On the Face of the Waters

BOOK II
CHAPTER III

ON THE RIDGE.

"A melly Klistmus to zoo, Miffis Erlton! An' oh! they's suts a lot of boo'ful, boo'ful sings in a velanda."

Sonny's liquid lisp said true. On this Christmas morning the veranda of Major Erlton's house on the Ridge of Delhi was full of beauties to childish eyes. For, he being on special duty regarding a scheme for cavalry remounts and having Delhi for his winter headquarters, there were plenty of contractors, agents, troopers, dealers, what not, to be remembered by one who might probably have a voice in much future patronage. So there were trays on trays of oranges and apples, pistachios, almonds, raisins, round boxes of Cabul grapes, all decked with flowers. And on most of them, as the surest bid for recognition, lay a trumpery toy of some sort for the Major sahib's little unknown son, whose existence could, nevertheless, not be ignored by these gift-bringers, to whom children are the greatest gift of all.

And so, as they waited, with a certain child-like complacency in their own offerings, for the recipients' tardy appearance, they had smiled on little Sonny Seymour as he passed them on his way to give greeting to his dearest Mrs. Erlton. For the Seymours had had the expected change to Delhi, and Sonny's mother was now complaining of the climate, and the servants, and the babies, in one of the houses within the Cashmere gate of the city; a fact which took from her the grievance regarding dog-carts, since it lay within a walk of her husband's office.

So some of the smiles had not simply been given to a child, but to a child whose father was a sahib known to the smiler; and one broad grin had come because Sonny had paused to say, with the quaint precision with which all English children speak Hindustani.

"Ai! Bij Rao! tu kyon aie?" (Oh, Bij Rao, why are you here?) The orderly's face, which Mrs. Seymour had said gave her the shivers, had beamed over the recognition; he had risen and saluted, explaining gravely to the chota sahib that he came from Meerut, because the Major sahib was now his sahib for the time. Sonny had nodded gravely as if he understood the position perfectly, and passed on to the drawing room, where Kate Erlton was sticking a few sprigs of holly and mistletoe round the portrait of another fair-haired boy; these same sprigs being themselves a Christmas offering from the Parsee merchant, who had a branch establishment at a hill station. He sent for them from the snows every year for his customers as a delicate attention. And this year something still more reminiscent of home had come with them: a real spruce fir for the Christmas tree which Kate Erlton was organizing for the school children. The tree in itself was new to India, and she had suggested a still greater innovation; namely, that all children of parents employed in Government offices or workshops should be invited, not only those with pretensions to white faces. For Kate, being herself far happier and more contented than she had been nine months before, when she begged that last chance from Jim Douglas, had begun to look out from her own life into the world around her with greater interest. In a way, it seemed to her that the chance had come. Not tragically, as Jim Douglas had hinted, but easily, naturally, in this special duty which had removed her husband both from Alice Gissing and his own past reputation.

It had sent him to Simla, where people are accepted for what they are; and here his good looks, his good-natured, devil-may-care desire for amusement had made him a favorite in society, and his undoubted knowledge of cavalry requirements stood him in good stead with the authorities. So he had come down for the winter to Delhi on a new track altogether. To begin with, his work interested him and made him lead a more wholesome life. It took him away from home pretty often, so lessening friction; for it was pleasant to return to a well-ordered house after roughing it in out-stations. Then it took him into the wilds where there was no betting or card-playing. He shot deer and duck instead, and talked of caps and charges, instead of colors and tricks. To his vast improvement; for though the slaying instinct may not be admirable in itself, and though the hunter may rightly have been branded from the beginning with the mark of Cain, still the shooter or fisher generally lives straighter than his fellows, and murder is not the most heinous of crimes. Not even in regard to the safety and welfare of the community.

So Kate had begun to have those pangs of remorse which come to women of her sort at the first symptom of regeneration in a sinner. Pangs of pitiful consideration for the big, handsome fellow who could behave so nicely when he chose, vague questionings as to whether the past had not been partly her fault; whether if this were the chance, she ought not to forget and forgive—many things.

He looked very handsome as he lounged in, dressed spick and span in full uniform for church parade. And she, poised on a chair, her dainty ankles showing, looked spick and span also in a pretty new dress. He noticed the fact instantly.

"A merry Christmas, Kate! Here! give me your hand and I'll help you down."

How many years was it since he had spoken like that, with a glint in his eyes, and she had had that faint flush in her cheek at his touch? The consciousness of this stirring among the dry bones of something they had both deemed dead, made her set to shaking some leaves from her dress, while he, with an irrelevantly boisterous laugh, stooped to swing Sonny to his shoulder. "You here, jackanapes!" he cried. "A merry Christmas! Come and get a sweetie—you come too, Kate, the beggars will like to see the mem. By Jove! what a jolly morning!"

A foretaste of the winter rains had fallen during the night, leaving a crisp new-washed feeling in the air, a heavy rime-like dew on the earth; the sky of a pale blue, yet colorful, vaulted the wide expanse cloudlessly. And from the veranda of the Erltons' house the expanse was wide indeed; for it stood on the summit of the Ridge at its extreme northern end—the end, therefore, furthest from the city, which, nearly three miles away, blocked the widening wedge of densely wooded lowland lying between the rocky range and the river. The Ridge itself was not unlike some huge spiny saurian, basking in the sunlight; its tail in the river, its wider, flatter head, crowned by Hindoo Rao's house, resting on the groves and gardens of the Subz-mundi or Green Market, a suburb to the west of the town. It is a quaint, fanciful spot, this Delhi Ridge, even without the history of heroism crystallized into its very dust. A red dust which might almost have been stained by blood. A dust which matches that history, since it is formed of isolated atoms of rock, glittering, perfect in themselves, like the isolated deeds which went to make up the finest record of pluck and perseverance the world is ever likely to see. Perseverance and pluck which sent more Englishmen to die cheerfully in that red dust than in the defenses and reliefs of Lucknow, Cawnpore, and the subsequent campaigns all combined. Let the verdict on the wisdom of those months of stolid endurance be what it may, that fact remains.

And the quaintness of the Ridge lies in its individuality. Not eighty feet above the river, its gradients so slight that a driver scarce slackens speed at its steepest, there is never a mistake possible as to where it begins or ends. Here is the river bed, founded on sand; there, cleaving the green with rough red shoulder, is the ridge of rock.

From the veranda, then, its stony spine split by a road like a parting, it trended southwest, so giving room between it and the river for the rose-lit, lilac-shaded mass of the town, with the big white bubble of the Jumma mosque in its midst; the delicate domes fringing the palace gateways showing like strings of pearls on the blue sky. And beyond them, a dazzle of gold among the green of the Garden of Grapes, marked that last sanctuary of a dead dynasty upon the city's eastern wall.

The cantonments lay to the back of the house on the western slope of the Ridge and on the plain beyond. This also was a widening wedge of green wooded land cut off from the rest of the plain by a tree-set overflow canal. The Ridge, therefore, formed the backbone of a triangle protected by water on two sides. On the third was the city and its suburbs. But—to carry out the image of the lizard—a natural outwork lay like a huge paw on either side of the head; on the river side the spur of Ludlow Castle, on the canal side the General's mound.

A brisk breeze was fluttering the flag on the tower cresting the ridge, a few hundred yards from the house, and as Major Erlton stepped into the veranda, a puff of white smoke curled cityward, and the roll of the time-gun reverberated among the rocks.

"By Jingo! I must hurry up if I'm to have breakfast before church," he exclaimed, as the circle of gift-bringers, who had been waiting nearly half an hour, rose simultaneously with salaams and good wishes. The sudden action made a white cockatoo perched in the corner raise its flame-colored crest and begin to prance.

"Naughty Poll! Bad Poll!" came Sonny's mellifluous lisp from the Major's shoulder. "Zoo mufn't make a noise and interrupt."

The admonition made the bird smooth its ruffled temper and feathers. Not that there was much to interrupt; the Major's halting acknowledgments being of the briefest; partly because of breakfast, partly from lack of Hindustani, mostly from the inherent insular horror of a function.

"Thank God! that's over," he said piously, when the last tray had been emptied on the miscellaneous pile, round which the servants were already hovering expectantly, and the last well-wisher had disappeared. "Still it was nice of them to remember Freddy," he added, looking at the toys—"Wasn't it, wife?"

She looked up almost scared at the title. "Very," she replied, with a faint quiver in her voice. "We must send some home to him, mustn't we?"

The pronoun of union made the Major, in his turn, feel embarrassed. He sought refuge once more in Sonny.

"You must have your choice first, jackanapes!" he said, swinging the child to the ground again. "Which is it to be? A box of soldiers or a monkey on a stick?"

"Fanks!" replied Sonny with honest dignity, "but I'se gotted my plesy already. She's give-ded me the polly—be-tos it 'oves me dearly."

Kate answered her husband's look with a half-apology. "He means the cockatoo. I thought you wouldn't mind, because it was so dreadfully noisy. And it never screams at him. Sonny! give Polly an apple and show Major Erlton how it loves you."

The child, nothing loth to show off, chose one from the heap and went over fearlessly to the vicious bird; the servants pausing to look admiringly. The cockatoo seized it eagerly, but only as a means to draw the little fellow's arm within reach of its clambering feet. The next moment it was on the narrow shoulder dipping and sidling among the golden curls.

"See how it 'oves me," cried Sonny, his face all smiles.

Major Erlton laughed good-temperedly at the pretty sight and went in to breakfast.

Then the dog-cart came round. It was the same one in which the Major had been used to drive Alice Gissing. But this Christmas morning he had forgotten the fact, as he drove Kate instead, with Sonny, who was to be taken to church as a great treat, crushing the flounces of her pretty dress.

Yet the fresh wind blew in their faces keenly, and the Major, pointing with his whip to the scudding squirrels, said, "Jolly little beasts, aren't they, Kate," just as he had said it to Alice Gissing. What is more, she replied that it was jolly altogether, with much the same enjoyment of the mere present as the other little lady had done. For the larger part of life is normal, common to all.

So they sped past the rocks and trees swiftly, down and down, till with a rumble they were on the draw-bridge, through the massive arch of the Cashmere gate, into the square of the main-guard. The last clang of the church bell seemed to come from the trees overhanging it, and in the ensuing silence a sharp click of the whip sounded like a pistol crack. The mare sped faster through the wooden gate into the open. To the left the Court House showed among tall trees, to the right Skinner's House. Straight ahead, down the road to the Calcutta gate and the boat bridge, stood the College, the telegraph office, a dozen or so of bungalows in gardens, and the magazine shouldering the old cemetery. Quite a colony of Western ways and works within the city wall, clinging to it between the water-bastion and the Calcutta gate.

Close at hand in a central plot of garden, circled by roads, was the church, built after the design of St. Paul's; obtrusively Occidental, crowned by a very large cross.

As the mare drew up among the other carriages, the first notes of the Christmas hymn pealed out among the roses and the pointsettias, the glare and the green. Not a Christmas environment; but the festival brings its own atmosphere with it to most people, and Major Erlton, admiring his wife's rapt face, remembered his own boyhood as he sang a rumbling Gregorian bass of two tones and a semi-tone:

"Oh come, all ye faithful Joyful and triumphant."

The words echoed confidently into the heart of the great Mohammedan stronghold, within earshot almost of the rose-red walls of the palace; that survival of all the vices Christianity seeks to destroy.

"They have a new service to-night," yawned the chaplain's groom to others grouped round a common pipe. "I, who have served padrés all my life—the pay is bad but the kicks less—saw never the like. 'Tis a queer tree hung with lights, and toys to bribe the children to worship it. They wanted mine to go, but their mother is pious and would not. She says 'tis a spell."

"Doubtless!" assented a voice. "The spell Kali's priest, who came from Calcutta seeking aid against it, warned us of—the spell which forces a body to being Christian against his will."

A scornful cluck came from a younger, smarter man. "Trra! a trick that for offerings, Dittu. The priest came to me also, but I told him my master was not that sort. He goes not to church except on the big day."

"But the mem?" asked a new speaker enviously. "'Tis the mems do the mischief to please the padres; just as our women do it to please the priests. My mem reads prayers to her ayah."

"Paremeshwar be praised!" ejaculated the man to whom the pipe belonged. "My master keeps no mem, but the other sort. Though as for the ayah it matters not, she has no caste to lose."

There was a grunt of general assent. The remark crystallized the whole question to unmistakable form. So long as a man could get a pull from his neighbor's pipe and have a right to one in return, the master might say and do what he chose. If not; then——?

An evil-faced man who still smarted from a righteous licking, given him that morning for stealing his horse's grain, put his view of what would happen in that case plainly.

"Bullah!" sneered a bearded Sikh orderly waiting to carry his master's prayer-book. "You Poorbeahs can talk glibly of change. And why not? seeing it is but a change of masters to born slaves. Oil burns to butter! butter to oil!"

The evil face scowled. "Thou wilt have to shave under thy master, anyhow, Gooroo-jee! Ay! and dock thy pigtail too."

This allusion to a late ruling against the Nazarene customs of the newly raised Sikh levies might have led to blows—the bearded one being a born fighter—if, the short service coming to an end, the masters had not trooped out, pausing to exchange Christmas greetings ere they dispersed.

"Never saw Mrs. Erlton looking so pretty," remarked Captain Seymour to his wife, as, with the restored Sonny between them, they moved off to their own house, which stood close by, plumb on the city wall. He spoke in a low voice, but Major Erlton happened to be within earshot. He turned complacently to identify the speaker, then looked at his wife to see if the remark was true. Scarcely; to Herbert Erlton's quickened recollection of the girl he had married. Yet she looked distinctly creditable, desirable, as she stood, the center of a little group of men and women eager to help her with the Christmas tree. It struck him suddenly, not in the least unpleasantly, that of late his wife had had no lack of aids-de-camp, and that one, Captain Morecombe, the pick of the lot, seemed to have little else to do. A symptom which the Major could explain from his own experience, and which made him smile; he being of those who admire women for being admired.

"I have arranged about the conjuror, Mrs. Erlton," said Captain Morecombe, who was, indeed, quite ready to do her behests; "that sweep, Prince Abool-bukr,—who is coming, by the way, to see the show,—has promised me the best in the bazaar. And some Bunjârah fellows who act, and that sort of business."

"Better find out first what they do act," put in young Mainwaring, who chafed under the superior knowledge which the Captain claimed as interpreter to the Staff. "I saw some of those brutes in Lucknow last spring, and——"

"Oh! there is no fear," retorted the other with a condescending smile. "The Prince is no fool, and he is responsible. It will most likely be something extremely instructive. Now, Mrs. Erlton, I will drive you round to the College and you can show me anything else you want done. I can drive you home afterward."

"Don't think we need trouble you, thanks, Morecombe," said a voice behind. "I'll drive my wife. I'll stay as long as you like, Kate; and I can stick things high up, you know."

There was no appeal in his tone, but Kate, looking up at his great height, felt one; and with it came a fresh spasm of that self-reproach. As she had knelt beside him in church she had been asking herself if she was not unforgiving; if it was not hard on him.

"That will be a great help," she said soberly.

So Mrs. Seymour, coming in daintily when the hard work was over to put a Father Christmas on the topmost shoot, wondered plaintively how she could have managed it without Major Erlton, and put so much soft admiration into her pretty eyes, that he could scarcely fail to feel a fine fellow. He was in consequence a better one for the time being. So that he insisted on returning in the afternoon to hand the tea and cake, when he made several black-and-tan matrons profusely apologetic and proud at having the finest gentleman there to wait upon them. For the Major was a very fine animal, indeed. As Alice Gissing had told him frankly, over and over again, his looks were his strong point.

The larger portion of the guests were of this black-and-tan complexion. Of varying shades, however, from the unmistakably pure-blooded native Christian, to the pasty-faced baby with all the yellow tones of skin due to its pretty, languid mother, emphasized by the ruddiness of the English father who carried it.

They came chiefly from Duryagunj, a quarter of the city close to the Palace, between the river and the Thunbi Bazaar. It had once been the artillery lines, and now its pleasant garden-set houses were occupied by clerks, contractors, overseers, and such like. Then later on, for the sports and games, came a contingent of College lads, speaking English fluently, and younger boys clinging affrightedly to their father's hand as he smirked and bowed to the special master for whose favor he had perhaps braved bitter tears of opposition from the women at home. The mission school sent orderly bands, and there was a ruck of servants' children, who would have gone to the gates of hell for a gift.

"You will tire yourself to death, Kate," called her husband, as, quite in his element, he handicapped the boys for the races. He spoke in a half-satisfied, half-dissatisfied tone, for though her success pleased him, he fancied she looked less dainty, less attractive.

"Come and see the play," suggested Captain Morecombe, who did not seem to notice anything amiss. "It will be rest, and we needn't light up yet a while."

"I'm going wis zoo," said Sonny confidently, escaping from his ayah as they passed; so, with the child's hand in hers, Kate went on into the long narrow veranda which had been inclosed by tent-walls as a theater. Open to the sunlight at the entrance, it was dark enough to make a swinging lamp necessary at the further end. There was no stage, no scenery, only a coarse cotton cloth with indistinguishable shadows and lights on it hung over a rope at the very end. The place was nearly empty. A few native lads squatted in front, a bench or two held a sprinkling of half-castes, and at the entrance a group of English ladies and gentlemen waited for the performance to begin, laughing and talking the while.

"You look quite done," said Captain Morecombe tenderly, as Kate sank back in the armchair he placed for her halfway down, where a chink of light and air came through a slit in the canvas.

"I didn't feel tired before," she replied dreamily. "I suppose it is the quiet, and the giving in. Tell me about the play, please," she went on more briskly. "If I don't know something of the plot before it begins, I shall not understand."

"I expect you will," he began; but at that moment a cry for Captain Morecombe arose, and to his infinite anger he had to go off and interpret for the Colonel and Prince Abool-Bukr, who had just arrived. Kate, to tell truth, felt relieved. After the clamor outside, and the constant appeals to her, the peace within was delightful. She leaned back, with Sonny in her arms, feeling so disposed for sleep that her husband's loud voice coming through the chink startled her.

"Can't possibly take that into consideration. The race must be run on the runners' own merits only."

He was only, she knew, laying down the law of handicaps to some dissentient; but the words thrilled her. Poor Herbert! What had his merits been? And then she wondered how long it had been since she had thought of him thus by his Christian name, as it were. Would it be possible——

"It's a story of Fate, really," said one of the spectators at the entrance, to the ladies who were with him; his voice clearly audible in a sudden hush which had come to the dim veranda that grew dimmer and dimmer to the end, despite the swinging lamp. "A sort of miracle play, called 'The Lord of Life, and the Lord of Death.' Yama and Indra of course. I saw it two days ago, and one of the actors is the best pantomimist—That's the man—now."

Kate turned her eyes instinctively to the open space which was to do duty as a stage. The play had begun; must have been going on while she was thinking, for a scene was in full swing. A scene? A misnomer that, surely! when there was no scenery, nothing but that strange dim curtain with its indefinite lights and shadows. Or was there some meaning in the dabs and splashes after all? Was that a corn merchant's shop? Yes, there were the gleaming pots, the cavernous shadows, the piled baskets of flour and turmeric and pulse, the odd little strings of dried cocoanuts and pipe cups, the blocks of red rock-salt. And that—she gave an odd little sigh of certainty—was the corn merchant himself selling flour, with a weighted balance, to a poor widow. What magnificent pantomime it was! And what a relief that it was pantomime; so leaving her no whit behind anyone in comprehension; but the equal of all the world, as far as this story was concerned. And it was unmistakable. She seemed to hear the chink of money, to see the juggling with the change, the substitution of inferior flour for that chosen; the whole give and take of cheating, till the ill-gotten gain was clutched tight, and the robbed woman turned away patiently, unconsciously.

An odd, doubtful murmur rose among the squatting boys, checked almost as it began; for the shadowy curtain behind wavered, seemed to grow dimmer, to curve in cloud-like festoons, and then disclosed a sitting figure.

There was a burst of laughter from the entrance. "Rum sort of God, isn't he?" came the voice again. But from the front rose an uneasy whisper. "Yama! Sri Yama himself; look at his nose!"

Viewed without reference to either remark, the figure, if quaint, almost ludicrous, did not lack dignity. There was impassiveness in the pea-green mask below the miter-like gilt tiara, and impressiveness in the immovability of the pea-green hands folded on the scarlet draperies.

"He answers to Charon, you know," went on the voice again. "I suppose it means that the buniya-jee will need all his ill-gotten gain to pay fare to Paradise."

Did it mean that? Kate wondered, as she leaned back clasping Sonny tighter in her arms, or was it only to show that Fate lay behind the daily life of every man. Then what a farce it was to talk of chance! Yet she had pleaded for it, till she had gained it. "Let him have his chance. Let us all have our chance. You and I into the bargain. You and I!" What made her think of that now?

A snigger from the lads in front roused her to a new scene; a serio-comic dispute, evidently, between a termagant of a mother-in-law and a tearful daughter. Kate found herself following it closely enough, even smiling at it, but Sonny shifted restlessly on her knee. "I 'ikes a funny man," he said plaintively. "Tell a funny man to come again, Miffis Erlton."

"I expect he will come soon, dear," she replied, conscious of a foolish awe behind her own words. Fate lay there also, no doubt.

It did, but as the termagant triumphed and the dutiful daughter-in-law wept over her baking, the figure that showed wore a white mask, the rainbow-hued garments were hung with flowers, and the white hands held a parti-colored bow.

The boys nodded and smiled. "Sri Indra himself," they said. "Look at his bow!"

"Who is Indra, Mr. Jones?" asked a feminine voice from behind.

"Lord of Paradise. And that is the whole show. It goes on and on. Some of the scenes are awfully funny, but they wouldn't act the funniest ones here. And they all end with the green or white dummy; so it gets a bit monotonous. Shall we go and look at the conjurors now?"

The voices departed; once more to Kate's relief. She felt that the explanation spoiled the play. And that was no dummy! She could see the same eyes through the mask; curious, steady, indifferent eyes. The eyes of a Fate indifferent as to what mask it wore. So the play went on and on. Some of the Eurasians slipped away, but the boys remained ready with awe or rejoicing, while Kate sat by the chink through which the light came more and more dimly as the day darkened. She scarcely noticed the actors; she waited dreamily for the Lord of Life or the Lord of Death; for there was never any doubt as to which was coming. But the child in her lap waited indiscriminately for the funny man. The thought of the contrast struck her, making her smile. Yet, after all, the difference only lay in the way you looked at life. There was no possibility of change to it; the Great Handicap was run on its own merits. And then, like an unseen hand brushing away the cobwebs which of late had been obscuring the unalterable facts, like a wave collapsing her house of sand, came the memory of words which at the time they were spoken had made her cry out on their cruelty. "What possible right have you or I to suppose that anything you or I can do now will alter the initial fact?" If he—that stranger who had stepped in and laid rude touch on her very soul, had been the Lord of Life or Death himself, could he have been more remorseless? And what possessed her that she should think of him again and again; that she should wonder what his verdict would be on those vague thoughts of compromise?

"Mrs. Erlton! Mrs. Erlton, everything is ready. Everybody is waiting! I have been hunting for you everywhere. It never occurred to me you would be here after all this time. Why, you are almost alone!" Captain Morecombe's aggrieved regret was scarcely appeased by her hurried excuse that she believed she had been half-asleep. For the Christmas tree was lit to its topmost branch, the guests admitted, the drawings begun.

Perhaps it was the sudden change from dark to light, silence to clamor, which gave Kate Erlton the dazed look with which she came into that circle of radiant faces where Prince Abool-Bukr was clapping his hands like a child and thinking, as he generally did when his pleasures could be shared by virtue, of how he would describe it all to Newâsi Begum on her roof. He drew a spotless white lamb as his gift; Major Erlton its fellow, and the two men compared notes in sheer laughter, broken English, and shattered Hindustani. And through the fun and the pulling of crackers, Kate, who recovered herself rapidly, flitted here and there, arranging, deciding, setting the ball a-rolling. There was a flush on her cheek, a light in her eyes which forced other eyes to follow her, even among the packed, prying faces, peeping from every door and window at the strange sight, the strange spell. One pair of eyes in particular, belonging to a slight, clean-shaven man standing beside two others who carried bundles in their hands, and who, having come from the inside veranda, had found space to slip well to the front. They were the actors in the now forsaken drama of Life and Death. One of them, however, had evidently seen a Christmas tree before, since he suddenly called out in the purest English:

"The top branch on the left has caught! Put it out, someone!"

The sound seemed to discomfit him utterly. He looked round him quickly, then realizing that the crowd was too dense for the voice to be accurately located save by his immediate neighbors, gave a half apologetic sign to the older of his two companions and slipped away. They followed obediently, but once outside Tiddu shook his head at his pupil.

"The Huzoor will never remember to forget. He will get into trouble some day," he said reproachfully.

"Not if I stick to playing Yama and Indra," replied Jim Douglas with a shrug of his shoulders. "The Mask of Fate is apt to be inscrutable." He made the remark chiefly for his own benefit; for he was thinking of the strange chance of meeting those cold blue-gray eyes again in that fashion. Beautiful eyes, brilliant eyes! Then he smiled cynically. The chance he had given had evidently borne fruit. She seemed quite happy, and there was no mistaking the look on her owner's heavy face. So the heroics had meant nothing, and he had given up his chance for a vulgar kiss-and-make-it-up-again!

It was too dark to see that look on Major Erlton's face, but it was there, as, carrying Kate off with a certain air of proprietorship from the compliments which had grown stale, they went to find the dog-cart, which, in deference to the mare's nerves, had been told to await them in a quiet corner of the compound.

"You did it splendidly, Kate!"

His voice came contentedly through the soft darkness which hid the easy arm which slipped to her waist, the easy smiling face which bent to kiss hers.

"Oh, don't! Please don't!" The cry, almost a sob, was unmistakable. So was the start which made her stumble over an unseen edging to the path. Even Herbert Erlton with his blunted delicacy could not misjudge it. He stood silent for a moment, then gave a short hard laugh.

"You haven't hurt yourself, I expect," he said dryly, "so there's no harm done. I'll call that fellow with the lantern to give us a light."

He did, and the vague shadow preceded by a swinging light turned out to be young Mainwaring on his pony, with the groom carrying a lantern.

"Mrs. Erlton," cried the lad, slipping to the ground, "what luck! The very person I wanted. I was going round by your house on the chance of catching you, as it was useless trying to get in a quiet word this afternoon. I want to ask if you know of any houses to let! I had a letter this morning from Mrs. Gissing asking me to look out one for her."

"For her?" The echo came in a dull voice. Kate had scarcely recovered from her own recoil, from a vague doubt of what she had done.

"Yes! Her husband had to go home on business and won't be out till May. So, as the new people at Lucknow seem a poor lot, and she has old friends at Delhi——" A remembrance that some of these old friendships must be an unwelcome memory to his hearer made the boy pause. But the man, smarting with resentment, had no such scruples—what was the use of them?

"Coming here, is she?" he echoed. "Then we may hope to have some fun in this deadly-lively stuck-up place. I say, Mainwaring, would you mind driving my wife home and lending me your pony to gallop round to the mess. I must go there, and as it is getting late there is no use dragging Mrs. Erlton all that way. And she has a big Christmas dinner on, haven't you, Kate?"

As the young fellow climbed up into the dog-cart beside her, Kate Erlton knew that one chance had gone irretrievably, irrevocably. Would there be another? Suddenly in the darkness she clasped her hands tight and prayed that there might be—that it might come soon!

And round them as they drove slowly to gain the city gate, the half-seen crowd which had gathered to see the strange spell were drifting homeward to spread the tale of it from hearth to hearth.

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