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Updated: June 18, 2025
"The affair at Umballa, the riots at Benares, the murder in Madras?" "Exactly." Ballantyne pushed the photograph into Thresk's hand. "That's the fellow the middle one of the group." Thresk held up the photograph to the light. It represented a group of nine Hindus seated upon chairs in a garden and arranged in a row facing the camera.
To Thresk this point of view was horrible; and there was no arguing against it. It was inspired by the dreadful vanity of a narrow, shallow nature, and Thresk's experience had never shown him anything more difficult to combat and overcome. "So for the sake of your reputation for consistency you will make a very unhappy woman bear shame and obloquy which she might easily be spared?
"You hope it?" cried Mr. Hazlewood. "Yes. I want Dick to marry," said Robert Pettifer. Mr. Hazlewood was not, however, to be discouraged. He drove back to his house counting the days which must pass before Thresk's arrival and wondering how he should manage to conceal his elation from the keen eyes of his son.
For it presented to him in the most unexpected manner another and a new side of the strange and complex character of Stephen Ballantyne. "Yes, why don't I destroy it?" Ballantyne repeated. "I ask myself that," and he took the photograph out of Thresk's hands and sat in a sort of muse, staring at it.
His voice rose to a veritable menace as he sketched the future which awaited them and then sank again. "How's London!" he growled, harping scornfully on the unfortunate phrase. Ballantyne had had luck that night. He had chanced upon two of the banalities of ordinary talk which give an easy occasion for the bully. Thresk's twenty-four hours to give to Chitipur provided the best opening.
The room was over the porch of the house and looked down the short level drive to the iron gates and the lane. It was all familiar ground to Thresk or rather to that other man with whom Thresk's only connection was a dull throb at his heart, a queer uneasiness and discomfort. He leaned out of the window.
Then upon the ground she saw the shadow of Thresk's horse creep up until the two rode side by side. She looked at him quickly with a doubtful wavering smile and looked down again. What did all the trouble in his face portend? Her heart thumped and she heard him say: "Stella, I have something very difficult to say to you." He laid a hand gently upon her arm, but she wrenched herself free.
She was a woman sure of her resources, radiant in her beauty, confident that what she wore was her colour and gave her her value. Yet her trouble was greater than Thresk's, and many a time during the course of that dinner, when she felt his eyes resting upon her, her heart sank in fear. She sought his company after dinner, but she had no chance of a private word with him. Old Mr.
Some of the chatter reached to Thresk's inattentive ears, and when he was only two steps from the floor one carelessly-spoken phrase interjected between the values of two securities brought him to a stop. The speaker was a young man with a squarish face and thick hair parted accurately in the middle. He was dressed in a thin grey suit and he was passing the tape between his fingers as it ran out.
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.
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