.. I say, were you out riding
anywhere the day I passed by to Khanda?"
William nodded, and smiled after the manner of an angel surprised
in a good deed.
"Then it was just a speck I saw of your habit in the -"
"Palm-grove on the Southern cart-road. I saw your helmet when you
came up from the mullah by the temple - just enough to be sure
that you were all right. D' you care?"
This time Scott did not kiss her hand, for they were in the dusk
of the dining-tent, and, because William's knees were trembling
under her, she had to sit down in the nearest chair, where she wept
long and happily, her head on her arms; and when Scott imagined
that it would be well to comfort her, she needing nothing of the
kind, she ran to her own tent; and Scott went out into the world,
and smiled upon it largely and idiotically. But when Faiz Ullah
brought him a drink, he found it necessary to support one hand
with the other, or the good whisky and soda would have been spilled
abroad. There are fevers and fevers.
But it was worse - much worse - the strained, eye-shirking talk at
dinner till the servants had withdrawn, and worst of all when Mrs.
Jim, who had been on the edge of weeping from the soup down, kissed
Scott and William, and they drank one whole bottle of champagne,
hot, because there was no ice, and Scott and William sat outside the
tent in the starlight till Mrs.
Pages:
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285