“Yes, you will laugh when you hear her latest. She warns me that you have a mysterious past; that you came out to India and lived with some disreputable people long before you dawned on Secunderabad. I gave her one for her nob, I can tell you!”
For a moment I could not think of any appropriate reply, and at last I brought out Mrs. Soames’s well-worn expression, “How amusing!”
“Yes, isn’t it? Well, now shall we go and dance, or are you dead tired?”
“I’m never tired of dancing,” I answered, as I rose and collected gloves and fan.
“And what about me?” he said. “I was on horseback the whole of yesterday, an early inspection and long railway journey to-day, letters and telegrams to answer on arrival, gobble down dinner, dress, come here and reel off a dozen duty dances. I tell you what! I know a nice cosy nook up in the gallery where we can sit and talk, or rather you shall talk and I will listen.”
“You are reckoning without me,” I protested. “I don’t think I’m as great a chatterbox as I used to be.”
By this time we had ascended into a gallery which commanded a splendid view of the hall, and as I sat down Captain Falkland turned to me and said:
“I say, Miss Lingard, I can’t stand that fellow Balthasar. I can’t imagine what your brother sees in him.”
“Neither can I.”
“Well, I gathered as much from the way you choked him off just now, and flung a square dance at his head.”