Sir Lawrence, who during this recital had tried every motion for his monocle with which he was acquainted, dropped it and said: ‘But, my dear Jack, if a man is rash enough to become a Mohammedan in a Mohammedan country, do you suppose for a minute that gossip won’t say he was forced to?’
Yule, who had wriggled on to the very verge of his chair, said:
‘I thought that; but the second account was extremely positive. Even to the month and the name of the Sheikh who forced the recantation; and I found that Mr Desert had in fact returned from Darfur soon after the month mentioned. There may be nothing in it; but whether there is or not, I needn’t tell you that an undenied story of that kind grows by telling and does a lot of harm, not only to the man himself, but to our prestige. There seems to me a sort of obligation on one to let Mr Desert know what the Bedawi are spreading about him.’
‘Well, he’s over here,’ said Sir Lawrence, gravely.
‘I know,’ said Jack Muskham, ‘I saw him the other day, and he’s a member of this Club.’
Through Sir Lawrence was passing waves of infinite dismay. What a sequel to Dinny’s ill-starred announcement! To his ironic, detached personality, capricious in its likings, Dinny was precious. She embroidered in a queer way his plain-washed feelings about women; as a young man he might even have been in love with her, instead of being merely her uncle by marriage. During this silence he was fully conscious that both the other two were thoroughly uncomfortable. And the knowledge of their disquiet deepened the significance of the matter in an odd way.
At last he said: ‘Desert was my boy’s best man. I’d like to talk to Michael about it, Jack. Mr Yule will say nothing further at present, I hope.’
‘Not on your life,’ said Yule. ‘I hope to God there’s nothing in it. I like his verse.’
‘And you, Jack?’
‘I don’t care for the look of him; but I’d refuse to believe that of an Englishman till it was plainer than the nose on my face, which is saying a good bit. You and I must be getting on, Yule, if we’re to catch that train to Royston.’
This speech of Jack Muskham’s further disturbed Sir Lawrence, left alone in his chair. It seemed so entirely to preclude leniency of judgment among the ‘pukka sahibs’ if the worst were true.
At last he rose, found a small volume, sat down again and turned its pages. The volume was Sir Alfred Lyall’s Verses Written in India, and he looked for the poem called ‘Theology in Extremis’.
He read it through, restored the volume, and stood rubbing his chin. Written, of course, more than forty years ago, and yet doubtful if its sentiments were changed by an iota! There was that poem, too, by Dogle, about the Corporal in the Buffs who, brought before a Chinese General and told to ‘kow-tow’ or die, said: ‘We don’t do that sort of thing in the Buffs,’ and died. Well! That was the standard even today, among people of any caste or with any tradition. The war had thrown up innumerable instances. Could young Desert really have betrayed the tradition? It seemed improbable. And yet, in spite of his excellent war record, might there be a streak of yellow in him? Or was it, rather, that at times a flow of revolting bitterness carried him on to complete cynicism, so that he flouted almost for the joy of flouting?
With a strong mental effort Sir Lawrence tried to place himself in a like dilemma. Not being a believer, his success was limited to the thought: ‘I should immensely dislike being dictated to in such a matter.’ Aware that this was inadequate, he went down to the hall, shut himself up in a box, and rang up Michael’s house. Then, feeling that if he lingered in the Club he might run into Desert himself, he took a cab to South Square.
Michael had just come in from the House; they met in the hall; and, with the instinct that Fleur, however acute, was not a fit person to share this particular consultation, Sir Lawrence demanded to be taken to his son’s study. He commenced by announcing Dinny’s engagement, which Michael heard with as strange a mixture of gratification and disquietude as could be seen on human visage.
‘What a little cat, keeping it so dark!’ he said. ‘Fleur did say something about her being too limpid just now; but I never thought! One’s got so used to Dinny being single. To Wilfrid, too! Well, I hope the old son has exhausted the East.’
‘There’s this question of his religion,’ said Sir Lawreenc gravely.
‘I don’t know why that should matter much; Dinny’s not fervent. But I never thought Wilfrid cared enough to change his. It rather staggered me.’
‘There’s a story.’