The Foot of Time: A Novel of Australia and the South Seas: (1933)

24
THE FOOT OF TIME
if only in helping to aid his self possession. The
man lit a cigarette from the smouldering end. With
strong lungs he blew away the white ash, the better
to give his cigarette a clear start in sacrificing itself
to its soothing duty. Then he flung the cheroot
stump far out into the night. Into the garden, towards
the tea-bush where the beautiful coolie had
lacked appreciation of the Mem-Sahib's kindly
smile of sympathy some time before. The glowing
stump landed beyond the wide verandah, half-way
across the path, being damp and heavy with nicotine.
Clare could just discern a spot of red where
it had fallen. Bruce put a thick cloud of light
cigarette smoke through his shapely nose, having
first inhaled it through lungs which boasted a great
expansion.
"Well, what of Abdul?" he asked.
It seemed that the baronet found the line of
conversation fraught with the same danger that
Abdul himself had found in it. It appeared as
though Sir Bruce, strong though he was, must
give himself time to battle carefully and tactfully
with the type of enquiry towards which they were
heading.
"I caught him deceiving me." Clare drew herself
up on the long chair, curled her shapely legs uncle
her. She leant forward. Her pretty hands played
with each other caressingly; she moved them,
locked them together, illustrating her points. "I
was asking him whether all the girls earned the same
amount of money."
"But you know they don't," her husband inter
THE FOOT OF TIME
25
rupted her. "You have seen them having their
baskets weighed each evening."
"Of course, silly, I know. Don't you see? I was
just trying to draw him out."
"Oh, yes; go on."
"Abdul got most hopelessly tied up. In one breath
he told me that the girl I was especially asking
about was new to the garden. He said he had never
seen her before, and the very next moment he told
me she was the fastest plucker on the whole Estate."
The fastest plucker upon the Estate?" Sir Bruce
uncrossed his long legs then crossed them again.
He turned, looked at his wife—looked at her intently,
very slightly paled. He resumed his
smoking.
"Yes, that is what he said. Why—why ever did
he so contradict himself ?"
"Well, and what else?"
"That's all. Funny, wasn't it? Oh, yes, of course,
I remember more now.
excuse
The boy made a
about brushing
futile
your clothes, then abruptly
left me just when I was asking him questions."
Bruce laughed. It was a forced laugh, no ring,
no depth to it. The laugh went as far as his throat.
Stopped there!
"One of his wives, I expect, my darling,"
Outside a rustle sounded. It was he said.
qui to distinct.
Both heard it. The cheroot end had not ceased to
glow out there on the garden path.
Then something
eclipsed it—passed between it and the house. But
for that blotting out of the tiny red glow Clare