The Safety Curten by Ethel May Dell (ebook e reader .txt) 📖

up for it all. I always wanted to be a farmer's wife, you know. But you must help me. Jeff, will you?"
"I would die for you," he said, his head still bent as though he could not wholly trust himself to look her in the face.
She gave a funny little tremulous laugh. "Yes, I know. But that wouldn't be a bit of good. You would only break my heart. You don't want to do that, do you?"
"Doris!" he said.
"Why won't you call me Dot?"
"Dot!" said Jeff very softly.
"That's better." Again her voice quivered upon a laugh. Her arms slackened from his shoulders, and instantly his fell away, setting her free. She rose to her feet, yet lingered a moment, bending slightly over him, her eyes very bright.
But Jeff did not move, and with a half-sigh she turned away. "Would you like to carry the teapot?" she said.
He got up.
"And you can hang up this coat of yours," she added. "I'll come in a moment."
She watched him go in his slow, strong fashion; then for a few still seconds she stood quite tense with hands tightly gripped together. What passed within her during those moments only her own heart ever knew, how much of longing, how much of regret, how much of earnest, quivering hope.
She followed him almost at once as she had promised.
The parlour door was open. She came to it in her light, impetuous way. She halted on the threshold.
"Jeff!" she said. "Come here!"
She reached out her hands to him--little, nervous hands full of purpose. She drew him close. She raised her lips to his. The mistletoe dangled above their heads.
"Will you kiss me, Jeff?" she whispered.
He stooped, half-hesitating.
Her arms stole about his neck. "You needn't--ever--be afraid to kiss your own wife, dear," she said. "I want your love just in the ordinary way--the ordinary way."
He held her to him. "Dot--Dot--forgive me!"
She shook her head with frank, fearless eyes raised to his. "It was a bad bargain, Jeff. Forget it!"
"And make another?" he suggested.
To which she answered with her quick smile. "Love makes no bargains, Jeff. Love just gives--and gives--and gives."
And as his lips met hers he knew the wondrous truth of what she said. For in that one long kiss she gave him all she had. And love conquered, just in the old, sweet, ordinary way.
[Footnote 2: Copyright, 1915, by Ethel M. Dell.]


The Place of Honour

Wherein a woman with a love of freedom, two soldiers in the Indian Army, and a snake-bite are most intimately concerned.

CHAPTER I
THE BRIDE

"And that is the major's bride? Ah, what a pity!"
The soft, Irish eyes of Mrs. Raleigh, the surgeon's wife, looked across the ball-room with a very real compassion in their grey depths.
"Pity?" said young Turner, the subaltern, who chanced to be at that moment in attendance upon her. "It's worse than that; it's a monstrous shame! She's only nineteen, you know; and he is twenty years older at least."
Mrs. Raleigh sighed.
"You have met her, Phil," she said. "I am going to get you to introduce me. Let us go across to her."
Mrs. Raleigh was greatly beloved by all subalterns. Her husband's bungalow was open to them day and night, and they took full advantage of the fact.
It was not that there was anything particularly brilliant about the surgeon's wife, but her ready sympathy made her a general favourite, and her kindness of heart was known to be equal to the severest strain.
Therefore, among the boys of the regiment she ruled supreme, and the expression of her lightest wish generally provoked a jealous scramble.
On the present occasion, however, young Turner did not display any special alacrity to serve her.
"There's such a crowd round her it's difficult to squeeze in edgeways," he said. "I shouldn't trouble to go across yet if I were you."
Mrs. Raleigh laughed a little and laid her hand on his arm.
"So you don't like hovering on the outskirts, Phil," she said.
He frowned, and then as suddenly smiled.
"I'm not the sort that cares to fool with a married woman," he declared. "There goes Devereux to swell the throng. I say, let's go and have a drink."
She laughed again as she rose to accompany him. Phil Turner was severely honest in all his ways, and, being a good woman, she liked him for it.
Nevertheless, though she yielded, her eyes still dwelt upon the girl in bridal white who sat like a queen among her courtiers. The dark head that was held so regally erect caught and chained the elder woman's fancy. And the vivid, careless beauty of the face was a thing to bear away in the heart and dream of in solitude. For the girl was lovely with that loveliness which even the most grudging must acknowledge. She shone in the crowd that surrounded her like a rare and brilliant flower in a garden of herbs.
Phil Turner's arm stirred with slight impatience under Mrs. Raleigh's hand, and she turned beside him.
"There is nothing like a really beautiful English girl in all the world," she said, with a smile and another glance in the bride's direction.
Young Turner grunted, and she gave his arm a slight shake.
"You don't deceive me," she said. "You admire her as much as I do. Now, be honest."
He looked at her for a moment moodily. Then----
"Yes," he said abruptly, "I do admire her. But, as for the major, I think he's the biggest fool on this side of the Indian Ocean, and that's saying a good deal."
Mrs. Raleigh shook her head as if she desired to disagree.
"Time alone will prove," she said.


CHAPTER II
EARLY BREEZES

"It's been lovely," said the bride. She leant back in the open carriage, gazing with wide, charmed eyes into the vivid Indian night. "And I'm not a bit tired," she added. "Are you?"
The man beside her did not instantly reply. He was a man of medium height, dark and lithe and amazingly strong. It was not his habit to speak much, but what little he said was usually very much to the point. It was his custom to mask his feelings so completely that very few had the smallest inkling as to his state of mind.
He was considered a hard man in his regiment, but he was known to be a splendid soldier, and chiefly for that reason he was respected rather than disliked. But the kindest critic could not have called him either popular or attractive. And the news of his marriage in England had fallen like a thunderbolt upon his Indian acquaintances, for he had long ago come to be regarded among them as the last man in the world to commit such a folly.
The full extent thereof had not been apparent till his return to his regiment, accompanied by his bride, and then as one man the whole mess had risen and condemned him in no measured terms, for the bride, with all her entrancing beauty, her vivacity, her charm, was certainly a startling contrast to the man who had wedded her--a contrast so sharp as to be almost painful to the onlookers.
She herself, however, seemed to be wholly unaware of any incongruity. Perhaps she had not seen enough of the world to feel it, or perhaps she was wilfully blind to the things she did not desire to see.
In any case her face, as she lay back in the carriage by her husband's side, expressed only the most complete contentment.
"Are you tired, Eustace?" she asked, as he did not hasten to reply to her first question.
"No," he answered, "not tired; but glad to be going back."
"You've been bored," she said quickly. "What a frightful pity! Why did you stay so long?"
Again he paused before replying, and she drummed on his knee with her fingers with slight impatience.
"I had a notion," he said, in his quiet, unhurried tones, "that my wife would have considered it rather hard lines to be dragged away while there was a single man left to dance with."
The bride snatched her hand from his knee with a swiftness of action that could hardly be mistaken. He might have been speaking in fun, but, even so, it was an ugly jest. More probably he had meant the sting that his words conveyed, for, owing to a delicate knee-cap that had once been splintered by a bullet and still at times gave him trouble, Major Tudor was a non-dancer. Whatever his meaning, the remark came upon her flushed triumph like the icy chill before the dawn, dispelling dreams.
"I am sorry," she said, with all the haste of youth, "that you sacrificed yourself to please me. I hope you will not do so again. Now that I am married, I do not need a chaperon. I could quite well return alone."
It was childishly spoken, but then she was a child, and the admiration she had enjoyed throughout the evening had slightly turned her head. He did not reply to her speech. Indeed, it was as if he had not heard it. And her indignation mounted. There was not another man of her acquaintance who would have treated her with a like lack of courtesy. Did he think, because he was her husband, that she belonged to him so completely that he could behave to her exactly as he saw fit? Perhaps. She did not know him very well; nor apparently did he know her. For during the brief six weeks of their married life she had been a little shy, a little constrained, in his presence. But her success had, as it were, unshackled her. Without hesitation she gave her feelings the rein.
"Do you consider that I am not to be trusted?" she asked him sharply.
"I beg your pardon?"
There was a note of surprised interrogation in his voice. She did not look at him, but she knew that his eyebrows were raised, and a faint--quite a faint--sense of misgiving stole over her.
"I asked if you thought me untrustworthy," she asked.
"Oh!"
He relapsed into silence again, and she became exasperated.
"Why don't you answer me?" she said, with quick impatience.
He turned his head deliberately and looked at her; and again she tingled with an apprehension which no previous word or action of his had ever justified.
"Unprofitable questions," he said coolly, "like ill-timed jests, are better left alone."
It was the first intentional snub he had ever administered to her, and she quivered under it, furious but impotent. All the evening's enjoyment had gone out of her. She was conscious only of a desire to strike back and wound him as he had wounded her.
She did not utter another word during the drive, and when they reached their bungalow--the daintiest and most luxurious in the station--she alighted without touching the hand he offered her.
Refreshments awaited them in the dining-room, and the bride swept in and helped herself, suffering her cloak to fall from her shoulders. He picked it up and threw it over a chair. His dark face was quite composed and inscrutable. He was not a handsome man, but there was something undeniably striking about him, a strength of personality that made him somehow formidable. The red and gold uniform he wore served to emphasise the breadth of shoulder, which his height did not justify. He was a splendid wrestler. There was not a man in the mess whom he could not throw.
Yet to those who knew him best, his strength seemed to lie less in what he did than in what he left undone. His restraint was the secret of his power.
Perhaps his young