“You are really too good,” returned Captain Waring, springing to his feet and making a somewhat exaggerated bow. “We shall be delighted, for there seems no prospect of our getting anything to eat before to-morrow.”
“You shall have something to eat in less than five minutes,” was Mrs. Brande’s reassuring answer, as she led the way to her own apartment.
“This,” waving her hand towards Honor, “is my niece, Miss Gordon, just out from England. I am Mrs. Brande—my husband is in the Council.”
“We have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Gordon before,” said Captain Waring; “this will not be the first time we have sat at the same table,” and he glanced at her, with sly significance.
“Yes,” faltered Honor, with a heightened colour, as she bowed and shook hands with Mark. “This is the gentleman of whom I told you, Aunt Sara, who rescued me when I was left alone in the train.”
“Ah! indeed,” said Mrs. Brande, sitting down as she spoke, and deliberately unfolding her serviette, “I’m sure I’m greatly obliged to him,” but she secretly wished that on that occasion Honor had been befriended by his rich associate.
“Let me introduce him to you, Mrs. Brande—his name is Jervis,” said Captain Waring, with his most jovial air. “He is young, idle, and unmarried. My name is Waring. I was in the Rutlands, but I chucked the service some time ago.”
“Well, now we know all about each other” (oh, deluded lady!) “let us begin our dinner,” said Mrs. Brande. “I am sure we are all starving.”
Dinner proved to be excellent, and included mahseer from the lake, wild duck from the marshes, and club mutton. No! Mrs. Brande’s “chef” had not been over praised. At first every one (especially the hostess and Clarence Waring) was too frankly hungry to talk, but after a time they began to discuss the weather, the local insects, and their journey—not in the formal manner common to Britons on their mournful travels—but in a friendly, homely fashion, suitable to a whitewashed apartment, with the hostess’s bed in one corner.
Whilst the two men conversed with her niece, Mrs. Brande critically surveyed them, “took stock” as she said to herself. Captain Waring was a man of five or six and thirty, well set up, and soldierly looking; he had dark cropped hair, bold merry eyes, and was handsome, though sunburnt to a deep tan, and his face was deeply lined—those in his forehead looking as if they had been ruled and cut into the very bone—nevertheless, his habitual expression was as gay and animated as that of Toby Joy himself. He had an extremely well-to-do air (undoubtedly had never known a money care in his life), he wore his clothes with ease, they fitted him admirably, his watch, studs, and linen were of the finest quality; moreover, he appreciated a good dinner, seemed to accept the best of everything as a matter of course, and looked about intelligently for peppers and sauces, which were fortunately forthcoming.