“I can go one better, as they say, for I have upset a coach!” then he coloured and added hastily, and as if he deprecated any questions, “I too have led a common-place life. I was born out here, and was not sent home until I was six, for which reason I find my native tongue has come back to me.”
“It has indeed—I have often been amazed at your extraordinary fluency in talking Hindostani; I thought that you had a marvellous talent for languages.”
“Which I have not, nor indeed for anything.”
“Miss Paske says that you have a talent for silence,” said Honor demurely.
“Miss Paske’s sayings are being quoted all over the place, with the weight of so many proverbs! She says women do all their thinking in church. She declares that her sex lie from timidity—and nothing else. Shall I continue?”
“No; I should prefer your own original remarks, to Miss Paske at second hand,” said Honor, “though I confess that I am responsible for introducing her into the conversation. After you came from India, what did you do?”
“I went to school—from school to college—then I lived in London, off and on, till I came out here. Our joint lives and adventures don’t amount to much! I am always longing for some uncommon experience, but such things seem to fight shy of me.”
“Look! There is poor Mrs. Sladen on that horrid pulling pony,” interrupted Honor suddenly; “she is dreadfully afraid of it, but dare not say so——”
“Being between the devil and the deep sea?”
“Which is the deep sea? Colonel Sladen or the Budmash?” asked the young lady with an air of innocent inquiry.