"No general, not that. What I meant was that it was impossible for Miss Van Lier to have confessed to any love for me--"
The lattice at the window was thrust aside. For a second the girl's sidereal eyes blazed into the room.
"He is right, father: I do not love; I hate."
During the moment that followed you could have heard a lizard move. Tancred fumbled at his collar, and General Van Lier sank bank in his chair.
"Mr. Ennever," he said, at last, "you are my guest."
The tone in which he spoke was low and self-restrained, but in it there was an accent that was tantamount to a slap in the face.
"There is a boat from Siak at five," he answered.
"General," Tancred hesitated; he was humiliated as he had never been, and rightly humiliated, he knew. He was trying to say something that would express his sense of abasement, and a fitting speech was on the end of his tongue.
"After you, sir." The general was pointing to the door.
Tancred bowed and passed out. A moment later he was in his room.
In a corner was a trunk. In another a shirt-box. Tancred gathered his traps together, and tossed some into the one, some into the other, a proceeding at which Zut yelped and fawned with delight. Evidently on him at least the attractions of the bungalow had begun to pall.
And at this the dog yelped again and curveted sheer across the room.
"But you must be quiet," Tancred added. "There, be still."
He was thinking of Mrs. Lyeth, and wondering whether he should see her before he went. If he could exchange but one word with her, surely, he told himself, she would understand. He lounged to the window and leaned on the sill.
It was one of those afternoons, brutal and terrible in beauty, which only the equator provides. The sky was like the curtain of an alcove, the sun a vomiter of living glare. Beyond was a riot of color such as Delacroix never dreamed, a combination more insolent than the Quetzal possesses, all the primaries interstriated, a rainbow of insolent hues. And there, in white, a parasol over her head, a basket dangling from her wrist, Liance appeared, emerging, as her father had, from the coppice beyond.
Instinctively he drew back: he had no wish to see her eyes charged with hate again. She was not one to forgive, he knew; the beauty of the equator was in her, and its pitilessness as well. And yet, he reflected, if I could but tell her not alone how she and I have erred, but how sorry I am for it all. But no; manifestly an explanation was impossible. Did he attempt one it might inculpate another. He was not alone solely to blame, he was blockaded in his own disgrace. He told himself this; he repeated it even in varying keys; but beneath it all he felt that some redress should be. The idea that the house he had entered as an honored guest would see him depart in shame had already brought the blood to his cheeks. And that blood now was leaving a stain that years would not efface. "I must write," he decided; "I must write some word." And he was about to seat himself at the table, when Atcheh appeared.