Читать книгу Voices in the Night - Flora Annie Webster Steel - Страница 4

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'What's the big blackboard with white sums?' asked little Jerry Arbuthnot.

Jack Raymond, who was holding the child's hand, looked down at the six-year-old figure in the natty riding-suit so like his own, save for the racing silk which he himself wore half-hidden by a covert coat.

'It is the map of India,' he began, then pulled up at the sight of Jerry's face. 'You shouldn't believe everything you're told, young man--it hampers the sense of humour! No, Jerry, that's the totalisator--a calculating machine for doing sums in the compound rules. Ask Miss Drummond if it isn't?'

The girl thus challenged let the cool disdain, which is nowadays so often the prevailing expression of young womanhood for manhood, become slightly more aggressive.

'It is a betting machine, Gerald----'

'Don't profane the word, Miss Drummond,' interrupted the man. 'Betting is a bracing mental exercise. You back your opinion to be right against fixed odds. But this five-rupee-in-the-slot-trust-in-Providence business is a demoralising compromise. You stand neither to win nor lose.'

'Then, please, what does come to the five wupees?' asked Jerry urgently.

'Practical boy!' commented Jack Raymond with a laugh. 'It is "as you was" generally; for you see, Jerry, the world backs the favourite as a rule. It likes to follow a lead! And, if you divide the total of the tickets by their number, it's poor fun! So take my advice, young man; when you totalise, go for a rank outsider and stand to collar the lot!'

Lesley Drummond, being the child's governess, frowned. 'I see your mother arriving, Gerald,' she said, 'and we were to join her at once. Come!'

But Jerry held his new-found friend fast by the hand. 'You come too,' he petitioned, 'my mother is just an orful nice person.'

There was a moment's pause, during which the child's grip on the man tightened, before the latter replied, 'I know that, Jerry; your mother and I are old friends; but I have only time to see you safe across the green. I'm up in this race.'

'I used to wide waces when I was in India once,' began the child, when Lesley cut him short.

'You never rode a race in your life, Gerald, and I can't allow you to say that you have.' Then she turned suddenly, in the purely impersonal confidence of grievance, to the stranger beside her (for they had only just been introduced to each other), and said, 'I can't think why, but ever since Gerald landed in Bombay, just a week ago, he has had a bad habit of claiming to have done all sorts of things he never could have done. Lady Arbuthnot thinks it is because the child really does remember India a little. You see he was past four when he went home. But that,' she added magisterially, with a frown for the culprit, 'does not excuse telling stories--does it?'

The man's blue eyes, so curiously overshadowed by thick bushy fair eyebrows, sought the child's cool grey ones, and a sudden reflection of the perplexed obstinacy he saw in them came to his own.

'How the deuce do you know he hasn't?' he muttered, half to himself. 'This isn't England, where you can bet your last dib on certainties.' Then he looked at the immaculate white collar and cuffs of the figure in a tailor-made coat and skirt beside him, and gave in to convention by adding resignedly, 'But you mustn't tell whackers, you know, Jerry--must you?'

'I don't!' protested the six-year-old. 'I weally thought I had. But I will, anyhow, when I'm big. An' I'll bet wif the bookies evewy time, Mr. Waymond, like you do.'

That glance at the collar and cuffs showed guilt in it this time. 'Not a bit of it,' said the conscious sinner stoutly. 'You'll be a mighty big swell like your father, Sir George----'

'Please, they call my daddy "His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor" now,' interrupted Jerry, 'and his salute is twenty-one whole guns. They made an orful booming at the wailway station. But I liked it. An' the twoops pwesented arms to him to-day at the Queen's pawade--didn't they, Miss Dwummond?'

'Of course, dear! As Lieutenant-Governor, your father is entitled to these honours,' replied Lesley, head in air.

'Of course!' echoed the man beside her, making her, in her turn, glance at him, and wonder if contempt or envy brought that odd note to his voice. Either way, she admitted reluctantly, he would have carried such honours bravely; but then so would have half the Englishmen she had seen since landing at Bombay. The environment of India had a trick of giving an air of distinction to the Anglo-Saxon.

Radical as she was, inevitably, seeing that she had led the life of a definitely independent woman in England for six years, she felt a sneaking satisfaction as she walked across the enclosure with the tall spare man, whose haggard face looked still more haggard above his gay racing colours.

The afternoon sun sent blue-black shadows behind them. The golden glory in front of them lay lavishly on the shifting kaleidoscope of many-hued dresses. To one side, the pipers of a Highland regiment strutted their floating tartans through a pibroch. To the other, rose white mess-tents decorated with flowers and bunting, each centring its knot of crowding, colourful guests.

But the densest, most colourful crowd gathered round the totalisator which stood between the first and second-class enclosures, so that the sergeants in uniform could attend at the same time to both its five-rupee board fronting the grand stand and its one-rupee board giving on the mixed multitude; could attend even to the slender dark hands which sometimes stretched over the barrier with five rupees in their palms, and a petition to be allowed the higher stake. Hands unable to grasp the fact that five lesser gains may equal one greater gain; an inability provocative of much needless discontent all over the world.

Lesley Drummond's eyes, as she walked across the lawn, grew dazzled at the unusual glitter and colour of the crowd, her ears grew confused by the gamut of civilisation struck by the varying costumes. There, was the first note of Western influence in a pair of patent-leather shoes; yonder, the last echo of the East in a white turban above a frock coat.

'It's a queer crowd,' said Jack Raymond suddenly, as if in explanation of her look. 'And I could tell you a lot of queer tales. That man, for instance'--he nodded after a burly figure in a tinsel biretta which had just thrust a flabby waxen hand at him with a liquid Persian compliment on the New Year--'is the biggest brute in India. A Delhi pensioner by rights, but he does Buckingham here to the Rightful Heir, that young sweep to the left, in cloth of gold.'

'Rightful Heir!' echoed Lesley captiously, 'rightful heir to what?' Anglo-Indians in her limited experience oscillated between supposing her crassly ignorant or absolutely omniscient; and either treatment annoyed her, for she was accustomed to consider herself, and be considered, thoroughly well informed.

'The whole caboodle,' replied Jack Raymond tolerantly. 'You see there were kings in Nushapore----'

'I know that, of course!' she interrupted impatiently, 'but do they still claim?'

'Great Moses! Claim? Nushapore is a vox clamavi, chiefly to mutiny pensions which, being mortgaged up to the hilt, are of no use to any one but the usurers. But they will generally lend the bankrupts enough for the entrance-fee to the races, so of course they come here in crowds.'

'Why?' asked the girl, feeling herself a mere mark of interrogation.

'It's a change from betting on cocks and kites. Besides, there's the position.'

'What position?' she asked, with a prayer for patience.

He laughed easily. 'All races are equal on a course, Miss Drummond; and a racecourse is, practically, the only place where the native meets us on equal terms. Look! there's the biggest brute in Asia elbowing Mrs. Member-of-the-Board Collins at the totalisator! If he tried it on elsewhere, some one would kick him, and quite right too.'

Lesley's disdain became active, though she told herself the remark was only to be expected from 'that type of man.'

'May I ask why?' she said superbly.

'Because it is contrary to his own estimate of the proprieties, and it is impossible to be virtuous on another person's decalogue, isn't it?' he replied coolly; then, ere she had time to reply, went on: 'There are a lot of chaps want kicking in this crowd, I can tell you. For instance, do you see that man buttonholing the Rightful Heir?'

'With the red tie?' she asked, feeling interested in spite of herself. 'Is he English?'

'God forbid!' said her companion piously. 'Grecian Archipelago, I should say for choice; but he won't let on. Anyhow, he's a merchant; wheat, diamonds, dust, bones--everything out of which he can screw a pice. And Jehân Aziz, the Rightful Heir, has the finest table emerald in the world--the old king's signet-ring. Now I don't mind betting it will be in Paris before the year's out.'

'In Paris!--why in Paris? I don't understand--nobody could be expected--nobody could understand,' protested Lesley.

Jack Raymond smiled. 'Filthy Lucre--his real name is Philip Lucanaster--does, I assure you, Miss Drummond! He knows that heirlooms always pay debts of honour.' He paused to lift his cap elaborately to a well-dressed fair woman who passed with a tall dark man, whose face had a wistful look. 'There's a case in point,' he went on carelessly. 'That fellow--he is a pure-bred Brahmin, Miss Drummond--is paying his heirlooms through the nose because he contracted a debt of honour in marrying an Englishwoman. She has made him sacrifice home, friends, relations; prints his cards Mr. and Mrs. Chris Davenant--his real name is Krishn Davenund--and so tries to hang on to the frayed edge of society'-he glanced at an effusive greeting between the lady in question and Mr. Lucanaster.

'Poor thing!' ejaculated Lesley with the wholesale defence of all things feminine which belongs to her type. 'What a terrible experience for her--'

'And for him,' retorted her companion drily. 'Matrimonial mistakes, though women will not recognise the fact, come inevitably in pairs.'

Apparently there was some suggestion in his own words, for he looked ahead hastily, and finding himself closer to an advancing group than he wished to be, told Jerry he must be off, and turned back towards the paddock.

'Who was that, Lesley?' asked Lady Arbuthnot, who, with her husband, formed the centre of that little knot of advancing notables. She was a beautiful woman, beautifully dressed, and with the beautiful manners which a perfectly calm consciousness of beauty always gives to a woman. Her soft voice softened still more as she spoke to her child's governess; so there was small wonder that the latter's face, as she replied, told yet one more tale of modern girlhood--the tale of one woman's blind hero-worship of another.

'A race steward. Jerry took a violent fancy to him and I didn't! But he said he knew you--a Mr. Raymond----'

A faint echo of the name was checked on Grace Arbuthnot's lips by a greeting to a new arrival, which, when she returned to the subject, lent them the continuance of a set smile of welcome.

'Yes! I knew him very well years ago. I shall be glad to meet him again.' The faint unreality which previous rehearsal gives, even to truth, was in her voice.

'He's up in this wace,' quoted Jerry sagely, 'or he'd have come, for he said you was orful nice. Oh, mum! do be quick, or we shan't see him win.'

'Win? How do you know he's going to win, sonnie?' asked Grace Arbuthnot, and there was no unreality in her voice now, only a slightly troubled curiosity.

''Cos he will,' answered the child in childish fashion; whereat his mother flushed faintly, but smiled also.

Jerry was a good prophet. Five minutes after, he was dancing on his chair, as crimson and gold came in first. 'Oh! did you see, mum?' he cried. 'He was quite quite first.'

Lady Arbuthnot held out her hand to steady the child, and her voice seemed to need support also. 'Of course I saw, dear; and I am glad.'

'So's every one, Lady Arbuthnot,' said young Nevill Lloyd--captain by virtue of his A.D.C.-ship--who stood behind her. 'Raymond is our most popular win.'

It seemed so by the cheer which rose as the winners went by.

'I suppose he has won a lot of money,' sniffed Lesley, noting the rider's pleased face.

'Not a penny, Miss Drummond!' protested the young fellow. 'Raymond is only on the saddle when he rides another chap's horse, as he's doing to-day; and it is safer, you know.'

'I do not know, Captain Lloyd,' she retorted loftily. 'I know nothing about horse-racing. Why is it safer?'

He coughed uneasily. 'Ah! I thought you would know, you know, and it's a bit hard to explain. You see, Indian racing is sometimes a trifle odd--considering, I mean, that we are all gentlemen--or supposed to be so. But Raymond,' here he brightened up, 'is always a straight win. That's why Lucre and his crew----'

He stopped short as one of a group of men, amongst whom Mr. Lucanaster showed conspicuous by his red tie, paused in the general exodus to answer a bystander's question.

'Luck? How the deuce is any one to have luck when you can't get a fair bet placed? Even the Devil's Own didn't get on with His Royal Highness.'

Mr. Lucanaster acknowledged another of his nicknames by a lavish smile. 'There is faith as mustard in Raymond among our nigger friends,' he said, with the eccentricity of accent and idiom which, following him into every language he knew, made his nationality an insoluble problem. He glanced back as he spoke towards a cluster of native gentlemen who, following a lead as ever, were also making their way from the stand. The similarity of their oval yellow faces, their thin curves of moustache trained to a fine sweep above the full betel-stained lips, proclaimed them of the same family; but Lesley singled out the Rightful Heir by his cloth-of-gold coatee, and by something which, rather to her own surprise, thrilled her unexpectedly--a green gleam of sovereignty on the small supple hand raised in a salaam of servitude as its owner passed the Lieutenant-Governor and his party.

'I'm always glad,' continued Nevill Lloyd virtuously, when Lucre and his crew are hit! They get betting with the Nawâbs and offering 'em drinks. Shocking bad form--by the way, Miss Drummond, come to our tent and have a peach-brandy!'

Lesley, with another trait of the modern girl--her toleration of the male sex up to the age of twenty-five--laughed good-humouredly. 'It isn't bad form with a lady, apparently, for that's the fifth peach-brandy I've been offered in half an hour!'

'Well! aren't there five tents? And you haven't been to ours,' argued the lad quite gravely. 'Do come! It needn't be a peach-brandy, you know. Have tea, or a chocolate caramel, just to show there isn't any ill-feeling.'

She smiled in sisterly fashion at his kindly, clean-looking young face, and--Jerry having gone with his father--passed with it into that marvellous golden glory of Indian sunshine which still struck her Western eyes as the most noticeable factor in her Eastern environment. The rest, barring the native costumes, was hopelessly Western, she told herself, as she stood listening to the scraps of talk around, while Nevill Lloyd struggled for her cup of tea. Polo talk, polite talk, political talk; then something she could not classify as two natives drifted by with an air of aloofness.

As they did so a plaintive woman's voice rose close to her. 'I shall send baby home, as we've been transferred to Cawnpore.'

'Isn't she rather young?' said some one in answer.

'Oh! it isn't that,' replied the first voice, 'I mean that I couldn't take a child to Cawnpore. I should always be thinking of the well!'

Always thinking of the well!

The words brought home to Lesley Drummond in an instant--a never-to-be-forgotten instant--that something which so often chills the golden glory of the Eastern sunshine, that vision of the sentinel of memory which, for both races, bars the door of reconciliation that might otherwise stand open for comradeship.

She had read books on that past tragedy, she had told herself that it was past, that it should be forgotten; and now--

'Drink your tea sharp!' said Nevill Lloyd with kindly familiarity, 'or you'll be getting ague. That's the worst of this beastly hole. It's always in extremes. Hot as blazes one moment, chill as charity----' He paused, for the iron hand beneath the parti-coloured velvet and brocade glove of India was resolved to have the girl in its grip at once, and a rattling thud, followed by a dull reverberation, rose from the near distance, making more than one in the chattering crowd pause also, until the sound came again, when the pause ended cheerfully in fresh chatter.

'It's a funeral,' explained Nevill Lloyd in answer to Lesley's look. 'The cemetery is close to the course, and enteric is shocking bad in barracks just now. Young Summers of ours is down with it, too. Awful ill, poor chap--couldn't be worse, I'm afraid.'

A lady, passing, turned to listen, and, as she went on, said to her companion in a whisper, 'I do hope they won't have to put off the ball to-night--I've got such a jolly new dress from Paris for it.'

Another vision came to Lesley, the vision of a dead lad and a Paris dress.

'Come for a turn--you're positively shivering,' said Captain Lloyd concernedly.

They had barely escaped from the crush, however, when Sir George Arbuthnot appeared in the important fuss of new authority. A cipher telegram had come from England, he must return to Government House at once, if Captain Lloyd would kindly order the carriage.

'It's an orful nuisance, Miss Dwummond,' commented Jerry, tucking his hand into hers after his fashion with every one he liked, 'for dad and I was going to put five whole wupees on the blackboard thing for the Cup wace. And now he can't, of course. But I can. Can't I, dad?' he added, artfully appealing to a weak point in his parent, 'for you pwomised, didn't you?'

Now the keeping of promises had always been a prop to Sir George's somewhat irresolute mind, so he promptly gave Jerry the five rupees, and, with a suggestion that Miss Drummond would help him to get the ticket, bustled off, leaving the latter no time for remonstrance.

She stood looking resentfully at the pieces of silver which were to betray her principles, then said with chill dignity--

'We had better take the ticket at once, I suppose, if it has got to be taken. Come, Gerald!'

But Jerry's face was the face of Jerry when he forgot his hymn, and his hands, holding the five rupees, went behind his back to match his consciousness of error.

'I'm afwaid I don't know, please,' he began.

'Don't know what? Speak up, don't be stupid!'

The flaming flag which always heralded the child's confessions of ignorance flew to his face; but, after his habit, he looked his inquisitor full in the eyes.

'What, please, a wankest outsider is.'

Lesley hid her smile deftly; she had ample practice in the art with her pupil. 'And I don't know which is the rankest outsider, so we must take it on chance,' she replied tartly.

The little laddie's face fell, but he stood firm. 'Please, I'd wather take it on the--the other; for Mr. Waymond knows lots about betting and you don't know nothing.'

'I'm glad I don't!' she retorted, feeling quite nettled, for Jerry's obstinate adherence to his ideal was not to be set aside with a high hand. 'And what is more, I don't wish to; so if you're not satisfied, we needn't take the ticket at all!' So far she got almost spitefully, then something smote the womanhood and motherhood in her. 'Or,' she went on, 'suppose we take one on Kingscraft--every one says he is sure to win.'

The boy's face was a study of pitying contempt. 'Kingscwaft!' he echoed. 'Why, he's the favourite, and I'm not going to foller a lead--I'm going to collar the lot!'

A sudden mist came to the girl's eyes; and through it she seemed to see the sturdy little soul enshrined in the sturdy little body. She held out her hand and said simply, 'Come, there's Mr. Raymond--he'll know.'

'The rankest outsider?' echoed Jack Raymond quite gravely. 'Let's have a look at the card, Jerry.' Then, as he stooped over the child, he added, 'Shall I read out the names, or can you?'

The confessional scarlet flew to the little lad's very ears this time. 'Only some, I'm 'fwaid. That one's Kitten. An' I know that other one--least one end of it I do, 'cos it's Miss Dwummond's name.'

'Which? Bonnie Lesley?' asked Jack Raymond, and the scarlet flag flew to another face.

'Only the other end of it, please,' corrected Jerry; whereat one flush vanished in two laughs.

'My name doesn't matter, dear; read the next,' began Lesley, when Jack Raymond interrupted her.

'Excuse me, we gamblers believe in omens.--H'm! country-bred mare--undersized--maiden--Of course I remember! a post entry, railed down this morning--owner up--that looks good--white and green sleeves--better--the fellow knows his border ballads. Bonnie Lesley it is, my boy, for the luck'--'of the name' trembled on his tongue, but the immaculate collar and cuffs made him alter the phrase to 'the thing.'

The next instant he and Jerry were elbowing their way to the totalisator, Lesley waiting for them out of the crush, and watching fresh white strokes come as fast as they could to number two on the blackboard. That, she thought, must be the favourite's number, while poor Bonnie Lesley, tho rankest outsider, was probably thirteen, with but one white stroke!

She turned to the bookmakers' booths to see if she could verify her guess by their lists, but all save one, round which a few determined old stagers were lounging, had already closed. However, she saw what she wanted there--Kingscraft, No. 2, Bonnie Lesley, No. 13!

When she turned back again, the little and the big covert coats had disappeared in the crowd; indeed, she was beginning to wonder what had kept them so long, when Jack Raymond's voice called her from behind.

'This way, Miss Drummond, everything's full up this side, but I'll take you across to the other.'

Jerry, leaning over the railings below the judge's stand, beamed with delight, but Lesley, finding Mr. Lucanaster and the Rightful Heir next her, felt herself mixed up with the extreme racing set and their nefarious practices. So she glared at her guide resentfully, though he was too much absorbed in his race-glass to notice it.

'Just in time,' he said, looking round with a cheerful smile. 'Now, Jerry, my man! steady to win, or lose--that's the game!'

He followed his own advice, anyhow, and Lesley, watching his hands, felt instinctively that the man must be a first-class rifle shot. But Jerry followed the advice also, though, with a wonder as to whether the strain was good or bad for the child, she noticed his fingers clenched white on the white railings in his effort to be calm.

'They're off!'

The familiar stir of relief ran through the crowd.

Then came the familiar silence, while every eye was riveted on the confused onward sweep over the curved tan--that silent half-seen sweep, which, for all its dimness, its silence to the outward ear and eye, holds in it from the first, a sob, a strain of fiercest effort for the inward sight and hearing.

So, at the curve, the trail of horses clustered, spread out again, settled for the straight run home!

'Bonnie Lesley's had it in her pocket from start to finish, Jerry,' said Jack Raymond, suddenly lowering his glasses.

'By Jove! I wish I'd----' He broke off and raised the glasses again.

But by this time others had seen that the little brown mare was coming home to her stables cheerfully, and a blank half-irritated surprise began to leaven the suspense.

Then a voice--Mr. Lucanaster's--said, 'What a rotten race!'

It was, to many; yet as the little mare neared the spectators, there was something in the bronze gleam of her straining muscle, something in the deer-like bound of her forward sweep, something in the eager head with its full anxious eye, outstretched as if to pass the post a second sooner, something in the slack swing of a pair of green sleeves telling of a win, hands down, which made every sportsman present forget personal disappointment in a surge of admiration for the game little beast.

'By Jove! Raymond!' said one of the judges as he passed out, 'what a flyer! I'd give something to own her!'

'I'd give something to have known her,' corrected another. 'Twenty to one! Ye Gods! What a chance for my widow and orphans!'--

'Who gave you the tip, Jack?' asked an envious voice.

'What tip?' replied Jack Raymond imperturbably.

'Oh! don't fizzle--I saw you--just at the last--you must have about broken the----'

'Totalisators don't break, my dear fellow,' interrupted Jack. 'Now, Jerry, if Miss Drummond is ready, we can go and claim your winnings.'

She made no answer till the comparative solitude of re-crossing the course was reached, then she turned to him and said, in a voice to match his own--

'And your winnings also.'

Their eyes met, and he took his cue once more from what he saw. 'I'll get them after. It is a good lot, for I backed the little mare properly because she had your name. Only depreciated rupees though! Jerry! can you do sums yet? What is five thousand rupees at one shilling and threepence farthing? That, I think, is to-day's quotation, is it not, Miss Drummond?'

His reflected defiance made the original stronger.

'Tell Mr. Raymond, Jerry, that you haven't yet begun his system of compound multiplication, and, as I hope you never will, he had better drop the subject.'

She had not looked at the straight line of those bushy fair eyebrows, or she might have realised the futility of high-handedness; but she did realise it, with a certain respect, from the first words he spoke.

'You have no right to object,' he said coolly. 'The coincidence of name was not your doing--nor mine! Nor are you responsible for the mare's win. Therefore, since neither Jerry nor I consider ourselves in your debt for our ill-gotten gains, we leave you out of the question, and for the life of me I can't see why you should insist on being in it when you dislike it.'

His sledge-hammer common-sense left her gasping, and ere she found words he had reverted to negligent banter. 'But, of course, if you feel guilty, I'll put the rupees into the poor-box---that is always the refuge of the conscience-stricken! I can afford it easily, for I've had a regular run of luck today. So let it be peace and charity with this man! Now, Jerry! for the rupees, and after your pockets are stuffed, I'll take you to your mother and explain.'

Lesley, feeling limp, admitted to herself that the suggestion was thoughtful. She also yielded the point of manners as she watched him standing before Lady Arbuthnot with Jerry's hand, as ever, tucked confidingly into a bigger one; and yet Grace Arbuthnot was one of those women who, as a rule, make men look rough.

'I'm sorry to begin by bringing you a bad boy,' he said, evading her set welcome rather abruptly, 'but Miss Drummond will tell you how demoralising I am, so you must forgive the young sinner for the sake of the old one.'

The words held no intent, and yet as Grace Arbuthnot stood listening and looking at those two--the man and the child hand-in-hand--the faint shrinking which tells of a sudden enlightenment, bodily or spiritual, came to her eyes. 'You can hardly be held responsible, Mr. Raymond,' she said slowly when the tale was done. 'It is Sir George's fault, and I will tell him----' Then, as if to escape from the situation, she turned to Lesley, 'By the way, have you seen him lately? Gone home, did you say! Why?'

The reply seemed to take her from the present and the past also, so that her manner had all the elaborate graciousness she accorded to mere acquaintances as she said, 'Then I will follow his example and say good-bye, Mr. Raymond. These English telegrams are so interesting, aren't they? Especially now the general election is on; for it means so much to India, doesn't it?'

'Possibly,' he replied coolly, 'but it means very little to me, Lady Arbuthnot. I am no politician nowadays.'

Lesley Drummond, as, driving away, she watched the haggard face pass under the big blackboard with its white sums which rose from the motley crowd to show clear against the dusty levels of India, wondered once more if his tone meant contempt or envy.

Grace Arbuthnot, however, did not notice the tone at all. She was absorbed in something else, and, as soon as they reached Government House, went straight to her husband's writing-room.

After ten minutes she was still standing where she had paused beside him, and was drawing her dainty pale gloves through her hands impatiently as she stared at the telegram Sir George had shown her. For he trusted her absolutely in such matters; and in so doing showed his sense. She came, to begin with, of an Anglo-Indian family which had written its name large on the annals of Empire. An only daughter, she had kept house for her father, the Lieutenant-Governor of his time, and so from her earliest girlhood had listened to the talk of the ablest men in India, and become familiar with the problems of its government. Then, of herself, he knew her to be as capable of giving a sound opinion as he was; knew that no one from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin took a keener interest than she did in the welfare of the people.

'Yes! I, too, thought they might perhaps withdraw it, but still it is mean, inexpressibly mean!' she said at last.

Her voice was loud and firm, and Sir George glanced uneasily at the door of his secretary's room; for the fear of a certain proverb about grey mares lingered with him. It dies hard in Indian bureaucracy.

'Horribly mean,' she went on, 'for it does not lessen your responsibility; or alter the position, so far as you're concerned.'

Sir George took up his pen a trifle irritably--a sign that he was beginning to weary of the discussion. 'Pardon me, I think it does. So long as these secret instructions were in my confidential box I was bound, in any crisis, to follow them; but now they are destroyed'--he paused at her look, pointed to a pile of grey ashes in the fireplace, and went on heartily--'upon my soul, it's a relief! The contents can't leak out now; and I've been awfully nervous about that ever since Ewebank took to asking questions about a secret plan of campaign in the House. Some one got a hint of it somehow; and, as you know, that pestilent paper here, the Voice of India, has been on the bad-faith tack. And I can't imagine anything more disastrous, just at present when the city is seething about the plague and the withdrawal of municipal powers, than that this policy--which, frankly, subverts all our professions--should be got at. Even at home it would be ruination during the elections; a regular party cry.'

'And yet,' said Lady Arbuthnot with a fine scorn, 'every sane man knows we can't proclaim everything from the housetops in India; knows we must have secret orders. And, paper or no paper, we have them still! If there is a row, Government will expect you----'

A sudden obstinacy came to her husband's face. 'I should telegraph home for orders.'

Her hands closed tighter; she frowned. 'No, you wouldn't, George; everything might depend on accepting the responsibility of immediate action--you----'

He drew his chair close to the table and dipped his pen in the ink--sign that he meant to hear no more.

'I should do what I thought best, of course; but I should also be more cautious to avoid doing'--he changed his phrase, 'to avoid receiving a slap in the face. Anyhow, I'm not exactly sorry the instructions have been withdrawn. Even delay in action seems to me to involve less risk--of permanent injury, I mean--than the upset there would infallibly be if our intention leaked out before the event.'

She paused at the door with a look of tolerant affection. 'But why should it have leaked out? Besides, it did strengthen your hands enormously--that is why I got father to speak to the Council--that is why I was so glad when he succeeded. And he was glad too--he knows the advantage of having it in black and white.'

She said the last words, half to herself, as she went slowly up the wide shallow stairs, so un-English, so still more un-Indian, which led to the upper story of Government House.

She was thinking, as she spoke, of her father's letter, in which he had told her of his success, and given her an outline of what the demi-official notification to follow would be. That letter was still in her jewel-box upstairs, where she had placed it as a sort of hostage against the more definite letter to come. And suddenly the temptation not to destroy that précis of policy came to her. Supposing she kept it just to show George--whose disinclination to accept responsibility she recognised as a source of danger--that, if the worst came to the worst, he could still prove a private knowledge in black and white of what had been the Government policy. The letter was very definite, very explicit.

The thought came to her as she passed into her room, and as she did so, she saw the reflection of her English maid's face in the looking-glass, as she stood rummaging hastily in the dressing-table drawers.

'What is it, Needham?'

The maid turned, with a cry of mingled relief and alarm, 'Oh, milady! I'm so glad you're back. I can't find the little jewel-box nowhere--it 'adn't so much in it, milady, for I'd took out the diamonds last night--that was when I seen it last. It 'ad your string of pearls, and ayah says she's not seen it either, but there was people in the verandah last night, for Captain Lloyd he threw boots at 'em, for disturbin' him. Oh, dear! oh, dear! why did I ever come to Ingiar!' Here Needham dissolved into tears.

Grace Arbuthnot turned very pale. 'The little jewel-box,' she echoed. Then she pulled herself together, and said calmly, 'Well, it is lucky it was only the pearls. Go down and ask Sir George to come to me at once; for if the box has really been stolen, the sooner the police know the better.'

Half an hour afterwards she was answering the police officer's questions still more calmly.

'Only a string of pearls--large ones--they belonged to my mother, who got them, I believe, from one of the late Nawâb's wives, and a few small trinkets--there is a list of them--that was all.'

'A letter or two, milady,' suggested Needham, who had been giving her evidence.

'Of no value to any one save the owner,' smiled Lady Arbuthnot, and her husband smiled back at her, for he knew she kept his letters.

'Well, it is lucky it wasn't worse!' he said consolingly, 'it might have been the diamonds. And if I were you, he added to the police officer, 'I'd let Mr. Lucanaster know at once, even if, as you say, it's wiser to keep the matter dark for a day or two. He is always buying jewels, and even if the thieves don't take the pearls to him direct, they might try and trade them off to the royal family, and then he is sure to hear of it in the end--he is always having dealings with them.'