The Witness for the Defense | Page 5

Thresk. "At half-past eight."
"Yes."
Mrs. Carruthers gave him some tea and chattered pleasantly while he drank it. She was fair-haired and pretty, a lady of enthusiasms and uplifted hands, quite without observation or knowledge, yet with power to astonish. For every now and then some little shrewd wise saying would gleam out of the placid flow of her trivialities and make whoever heard it wonder for a moment whether it was her own or whether she had heard it from another. But it was her own. For she gave no special importance to it as she would have done had it been a remark she had thought worth remembering. She just uttered it and slipped on, noticing no difference in value between what she now said and what she had said a second ago. To her the whole world was a marvel and all things in it equally amazing. Besides she had no memory.
"I suppose that now you are free," she said, "you will go up into the central Provinces and see something of India."
"But I am not free," replied Thresk. "I must get immediately back to England."
"So soon!" exclaimed Mrs. Carruthers. "Now isn't that a pity! You ought to see the Taj--oh, you really ought!--by moonlight or in the morning. I don't know which is best, and the Ridge too!--the Ridge at Delhi. You really mustn't leave India without seeing the Ridge. Can't things wait in London?"
"Yes, things can, but people won't," answered Thresk, and Mrs. Carruthers was genuinely distressed that he should depart from India without a single journey in a train.
"I can't help it," he said, smiling back into her mournful eyes. "Apart from my work, Parliament meets early in February."
"Oh, to be sure, you are in Parliament," she exclaimed. "I had forgotten." She shook her fair head in wonder at the industry of her visitor. "I can't think how you manage it all. Oh, you must need a holiday."
Thresk laughed.
"I am thirty-six, so I have a year or two still in front of me before I have the right to break down. I'll save up my holidays for my old age."
"But you are not married," cried Mrs. Carruthers. "You can't do that. You can't grow comfortably old unless you're married. You will want to work then to get through the time. You had better take your holidays now."
"Very well. I shall have twelve days upon the steamer. When does it go?" asked Thresk as he rose from his chair.
"On Friday, and this is Monday," said Mrs. Carruthers. "You certainly haven't much time to go anywhere, have you?"
"No," replied Thresk, and Mrs. Carruthers saw his face quicken suddenly to surprise. He actually caught his breath; he stared, no longer aware of her presence in the room. He was looking over her head towards the grand piano which stood behind her chair; and she began to run over in her mind the various ornaments which encumbered it. A piece of Indian drapery covered the top and on the drapery stood a little group of Dresden China figures, a crystal cigarette-box, some knick-knacks and half-a-dozen photographs in silver frames. It must be one of those photographs, she decided, which had caught his eye, which had done more than catch his eye. For she was looking up at Thresk's face all this while, and the surprise had gone from it. It seemed to her that he was moved.
"You have the portrait of a friend of mine there," he said, and he crossed the room to the piano.
Mrs. Carruthers turned round.
"Oh, Stella Ballantyne!" she cried. "Do you know her, Mr. Thresk?"
"Ballantyne?" said Thresk. For a moment or two he was silent. Then he asked: "She is married then?"
"Yes, didn't you know? She has been married for a long time."
"It's a long time since I have heard of her," said Thresk. He looked again at the photograph.
"When was this taken?"
"A few months ago. She sent it to me in October. She is beautiful, don't you think?"
"Yes."
But it was not the beauty of the girl who had ridden along the South Downs with him eight years ago. There was more of character in the face now, less, much less, of youth and none of the old gaiety. The open frankness had gone. The big dark eyes which looked out straight at Thresk as he stood before them had, even in that likeness, something of aloofness and reserve. And underneath, in a contrast which seemed to him startling, there was her name signed in the firm running hand in which she had written the few notes which passed between them during that month in Sussex. Thresk looked back again at the photograph and then resumed his seat.
"Tell me about her, Mrs. Carruthers," he said. "You hear from her often?"
"Oh no! Stella doesn't write many letters,