. You would have 
 nothing in common with my family, who are old- 
 fashioned and do not care to receive strangers." 
 His tone was polite, but he had made his mean- 
 ing clear. 
 
 Smiling at her defeat, Eve rose to rejoin the 
 other guests. Mr. Justice Chatter jee attended 
 her courteously till she dismissed him with a 
 bow, but one portion of her argument had evi- 
 dently convinced him. He never called on her 
 or on any other English lady again. 
 
 Taking advantage of a momentary lull in the 
 coming and going of guests, Eve stood by the 
 side of her hostess. Mrs. Cardwell was a 
 woman of fifty, grey -haired, tall, and handsome. 
 Her capacity for work was enormous ; she was
 
 230 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 always busy, yet always gracious, and always 
 perfectly dressed. As the Commissioner's wife 
 she took her place of " burra mem," or chief 
 lady in the station, but apart from pure'ly social 
 duties which she performed with a smiling zest, 
 she was the chief inspiration of the feminine 
 branch of the East and West movement. She 
 was the president of the Parda Association, and 
 visited regularly those zananas which were open 
 to English intercourse. In her work she was 
 helped by her daughter Clare, a girl as hand- 
 some as her mother but little known in the circle 
 which had the station club for its centre. 
 
 " I've come to apologise, Mrs. Cardwell," said 
 Eve. " I have just been annoying one of your 
 guests." 
 
 "Judge Chatterjee, I suppose?" said her 
 hostess, smiling. " What did you do to him? 
 I saw you stroll off together." 
 
 " I asked him if his wife liked English furni- 
 ture, and said dreadful things about his calling 
 on me when I mightn't call on her." 
 
 " Poor Mr. Chatterjee I He is the highest 
 caste Hindu in the provinces, you know ; he 
 motors down to the Ganges every morning 
 before the High Court opens and bathes in the 
 sacred waters, summer and winter. His house 
 at least the women's quarters are closed to 
 English women ; not one of us has ever seen 
 his wife. He says he does not wish his family 
 to be upset by modern ideas. I hope you
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 231 
 
 weren't too bored by him j you don't really 
 Care for this sort of thing 1 , do you? " 
 
 " I haven't cared for it so far, but I really 
 think I would like to begin, Mrs. Cardwell ; will 
 you help me? " 
 
 The elder woman Was too clever to show 
 surprise. She took the request as a matter of 
 course, glad to welcome a new! recruit for the 
 difficult task certain English women were re- 
 solved to achieve. 
 
 " I shall be delighted if you will join us," 
 she said warmly. " Will you begin by coming 
 to a parda party at my house on Tuesday 
 afternoon? It will be so nice for Clare if you 
 will help her sometimes. Our most zealous 
 adherents are rather of the missionary type- 
 dear good women, but rather deadly. We want 
 some one young and pretty and well dressed to 
 carry us along." 
 
 Eve smiled her thanks at the implied compli- 
 ment, and with a word of farewell joined Denis 
 waiting for her, full of surprise at the length of 
 time she had condescended to devote to an East 
 and West party. 
 
 " I am going to join the Parda Association," 
 she announced ; but Denis was so busy with 
 a new fact about the Gonds that he hardly 
 heard her words, and certainly did not reply to 
 them.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 ON Tuesday afternoon, refusing Celia's offer to 
 accompany her, Eve set off with certain mis- 
 givings and made her way to the Commissioner's 
 bungalow. At the drive gate a servant scanned 
 her with the severe eye of one who suspected 
 contraband man hidden among the cushions. 
 Then the carriage rolled on unchecked till it 
 reached a porch fenced off with scarlet and 
 orange hangings which had once ceiled a royal 
 tent. 
 
 The mare shied violently, the coachman looked 
 aggrieved. There was no one in sight, and when 
 the animal had stopped plunging Eve stepped 
 out of the carriage and advanced to the shut 
 hangings. A timid finger found them impene- 
 trable : plainly one ought not to expect warmth 
 of welcome at a par da party. Skirting the inhos- 
 pitable porch she invaded the back premises. 
 Here the stable-yard hummed with strange 
 vehicles of all shapes and sizes, alike only in 
 this that they could be hermetically sealed to 
 protect their occupants from view. 
 
 Still at a loss, Eve watched a victoria drive 
 up. Its raised hood possessed a leather attach-
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 233 
 
 ment buttoned on all round. Cautiously an arm 
 stole through, a few inches unbuttoned allowed a 
 little light form to creep out, an unveiled, un- 
 jewelled woman standing unashamed in the sun- 
 light, while from the leathern curtain came the 
 jingle of silver ornaments and the twittering of 
 voices. Again the curtain was raised and a 
 second figure appeared, shrouded from head to 
 foot in white linen that outlined the head tightly 
 and then flowed out in ample folds. The 
 attendant hurried her swiftly towards a door 
 over which a screen of split reeds shook in 
 an agitated manner. The sheeted form was 
 drawn inside, and in a moment a jewelled arm 
 appeared, to flick out the discarded shroud in the 
 manner of a wet bathing dress. "The watchful 
 attendant picked it up and thrust it inside the 
 carriage again, whence it soon emerged conceal- 
 ing a second figure. 
 
 This time Eve followed the veiled and the 
 unveiled woman, finding a dark and odorous 
 haven behind the reed screen. Unshrouded, her 
 two fellow-guests were shown to be slim, corn- 
 hued little ladies clad in silks of butterfly texture 
 and colour that rebuked her own English clothes 
 for clumsiness. Meekly she followed them 
 through the house. At each doorway there was 
 a confused little scene of pretty politeness which 
 made their progress slow, for doors were many 
 and the house large ; but they won through at 
 last and came out on a broad veranda.
 
 234 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 From this vantage-point, with a sigh of 
 relief, Eve espied her hostess, and she hastened 
 down palm-bordered steps to the sunk lawn 
 which looked like an animated bed of Shirley 
 poppies. 
 
 " [What sort of woman do you want to talk 
 to first? " inquired Mrs. Cardwell, when she had 
 thanked her for coming. 
 
 " Some one who can talk English, please," 
 said Eve humbly. " I don't know one polite 
 word of Hindustani." 
 
 Mrs. Cardwell looked round, and her puzzled 
 brow lightened. She plunged among the poppies 
 and, plucking two of them away, presented her 
 spoil to Eve with a hurried pronouncing of 
 names which nobody could hear. They gazed at 
 each other in dead silence, broken at last by 
 the English woman's nervous tones. 
 
 " Do you know, I'm awfully sorry, but I didn't 
 catch your names. Mine is Eve Lang," she 
 said. 
 
 "I am Miss Mitra," replied one. 
 
 " I am Miss Rustomji," echoed the other, and 
 their attitude somehow reminded her of Tweedle- 
 dum and Tweedledee. They were both very 
 unpleasant young women as far as outward 
 appearance went. Both possessed large and 
 bony noses on which straddled spectacles with 
 brassy rims ; they wore blouses of English cut 
 trimmed with oddments of cheap lace, and their 
 figured silk skirts were belted in at the waist.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 235 
 
 As they had not adopted certain other articles 
 of English attire they had the look of emaciated 
 bolsters circumferenced with string. They fortu- 
 nately had not adopted English hats, although 
 Miss Mitra secretly pined for a scarlet one with 
 a green feather j but they wore silk saris shawl- 
 like over their heads and shoulders. 
 
 Eve noted their avid, bird-like poise of head 
 and wondered why they looked so greedy. 
 
 "Did you say Miss Mitra? " she asked 
 timidly. " I thought native I mean Indian 
 ladies all married when they were young fear- 
 fully young, of course I meant," she added, 
 looking for the insulted expression which she 
 felt must overspread Miss Mitra's countenance. 
 But a look of chastened joy met her anxious 
 gaze. 
 
 " Not we," chanted Miss Mitra (no other word 
 could fit the inspired solemnity of her voice). 
 " Not we. In our family we are enlightened. 
 Our father does not marry us in childhood." 
 
 Eve turned to the other forbidding young 
 lady. 
 
 " And you? Have you come out of partial " 
 
 " I am Parsee. Parsees do not keep par da. 
 We ride bicycle, horse even, and play all games. 
 But in clothes more fitting than some of these 
 par da ladies who now play badminton." 
 
 Miss Rustomji's spectacles glared across the 
 lawn where a little Mohammedan lady played 
 vigorous badminton in scarlet peg-top trousers.
 
 236 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 Her partner was a deaconess of an Anglican 
 sisterhood and wore the sad grey garb of her 
 order, but grey skirt and scarlet trousers -legs 
 leapt and sprang at the shuttle-cock in gay 
 accord. East and West alike shrieked advice to 
 the third on their side, a blue-eyed Kash- 
 miri cumbered with much-embroidered silken 
 draperies . 
 
 Again there was silence. This time Miss 
 Mitra's clipped, sing-song accents broke into it. 
 
 " We are teachers," she chanted. " We teach 
 at the Princess Memorial Parda School ; we 
 love our work and our class. We are so glad 
 to do good." 
 
 " Our class is so good such sweet girls," 
 chimed in Miss Rustomji. " We have been 
 trained in the Normal School and have read 
 all Psychology and have taken our First Arts 
 examination." 
 
 " How well you speak English," said Eve 
 faintly. She was overpowered by these terrible 
 young women, who were not in the least Indian, 
 but had somehow managed to acquire a flavour 
 of the British Board-school. 
 
 '* We have been through all English," said 
 Miss Mitra, " and we have read ' Ivanhoe.' Is 
 it not indeed a beautiful book? " 
 
 "I'm dreadfully ashamed to say I haven't 
 read it. I never could stand Scott." Eve's 
 tone was final. The two teachers looked 
 astonished but they could not pursue the subject,
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 237 
 
 thoug-h they were quite capable of quoting pages 
 of the notes to their school edition. " Are any 
 of your pupils here? " she went on. 
 
 "Several are present," said Miss Rustomji. 
 " I will introduce one who can speak English 
 to you." Away she strode, and pounced upon 
 a merry little girl upon whose spirits the 
 par da system did not seem to weigh. Eve 
 smiled down into the laughing brown eyes and 
 felt happier. 
 
 " Shall we walk a little? " she suggested, 
 hoping to leave the unpleasant young women 
 behind ; but when the little schoolgirl turned to 
 accompany her across the la.wn, the two school- 
 mistresses followed. 
 
 " I am fourteen years old, and my name is 
 Asghari," volunteered the child. 
 
 " Are you married? " ventured Eve, for the 
 second time. 
 
 *' I have been married many years, but I do 
 not yet live with my husband till I have finished 
 with my school. I have not seen many English 
 ladies, only Miss Jones at my school. She is 
 not like you . I like your dress, but your husband 
 does not give you many jewels." 
 
 The child's critical eye took in the bracelet 
 or two of quiet English workmanship, and the 
 thin gold chain which secured Eve's watch. 
 
 " I have other jewels, but it isn't our custom 
 to wear them in the daytime." 
 
 " Why? "
 
 238 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 " ,We don't think it looks nice," said Eve a 
 little helplessly. 
 
 " Then you keep them to receive your husband 
 in at night? But how can that be so when it 
 is your English custom to wear only one white 
 garment when you retire? I have heard much 
 of your English customs, which are very strange, 
 with regard to husbands. Please explain." 
 
 " Are you fond of reading? " broke in Eve. 
 
 " I read always. Reading is my enthusiasm. 
 I read all books that your English girls 
 like." 
 
 Eve ransacked her memory for childhood's 
 favourites . 
 
 " I suppose you read ' Little Women ' and 
 1 The Water-babies '? " she ventured. 
 
 " ' Little Women '? I do not know. It is 
 Miss Corelli that I love ; I read all Marie 
 Corelli." 
 
 Eve's budding affection for her Indian sister 
 suffered a severe blight. She looked down at 
 the high-bred face, the straight, thin features ; 
 the dark hair banded with a broad golden fillet 
 that ended over the ears in clustered rubies and 
 pearls, a delicate cameo to be vulgarised by 
 Miss Jones and Marie Corelli. From behind 
 came an approving echo. " We also read Marie 
 Corelli," piped Miss Mitra. 
 
 Half-drowned in a sea of new impressions, 
 Eve looked round for succour, and found it in 
 the Commissioner's daughter. . ,
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 239 
 
 " Rescue me from my Aryan sister," she 
 breathed, and found herself miraculously dis- 
 severed from the three Indian girls and con- 
 veyed to a tea-table which they might not 
 approach . 
 
 " The little Begum isn't shy, is she? " said 
 Miss Cardwell. 
 
 " Shy 1 I was purple with embarrassment at 
 one moment, but it passed safely. Those 
 bulging young women are terrors. Their eyes 
 bulged and their brows bulged and their tummies 
 bulged." 
 
 " Their toes bulge too. Did you notice them? 
 White cotton stockings in awful bazar -made 
 ' English-fashion * shoes with pointed toes and 
 high heels. But, please don't judge our par da 
 parties by these specimens. Lots of women here 
 who can't speak English are perfectly charm- 
 ing. It is only the Anglicised ones who are 
 so dreadful." 
 
 "But you're making out that our influence 
 on them is bad," said Eve swiftly. " If it is, 
 why arrange these East and West meetings? " 
 
 Miss Cardwell looked at a loss for a moment, 
 then she went on bravely 
 
 "I'm not good at explaining. You must ask 
 mother about these things. English influence 
 can't really be bad for those girls, it is only 
 that they don't understand us properly. You 
 see we may not have found the right way yet, 
 we are only groping. The only clear point is
 
 240 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 that we Englishwomen must do something to 
 pay our debt to India." 
 
 " I rather thought India owed a debt to us," 
 objected Eve. " I know I've given my husband 
 to her. All his time and thought belong to her ; 
 I don't come in anywhere." 
 
 "But you might." A sudden painful red 
 leaped into the girl's cheeks. " Forgive my. 
 impertinence. I've no right to speak to you 
 like that." 
 
 " You haven't ; but it rather pleases me. Go 
 on and tell me my duty to my neighbour. You 
 are nearer to your Catechism days than I am." 
 The golden voice was gentle, and the smile which 
 had once charmed Celia hovered on Eve's lips. 
 She drew Miss Cardwell aside to a little encamp- 
 ment under the trees where a rug, two basket 
 chairs, and a small table were set apart. 
 
 '* Let's sit down and be comfortable and 
 talk," she began. " I am sure I am a nearer 
 neighbour than Miss Mitra or the lady in 
 scarlet trousers. Minister to me. But, first of 
 all, why have I really never known you before? " 
 
 " Because in your mind I am dowdy and dull, 
 and given to good works. There isn't any 
 answer to that, so don't try to make one. Good 
 works seem so much more offensive in India 
 than they do in England; I can't think why. 
 Not that you thought me offensive ; I just didn't 
 exist except as a girl to be asked to dinner once. 
 a year and to be given to a padre to take in
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 241 
 
 because presumably he owned a serious mind to 
 match mine." 
 
 " Are you scolding me? " asked Eve. 
 
 " No; I am preparing the ground for a much 
 more interesting meeting than our East and West 
 parties." 
 
 " You mean my frivolous mind with your 
 serious one, First of all, may I be frightfully 
 rude and ask you why you took to the Anglo - 
 Indian equivalent of slumming? Forgive me ; 
 but you know yon aren't plain, and your mother 
 is one of the most beautiful women I've ever met." 
 
 " How naive you are for a married woman ! 
 I suppose you think only ugly women should 
 peep behind the par da. But imagine what a 
 horrid impression the Indian ladies get of us. 
 I was awfully pleased when I heard you were 
 coming to-day, and I told mother I hoped you'd 
 put on your prettiest dress." 
 
 " And I didn't," said Eve regretfully. " I had 
 an idea that when you visited Indian ladies you 
 had to set an example and look neat and not 
 gaudy." 
 
 " Still the old slumming idea. They don't 
 follow examples of that kind; they only think 
 your husband isn't very keen on you and you 
 are a neglected wife." 
 
 " That's humiliating, even if true. Next time 
 I shall put on my best race gown and unship my 
 tiara and wear it on my chest. It's Parisian 
 diamonds, but they won't know that." 
 16
 
 242 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 " There's going to be a next time then, in 
 spite of Miss Mitra and Marie Corelli as food 
 for Indian babes? " 
 
 " I think so. But you haven't told me yet 
 why you took to slumming among begums and 
 ranis." 
 
 Miss Cardwell looked round the garden where 
 the poppies still flitted, though the badminton 
 was over and the light was turning from gold 
 to that green which is like translucent ocean 
 water. Eve glanced at the quiet, ungirlish pro- 
 file, clear cut against the heavy green of an 
 orange-tree that drooped its golden globes. 
 The girl's mouth showed melancholy, but no 
 peevishness, no petulance, marred its sure out- 
 lines. Under her white, rose-garlanded hat 
 heavy black hair waved towards the thick knot 
 at the base of her neck. Eve discovered un- 
 realised beauty. She had said deprecatingly that 
 the girl was not plain, but she knew suddenly 
 that she was lovely. And yet she never came 
 to the weekly dances and never gossiped over 
 tea on the Club veranda. The idea of the plain 
 and serious woman died hard in Eve's mind. 
 
 " I expect you have noticed that things in 
 India are never normal," began Miss Cardwell 
 slowly, as one who chose her words. " One's 
 temperature flies up and down; one's temper is 
 queer and unexpected. Some people get an 
 enlarged liver. My liver is all right, but I've 
 grown an enlarged conscience."
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 243 
 
 "An enlarged conscience 1 What's that?" 
 " The most uncomfortable possession imagin- 
 able. It leads you to worry over the trials of 
 punkah coolies instead of sleeping soundly while 
 they keep awake. It leads you to remember that 
 your ayah is a woman as well as you are, makes 
 you forget the difference between East and West 
 in the most annoying manner. Well, I used to 
 go to dances when I first came out, and I loved 
 them. Now I don't go because I wouldn't get 
 partners, for I don't know any men. Of course 
 I go to the big balls and dance with the latest - 
 joined civilians duty dances, you know. But 
 I can't go to the little dances where you all 
 fill your programmes a week ahead among your 
 own inner circle. I dropped out when my en- 
 larged conscience grew too big to be borne. 
 I 'd given it soothing medicines in the way of new 
 and original behaviour towards the servants, but 
 I only spoiled them and disturbed the household 
 peace, while the conscience grew larger and 
 more irritable day by day. So then I tried to 
 combine the East and the West ; tried dabbling 
 in slum work, so to speak ; but I did neither 
 properly, and my conscience went on troubling." 
 She paused a little and Eve took up her tale. 
 
 "So you threw over the West and went to 
 live permanently in the East end. I'm interested 
 in that conscience of yours ; however enlarged, 
 it doesn't seem adequate somehow." Her quiz- 
 zical eyes searched Miss Cardwell's face.
 
 244 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 " There wasn't a young man ; no broken hearts 
 or seared lives figure in my history. I'm not a 
 bit romantic, dear Mrs. Lang. It wasn't love that 
 drove me into the East end, as you call it." 
 She rose rather hastily ; her face was turned 
 away, but Eve heard emotion in h;er voice. The 
 guests were dispersing, and Mrs. Cardwell stood 
 at the veranda steps while the gay little figures 
 fluttered past in the gathering dusk. 
 
 " I ought to be with mother," she went on, 
 moving away from the trees ; but Eve caught 
 her arm. 
 
 " I really want to learn," she pleaded. " Tell 
 me." 
 
 Miss Cardwell faced round suddenly, and in 
 the dim green light Eve saw with a shock of 
 surprised remorse that the girl's face was torn 
 with passionate emotion. 
 
 " Don't you really know? " she Cried. 
 " Haven't you heard? Surely it is common 
 gossip that that I have their blood in my veins? 
 That I'm what you call ' black,' with a lift of 
 your eyebrows and a half -pity ing whisper in the 
 next woman's ears. Not black enough to be 
 taboo, of course ; and besides, my father is the 
 Commissioner and my mother was never in 
 India till she came out to be married, which all 
 counts in my favour." 
 
 Eve remembered a half-forgotten fleer of 
 Connie Young's. " A good old Indian county 
 family," she had said of Mr. Cardwell. The
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 245 
 
 Cardwell family had served India steadily, father 
 and son, for generations, and in the early days 
 one of them had married a woman of the country. 
 And some drops of her blood still cried out in 
 Clare Cardwell and drove her towards an 
 imagined duty. Indian women were her kin, 
 and she must go to meet them, welcome them, 
 help them in all the ways an Englishwoman can 
 devise. 
 
 " No one ever called you black," cried Eve. 
 " You aren't a scrap coloured. You are talking 
 absolute nonsense." Miss Cardwell turned sad 
 eyes upon her. Passion had flared out and died 
 down, and her voice was flat when she spoke 
 again. 
 
 " I don't think mother has the least idea. It 
 just came to me one day and I knew it was true, 
 but I've never spoken to anybody of it before 
 to-day. You mustn't think I grieve over it. I 
 did at first, but now all I feel is that I've got 
 to do everything I can to make better feeling 
 between Englishmen and Indians, and you can 
 only do that through the women just at present, 
 and that's my work. You can help. You're 
 lovely and sweet and gracious, and you could 
 do more in a day to reconcile a parda lady 
 to our English customs than an ugly, dowdy 
 woman could do in a year. Mrs. Lang, don't 
 leave it all to the plain women, the dowdy 
 women, and the women with black blood in their 
 veins. You've got everything, give something :
 
 246 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 not money they're richer than we are but time 
 and thought and just a bit of comprehension." 
 Passion had crept into her voice again, but a 
 passion tinged with hope. They had paced 
 slowly across the lawn as Clare spoke, and her 
 mother caught the last words. 
 
 " Don't let Clare overwhelm you," she said 
 kindly. " I am so glad to see you here, and I 
 hope you will come again. The language is, 
 of course, the difficulty; it means learning a 
 new one." 
 
 " Yes," returned Eve. " It means learning 
 a new language, and I have had my first lesson 
 to-day." She grasped Clare's hand with a firm 
 pressure, looked into her mournful eyes, and went 
 thoughtfully away.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 EVE went home and asked an astonished 
 husband to engage a munshi for her as the 
 next necessary step in her new career. The 
 feeling of repulsion aroused by Miss Mitra 
 surged up once more when she was introduced 
 to Muhammad Hussein, munshi, salaaming on 
 her veranda. Celia flatly refused to join the 
 class at the first sight of him. 
 
 He was buttoned up as tightly as Mr. Noah 
 in a: long coat of flaring checks. Round his 
 neck he wore 2 woollen muffler knitted in shriek- 
 ing orange and magenta stripes. His shoes he 
 had left outside on the lowest step, but his feet 
 were sketchily covered with purple and green 
 socks fhat allowed a large brown toe to escape 
 here and there. Fat beads of perspiration 
 trickled from beneath his greasy black pork -pie 
 hat and spread slowly down his pock-marked 
 visage till he wiped them away with the ends 
 of his muffler. Eve grew to hate the several 
 uses of that muffler long before she had mastered 
 the elements of her Hindustani grammar. In 
 this she progressed slowly and painfully, toiling 
 M
 
 248 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 through the interminable adventures of the stock 
 Urdu novel for beginners. Even students of 
 Italian who have ploughed through " I promessi 
 Sposi " and fainted by the way, can have no 
 idea of the intricate bypaths in which the Urdu 
 student wanders when he reads " The Repent- 
 ance of Nasuh." 
 
 But Eve read it, every word from the last page 
 to the first in her effort to atone for Celia's 
 hurt soul and to make herself fit for the Steers- 
 man's guiding hand. In some vague, illogical 
 fashion of her own she felt that the flame of 
 her sacrifice was fed by the munshi's perspiration 
 and his violent socks, whose unchanging pattern 
 arid hue suggested uncomfortable doubts con- 
 cerning wash-day. She could not actually help 
 Celia by these trivial pains, but she could atone 
 for earlier thoughtlessness and make herself 
 more apt for the Steersman's guidance. 
 
 Meantime she did not lose sight of Clare 
 Cardwell, who took her into the native city on 
 voyages of discovery. At first she held her 
 peace and listened to Clare talking to their 
 Indian hostesses, but presently her stumbling 
 tongue began to pick its way along the difficult 
 path of Urdu conversation, and she felt with a 
 glow of surprise that her words were intelligible. 
 
 Eve's new way of life had one immediate 
 result. It attracted her husband's attention to 
 her. Denis Lang had not leisure enough to 
 learn to understand women. After the slight
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 249 
 
 shock of disappointment in their first married 
 years, when he realised that his wife took 
 no interest in the work which filled his heart, 
 he had resigned any struggle to win what she 
 could not give spontaneously. He had left her 
 to stand alone without strength or knowledge 
 to assist her difficult Indian days. Her fatal 
 leisure had done the rest, and but for Celia's 
 coming Eve might have gone under. But she 
 was too good to lose, and day by day was re- 
 gaining the captaincy of her soul. 
 
 Denis's perceptions, slow to mark anything 
 not directly connected with his work, began to 
 detect a strangely uncomfortable change in the 
 even flow of his domestic life. His wife took not 
 the faintest interest in his ethnological studies 
 (except on one occasion when she unaccountably 
 spoke of the Gonds in a moment of fever), but her 
 housekeeping was ever beyond reproach. When 
 he had time to come home to tea she was always 
 to be found calm and cool and well dressed, 
 sitting in her delightful drawing-room. Of 
 course, there was usually some man or other 
 by her side, but he realised the truth of 
 her earlier complaints that it bored her to 
 drink tea alone, and he was wont to accept her 
 guests in silence. 
 
 And now some inexplicable change seemed 
 to be working a mild havoc. Celia had gone to 
 spend a week or two with John's sister who 
 lived in Calcutta, and Eve always seemed busy.
 
 250 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 Several days he came home from office, tired 
 and thirsty, to find the drawing-room empty and 
 no sign of tea. It arrived presently, summoned 
 by an angry shout, but the kettle had not boiled 
 and the cake looked tired and tasted mouldy. 
 At dinner-time his wife appeared, wearing what 
 his ignorant eyes took to be a dressing-gown 
 in bad disrepair. It was really a tea -gown which 
 the normal Eve would have presented to her 
 ayah months before. 
 
 " I was in to tea to-day," he remarked, with a 
 trace of reproach that passed unnoticed. 
 
 " Were you? I had tea with the Zanana 
 Mission ladies. Miss Cardwell took me. By 
 the way, I shan't be in to breakfast to-morrow, 
 either. We are going into the city to visit a 
 little Mohammedan lady she knows." 
 
 " I don't like your going poking about the 
 city so much," said her husband uneasily. *' If 
 you want to see it, I'll borrow Ali's elephant 
 and you can get some one to take you round 
 on it." 
 
 " Ali's elephant can't penetrate the pjarda, 
 It's the inside I want to see, and I'm not afraid. 
 For myself anyhow. I never take Celia." 
 
 " But I am. Suppose you get smallpox? " 
 
 " You went into the middle of plague and 
 cholera." 
 
 " And so did poor Macintyre," returned Denis 
 soberly. " But of course you will have your 
 way. See that you get something to eat before
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 251 
 
 you go, and don't try to do zananas fasting. 
 By the way, when is your next dinner-party? 
 iWe don't seem to have given one for weeks, and 
 the Secretaries will be going away soon." 
 
 Eve was idly smoothing out the rose-petals 
 that floated in her finger-bowl. She looked up 
 in astonishment at her husband's words. 
 
 " Fancy you worrying about dinners ! " she 
 said as she rose. -*' I've been so busy with my 
 Indian sisters that I've forgotten all about the 
 station. Are you not going to work to-night? " 
 she questioned as he followed her into the 
 drawing-room instead of turning aside into his 
 study . 
 
 " No ; I think I'll have an evening off and 
 talk to you. You must be lonely now Celia is 
 away." He took a coffee-cup and a cigarette 
 from two Waiting servants and proceeded to 
 settle down at her side. " Why are you wear- 
 ing this weird garment? " he went on, touching 
 the faded and crumpled folds of the old tea- 
 gown. 
 
 She looked down vaguely at her despised 
 dress. 
 
 44 Oh, it wa's easy to get into and I dressed 
 myself this evening. The ayah seemed to have 
 a little fever, so I let her go." 
 
 44 Eve, dear, are you sure you are perfectly 
 well? " His tone was so full of anxiety that Eve 
 woke up and burst into sudden laughter. 
 
 44 You don't mean to say you've looked at
 
 252 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 me long enough to realise what clothes I'm wear- 
 ing ! Denis, you're noticing me I You haven't 
 done that for six years not since the first few 
 months after we were married." 
 
 He flushed uneasily with an entirely new feel- 
 ing of shame. He had always prided himself on 
 doing his duty towards India. Had he neglected 
 his duty towards his wife? 
 
 "Did you did you want to be noticed?" 
 
 " Want to be noticed ! What woman doesn't? 
 How funny and ignorant you are, you learned 
 men who know all about stuffy Indian tribal 
 marriage customs, and don't know the first 
 principles of how to treat the one wife society 
 allows you. Of course I wanted to be noticed, 
 but you have always been too busy to spare 
 time for an uneducated woman who couldn't 
 share your work. Because I couldn't enter into 
 the interests which were the very centre of your 
 life you chased me away even from the out- 
 skirts. I don't think I minded very much after 
 the first, for there was always some one else 
 to care and to notice how I looked and what 
 I wore. I didn't care, because I was asleep and 
 my conscience nearly dead ; but something 
 happened one day and woke me with a jar a 
 perfectly horrid jar, Denis." 
 
 She turned towards him with a shiver, and 
 he saw that her beautiful eyes swam with tears. 
 In his famine work Denis had grown accustomed 
 to deal with the Indian peasant woman who
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 253 
 
 wanted a dole of work or had abandoned a 
 child in the time of stress and desired the 
 Collector-Sahib to find it again for her when 
 the starvation pressure lifted. He knew how 
 to deal with her firmly and justly, but he was 
 quite at a loss what to do with Eve, who huddled 
 in the corner of her sofa and gazed up at him 
 with wet eyes. Tears had been an unknown 
 factor in their life together since those first few 
 uncomfortable months when they had tried to 
 adapt themselves in vain. 
 
 He left his chair and took the other corner 
 of the sofa. 
 
 " I am afraid you aren't happy, dear," he 
 said gently. " Are you not well? Or perhaps 
 you miss Celia? " 
 
 "I'm perfectly well, and I don't miss Celia. 
 I was delighted that she should go to Calcutta 
 and see another bit of India. It is you I miss." 
 
 Denis was frankly puzzled. 
 
 " I have seen less of you this year than I ever 
 have before," he said. " You are always out 
 at zanana meetings or in the city, and yet you 
 say you miss me when you deliberately leave the 
 house at the very hour I come home." 
 
 " Don't you see what I'm trying to do, 
 Denis? " she cried impatiently. " If I go out 
 it is because I am trying to grow like Clare 
 Cardwell and help the Indians." 
 
 " Goo'd heavens 1 " ejaculated Denis, really 
 startled at last. " But I don't want you like
 
 254 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 Miss Cardwell. I like you better as you are. 
 As my wife you have got social duties to per- 
 form, and your sudden zanana craze seems to 
 have turned you blind and deaf blind to new 
 hats and frocks, and deaf to the needs of Chief 
 Secretaries who are simply clamouring to be 
 asked to dinner." 
 
 " Chief Secretaries never clamour for any- 
 thing, except perhaps bed at half-past nine," 
 put in Eve contemptuously. Then she sighed 
 and went on in a graver mood, " We were 
 discussing the Anglo-Indian woman's handicap 
 at the mission -house to-day. Miss Cardwell said 
 it was leisure. Miss Sharpe who is fat, poor 
 thing, and not a bit strong said it was getting 
 tired sooner than men do. I said we were 
 handicapped by duty. They were awfully 
 shocked, and being unmarried they couldn't 
 understand even when I explained. You see, 
 duty pulls me in a dozen different directions. 
 I've got my duty to the boy and to you. I've 
 also got my duty to my Indian sister, who 
 is often extremely insanitary in her household 
 and nurtures up germs of smallpox and enteric 
 for the benefit of her English guest. Now the 
 question is this ought my duty to my small son 
 to swallow up my duty to Mrs. Moti Lai and her 
 kind? Does one duty render the other im- 
 possible? Again, if I attend to all the garden- 
 parties and teas and dinners which my duty 
 to my English neighbour commands me to give
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 255 
 
 and to receive, I haven't time for my Indian 
 neighbour." 
 
 " Can't you leave Mrs. Moti Lai and her kind 
 to unmarried women like Clare Cardwell and the 
 missionaries? " 
 
 " No," cried Eve despairingly. " It is just 
 what you can't do. Indian ladies won't really 
 listen to an unmarried woman. In their eyes a 
 woman without a husband either living or dead 
 is an outrage on nature. They accept with per- 
 fect politeness our explanation that all English- 
 women do not want to marry and that no stigma 
 attaches to the elderly girl. But they don't 
 believe a word of it, and gossip among them- 
 selves as to the horrid reasons why no man could 
 be persuaded to marry the saintly Mission Miss 
 Sahib who has just been instructing them in the 
 care of their babies. Children mean everything 
 to an Indian woman, and she can't understand 
 a society that wilfully remains unmarried. Tell 
 her there aren't enough men to go round and she 
 smiles at the stupidity which refuses more than 
 one wife. No, Denis, an Englishwoman ought 
 to be married before she can do much good in a 
 zanana ; but if you are a married missionary 
 there's the housekeeping duty and the duty 
 towards the baby to pull you back from your 
 duty to the zanana. So it's all a vicious circle. 
 Unmarried you're valueless, married you become 
 too valuable, and duty handicaps you at every 
 turn."
 
 256 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 " It never struck me before that you were the 
 kind of woman to worry over duty," said Denis, 
 looking curiously at his wife. 
 
 " I never have worried before. I did my duty 
 to the house because I hated being uncomfort- 
 able, and I was proud that people could 
 admire my drawing-room and envy my well- 
 trained servants. It was only a form of 
 luxurious conceit. But I never did my duty 
 to you." 
 
 Denis stirred uneasily. He was beginning to 
 think that perhaps duty had been his handicap 
 also. The ethnological research which had filled 
 his spare hours, the famine work of which he 
 had been so proud all his piled ambitions 
 dwindled strangely now in face of Eve's 
 problems, her lonely groping after a dim seen 
 truth. 
 
 " You have been a perfect wife " he began, 
 
 but Eve checked his stumbling avowal. 
 
 " I haven't 1 " she cried passionately. " I've 
 let other men kiss me since I married you. I 
 even fell in love with one of them, but he got 
 tired of me and it's all over now." 
 
 There was silence for some grim moments 
 while each looked back into the past. Denis 
 came back first. 
 
 " Was that the shock you spoke of ? " he 
 questioned hoarsely. 
 
 "No. That made me long to be bad, not 
 good. I can't tell you about that, it is some-
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 257 
 
 body else's story. I didn't mean to work myself 
 up to confessions to-night or to hurt your peace ; 
 I only longed to explain to you that I'm trying 
 so hard to be different, and I think I'd get on 
 better if I had your help. Denis, can't we bury 
 everything and start afresh? " 
 
 Denis sat silent, trying to reconstruct a 
 crumbled world. After the first, he had taken 
 for granted that wives pretty wives, at any 
 rate had no time for sympathy with their 
 husbands' work. Again unmarried women, ugly 
 women, might cultivate a serious mind, but a 
 pretty woman was a fixed star in the social 
 scheme. She must not wander behind the par da 
 or take an inconvenient interest in zanana 
 missions. Slumming had had its fashionable 
 moments at home in England, but it could never 
 attract the leisure of feminine Anglo -India. Eve, 
 therefore, was leaving her own orbit. She had 
 passed from flirtation he ground his teeth at 
 the thought of the unknown man's kisses to 
 the hopeless outer darkness of zanana work. 
 He would not ask for the man's name, and he 
 would not let himself think that it might have 
 been Staniforth. 
 
 He looked suddenly at his wife and traced 
 again in her the innocent untouched contours of 
 the girl he had married. Something of the 
 meaning of his gaze became clear to Eve. 
 
 "It was my body you married, not my 
 mind," she said. " And my mind has been 
 17
 
 258 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 starved all these six years,, Now when I've 
 goaded and prodded it awake and I'm trying 
 to feed it into life, you suddenly realise my 
 body's old clothes and you hope I'm not going 
 to turn serious. Is it all hopeless, Denis? Can't 
 we begin again? Can you forgive my aim- 
 lessness and those hateful kisses? I've tried so 
 hard lately. I didn't succeed with those Gonds 
 of yours I seem to be too stupid for them, 
 somehow ; but I really have done something to 
 help Mrs. Cardwell, and after all I gave you 
 Dicky." 
 
 Looking at her, Denis suddenly realised that 
 his forgotten love for his wife was still quick 
 in him. The primitive man was buried deep 
 under mounds of Government files and tribal 
 customs of Gonds, but it stirred at the second 
 mention of another man's kisses. Gloomily he 
 looked back at his life and reviewed its apparent 
 success that was convicted of failure by his wife's 
 confession. He had lost the true proportions 
 of things ; the past rose before him in enor- 
 mous disarray, yet Eve spoke of hope for the 
 future. 
 
 He looked at her with new eyes, and suddenly 
 he knew that the living woman and the child 
 were worth more than all the dry bones he had 
 collected so laboriously. He thanked God that 
 it was not too late ; that the future might yet 
 atone for the past. Then he rose and took 
 his wife in his arms. Eve found his kisses of
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 259 
 
 a marvellous sweetness, and her second wooing 
 dearer to her heart than her first could ever 
 be, for she was a woman now and no 
 raw girl.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE unexpected readjustment of Eve's life did 
 not keep her at home to breakfast next morning. 
 After anxious thought she decided not to send 
 a disappointing note of excuse to Miss Cardwell, 
 for there were plenty of days in the future for 
 domestic breakfasts. But she was careful to 
 disarrange the unimaginative dinner menu 
 offered by the cook, and to order a more 
 interesting meal than usual. 
 
 She was just a little tired as she climbed 
 into Miss Cardwell's dog-cart, for she had 
 hurried through the housekeeping duties to be 
 ready in time. She missed, too, the comforting 
 shelter of her own carriage, for the white -petti - 
 coated umbrella held by the groom on the back 
 seat swayed anywhere but over their heads. 
 Clare did not appear to mind the sun, and she 
 talked gaily of zananas as the cart swung down 
 the dusty city road cumbered with lumbering 
 bullock -wagons and jingling ekkas. 
 
 Presently they drove under the echoing rail- 
 way bridge that served as city gate, and into 
 the seething thoroughfare of the chief street.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 261 
 
 Smells and dust and shoutings filled nose and 
 ears. Eyes were widely busy with the colours 
 that veered and blended and changed with the 
 moving crowd. If the par da party had looked 
 like a bed of Shirley poppies, the cruder hues 
 worn by the city wayfarers recalled the garish 
 splendour of tulips. The sun, high and golden 
 in the unclouded turquoise sky, shone upon 
 vessels of winking brass and turned them also 
 into pure gold. Brown men stood chaffering 
 outside the little cubes that served as shops, 
 where the master squatted on the floor and 
 selected his goods at will without rising, for 
 each shelf was within reach of an outstretched 
 hand. Brown faces flashed by in every grada- 
 tion of tone, from the dense chocolate of the 
 naked coolie to the sickly yellow of the Bengali 
 student, whose fat bare legs escaped the flutter- 
 ing sheaths of his waist-cloth to meet the final 
 thraldom of patent-leather slippers. A camel, 
 bestridden by an Indian soldier in blue and 
 scarlet uniform, padded silently along, looking 
 left and right with benignant eyes that were 
 contradicted by the slack and evil mouth of its 
 kind. Bells tinkled from the blue and scarlet 
 cap that perched coquettishly on the camel's 
 nodding head and its gay saddle-cloth bore a 
 regimental crest. Eve recognised the embroi- 
 dered numerals for those of Staniforth's 
 regiment. A bare year ago just such a mes- 
 senger had been wont to stop almost daily
 
 262 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 beneath her porch. She remembered the first 
 day that the letter in the sowar's pouch had 
 borne Celia's name instead of her own. To-day 
 for the first time that wound had ceased to 
 ache, and she could be glad that Celia had 
 unwittingly delivered her from temptation. Thus 
 far she had arrived in her thoughts when Miss 
 Cardwell pulled up her pony, and the groom, 
 furling the useless umbrella, jumped to the 
 ground. 
 
 " The road is too narrow to drive any 
 further," said Clare. " I hope you don't mind 
 walking." Eve looked up the close, dark alley 
 that faced them, and her zeal for zanana visits 
 burnt low for a moment. Blank mud walls shut 
 out the sunlight, the broken flags held dirty 
 water in their hollows, and in the middle of 
 the alley ran an open drain, where a grimy 
 duck hunted for its noisome meal of offal. A 
 foul, sour odour seemed to rise and meet them 
 in a solid mass. 
 
 " Does she really live up there? " Eve's 
 question betrayed involuntary disgust, and for 
 a moment her companion regretted this choice 
 of visits ; but Mrs. Lang had seemed so enthu- 
 siastic, and was such a precious asset to the 
 plain and unmarried members of the Parda 
 Club. She must not be wasted. 
 
 Side by side the two picked their way along 
 the filthy drain, till at last a dark oblong in 
 the eyeless walls showed a low wooden door.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 263 
 
 At Clare's knock it was opened by a repulsive 
 old man, who received them coldly and pointed 
 along a narrow passage. So narrow was it 
 that Eve, hastening after her guide, shivered 
 to feel her shoulders brush the greasy wall. 
 It was too dark to see the state of the floor, 
 but her toes crisped up inside her thin shoes, 
 that seemed to be treading on unimaginable 
 horrors. A winding staircase proved even more 
 nervous work, for the steps were so steep that 
 the most careful manipulation could not keep 
 petticoats away from a surface slippery with 
 dirt. 
 
 But at last they climbed a final flight of 
 stone steps, and emerged into the comparative 
 airiness of an ante-room with brilliant blue walls 
 enriched by a scarlet dado, its only furniture 
 a string bedstead. The women's apartments 
 were built high above a well-like courtyard, into 
 which their doors and windows looked. Nothing 
 but the gleaming oblong of sky that roofed the 
 courtyard spoke of the outside world ; not a 
 green thing flourished in the grey cage. 
 
 Through the ante -room they passed to a 
 balcony which clung half-way between the 
 bottom of the well and the sky. And here 
 there pattered forward a brilliant little figure, 
 with emerald plush trousers of exaggerated peg- 
 top shape and a floating veil embroidered with 
 gold and silver. 
 
 The usual compliments safely delivered, the
 
 264 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 hostess eyed Eve with the frankest amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 " I never met a married one before," she 
 remarked. 
 
 " A married one? " queried Eve. 
 
 "Yes, a married Englishwoman. Certainly 
 many come the Mission Miss Sahibs and this 
 Miss Sahib ; I have seen them all, but no man 
 marries them. Perhaps Your Honour will now 
 speak a true word. Why is no marriage 
 arranged for these folk? Certainly they are 
 unbeautiful, but all eyes do not see alike. Some 
 man, old, perhaps, and not rich, could be found 
 to take away their reproach." 
 
 " But all Englishwomen do not want to be 
 married," pleaded Eve. 
 
 " That is nonsense talk," said Mrs. AH Khan 
 decisively. " Of necessity there is some reason 
 why they cannot find a man. Yet, ignorant and 
 barren, they come to teach me who have borne 
 five sons. They speak to me of the shame of 
 sitting behind the parda, yet my veiled face has 
 looked upon the father of my sons, while they 
 walk openly in the streets and cannot find a 
 man. Which is the greater shame, think you 
 to be seen of all men and not to be chosen, 
 or to be seen of one alone and to bear five 
 sons? " 
 
 In her embarrassment Eve turned to Clare for 
 help. But the girl sat silent in her broken 
 wooden chair, and the yearning sorrow in her
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 265 
 
 still face made Eve think of a mourning 
 Madonna. Each word of the Indian woman 
 must have fallen like a blow on the heart of 
 the girl who had renounced motherhood from a 
 scruple of conscience. And not so much 
 motherhood was it that she forswore, for that 
 abstract idea seldom appeals to youth ; but she 
 had renounced the companionship, the help, the 
 comfort of a man and had chosen loneliness. 
 And arrogantly the fertile mother mocked at 
 the efforts of her who remained barren by 
 choice. 
 
 In the moment of silence Mrs. Ali Khan's 
 passion died down with the swift transition of 
 a child. 
 
 " What do you wear under your dress? " she 
 inquired suddenly. With difficulty Eve suc- 
 ceeded in retrieving her skirt from Mrs. Ali 
 Khan's exploring fingers and murmured some- 
 thing about petticoats. 
 
 " I wear English-fashion chemise," said the 
 hostess proudly. " Formerly I wore velvet 
 trousers next my skin. Old ones, of course, too 
 dirty to be seen," she added, in extenuation of 
 the extravagance of velvet undergarments. 
 
 " The Mission Miss Sahibs taught you the 
 wrong of doing that," said Clare, with a faint 
 smile. " Even if there was no marriage for 
 them, they know much about cleanliness and 
 health." 
 
 " Strength or weakness, both are from the
 
 266 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 mercy of Allah," said Mrs. All Khan piously. 
 " The Miss Sahibs talk of air and light and 
 going forth out of doors, but I am parda ; I 
 have never been outside this house since my 
 tenth year, save once or twice in a closed litter 
 to my father's house." A child's wailing cry 
 summoned her from the balcony. 
 
 " She has never seen a tree," said Clare in 
 English, " or a river, or a field of corn. But 
 she thanks Allah because her husband is rich 
 enough and important enough to maintain the 
 parda for her. You know that when a man 
 gets on in the world and saves money, his wife 
 will often retire into parda. It's a sign of 
 prosperity and a cachet of respectability like 
 setting up a carriage in a suburban neighbour- 
 hood." 
 
 " Poor thing ! " mused Eve. 
 
 " You needn't pity her. She's happy, and 
 she pities us. And after all suppose that in 
 time we tear away the parda and let them all 
 free, what are we going to do with them? It 
 will be worse than any problem of freed slaves, 
 worse than any Sadducee question of ' whose 
 wife shall she be? ' We're incurring an awful 
 responsibility when we storm their closed 
 zananas and rant of freedom, with our British 
 disregard of consequences." 
 
 -" Then why do you come? Why do you ask 
 me to come? " Duty had suddenly assumed an 
 even more complicated form to Eve's puzzled 
 mind.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 267 
 
 " Because we must. Because of the physical 
 need, the everyday need, the saving of the 
 victims offered daily to the Moloch they call 
 motherhood in a zanana. This woman hasn't 
 paid dearly for her five sons, but some of them 
 Mrs. Lang, you've had a child, and you kno\^ 
 something of what it means. I haven't, I never 
 shall ; but I've seen more of the horrors of 
 maternity than you have. We've just got to let 
 the problem of the future go unsolved, and per- 
 haps God will have grown kinder to women 
 when the day comes to unravel it. In the mean- 
 time we must save them from themselves, from 
 filth and disease and cruelty. India is ours ; we 
 owe her something, but I think our debt is 
 physical sooner than moral. But there, I'm 
 ranting again forgive me." 
 
 She rose from her chair and leaned over the 
 balustrade, gazing into the courtyard below, 
 where a group of women squatted, scrubbing 
 away at cooking vessels with handfuls of black 
 mud. Their raucous voices hung on the heavy 
 air, the only sound save for the curiously similar 
 call of the crows that hopped in fearless search 
 of discarded morsels. She knew vaguely the 
 direction of the city street, but no sound from 
 without invaded the stillness to show that a 
 world of men lived crowded hours outside the 
 bars of this grey cage of women. 
 
 " Isn't it deadly? " said Eve, with a shiver as 
 she joined her.
 
 268 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 " My great -grandmother was born in just such 
 a place," said Clare, half to herself. " I wonder 
 how she felt when she first went into the world. 
 I don't think there were any Mission Miss Sahibs 
 in her day to give her some idea of English 
 manners and customs. She was a Hindu, and 
 met my great-grandfather at the bathing festival 
 at Allahabad. She was being rowed out to the 
 sacred meeting -place of the rivers and the boat 
 upset, and he jumped in and saved her." 
 
 The tinkling of ornaments and swish of 
 draperies heralded Mrs. Ali Khan's return. In 
 her arms she bore a crying child wrapped in a 
 tattered quilt of padded cotton. 
 
 " The child has fever, and cries night-long, 
 day-long," she said, squatting on the string bed- 
 stead that is a feature of every Indian room. 
 
 Eve came to her side and moved the hot red 
 quilt gently from the child's face. One cool 
 hand imprisoned the restless, straying fingers 
 and let them go again with a start. 
 
 " \Vhy, your child has degrees of temperature," 
 she cried. " I have never felt anything so hot 
 and dry. Have you seen a doctor?" 
 
 " It is but fever," returned the mother. " I 
 have given English medicine. The Doctor Miss 
 gives me quinine always, and if I send news 
 to her she will come in one moment. But I 
 fear always to send lest she take the child into 
 her hospital as she took the daughter of Akbari 
 and there killed her."
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 269 
 
 41 Some unfortunate infant who tried to have 
 a baby at the age of ten, I suppose/' said Eve 
 a trifle viciously, as she lifted the wailing child 
 on to her knee. 
 
 " I wouldn't nurse it if I were you," said 
 Clare, in anxious tones. " You never know what 
 it may be sickening for, with such high fever. 
 It might be smallpox even." 
 
 " Denis predicted smallpox. I think you are 
 right, and we'd better go." Eve handed back 
 the wailing bundle. Its open eyes stared in a 
 fever of delirium, and words babbled without 
 sense came from its parched lips. The mother 
 was really frightened now, and she hardly re- 
 membered the flowery sentences meet to speed 
 a parting guest. 
 
 In her desire to gain the outside air Eve forgot 
 the filth of the steps, and sped along the dark 
 passages as though she were pursued. Outside, 
 the same duck routed in the same gutter, at 
 the end of the sunless alley silhouettes passed 
 and repassed against the golden light of the 
 sunlit street. Soon they were in the dog-cart 
 again and hastening towards civilisation. 
 
 " I oughtn't to have taken you there," said 
 Clare, in tones of anxious regret. "But it is 
 such a typical middle -class Mohammedan house. 
 I only wish you could have seen the other wives, 
 and that the baby hadn't been ill. She is a 
 clever little woman, and she thinks, which is a 
 great point, even if she thinks wrong. So many
 
 270 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 of them don't think at all except about cooking 
 and babies." 
 
 "It is so dreadful that she has never seen a 
 tree," murmured Eve, looking up at the green- 
 grey feathers of the mm -tree avenue under which 
 they drove. Then she dismissed the thought 
 of Mrs. Ali Khan, and looked forward to the 
 afternoon and evening she and Denis were to 
 spend together. The joy of reconcilement was 
 warm at her heart, and the future stretched 
 before her far and golden.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 AND so their New Life was inaugurated. It 
 needed all Eve's tact during those first difficult 
 evenings when Denis, followed her into the 
 drawing-room, and they sat a little silent together 
 or strained after elusive topics. In secret they 
 were inclined to look forward to Celia's return ; 
 but their talent for domesticity was not tried too 
 severely, for the cold weather gaieties left but 
 few nights free from engagements. To regain 
 a lost sympathy is a task less easy than its first 
 capture, but Eve bent her mind to achievement 
 and resolutely trod the difficult way back. The 
 grim pages of the famine report lit a sudden 
 fire of admiration for her silent husband ad- 
 miration of a different quality from that which 
 she had bestowed on him in their engagement 
 days. She began to feel that if he had neglected 
 her it was not for his own pleasure but rather 
 for his pain. For the first time she took the 
 trouble to learn something of what the man's 
 work meant. 
 
 " .Why are you so inarticulate? " she asked 
 him, looking up from the book which told her so 
 
 much. " Why didn't you tell me something of 
 an
 
 272 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 your work? Surely I'm not too stupid to under- 
 stand this 1 " 
 
 He realised the measure of his share in their 
 married failure. He had been inarticulate, and 
 a woman needs speech in the evening to refresh 
 her after the day-long silence of her Indian 
 house . Also he had underrated her intelligence 
 a fatal method of treating a wife. Overrate her 
 powers of understanding and she is flattered 
 and charmed, working secretly to live up to the 
 level the man assigns to her. Underrate her 
 intelligence, and with a curious and old-fashioned 
 humility she accepts her imposed role of empty - 
 head. Moral freedom, actual freedom have come 
 with the years, yet many women can yet accept 
 without a murmur the intellectual death sentence 
 passed upon them by their masculine judge. 
 
 "Do you think you could correct proofs?" 
 asked Denis, with almost a timid air. " It would 
 help me tremendously." 
 
 " I am quite sure I could learn," returned 
 Eve hopefully. 
 
 So the way back was brightened with ^galley 
 proofs that held the longest, hardest words Eve 
 had ever seen. Denis's writing was illegible 
 always, and Indian compositors frequently do 
 not know the language of the manuscripts they 
 put into type. She spent the mornings toiling 
 over a series of cryptograms and turning 
 a dictionary's leaves in feverish desire to find 
 what Denis could have meant. Nevertheless she
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 273 
 
 enjoyed the feeling that she was really of some 
 use at last, and made timid observations ovejr 
 the dinner-table about her interest in Gonds. 
 
 In this way ten days went by. On the tenth 
 the printed lines swam before her hot eyes, and 
 a pulse beat in her head. With a smile she 
 remembered Denis's advice about taking her 
 temperature, and she fetched his clinical thermo- 
 meter. The little arrow told a tale which sent 
 her to bed at once, but for Denis returning at 
 teatime she had only reassuring words. 
 
 " I've got a little fever," she said. " I ought 
 to have sent for my coat earlier last night, it 
 got cold so suddenly and I didn't notice. If 
 I'm not better in the morning you shall send for 
 Dr. Vyse, but I'm sure a day in bed will set 
 me right." 
 
 Denis dined alone, and found that ten short 
 days had spoiled his taste for solitude. He went 
 straight into his study when the meal was over 
 and sat down to his work, but thoughts of his 
 wife came between him and a difficult ethno- 
 logical question he had meant to solve this quiet 
 evening. 
 
 A gentle tap on the unshuttered glass of the 
 door that led on to the veranda roused him 
 abruptly from his reverie. He looked up with 
 a surprised start as the unbolted door opened 
 cautiously, and Clare Cardwell stood on the 
 threshold. The light from the study streamed 
 across the dark veranda, illuminating a strange 
 18
 
 274 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 enough figure, for the white silk evening gown 
 she wore was kilted high above her petticoat 
 and fastened in front with a large safety pin. 
 
 He stared at her a moment, and then 
 remembered to be courteous. 
 
 "Won't you come in?" he said. "Surely 
 you aren't alone? " 
 
 "Yes, I'm alone. I bicycled. Father and 
 mother were dining out and had the horses, and 
 I couldn't wait for a ticca. Where is Mrs. 
 Lang? Is she all right? " 
 
 Denis began to think good works had turned 
 his visitor's brain. 
 
 " I'm afraid you can't see my wife to-night, 
 she has had fever all day and has gone to bed. 
 Can I do anything for you? " 
 
 " Fever? " Clare's tone was full of horror. 
 " Has she seen a doctor? " 
 
 " No, not yet. She never does for these 
 malarial attacks unless they persist. But what 
 is troubling you? Are you ill? " 
 
 " No, I am not ill " she spoke with an effort 
 " but I have just had a note from Dr. Edith 
 Dallas, the Dufferin Hospital woman, you 
 know." 
 
 Denis nodded, impatient at her slow utterance. 
 
 " She says that AH Khan's family has been 
 entirely wiped out by plague himself, his wife, 
 and their five sons. I was going there to-morrow, 
 and she sent to warn me." 
 
 " But what has Ali's Khan's family to do
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEEKSMAN 275 
 
 with my wife? " asked Denis, though he was 
 grimly sure of her answer. 
 
 " I took her there, ten days ago, and she 
 nursed the youngest child. It died of plague 
 next day, and now the whole family have gone, 
 one after another. And I was suddenly afraid, 
 for I knew Mrs. Lang isn't strong, and I felt 
 I must come round at once ; she wasn't at the 
 Club this afternoon, and I thought I'd just like 
 to see if she were a'll right. You say she has 
 got fever? " Her voice trailed into silence. 
 
 Denis glared down into the white face framed 
 in the tumbled masses of dark hair. Could it 
 be that this wretched girl with her folly of good 
 works was to snatch away his new-won happi- 
 ness? In his hardly bridled rage lie could have 
 struck her ; but it was no time for madness, and 
 he forced himself to saner mood. 
 
 " In any case she must not be frightened," 
 he said coldly. " She must not know that you 
 are here or why you are come. There is no 
 reason to suppose that she has caught plague, 
 we must often come into contact with it without 
 knowing it ; but I will send round for Dr. 
 Vyse at once." 
 
 A swishing of draperies along the matted 
 corridor caught their ears. Footsteps passed the 
 study door and went towards the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 " It is my wife," said Denis hurriedly. " She 
 must be feeling better. Don't let her see you.
 
 276 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 Go out on the veranda and I will send a trap 
 round to take you home." 
 
 " I can go back on my bicycle/' she began ; 
 but again they heard the steps approaching, and 
 Denis pointed to the veranda door. She had 
 barely time to reach it when a curtain was pulled 
 aside and Eve stood swaying on the threshold. 
 Her eyes were glazed and bright, and from her 
 cracked lips came strange babblings. 
 
 Denis sprang towards her, but before he could 
 reach her she had lost her hold of the curtain, 
 and, lurching forward, slid into a crumpled heap 
 at his feet. 
 
 Clare ran from the veranda doorway and the 
 two faced each other across Eve's prone body. 
 
 " You know the symptoms? " he asked harshly. 
 " She has fever ; look for the other signs. I'm 
 clumsy, I might hurt her." 
 
 Swiftly the girl's fingers were busy at the 
 laces of Eve's dressing-gown. In a moment 
 that lasted years she had thrust her hand inside 
 the nightdress and under the arm. Then she 
 lifted a ghastly face to his, and he read his 
 answer in her eyes. 
 
 "I'll go for Dr. Vyse," she said, springing 
 to her feet. " I may be mistaken. It may be 
 something else." 
 
 " Dr. Vyse has never treated plague," said 
 Denis hoarsely, " but he is better than nothing." 
 
 A sudden thought illuminated Clare's tragic 
 face.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 277 
 
 " The Rat-Catcher," she cried. " He is in 
 the station, staying with the Cunninghams. He 
 knows all about plague." Before Denis could 
 speak or move she was over the veranda-rail 
 and speeding through the black night on a silent 
 wheel. 
 
 He knelt on beside the stricken woman, who 
 babbled of Gonds and dolichocephalic tribes, the 
 weary lumber which had so long barred her 
 from the inner shrine of his life.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 ALMOST before Denis's strained expectation 
 believed it possible, the Rat -Catcher was on the 
 veranda bearing hope and courage with him. 
 
 " I came on Miss Cardwell's bike," he 
 explained as he strode in at Denis's side. " She 
 is coming on in my trap as soon as it's ready, 
 Mrs. Cunningham is coming too. Wire for 
 nurses, the two ladies can help until they come." 
 He was silent as he drew aside the curtain and 
 passed into the lamp -lit room where Eve lay 
 babbling and shrieking. His hands, wise from 
 experience, touched her gently, confirming 
 Clare's diagnosis. 
 
 " It's plague," he nodded ; " but we shall pull 
 her through all right. She has got any amount 
 of vitality, and if she wants to live she will." 
 His words, so full of conviction, comforted the 
 husband's appalled heart and helped him to bear 
 the hateful inaction of the next few weeks. 
 
 iWith a kind of savage glee the Rat -Catcher 
 wrestled with his chosen enemy ; he must snatch 
 this prey at least from the jaws that devoured 
 thousands. For him there was the joy of labour, 
 but for Denis, standing behind the curtain that
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 279 
 
 veiled his wife's open door, there was nothing 
 to do but to listen to her incessant babble of 
 Gonds. Sometimes she raved of Celia and some 
 strange confession, but she always came back 
 to the Gonds with a persistence that stabbed 
 afresh at his repentant spirit. 
 
 The Rat-Catcher never lost heart his type 
 of Englishman never does lose heart and 
 presently the implacable enemy began to relax 
 the grip that so few escape. Plague and cholera 
 are soon over, the issue is not long in doubt. 
 Eve's fever burnt out and she lay strengthless, 
 uncertain if she should take hold on life again. 
 Her desire to live, her vague remembrance that 
 she had left something undone in the world, 
 her husband's insistent love all these things 
 beckoned her away from the waters of Lethe. 
 It would have been so much easier to lie still 
 and fade painlessly into death that waited at 
 her bedside night and day. To her ineffable 
 weakness death showed as a friend. But she 
 owed much to life and she was fain to pay 
 her debt, so little by little she trod her difficult 
 path back, with her pleading eyes hanging on 
 the man who fought so hard for her saving. 
 When Celia was allowed to come home again 
 the child's very presence roused her. Here also 
 was a debt for life to pay. 
 
 Day by day the Rat -Catcher wrestled, and 
 presently he knew that she was helping him 
 and that he was to be victor. Slowly the tide
 
 280 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 flowed back, and Denis gazed at a white wraith 
 that lay speechless but smiled faintly with blood- 
 less lips. England was now the only fit nurse, 
 and before the brain-fever bird heralded the 
 torments of the hot weather Eve was carried 
 on board a homeward-bound steamer at Bombay 
 with Denis and Celia by her side. 
 
 The Rat -Catcher accompanied his patient with 
 a pride of victory in his glowing eye. 
 
 " You may walk a bit in two days," he pre- 
 scribed, " and within a week you'll be prancing 
 round the deck. I never saw a more beautiful 
 recovery, but you were a beautiful case all 
 through." He pressed her fleshless hand, then 
 went away to fight his hot-weather campaign, 
 promising himself ten days' leave to see Clare 
 Cardwell, whose vows of celibacy he considered 
 absurd. 
 
 As he had foretold, health came speeding back 
 into Eve's body. Every hour of the sunny ocean 
 day gave her a firmer grip on life. Daily her 
 walks grew longer, and she enjoyed many quiet 
 chats with Celia. The wedding, of course, was 
 postponed. John was to take leave and they 
 would be married in England later, when Eve 
 was strong again. Meantime she needed the 
 quiet care which only love can give, and Celia 
 spent herself day and night in service. For the 
 moment there was a real place in the world 
 for her, and she fitted into it with enthusiasm. 
 When John had proposed a quiet wedding before
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 281 
 
 Eve sailed, the girl fought and conquered her 
 own inclinations. 
 
 " Eve needs me," she said gravely, and he 
 was forced to accept her decision that the idea 
 should not even be mentioned. 
 
 And Eve was glad to need her, glad to accept 
 the service which might help in the task of 
 building up Celia's character. Lying back in 
 her deck chair she had time to look carefully 
 at the past and speed the hours by making 
 plans for the future. 
 
 All too soon the blue and gold Mediterranean 
 outlook gave place to the grey lift of the Bay, 
 and presently the liner picked her way along 
 the greenish Channel paths that were populous 
 with black tramps and slow coasting vessels. 
 Then came the river, and the voyage was ended.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 CELIA absorbed England with calm, unhurried 
 zest. Her previous knowledge of London was 
 limited to the day she had driven across it from, 
 one station to another to catch the boat -train on 
 her way to India. She did not even know it from 
 books, and missed, therefore, the sacred emotions 
 that stir certain imaginative folk gazing at 
 prosaic lettering of names at a street corner. 
 London possessed no sentimental values for her, 
 she had nothing to do with its past, her own past 
 was in no way connected with its streets and its 
 churches and its river. But she intended it to be 
 connected with her future, and in her calm, 
 dogged fashion she set herself to learn what she 
 considered necessary. 
 
 A flat hi Hampstead housed them after Eve's 
 convalescence had been sped by a month in a 
 Kentish farm. 
 
 Celia's postponed marriage was not hastened ; 
 there was really no hurry now that exigencies of 
 climate set no hard and fast dates. Eve, in 
 her new spirit of self-sacrifice, pretended that 
 she needed Celia's presence. As a matter of 
 fact, she longed for the day when she and
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 283 
 
 Denis could be alone once more, but she counted 
 every week a gain in Celia's development. She 
 was as yet afraid to trust the crude child to the 
 solitary mercies of a husband who might be 
 found without patience or understanding to guide 
 his charge. 
 
 Eve's striving was a little pathetic perhaps. 
 She read French and German with Celia every 
 morning at fixed hours. They even attempted 
 Carlyle's " French Revolution," but they found 
 it a weary tangle of incomprehensible words 
 from which they broke with relief at a smiling 
 suggestion from Denis. 
 
 Conscientiously Eve tried pictures. They 
 found the National Gallery a place of torture, 
 and Celia refused to look at anything except 
 the " Death of Procris " and " Tobias and the 
 Angel." She admired the dogs in those pictures, 
 and insisted on sitting down to talk about James 
 instead of going further. The Tate Gallery, 
 on the other hand, was a great success. Most 
 girls possess an engraving of Watts's " Hope," 
 and custom dulls its meaning to them. No 
 pictures hung in Fendyke Vicarage except 
 stained and spotted prints of Dore" horrors, with 
 one stiff representation of the meeting of 
 Volumnia and her son. Nobody has pictures in 
 India. A few women, greatly daring, bring 
 out photographs of their favourite Masters, but 
 fish insects and constant transfers smother one's 
 early longing for art in the home.
 
 284 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 Celia, then, had never seen a real picture at 
 all. The Langs' bungalow had been bright with 
 Liberty chintzes and flowers, but the walls were 
 bare except for the 'Varsity groups in Denis's 
 study. 
 
 She came, therefore, more ignorant of art 
 than any Board-school child, face to face with 
 Watts's "Hope." The blue of the background 
 attracted her first, for she was susceptible to 
 colour although she did not know it. Quite 
 quietly she stood there trying to understand the 
 connection between the title and the subject. 
 When Eve came up, she surprised the first tears 
 of Celia's opening heart. After that they made 
 many visits to the gallery, and presently Celia 
 asked to go back to the old Masters for a day. 
 This time, although she admired the dogs, she 
 also succeeded in discovering Fra Angelico. 
 
 There was music, also, of course. Depriva- 
 tion of art is one of the clauses in the sentence 
 of exile in India, deprivation of music is a 
 second. The drawing-room piano goes without 
 saying in England. In India it is a heart- 
 breaking difficulty, for its constitution cannot 
 stand against the fierce heat of June or the 
 hopeless damp of the monsoon months. Many 
 people solve the difficulty by doing without it. 
 Others sing bravely to an instrument with half 
 its notes ruined. 
 
 Between the Fendyke harmonium and Eve's 
 tired cottage piano Celia had heard no music
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 285 
 
 at all. No art and no music the two gifts which 
 most English girls accept without comment. 
 She took lessons now with an interest absent 
 from her morning pursuit of literary culture 
 with Eve. With frequent bravery they sat 
 through chamber concerts. Denis smiled, but 
 he limited his interference to Carlyle. He 
 could not clearly understand the reason for 
 Eve's educational fervour, but he was wise 
 enough not to question. 
 
 Staniforth, of course, was often in evidence. 
 Between visits to his people in the country, he 
 spent weeks in London in Celia's society, 
 grumbling a little in secret at Eve's selfishness 
 in postponing their wedding. 
 
 No couple could have been better matched. 
 Her ignorance did not jar ; it was even a help 
 to their life, because he enjoyed the opportunities 
 her receptive genius afforded. He was a man 
 who delighted in shaping the world to his own 
 fancy. Celia was a subject obviously made to 
 his hand, he foresaw happy years spent in her 
 moulding. 
 
 He found her a little unresponsive towards 
 his love-making, but this too was an absurd 
 pleasure to his mind that once had been 
 astonished by queer rumours concerning a girl's 
 topics of conversation. He was quite sure, after 
 a month of their engagement, that these rumours 
 were due to some inexplicable feminine malice, 
 and were unworthy of a moment's thought.
 
 286 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 Staniforth had always disliked girls. Celia 
 was the first he had ever really noticed, and 
 the novelty of her continued to charm. Denis 
 had met ignorance in women with a disappoint- 
 ment that merged only too soon into indifference. 
 John welcomed it as a career for himself. Both 
 began in egoism. The end was not yet. John 
 already felt the hard central fact of his own 
 importance melting into something more 
 mystical, realised that Celia was teaching him 
 to look out over his fences. He had deliber- 
 ately chosen to barricade himself against the 
 world outside his profession and his games. 
 Intending now to draw Celia inside it, he found 
 that unconsciously he had followed her while he 
 thought to play the leader. 
 
 On his London Sundays he discovered, with 
 secret amusement and outward meekness, that 
 he was expected to attend her to church. 
 Presently he found himself sure that religion 
 was a becoming feminine adjunct, and that 
 Celia never looked so sweet as when she stood 
 with upturned face, singing of heavenly 
 mansions. India had merely interrupted a 
 custom to which Celia reverted with apprecia- 
 tion. She meant to be " good " ever after, and 
 goodness meant the type the rector had shown 
 her. So Celia went to church and even found 
 a weekly sewing meeting where she could 
 improve her talent for flannel petticoats. 
 
 Fortunately for John's appreciation, the girl's
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 287 
 
 method was that of water-tight compartments, 
 and her interests never slopped over. She had 
 no uncomfortable desires for week-day services 
 or Lenten abstinences, and Monday always found 
 her recovered from that Sunday mood of saintli- 
 ness, which might have proved wearying if it 
 had been protracted. 
 
 The thing which she happened to be doing 
 at the moment was the only thing which 
 mattered to Celia. Resolutely she had shut the 
 door on the past and left the future to grow 
 of itself out of her active present. There are 
 some lucky women who possess a thick clear 
 skin, its insensitive pallor unaltered by climatic 
 or mental accesses of heat or cold. Celia's 
 skin flushed and paled variably, but her inward 
 consciousness had been insensitive. Her starved 
 soul had rendered her callous, but the hard outer 
 crust began to crack and shrivel in the warmth 
 and sympathy of her new life. 
 
 There was as yet little outward sign of the 
 inward change. She had always been fond of 
 Dicky, and always displayed a genius for 
 playing with children. Her early training had 
 caused her to regard it as natural that she should 
 be thoughtful and helpful where other people 
 were concerned. These outward tokens came 
 naturally and without forethought. 
 
 Eve, looking for visible signs of grace, was 
 disappointed every day. Celia was a comfort- 
 able housemate, she took everything calmly and
 
 288 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 was never flustered or depressed or uninterested, 
 but she refused to show any evidences of re- 
 morseful conscience. So Eve plodded on with 
 her lectures and concerts and the deadly arti- 
 ficialities of the French classics that somehow 
 or other were to bring Celia to the knowledge 
 of the truth. 
 
 Staniforth considered the theatre educational, 
 and was rather fond of taking Celia to mild 
 problem plays which could not, he thought, 
 shock even her innocence, and yet might inure 
 her almost unconsciously to certain facts of 
 life. Celia always sat listening with absorbed 
 interest, but she never asked any questions after- 
 wards, and confined her criticisms to externals 
 of clothes and features and voices, disregarding 
 the plots and problems she was meant to notice. 
 
 He decided to go a step further, and took 
 stalls for " The Question," a rather old- 
 fashioned problem play, which a delighted audi- 
 ence found improper and enjoyed to the full. 
 A sudden headache rendered Eve helpless. 
 Denis stayed behind to nurse his wife, and the 
 two were allowed to go alone. 
 
 When they entered the theatre, in very good 
 time, for Celia always refused to miss even the 
 worst curtain-raiser, the seats on their right were 
 vacant. Presently, during the interval, when Celia 
 turned her head from a whispered conversation 
 with her lover, the programme fluttered from her 
 satin lap and she stooped to recover it. Her
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 289 
 
 eyes down -bent stared suddenly at a hand 
 stretched plain to view on the green velvet up- 
 holstery of the next stall. The hand, thin, 
 brown, and sinewy, stabbed at her sluggish con- 
 sciousness, for she knew it ; it belonged to a 
 past which, once deliberately forgotten, had been 
 stirring uncomfortably during the last months. 
 That hand had lured her far on a strange path, 
 and she gazed frozenly at it, until a well-known 
 voice broke into conventional politeness. 
 
 " Allow me," it said, and the programme was 
 retrieved and put into her hand. She raised 
 her eyes to meet Riplingham's. He flinched 
 at the tragic question in the blue depths, grown 
 unaccountably deeper since those idle days on 
 the hill-top. But he found a gay voice to 
 welcome the unexpected meeting and to praise 
 the luck which had brought them together. He 
 even accused Staniforth of slackness in /lot 
 writing to announce his presence in town. Celia 
 leaned back while the two men's eager voices 
 asked and answered questions. They spoke of 
 Eve's illness and the postponed marriage, and 
 then the curtain rose on the first act of " The 
 "Question," leaving them in welcome darkness 
 to examine their emotions. 
 
 Riplingham's were of relief. The announce- 
 ment of their engagement had brought security 
 for the moment, but he had felt uncertain about 
 later confidences. Celia was such an absurd 
 child it would be just like her to babble 
 19
 
 290 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 confessions without a thought of ruined lives. 
 He had waited eagerly for the announcement of 
 the wedding. The sight of the two sitting 
 amicably side by side reassured him as to its 
 delay. 
 
 " She hasn't told," his brain exulted, while 
 his eyes watched the brilliant garden scene of 
 the first act. 
 
 Behind Celia's calm brow the brain raged in 
 the dull fury of which she could be capable on 
 occasion. 
 
 The meeting had proved more poignant than 
 she could have imagined possible. She had 
 taught herself to view that last evening in the 
 hill station as some ugly nightmare to be for- 
 gotten, but Riplingham's actual presence made 
 ugly dreams into still uglier concrete facts. 
 Mentally and morally she had progressed very 
 far in the past year, but she did not realise her 
 growth until this moment of sick remorse that 
 leapt suddenly into her heart at the sight of him. 
 
 " The girl is just like you, Celia," said Stani- 
 forth, as the youthful heroine of the piece 
 gathered roses and talked in a winsome child 
 fashion. 
 
 "I'm not so pretty as that," she whispered 
 back. 
 
 " Far prettier," he replied fondly, glad to see 
 her so charming under Riplingham's eyes. " He 
 flirted with her once," ran his thoughts. " I 
 dare say he envies me now/'
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 291 
 
 Celia was far away, sitting on the rest-house 
 veranda. She remembered the feel of her soft 
 hair tumbling on her neck, and that hand, so 
 near hers now on the arm of her seat, fondling 
 its sunny store. She remembered his quotation 
 about "a wonder of flix and floss." She had 
 read " Gold Hair " since then, for Eve had 
 put her through a course of Browning's shorter 
 poems, and she had hated the girl of Pornic 
 because of the memories she brought of Rip- 
 lingham's voice. Step by step she retraced the 
 history of that day, realising only now for the 
 first time how near she had come, even then, 
 to her final peril. He had had pity on her 
 that day ; he had tried to gain freedom for 
 both, but she had rebelled and ignorantly lured 
 him back. 
 
 She saw herself on the veranda of Eve's hill 
 bungalow, on that last evening, half afraid lest 
 something should stop her lover on his way 
 back to say goodbye, wholly rejoicing that he 
 still loved her in spite of his late coldness. 
 
 She saw herself standing with tightly clasped 
 hands, peering into the darkness, enjoying the 
 high beat of her heart, exulting in romance. 
 Romance 1 
 
 " I thought it was romantic," she thought 
 piteously. " But he knew he must have 
 known ; men always do." 
 
 And romance came stealing along the narrow 
 dahlia-encumbered path and materialised into a
 
 292 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 shadow with silent, stealthy feet. She had held 
 out both her hands to the shadow which turned 
 into a man, while Romance fluttered her wings 
 for the last time. 
 
 The curtain fell on the first act, the lights 
 went up, and the two men turned to her. She 
 had not heard one word of the play, but her eye 
 retained an outward impression of the heroine. 
 
 -' She is sweet, isn't she? but rather too girly, 
 too obtrusively youthful and innocent." She 
 paused, afraid she had gathered and passed on 
 a stupid impression, but the men applauded her 
 criticism. 
 
 " She will develop all right," said John. " I 
 believe she behaves rather badly in the second 
 act, and the ' question ' of the title is whether 
 she shall confess or not." 
 
 The word of confession struck heavily at both. 
 Celia sat perfectly still, but Riplingham turned 
 with an abrupt movement to the man on his 
 right- He was disturbed by the coincidence, his 
 knowledge of feminine character telling him that 
 Celia's line of action was quite likely to be 
 changed by the play's course. So far she had 
 told nothing his cordial reception assured that, 
 but her conscience might easily be stabbed 
 awake by this unexpected meeting, and by the 
 dramatic representation of a story very like her 
 own. 
 
 " Do you happen to know how the play 
 ends? " he inquired from his neighbour.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 293 
 
 " Oh, this innocent young woman goes wrong 
 with the fair youth. Then she falls in love 
 with the strong, silent beggar, Tremenheere, who 
 is England's only hope. Before their marriage 
 she consults a' parson as to whether she shall 
 confess everything to her future husband. The 
 parson makes her tell and Tremenheere shoots 
 himself. The last curtain falls on a certainty of 
 war with Russia, in consequence of his sudden 
 withdrawal from the negotiations. Frightful 
 melodramatic stuff, of course, but it carries you 
 away and you believe in it all. This is my 
 second visit." 
 
 In Celia's brain mounted the memory of her 
 confession to Eve. Suddenly she was nearly 
 sure that the advice had been wrong. Surely 
 confession was a duty to John, who sat there 
 so proud and fond of a girl who did not really 
 exist. The curtain rose again. This time she 
 listened. Critically she watched the drama's 
 unfolding, heard the insistence on the heroine's 
 orphan condition. 
 
 " I had no mother either," thought Celia 
 soberly. " No one ever told me anything. 
 Who could possibly guess what things some 
 things really mean. I suppose some girls get 
 them out of books, but I never read any real 
 ones till I went to India, or from other girls ; 
 but I never knew any other girls except Dolly 
 Philpot, and I only met her at dinners and 
 tennis. Eve couldn't very well tell me, I sup-
 
 294 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 pose ; she was too young, and she hadn't 
 enough affection for me to make her conquer 
 the dislike you have to talking about nasty 
 things, when you understand how nasty they 
 really are." 
 
 The interview with the clergyman brought 
 back Eve's advice again. " Tell him," said 
 the man in the play, " and save your soul alive." 
 But was one's own soul so worthy of saving? 
 In the play Ida did not seem to save herself 
 even, and she brought tragedy to her victim of 
 confession. Eve had said, in effect, " Don't 
 tell, for you will make us all unhappy if you 
 do." She had counselled silence and slurred 
 over repentance, which must work in secret or 
 not at all. 
 
 Riplingham's anxious side -glances told him 
 nothing. Her quiet profile showed no signs of 
 stirred depths, and the eyes which might have 
 told so much were fixed on the stage. Beyond, 
 John was feeling uncomfortably doubtful 
 whether the play was not too strong a food 
 for the babe at his side. He had not realised 
 how outspoken the dialogue would be. A grim 
 smile widened under Riplingham's carefully 
 tended moustache. After all, he was not so 
 much to blame, he thought. The girl had flung 
 herself at his head, had almost insisted on his 
 presence when he had tried faithfully to leave 
 her alone. The innocence she claimed after the 
 final catastrophe did not exist at her age, except
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 295 
 
 on the stage or in novels by feminine pens. 
 Women loved to pose either as very ignorant 
 or very knowing. No sane man believed in 
 their pretensions of ignorance ; he knew from 
 his own case how impossible it could be that 
 innocence persisted through the years. He had 
 done his duty by asking her to marry him, and 
 plainly no harm had come of their little episode. 
 He pitied John, of course, but that was John's 
 affair. The girl didn't even look ashamed. She 
 might at least have paid that tribute to remem- 
 brance. He was relieved to find his thoughts 
 tending towards injury remorse was such an 
 uncomfortable feeling to harbour. 
 
 The last act claimed full attention, while he 
 and Celia stared straight in front of them at 
 the tragic outcome of confession. They watched 
 the girl, now a haggard woman, brood for a 
 moment over the prone figure of the dead man, 
 then turn and pass out to destruction. 
 
 More deeply moved now than he could have 
 believed possible, Riplingham hastily refused 
 John's invitation to supper. 
 
 " This is my last night in town, you know," 
 he said. '' I leave for Marseilles to-morrow- 
 same old P. & O. special. Yes, my leave's 
 up. I took a year, and it has gone like a 
 flash. Such luck meeting you in this jolly way." 
 
 But in the vestibule, while John appealed to 
 the commissionaire for a taxi-cab, Riplingham 
 took Celia's hand.
 
 296 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 " I am going to be married/' he said signifi- 
 cantly. *' I met my future wife in the country 
 this summer, and she is coming out to me in 
 the cold weather. She is a girl, as you were, 
 and thinks all good things of me." 
 
 He was stooping to ask her silence, to make 
 quite certain of it, and suddenly she knew that 
 she would never tell. There was another woman 
 in the business now a girl, he had said, who 
 believed in him, ignorant of ill, perhaps, as 
 she herself had been. Well, she would spoil 
 no other girl's chance of happiness. She nodded 
 up at him reassuringly. 
 
 " I understand perfectly," she said. " But I 
 hope she has a mother." 
 
 " A mother? " 
 
 His tone showed lack of comprehension, and 
 she smiled with sudden sweetness, for a won- 
 derful thought had come to her. John beckoned 
 and she moved away through the crowd. 
 
 -' I hope she will be very happy," she said, as 
 she stepped away from Riplingham into the cab. 
 
 John sat down at her side, and waved fare- 
 well as the taxi leapt forward and out of the 
 line of waiting carriages. 
 
 "Did I hear you congratulating old Ripling- 
 ham? " he asked. 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " Yes, he is to be married in the cold weather. 
 A girl down in the country, he said." 
 
 11 We mustn't let him beat us," said John.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 297 
 
 " How much longer are you and Eve going to 
 keep me waiting? I am quite sure she is well 
 enough to spare you to me now." His arm 
 slipped round her waist. She leaned back on 
 his shoulder, counting it a safe haven. 
 
 " I don't really think there is much reason to 
 wait now," she returned soberly.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 NEXT morning Celia was unusually quiet at 
 breakfast. She said so little about the play 
 that Eve wondered uneasily if she had quarelled 
 with John. Eve's head was still weary from 
 yesterday's pain, and she went but languidly to 
 the writing-table, where copies of " Athalie " 
 and " Maria Stuart " were neatly stacked with 
 notebooks by Celia's careful hands. For a 
 moment, eyeing their dull covers with disgust, 
 she thought of proclaiming a holiday, but a 
 memory of Celia's tense little face across the 
 breakfast table made her decide to secure the 
 quietness which their study hours afforded. 
 Perhaps Celia needed her. 
 
 When household duties were done, Dicky 
 dispatched for his walk, and Denis off on some 
 man's errand, the two sat down together. Celia 
 chose " Athalie " first, because she disliked it 
 most. She read a long declamatory speech in 
 the dreary tones girls keep for French tragedy, 
 then, without waiting to translate it, she threw 
 down her pencil and pushed away her book. 
 
 " Captain Riplingham sat next to me in the 
 theatre last night," she said abruptly. His name
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 299 
 
 had never been mentioned between the two since 
 the night of confession, it seemed now to deprive 
 Eve of power to speak. This time it was she 
 who blushed, and the painful colour flooded up 
 to her dark hair. She bent over her book, 
 drawing foolish arabesques on its margin. 
 
 " He is going to be married this cold weather. 
 His leave is up to-day, but she goes out later, 
 of course." 
 
 Celia's voice was quite steady. iWhen the 
 blood receded from her own face, Eve looked 
 at her cousin timorously, shy at the thought of 
 witnessing the distress that might be visible 
 there. She need not have feared. At the 
 moment, the girl's profile was as calm as ever, 
 then she faced Eve suddenly and showed the 
 tragedy of her eyes. 
 
 " I suppose I've been learning all these months 
 without knowing it," she went on. '* I expect 
 I must have been changing and getting to under- 
 stand, for, Eve, when I saw him I suddenly 
 realised what I'd done. It just swept over me 
 in a big wave, and I couldn't do anything but 
 just sit there and listen to him talking to John. 
 He was frightened of me, and that made me not 
 frightened of him. He was afraid I'd tell, and 
 for a minute or two I thought I'd have to, in 
 spite of what you advised me, but when he said 
 he was going to be married, I decided I mustn't 
 go and spoil another girl's chance of happiness. 
 For I expect he will be good to her. He prob-
 
 300 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 ably understands her. He didn't understand 
 me, but then I didn't understand myself either, 
 and haven't, till now." 
 
 She had spoken haltingly, even, it would seem, 
 with more difficulty than on the night of her 
 first confession. Eve remembered her idle 
 playing with James, the careless demeanour of 
 that night once the difficulty of beginning was 
 over. Now Celia sat bowed over the writing- 
 table, her hands tormenting each other in useless 
 passion. Something had wrought this emotional 
 change. Meekly Eve hoped it was due in some 
 small part to her unceasing toil, which, until 
 to-day, had appeared so barren of result. Her 
 feminine sense of humour did not allow her to 
 smile at the idea of French and German classics 
 as instruments of some vague celestial surgeon 
 to stab Celia wide awake. She had done her 
 best, and waited now until she should find the 
 right words to speak of the result. For the 
 moment she was still dumb, but her continued 
 silence did not weigh on Celia's nerves. 
 
 Half to herself, half to the silent woman 
 at her side, Celia went on thinking aloud. 
 
 " Not having any mother makes a fearful lot 
 of difference," she said. " I often used to wish 
 we worshipped the Virgin Mary down in Fendyke. 
 God always seemed so masculine and un- 
 approachable for a girl." 
 
 Church-going had dropped out of Eve's life 
 after her first year in India. She had taken up
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 301 
 
 the habit again in a shamefaced manner as a 
 part of her scheme of redemption. Celia's words 
 sounded shocking, almost blasphemous, to her 
 mind unaccustomed to the discussion of any 
 religious topic. The feeling of shock did her 
 good, for it put words into her mouth, breaking 
 her stony silence. 
 
 " Celia, dear," she began, " I wish you 
 wouldn't talk in that strain. And I don't think 
 you must brood over the past, you've got the 
 future before you; it will take all your pluck 
 and all your strength to work things out without 
 looking back too much. I am glad you met him 
 last night, glad you realise what you did. You 
 were callous, you know, the night you told me. 
 You've softened now, and you feel and know 
 many things that were outside your under- 
 standing before. It's very difficult to see how 
 some things work out. Being bad seems to have 
 given you a chance to grow into a good woman 
 instead of staying an idle, egoistic child." 
 
 She stopped, half shocked at the implication 
 of her own words, but Celia, wrapped in the 
 contemplation of her wonderful idea of last 
 night's growth, had scarcely listened. 
 
 '* It must be lovely to have a mother," Celia 
 went on, continuing her own line of thought as 
 though her cousin had not spoken. " But even 
 more wonderful than having a mother is being 
 one. I hope when I'm married I'll have a 
 daughter just as soon as possible, and then I'll
 
 302 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 work so hard to get her right in all the ways I 
 was wrong in, and perhaps God will be satisfied 
 then." 
 
 An irrepressible smile brightened Eve's eyes. 
 The child was such a child still, in spite of her 
 experience. A warning not to brood on the past 
 would pass but lightly over the head of a young 
 woman who was even now contemplating the 
 future education of unborn daughters. 
 
 " Can I be married quite soon, Eve? " she 
 went on eagerly. " John asked me last night 
 how much longer we are to wait." She turned 
 to her cousin, and with a sudden gust of 
 affection threw her arms round her shoulders. 
 " Don't think I haven't seen, you dear, beautiful 
 Eve," she cried. " I know you've been trying to 
 teach me and train me up to be good enough for 
 John. But I think that's finished now. Not 
 that I'll ever be good enough really, but I don't 
 think I'll ever get any further until I can offer 
 that daughter of my own in place of what I 
 ought to have been." 
 
 Eve's smile still sat in her eyes, though she 
 tried to keep her lips steady. 
 
 " As you feel like that," she said gravely 
 enough, " there is evidently no need to postpone 
 your wedding any longer. .We will talk it over 
 with Denis and John to-night. You'd better 
 telephone and ask him to dinner." 
 
 Celia sprang to her feet and danced towards 
 the doorway, her facile spirit gay again. For a
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 303 
 
 few minutes Eve sat in her place by the writing- 
 table, pondering Celia in her mind. Remem- 
 bering the tragedy in her eyes she wondered 
 how much the girl really felt, and was amused 
 in spite of herself, at the na'ive plan for future 
 rehabilitation. Then she rose and flung her arms 
 wide, as though she cast aside her heavy burden. 
 " Athalie," " Maria Stuart," and the notebooks 
 cumbered the writing-table. With an impulse 
 of unholy relief she swept them pell-mell into 
 the waste -paper basket. Culture was tiring and 
 had served its turn.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 THAT evening the family conclave decided that 
 Celia's help was no longer essential to Eve's 
 welfare. Eve sat by, smiling unseen at the dis- 
 cussion, fully aware that John had thought her 
 actions selfish, and that even her husband was 
 slightly surprised at the gentle firmness with 
 which she had discouraged wedding plans. 
 
 Thankfully now she was prepared to entrust 
 Celia to wiser, firmer hands than her own. Even 
 more thankfully she looked forward to the quiet 
 hours to be spent in learning perfect under- 
 standing with Denis. It was true that Celia 
 had, unconsciously, brought husband and wife 
 together, but she was keeping them apart now, 
 the unnecessary third that marred complete 
 union . 
 
 Thus it happened that everybody was pleased 
 and only perfunctory murmurs received the 
 bridegroom's eager suggestions of early dates. 
 He gained his will, and for a week or two the 
 women worked swiftly at filling up the gaps in 
 the trousseau which had lain idly in piled boxes 
 up in Celia's room. 
 
 304
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 305 
 
 Very soon it came to the day before the 
 wedding. That night Eve lay awake miserably 
 uncertain whether she should go to Celia's room 
 or not. She did not want these last hours to be 
 clouded by remembrance. The past was wiped 
 out and she had no lore to help the future, so 
 that she felt she could do no good. No one 
 could help Celia now except the Steersman. 
 Unknown, indeed, he had been. Even now, 
 when she realised his existence, she knew dimly 
 that he was not the God of the Hebrews, knew 
 that he visited no sins of fathers on children. 
 In her feminine anthropomorphic fashion she 
 had a sudden vision of him as a golden - 
 bearded, blue -eyed spirit guiding a frail little 
 boat into its haven. And with that she fell 
 asleep. 
 
 Celia came to her bridal with a serene face 
 beneath the veiling lace she wore. Her sheaf 
 of lilies lay along her arm, and did not tremble 
 even when she faced the altar with John at her 
 side. .With clear softness her responses sounded 
 through the chancel. The bridegroom's people 
 thought her charming, but rather too self- 
 possessed. His mother wore a resigned look 
 and had not troubled to buy a new frock. She 
 did not think the alliance worth it. 
 
 " Not a penny, my dear," she confided in a 
 
 loud whisper to a fellow-guest in their front 
 
 pew of honour. " Not a penny, and that cousin 
 
 of hers is just recovering from plague. Not 
 
 20
 
 306 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 a European disease at all. I believe those poor 
 neglected natives die of it in thousands, but 
 nobody one knows ever gets it." 
 
 The reception, held in a hotel, was exactly 
 like any other wedding reception. The Indian 
 Civilians home on leave clotted together in 
 corners, wearing frock-coats of weird cut, and 
 talked of districts and secretariats. Each 
 clutched the silk hat he had bought on joining 
 the Civil Service years ago. One could fix a 
 man's year by the curl of a brim, unless, indeed, 
 he came from the Bengal side, where no brim 
 retains any curl. (Only Calcutta merchants 
 can afford two silk hats in a lifetime.) They 
 paid not the slightest attention either to bride 
 or groom, but vied in cheery reminiscences of 
 plague and famine years, studded with dates and 
 initials . 
 
 Dressed for the most part in biscuit -coloured 
 tussore, their wives exchanged memories of 
 Christmas camps and scandals, while they noted, 
 for future guidance, the smart costumes of the 
 bridegroom's share of the guests. Connie Young 
 was there looking even more accentuated than 
 ever. It was curious that although she remained 
 slim, she gave one the idea of possessing 
 exuberant outlines. She had meant to condole 
 with Eve, intending to suck a sly pleasure out 
 of her friend's defeat, but unexpectedly she 
 happened to catch an interchanged glance 
 between husband and wife, and knew in a
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 307 
 
 moment that their relations were completely 
 altered. 
 
 "Mrs. Lang has taken my advice," she told 
 herself, " and gone back to flirting with her 
 husband. He's so good-looking, it can't be so 
 dull as it sounds." She sighed a little at the 
 thought of her own husband's contours, then 
 relapsed noisily into her latest " interest," who 
 was callow, but all one could expect at a 
 wedding reception. 
 
 Presently Celia went to change her dress. 
 After a few minutes Eve dismissed the chatter- 
 ing, hindering helpers, and put the bride into 
 her travelling dress with her own hands. Even 
 when they were alone their talk was but of the 
 guests and their costumes and presents. 
 
 At length Celia was ready. She stood looking 
 at herself in the long glass, charmed with her 
 own image. 
 
 " I think this is even prettier than my 
 wedding-dress," she said complacently, raising 
 her eyes to meet Eve's in the mirror. What 
 she saw there shivered her complacency to 
 atoms. She whirled round from the glass and 
 caught her cousin almost fiercely by the elbows. 
 
 " Celia Ferriby is dead," she said swiftly. 
 " She died to-day in church. But Celia Stani- 
 forth is alive, and everything is going to be 
 quite different." 
 
 Her fierceness dropped, from her as suddenly 
 as it had come. For a moment the two women
 
 308 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 clung to each other. Then they went out and 
 faced the waiting guests. The last goodbyes 
 were soon over ; the car, ready at the door, 
 received the smiling pair. A hum of machinery, 
 a tempest of goodbyes, and Celia glided swiftly 
 away out of Eve's life.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 " I'VE got something of a confession to make 
 to you/ 1 said Mrs. Cunningham, gazing out over 
 the waveless blue of the Indian Ocean. 
 
 "Confession?" repeated Eve lazily from 
 her deck-chair. They were outward bound 
 again, leave over, and work to be faced. 
 
 "- Yes, confession. You talked rather when 
 you were ill, and I gathered something, too 
 much, from your delirious bursts." 
 
 Eve sat up with fear in her eyes. "Did I 
 talk intelligibly? " she asked. 
 
 " I understood," hesitated Ethel, " because I 
 was partly behind the scenes, but I am quite 
 sure nobody else did. If the two Minto nurses 
 gathered anything, they are both to be trusted, 
 they were splendid young women. But I don't 
 suppose they did. You see, Celia' was away 
 all the while ; it was I who persuaded your 
 husband to keep her away until you were 
 beginning to get better." 
 
 " That's why you wouldn't come to the 
 wedding, I suppose? " said Eve slowly. 
 
 " Partly \ not altogether. I never liked Celia, 
 you know. From the first I thought her a
 
 310 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 cold-blooded little egoist, who just took what 
 she wanted with abominable calm. You were 
 far too good to her." 
 
 "- 1 wasn't. I neglected her for months. And 
 now I owe her everything." Eve gazed thought- 
 fully at the unruffled liquid turquoise that slipped 
 past the netted rails. " I don't really believe 
 in heredity," she went on. " There must be 
 something outside us, guiding us. Look what a 
 good start I had, everything was in my favour. 
 Celia's people were impossible, and she came 
 straight from her fen -country into the useless 
 idle life which was all I bothered to offer her. 
 She never had a chance. Yet it was only 
 through Celia that I came back to Denis. Her 
 poor little story taught me that I had a soul 
 somewhere. So, if the sins of her fathers were 
 visited on any one, they were visited on me and 
 for good, not evil. I'm not sure about Celia. 
 I can't understand her. Vital things don't seem 
 to affect her for long at a time. Perhaps she 
 is too young. She picks up episodes as though 
 they were china and she a collector. When she 
 puts them down again she knows all about their 
 colour and shape, and is delighted or disgusted 
 with them, as the case may be. The china is 
 put back, and Celia goes on with clean hands 
 to the next shelf. If she hasn't liked any event 
 in her life, she doesn't keep it, doesn't store it 
 up on her mental shelves. If it suits her, the 
 episode with Captain Riplingham will be set
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 311 
 
 aside. She knows how wrong she was, and 
 though she intends to be good now, she will 
 be able to forget the incident that put her on 
 the right track. I'm not so strong-minded as 
 that. I can't set things aside ; what I pass 
 through leaves marks, so that my mind is a very 
 splodge of colours. There's a lot of black I've 
 got to wipe away." 
 
 Ethel had listened with interest. Now she 
 sat up in her deck-chair and faced Eve abruptly. 
 
 " I want to give you a word of advice," she 
 said, " if you will take it. You are just in the 
 mood to go into emotional extremes, such a 
 feminine trick. You accuse yourself of having 
 been a sinner ; for Heaven's sake don't turn 
 into a saint if you mean to keep Denis. Most 
 men are bored to tears by saints. So am I. 
 Being slightly wicked yourself makes you kinder 
 to sinners, but more suspicious of saints ; kinder 
 to sinners because you realise that though quite 
 a good sort yourself, it is easy to go wrong 
 without intending it one scrap, and suspicious of 
 saints because you can't understand how they 
 do it, and there must be something wrong 
 somewhere." 
 
 "It is a pity your diction isn't as neat as 
 your personal appearance," laughed Eve. " But 
 I see your point, and I'll promise not to worry 
 Denis by growing into a dowd or locking up 
 the wine, or getting saint -like in any other irri- 
 tating manner. We understand each other now.
 
 312 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 I know life will be a little difficult sometimes. 
 Responsibility is so complex in India if you 
 shoulder any of it at all. But I mean to win 
 through in the end." 
 
 Silence fell on the two women. Their part 
 of the ship was almost deserted. From the lower 
 deck came the happy yells of the " bean -bag " 
 players, mingled with the occasional plop of 
 miscaught bags. Right astern the sun dropped 
 into an opal sea that held in its calm bosom 
 the gold and green and purple of the wider 
 sky. 
 
 In the saloon some one was singing Kipling's 
 gorgeous poem, '* For to Admire," the poem 
 that should always be sung at sunset in the 
 Indian Ocean. 
 
 "I've paid the price for finding out," 
 rang the clear tenor, 
 
 "Nor never grudged the price I paid." 
 
 '* There's a new r61e for both of us," laughed 
 Ethel, when the last notes died into silence, 
 
 "Admirin* 'ow the world was made." 
 
 " Here comes my husband from his bridge to 
 take me for a stroll before the dressing-gong 
 goes," said Eve happily. She smiled up into 
 her husband's eyes as he helped her from the 
 long chair.
 
 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 313 
 
 Gradually he was learning the valueless little 
 attentions which mean so much to a woman. 
 
 The evening wore on. She said good-night 
 to her little son, gazing for a few minutes at 
 his wonderful charms. And presently another 
 day had slid behind them into the sea, and the 
 ship settled to sleep. 
 
 The nights were warm and most people slept 
 on deck. An orderly row of mattresses was 
 stretched, white on the white boards, when Eve 
 left her cabin and passed up the companion to 
 the starboard side where the women lay. Before 
 she counted her way along to the place assigned 
 to her mattress, she stood at the rail and looked 
 out across the sea. 
 
 The ship, changed by the night's alchemy, 
 was no longer a mere throbbing shell of steel 
 and iron, but a sentient being. Wiitchlike she 
 slipped furtively through the swift black night, 
 her noiseless keel cleaving the sea-floor's black 
 marble into broken glints of silver. The fairy 
 sloop that was the moon swam in lucent pools 
 of sky. She was setting, her course nearly 
 run. With stopped breath Eve watched the 
 golden keel sail for a moment on the horizon's 
 edge, then sink beneath it, until suddenly 
 even the level golden horns went out into 
 darkness. 
 
 Eve put off her dressing-gown and welcomed 
 the warm caress of the breeze on her arms and 
 neck. She was snatched for ever from her
 
 314 THE UNKNOWN STEERSMAN 
 
 narrow point of vantage, made free for always 
 of the naked beauty of sea and sky, shut eyes 
 opened, the dry fountain unsealed. 
 
 Through her tears she looked up at the 
 lambent stars, rendering thanks to the Unknown 
 Steersman who had shown her this thing also 
 the endless beauty of his sea. 
 
 THE END 
 
 UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAH PRESS, WOKING AXD LONDON
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000035856 4