As Mallender looked at his companion, the expression of her quivering white face was pitiful beyond words. And he did know, he did understand. The momentary shock had evidently brought the girl's real feelings to the surface; he had caught a glimpse of the inmost heart, and secret misery, of little fair-haired, hard-riding, Barbie. Undoubtedly he had no right to this involuntary confidence. He, a mere passer-by, who had chanced on a glimpse of an impending tragedy. Could he not avert it? Barbie, so pale, pretty, and helpless, would be driven by the whip of tongues, by the cruelty of moral force, to throw away her priceless youth, her whole future—and no one could save her but herself! All these strange and disturbing thoughts flashed through the young man's mind, as he stood holding his impatient horse, and the girl leaned against a tree with strained gaze fixed upon the flat horizon. She seemed to be lost in a sort of day-dream, and to have completely forgotten his very existence; it was almost as if he and she had a whole empty world to themselves.
The hunt had disappeared, there was not a soul to be seen, and scarcely a sound to be heard, save the faint creaking of a water-wheel, and the scream of a kite, from the hard blue sky above them. As Mallender contemplated his silent companion, wondering how long the situation would last? and what he was to do? she suddenly recovered herself.
"I feel better," said she in her natural voice, "I'm all right now, I see that rude old horse has deserted me, how am I to get home?"
"You shall ride Rocket," replied Mallender, "he will carry you all right—I'll walk beside you, and lead him."
"No, indeed," she protested, "you have lost the run of the season, I'm so sorry, but I think, if you rode towards the Mount, you might still see something of them, and if you come across it—send a gharry for me,—I'll get to the road somehow!"
"We will both get to the road somehow," he answered; "let me put you up."
"I've twisted my foot," she explained with a wry smile, "please don't touch it."
"Then in that case I must lift you," and he raised her bodily in his arms, and placed her on the saddle.
Leading the horse carefully along the narrow bunds dividing paddy fields, or over bare and rocky tracts, among bushes of castor-oil plants, across sandy, dry water-courses, the pair at last reached the road. Their progress towards the outskirts of the city and the lines of the native regiment commanded by Colonel Miller was necessarily slow, and more than an hour elapsed before the pair arrived at their destination. A surprising amount of talk can be accomplished in an hour, and the young people thus thrown so unexpectedly together found plenty to say to one another. Mallender spoke of his home, his regiment, and his dogs, and Barbie realised that her "syce" (as he called himself) was a man who owned hunters and a "place." Yet he was as simple and unassuming and exhibited no more "side" than if he were a clerk like Reggie Scott, who had nothing beyond a miserable hundred and fifty rupees a month. That Reggie adored her Barbie was well aware; he was a nice boy, but she did not care for him—except as a partner at tennis. One day in a towering rage he had taunted her with having no more heart, or romance, than a cold potato! Was this true? she wondered; had she really no heart? Was she incapable of deep love for any living mortal?
Wearing a pair of brand-new riding-boots, leading a disappointed and unwilling horse over rough broken ground, through grey-green cactus and castor-oil plants—finally along dusty by-roads, would have seemed a hateful task to most men; but Mallender was unconscious of any disagreeables, he neither felt the sun beating on his back, the dust, or the distance; he was only sensible of the unexpected charm of his present companion.