"And roses? Oh, Philip, say I am to have roses?" she pleaded with clasped hands, and a voice that was tragic.
"Yes, roses by all means, if they are indispensable to your happiness."
"Oh, they are—and pink ones."
"Then we will leave the matter entirely to you," said Gascoigne to the milliner, as he stood up; "a child's hat, you know, not a May bush."
And Miss Harris, who was rarely favoured with such a customer, gave Mr. Gascoigne an emphatic promise, and her sweetest smile. As a solace from being parted from her beloved blue toque, her cousin presented Angel with a large box of chocolates, a bottle of perfume, a silver thimble, and a doll, and the little creature returned to the dogcart with her arms full and her face radiant.
CHAPTER V
THE LUCKNOW ROAD
"And now for a good spin along the Lucknow road," said Gascoigne when they had extricated themselves from the teeming bazaar.
Oh, Lucknow road! How many times have you resounded to the steady tramp of armed men, the clattering of hoofs, the rumble of guns! What battles have been fought to guard you, what nameless graves of gallant fellows are scattered among the crops in your vicinity! But to-night all is peace; the moon rides high in the heavens, and the whole landscape seems flooded in silvery white. The pace at which Sally travelled created a current of fresh air, as she sped past tombs, shrines, villages, and between long avenues of trees. The bare, flat plains were just forty miles from the foot of the Himalayas, and in the cold weather the scene presented an unbroken stretch of rich cultivation. A sea of yellow waves, wheat and barley, sugar-cane, feathery white cotton, and acres and acres of poppies. Now the crops were gathered, and all that remained was a barren expanse parched to a dull dusty brown. The very trees, with their grey trunks and leafless branches, gave the scene a bleak and wintry appearance, although the air was like a furnace. It was a still, breathless night, save for the croaking of frogs, or the humming of a village tom-tom, and the couple in the dogcart were as silent as their surroundings, absorbing the swiftly changing scene without exchanging a word, each being buried in their own reflections. Angel's thoughts were pleasant ones; her busy brain was occupied with visions of future triumphs—not unconnected with her present position, and her new hat.
Gascoigne's inner self was far, far away across the sea. He was driving with a little girl through deep country lanes, a girl then his playfellow, later his divinity, now lost to him, and figuratively laid in a grave and wrapped in roses and lavender. On the tombstone the strong god Circumstance had inscribed, "Here lies the love of Philip Gascoigne." The man was thinking of his love, the child of her new hat, and the four-legged animal of her supper. Once or twice he had been on the point of turning, but a piteous little voice beside him had pleaded, "Oh, please, not yet; oh, just another mile, well, half-a-mile," and they had passed the tenth milestone before Sally was pulled up and her head set once more towards Ramghur.