"We are in no hurry," he said slowly. "We shall rest here probably for a day or so. May I introduce my friend?"
He introduced him as the son of the Khan of Chiltistan, and Mrs. Oliver's eyes, which had been quietly resting upon Linforth's face, turned towards Shere Ali, and as quietly rested upon his.
"Then, perhaps, you can tell me," said Colonel Fitzwarren, "how it was I never saw a tiger in India, though I stayed there four months. A most disappointing country, I call it. I looked for a tiger everywhere and I never saw one—no, not one."
The Colonel's one idea of the Indian Peninsula was a huge tiger waiting somewhere in a jungle to be shot.
But Shere Ali was paying no more attention to the Colonel's disparagements than Linforth had done.
"Will you join us at supper?" said Sir John, and both young men replied simultaneously, "We shall be very pleased."
Sir John Casson smiled. He could never quite be sure whether it was or was not to Mrs. Oliver's credit that her looks made so powerful an appeal to the chivalry of young men. "All young men immediately want to protect her," he was wont to say, "and their trouble is that they can't find anyone to protect her from."
He watched Shere Ali and Dick Linforth with a sly amusement, and as a result of his watching promised himself yet more amusement during the next two days. He was roused from this pleasing anticipation by his irascible friend, Colonel Fitzwarren, who, without the slightest warning, flung a loud and defiant challenge across the table to Shere All.
"I don't believe there is one," he cried, and breathed heavily.
Shere Ali interrupted his conversation with Mrs. Oliver. "One what?" he asked with a smile.