Violet uttered a low laugh. "Dear child, you are so unsophisticated!

When are you going to grow up?"

"I am grown up," said Olga. "But I don't see the use of studying the horrid side of life. I think it's a waste of time."

"There we differ," smiled Violet. "Perhaps, however, it doesn't matter so much in your case. It is only women who travel and see the world who really need to be upon their guard."

Olga smiled also at that. "Shall I tell you a secret?" she said.

"Do, dear!" Violet instantly stiffened to attention. The smile went out of her face; Olga almost fancied that she looked apprehensive.

"It's quite a selfish one," she said, seeking instinctively to rea.s.sure her. "It's only that--perhaps--when the autumn comes--I may go to India with Nick."

"Oh! Really! My dear, how thrilling!" The words came with a rush that sounded as if the speaker were wholeheartedly relieved. The smile flashed back into Violet's face. She lay back in her chair with the indolent grace that usually characterized her movements. "Really!" she said again. "Tell me all about it."

Olga told her forthwith, painting the prospect in the brilliant colours with which her vivid imagination had clothed it, while Violet listened, interested and amused.

"You'll remember it's a secret," she wound up. "We haven't heard from Dad or Muriel yet, and of course nothing can be settled till we do. If either should object, of course it won't come off."

"Oh, I won't tell a soul," Violet promised. "How exciting if you go, Allegro! I wonder if you will get married."

Olga laughed light-heartedly. "As if I should waste my precious time like that! No, no! If I go, I shall fill up every minute of the time with adventures. I shall go tiger-hunting with Nick, and pig-sticking, and riding, and--oh, scores of things. Besides, they're nearly all Indians at Sharapura, and one couldn't marry an Indian!"

"Couldn't one?" said Violet. "Wouldn't you like to be a ranee, Allegro?

I would!" She looked at Olga with kindling eyes. "Just think of it, dear! The power, the magnificence, the jewels! Oh, I believe I'd do anything for riches."

"Violet! I wouldn't!"

Olga spoke with strong emphasis and Violet laughed--a short, hard laugh.

"Oh, no, you wouldn't, I know! You were born to be a slave. But I wasn't. I was born to be a queen, and a queen I'll be--or die!" She suddenly glanced about her with the peculiar, furtive look that Olga had noticed the day before. "That's why I wouldn't marry Max Wyndham," she said, "for all the riches in the world! He is the One Impossible."

Olga felt her colour rising. She made response with an effort. "Don't you like him, then?"

"Like him!" Violet's eyes came down to her. They expressed a fiery chafing at restraint that made her think of a wild creature caged. "My dear, what has that to do with it? I wouldn't marry a man who didn't worship me, whatever my own feelings might be; and it isn't in him to worship any woman. No, he would only grind me under his heel, and I should probably kill him in the end and myself too." A pa.s.sionate note crept into the deep voice. It seemed to quiver on the verge of tragedy; and then again quite suddenly she laughed. "But I don't feel in the least murderous," she said. "In fact, I'm at peace with all the world just now. Listen, Allegro! You've told me your secret. I'll tell you one of mine. But you must swear on your sacred honour that you will never repeat it to a soul."

Olga was in a fashion used to this form of affidavit. She had been the recipient of Violet's secrets before. She gave the required pledge with the utmost simplicity, little dreaming how soon she was to repent of it.

Violet leaned towards her and spoke in low, confidential tones. "So amusing, dear! I know you won't mind for once. It's Hunt-Goring again.

He really is too ridiculous for words. He has hired a yacht, you must know--a nice little steam-yacht, Allegro. He walked over this afternoon to tell me about it. Don't look so horrified! There's much worse to come." She laughed again under her breath. "He has asked me--in fact, persuaded me--to go for a little trip in it one day next week. Of course I said No at first; and then he said you could come too to make it proper; so I consented. I'm sure you won't mind for once, and a breath of sea air will do me good."

She laid a hand of careless coaxing upon Olga's shoulder. But Olga's demeanour was very far from acquiescent.

"But, Violet!" she exclaimed, "how could you possibly accept for me? I'm not going! No; indeed, I'm not! Neither must you. It's the maddest project I ever heard of! Whatever made you imagine for one moment that I would agree to go?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Allegro!" Violet sounded quite unmoved. "Of course you'll go, unless--" she smiled a trifle maliciously--"you mean me to go alone, as I certainly shall if you are going to be tiresome about it.

You wouldn't like me to do that, I suppose?"

Olga gazed at her helplessly. "Violet, what am I to say to you? How could you and I go off for a whole day with that detestable man? Why, it--it would start everyone talking!"

"My dear, no one will know," said Violet with composure. "Haven't you sworn to keep it a dead secret? He won't talk and neither shall I. So, you see, it's all perfectly safe. Not that there would be anything improper about it in any case. He is as old as you and me put together,--older I should say."

"Oh, but he's such a fiend!" burst forth Olga. "You said you were going to give him up only the other night."

"When?" said Violet sharply.

Olga hesitated. It was the first time she had made direct reference to that midnight episode.

"When did I say that?" insisted Violet.

Half-reluctantly Olga made reply, while Violet leaned forward and listened intently. "The night before last. You came to my room late, don't you remember?"

Violet's eyes had a startled look. "Yes?" she breathed. "Yes? What else?"

Olga looked straight up at her. "Dear, I don't think we need talk about it, need we? You were not yourself. I think you were half-asleep. You had been smoking those hateful cigarettes."

"Ah, but tell me!" insisted Violet. "Why did I come to you? What did I say? Was--was Max there?"

"He came in," faltered Olga. "He--guessed you weren't well. He helped you back to your own room. Don't you remember?"

"Yes--yes--I remember!" Violet's brows were drawn with the effort; there was a look of dawning horror in her eyes. "I remember, Allegro!" she said, speaking rapidly. "He--he was very brutal to me, wasn't he? He made me tell him where to find the cigarettes, and then--and then--yes, he took them away. I've hated him ever since." Again that vindictive note sounded in her voice. "I won't bear brutality from any man," she said. "Do you know, if I didn't hate him, I believe I should be afraid of him? I know you are, Allegro."

"Perhaps; a little," Olga admitted.

"Ah! I knew it. He can do anything he likes with you. But I am different." She lifted her head proudly. "I am no man's slave," she said. "He thinks that he has only to speak, and I shall obey. He was never more mistaken in his life."

"But, Violet, he was only treating you as a patient," Olga protested.

"And he only took the cigarettes because--"

"I know why he took them." Quickly Violet interrupted. "And remember this, Allegro! Whatever happens to me in the future you must never, never let him attend me again. I suffered more from his treatment than I have ever suffered before, and I can never go through it again. You understand?" She looked at Olga with eyes that had in them the memory of a great pain. "It was torture," she said. "He forced his will upon mine.

He crushed me down, so that I was at his mercy. It was like an overpowering weight. I thought my heart would stop. I don't know--even now--how it was I didn't die."

"He gave you the pain-killer, dear," said Olga soothingly. "That was what made you well again."

"The pain-killer!" Violet gazed at her bewildered. "What is--the pain-killer?" she said.

Olga shook her head. "I don't know what it is. He wouldn't tell me. He calls it--sudden death."

Violet gave a great start. "Good heavens, Allegro! And he gave me that?"

"Only enough to make you sleep," explained Olga. "He gave me some the other day, when the heat upset me. I liked it."

Violet's eyes were glittering very strangely. "And you--came back again after it?" she said. "Allegro, are you--sure?"

"Of course," said Olga. "I don't know what you mean, dear. Of course I came back, or I shouldn't be here now."

"No--no, of course not!" Violet lay back in her chair, gazing straight up through the limes at the flawless August sky. "So that is why I didn't die," she said. "He only let me go--half-way. If I'd only had a little more--a little more--" She broke off suddenly and threw a quick side glance at Olga. "What queer creatures doctors are!" she said. "They spend their whole lives fighting, with the certainty that they are bound to be conquered in the end."

"They are splendid!" said Olga, with shining eyes.

"Oh, do you think so? I never can. If they fought suffering only, it would be a different thing. That I could admire. But to fight death--"