The dart pricked its target. Darya knew his man, David was just and he could not lie.
Darya had flung the demand like a javelin and he stood, fists clenched, his jaw upthrust. David stepped back. Before either could speak they heard a girl’s voice.
“David MacArd! What a surprise!”
It was Olivia. She was coming up from the river, where she had been swimming. Her skirted bathing suit was wet and her long hair, dripping with river water, hung down her back. Because she was alone she had not put on bathing stockings and she wore only sandals. The sun shone on her wet arms and neck, on her wet face and eyelashes, glistening and lovely.
The two young men forgot themselves and David spoke first, “Olivia, this is Darya, my friend from India. Darya, this is Miss Dessard.”
“Olivia,” Darya said. “You will allow me to use the name, since David is my brother.”
Olivia put out her hand. “I am glad to see you. My grandfather has told me about India many times. He visited there once. Come to the house.”
They walked together, Olivia between, until the path up the hill separated them, and then she led the way, Darya followed and David was last. It was easy to see that Darya was impressed by the dark self-possessed girl, and that Olivia was enlivened by Darya. At the top of the hill David came forward and she was between them again, Darya and Olivia talking rapidly and constantly, and he had never heard her talk like this nor seen her so free. He was suddenly intensely jealous. Darya was able to make her so free, while with him she had been shy and almost silent. His heart throbbed and love crystallized with a shock. He wished that he had not brought Darya here to see her wakened like this, aware and eager and outgoing, laughing and talking as though she had always known the Indian. He walked along, helpless, and she led the way into the house. “Go into the drawing room, please,” she said in her clear imperious voice, though amazingly gay. “Mother will be down, and I must go and change. We don’t have tea every day as we used to, but there are wine and biscuits on the table, please help yourselves.”
She ran up the stairs as lithely as a young tigress. Darya led the way into the drawing room and poured the wine, as much at home as if this were his house. He handed the goblet to David and then the plate of biscuits.
“My friend,” he said in a low intense voice, “if you do not marry this girl, you are a fool! She is not only handsome, she is a free spirit and an intelligence. I envy you!”
David took the wine and broke a biscuit in his hand. Then he put up his shield of defense against Darya and his magnetic charm. “I have every intention of marrying her,” he said, and was astonished at his own coolness as he made the spectacular decision.
That night when they reached home he continued in a daze, a mood vague and immense. He had been almost silent when Olivia came downstairs, he had not listened to the renewed and ardent talk of Darya, who devoted himself to the beautiful girl. He had talked desultorily with Mrs. Dessard, listening to her complaints of moving and storage and he had not heard anything that Darya said all the way home. The golden stream of enthusiastic words went on and on, Darya unceasing in his praise of the wonderful girl, her grace, the pride of her noble head, her long thin hands, the strength in her, the incomparable latent power.
“It will take courage to be her husband, you understand,” he said ardently, “but a task how enticing! You must be strong, too, David, you must find a source of power for yourself—”
“Well,” MacArd said at the dinner table, “how are the buildings getting on?”
The two young men looked at each other, stricken, and Darya began to laugh.
David flushed scarlet. “Father, we forgot to look at them.”
“Forgot to look at them!” MacArd echoed, astounded.
“Yes — we got to talking with—”
“With Olivia,” Darya said.
“Miss Dessard,” David said under his breath.
MacArd stared at them from under heavy brows.
“Well,” he said, “well, well, well!”
David did not explain, and Darya hastened to protect him.
“The setting, Mr. MacArd, is divine in itself, a place inevitably to turn the thoughts of men to the Infinity, a site for the soul—”
“That is what it is for,” MacArd agreed. “I am glad you understand my idea.”
Darya’s instinct told him that it was time for him to leave David and continue his westward way. He had curiosity to see some of the sights of America, he wished also to see the black people of the South, and he planned to sail from California. No more was said about Olivia for he divined that David did not wish to talk about her and this reserve settled like a fog over their whole relationship.
“My friend, I must return to India,” Darya said one morning. “It has been weeks since I came, how many I have forgotten, the year is passing and there is much I wish to do. My father asked me to be home again by mid-autumn and so I must not delay, however happy I have been.”
“You must come again,” David said.
“You must come to India,” Darya replied. He wished to add, “Perhaps on your wedding journey,” but he did not. To force a confidence was as unrewarding as pulling open a lotus flower. Neither scent nor beauty was the reward.
David smiled without answering and he stayed near Darya all day while he packed. Darya, who could be as lazy as a beautiful woman when he chose, became a man of action when he had made up his mind. He put his belongings in order, the few gifts he had chosen for his family, small but expensive, a gold bracelet set with diamonds for his wife, a diamond sunburst brooch for his mother, for his father a set of Audubon prints of American birds, so different from those in the countryside about Poona, and for his sons small strong mechanical toys. For brothers and sisters, cousins and uncles and aunts he bought watches.
By night of the next day he was ready, his bags packed, and David went with him to the train. Darya would not allow any atmosphere of farewell. “There is neither beginning nor end to our friendship,” he declared. “It was before we were born, and it will never end, unless we choose to separate ourselves, which I will not do.”
“Nor I,” David said.
As cheerfully as though they were to meet the next morning Darya stepped into the train, settled himself and waved his hand from the window. They had stayed to talk until the last minute, idle talk, friendly and not profound, as though both agreed that at this late hour there must be no new revelations between them, and the train left almost immediately, and David was driven away again. His father had not come home to dinner that night, he had telephoned that he would be late, and David climbed the stairs to his own rooms. The house was now very empty, the silence oppressive. He had scarcely thought of his mother for so many weeks that he could no longer summon her presence and he had no desire to do so. The rooms were filled with the echoes of Darya’s lively presence, his modulated voice, his rapid talk, and yet he did not wish Darya back.
He went into his own rooms and closed the door. He would go to see Olivia, he would simply go, on the pretext of looking at the buildings, and then he would make the opportunity to ask her to marry him. He felt an immense hunger, a hollowness of the heart and only the one name sounded its echoes, Olivia.
She was not easily found. He wandered about the roofless buildings, his eyes meanwhile searching for her and not finding her. The walls were rising above foundations and six new buildings were set in the woods about the pillared house, skilfully placed so that each seemed alone and yet part of the whole.