"Yes, but perhaps to some it is convenient to have three or four a year; and when I was sitting out last evening, I declare I felt quite de trop—I expected every minute to see Geoffrey flop down on his knees, on the cold marble flags."
"Nonsense! How you talk, Nan!"
"Oh, yes, I can both talk and see. Tell me, dear, do you intend this case to develop? to go on to the end—I won't say bitter end—and marry Geoffrey to your old friend?"
"Of course I don't, you tiresome girl, and Lena would not think of him."
"You mean that she has other fish to fry—a big fish too! Well, I wish them both joy when he is landed in the frying-pan."
The easy manner in which his cousin's great establishment was maintained was marvellous to Mallender. Three or four, or half a dozen extra guests appeared to make no difference in the perfect domestic arrangements; everything went on wheels, everyone was looked after, everyone was free to do precisely what they pleased. Undoubtedly the head of the household was a born organiser and manager; a woman of amazing tact, kindness, and self-control.
Geoffrey was still "an outsider" under canvas, and much preferred his tent to a bedroom indoors. He enjoyed the complete novelty, the fresh feel of the morning air as it crept into the tent; he liked as he lay on his camp cot to watch the dull yellowed grass, tinted pink by the rising sun, and to hear the birds beginning to stir in the bushes. Other guests had departed and arrived, and these latter included a civilian and his sister from Mysore, a cultured American traveller, and a sprightly married couple, Captain and Mrs. Harcourt Wylie, acquaintances of Sir William, who knew them at home, and having casually encountered them on an Indian platform, offered them a warm invitation to Hooper's Gardens. This they accepted with effusive thanks—their plans being at the time a little vague and undecided.
"My cousins," announced Sir William, in his broad-chested pompous style, "are the most hospitable people in a hospitable country; they keep open house, have a first-class cook, entertain enormously, and do you royally!"
The Wylies, clever, business-like partners, still in the early thirties, were capable of making themselves welcome and at home in most places; they danced admirably, and indefatigably, played bridge extraordinarily well, and talked and dressed in the latest fashion.
Captain Wylie—who never alluded to his regiment—was a tall thin man, with a hearty manner, and a cordial voice,—always admirably groomed, and enviably self-possessed.