“I should like to see that place,” she said. “Anything to do with the legends of the people and country is always interesting. Could we not arrange to go and explore it? You say it is easy to get at?”
“I think so,” answered Upward. “We might make a picnic of it. Two fellows from Shâlalai who joined camp with me are coming back to-morrow or the next day, and we might all go together. What do you say, colonel?”
“Oh, I don’t mind. Getting rather old for clambering, though. Come along in to tiffin; that’s the second gong.”
Throughout that repast, Vivien addressed most of her conversation to Upward. Campian, however, who had pulled himself together effectually by now, was observing her keenly. When she did have occasion to answer some remark of his, it was as though she were talking to a perfect stranger, beheld that morning for the first time. Very good. If that were the line she desired to keep to, not in him was it to encroach upon it. He had his share of pride, likewise of vindictiveness, and some of the aggrieved bitterness of their parting was upon him now. But he remembered also that the ornamental sex are consummate actors, and felt savage with himself for having let down his own guard. And this impassiveness he kept up throughout the ordeal of again saying good-bye.
“Well, and what did you think of Colonel Jermyn, Mr Campian?” queried Mrs Upward, when they were seated at dinner that evening. The two men had returned late, having fallen in with more chikór on the way, and she had had no opportunity of catechising him before.
“He seems a pleasant sort of man,” returned Campian. “There was some scheme of cutting them into a kind of exploration picnic, wasn’t there, Upward?” he went on, with the idea of diverting an inevitable cross-examination.
“Them! You saw the niece, then?” rapped out Hazel. “What did you think of her?”
“Think? Why, that you are a shocking little libellist, Hazel, remembering your pronouncement.”
“It wasn’t me who said she was too black; it was Lily.”
“He’s mashed too,” crowed that young person, grinning from ear to ear.