She and Raynier had been fellow-passengers out; but had had little to say to each other on board. He had danced with her three or four times, which was rather remarkable in view of that being a form of exercise which he favoured but little. Both had this in common, that they held aloof from the usual ’board-ship amusements, yet they had not come together at all. It was only when they landed at Bombay, and the friends she had expected to meet her had not arrived, that Raynier, noticing the look of intense consternation, of bewilderment even, upon the girl’s face, as she realised how she was stranded, a total stranger in a very strange land, had come to the rescue—had even foregone his train and remained over until the next day to be of service to her. This he had done out of sheer kindness—the other passengers having gone their respective ways without giving her a thought—and having handed her over to her friends who had been unavoidably delayed, had bidden her good-bye and had gone his own—he, too, scarcely giving her another thought.
“Hilda says you were so kind to her at Bombay, Mr Raynier,” went on his hostess.
“Oh, no—that’s nothing, Mrs Tarleton. Glad to have been of any service, of course,” he replied, in that hurried, half-confused way to be expected of a man of his disposition under the circumstances.
“But it isn’t nothing,” struck in the girl, decidedly. “Do you know, Mrs Tarleton, Mr Raynier even waited till the next day to look after me. And it’s odd, because we hardly knew each other on the ship.”
“Oh, well,” mumbled Raynier, jerkily, “you can’t see anybody stranded like that—a lady especially—in a totally strange place without doing something to straighten things out for them.”
Hilda Clive smiled.
“None of the others seemed to be of that opinion, at any rate,” she said.
Snapped Tarleton, “Well, you can’t expect a lot of people just landed from a voyage to think about anything but themselves and their own belongings.”
For once Raynier felt frankly grateful to the contentious one—if only that it was sufficient for Tarleton to lay down a statement on any given subject to cause his ordinary hearers to drop that subject like a red-hot bar. Wherefore these promptly turned to another.
Sunt Singh and Kaur Singh, chuprassis, were aroused from the drowsy enjoyment of their hubble-bubbles by a very unwonted intruder in the Political Agent’s compound late at night, and were well-nigh speechless with supercilious amazement. The fat trader they had left on the road! See the Huzoor! At that time of night! It was the Police Station the fool wanted. Something of the highest importance? Let him come in the morning. It would keep until then. Besides, the Huzoor was out dining.