“Not unless some one has already ridden out and told her, or she is in town.”
“She isn’t in town, I think, because her groom came down at eleven and took out her mail.”
“She could not have heard through the mail, I suppose?” said the Administrator quickly. “No, of course not—there was nothing but the cable from Capetown. My information came from Beira, and Mrs. Lewin would not hear from there.”
“They do not know any details at Capetown then?”
“No. Some one will have to break it to Mrs. Lewin.”
Again that reluctant pause, while each man in his own mind saw Chum as she had appeared to him at some moment when she made the most vivid picture of herself to him individually. So, Rennie saw her on horseback, managing a fractious pony—Arthur White recalled one evening when he had seen her with his wife in the nursery, bending over a child’s cot. Hamilton Gurney fancied her in her own pretty shaded room, lying back against some coloured cushions, while he sang to her,—but no man offered to face her with such news as that the Administrator held in the loose letters in his hand.
It was Bristow Nugent who spoke at last,—the least expected of the group.
“All right—I’m going.”
He turned on his heel, as if he could not wait to think, and ran down the uncarpeted stairs, his spurs clicking and jingling, and some metal trapping or other adding to the audible hurry. Outside he caught his pony by the mane, swung into the saddle far quicker than he had ever done at a fourth chucker on the Polo ground, and was tearing past the stores and out towards Maitso Hill before any one on the landing had quite realised that it was Captain Nugent who had risen to the occasion.
“Bristles has no nerves,” said Rennie in selfish excuse. “He was about the best man to go—he won’t really care much. He’s stolid.”