"No, but I should like to try. Will you help me?"
"How on earth could I help you?"
"By allowing me to read you my efforts as they go along. There is nothing so stimulating to a would-be author as a long-suffering listener."
Wily Philip Ferguson Flint! Mentally he congratulated himself on having hit on a subtle device whereby he might secure a delightful intimacy with this captivating young person. He pictured long hours alone in her company countenanced by a reasonable excuse. The romance should be started immediately. Blessings on the memory of poor, stout-hearted, tipsy George Thomas!
"I should be only too delighted. There would be nothing long-suffering about it." Then doubt crept into her mind as to how Robert would regard such a plan. Probably he would grudge her this pleasure as he grudged her all others, with the exception of riding and petty occupations. Well, if he did she must contrive to hoodwink him somehow. For this morning at least she could enjoy Mr. Flint's society. He seemed in no hurry to go, and she told him all about the Carringtons, and her regret that, being a girl, she could not follow in their footsteps; confided to him how she had craved to reach India, disclosed, perhaps unconsciously, the vague dissatisfaction she felt with her daily life now that her wish was accomplished.
"Why did you choose to come to India?" she asked him with frank curiosity, and was thrilled sympathetically when he told her that he too had been born with an hereditary call in his blood for the East.
"I come of an old Anglo-Indian stock myself. I'm the fifth generation of my family to serve the Indian Government. It seemed somehow inevitable that I should come out here. I passed high enough for the English Civil, but I chose India without hesitation. Apart from family links with the country, I didn't fancy being mewed up in an office from morning till night, with little prospect of getting to the top of the ladder, and not enough money for sport and the kind of amusements I like. Dances and dinners and tea-parties are not in my line. Out here I can afford a good horse and unlimited cartridges, and I know I can be useful to India in my small way. I mean to end up with a Lieutenant-Governorship at least."
"You are very ambitious," exclaimed Stella; but it was as if she cried "Hear, hear."
"Call it a passion for success," he said, smiling; and Stella felt that deep determination lay beneath the smile and in his nature, and with her whole being she applauded his aspirations.