But it was only another boarder--a Mr. Gonzalves,
with a highly-varnished complexion, who took off his hat elaborately as
he passed the open door. Hilda became conscious of her use of the roses
and abandoned them. Presently she sat down on a Bentwood rocking-chair
and swayed to and fro, aware of an ebbing of confidence. Half an hour
later she was still sitting there. Her face had changed, something had
faded in it; her gaze at the floor was profoundly speculative, and when
she glanced at the empty door it was with timidity. Arnold had not come
and did not come.
The evening passed without explanation, and next morning the post
brought no letter. It was simplest to suppose that her own had not
reached him, and Hilda wrote again. The second letter she sent by hand,
with a separate sheet of paper addressed for signature. The messenger
brought back the sheet of paper with strange initials, "J. L. for S.
A.," and there was no reply. There remained the possibility of absence
from Calcutta, of illness. That he should have gone away was most
unlikely, that he had fallen ill was only too probable. Hilda looked
from her bedroom window across the varying expanse of parapeted flat
roofs and mosque bubbles that lay between her and College street, and
curbed the impulse in her feet that would have resulted in the curious
spectacle of Llewellyn Stanhope's leading lady calling in person at a
monastic gate to express a kind of solicitude against which precisely it
was barred.
Pages:
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282