“Well—er—I don’t exactly know,” stammered Mr. Hawkins, a good deal taken aback by the directness of the inquiry; “we didn’t exactly know where you were—thought Lambert was at Lismoyle, you know.” He began to wish he had brought Cursiter with him; no one could have guessed that she would have turned into such a cat and given herself such airs; her ultra-refinement, and her affected accent, and her exceeding prettiness, exasperated him in a way that he could not have explained, and though the visit did not fail of excitement, he could not flatter himself that he was taking quite the part in it that he had expected. Certainly Mrs. Lambert was not maintaining the rôle that he had allotted her; huffiness was one thing, but infernal swagger was quite another. It is painful for a young man of Mr. Hawkins’ type to realise that an affection that he has inspired can wane and even die, and Francie’s self-possession was fast robbing him of his own.
“I hear that your regiment is after being ordered to India?” she said cheerfully, when it became apparent that Hawkins could find no more to say.
“Yes, so they say; next trooping season will about see us, I expect, and they’re safe to send us to Aldershot first, so we may be out of this at any minute.” He glanced at her as he spoke, to see how she took it.
“Oh, that’ll be very nice for you,” answered Francie, still more cheerfully. “I suppose,” she went on with her most aristocratic drawl, “that you’ll be married before you go out?”
She had arranged the delivery of this thrust before she came downstairs, and it glided from her tongue as easily as she could have wished.
“Yes, I daresay I shall,” he answered defiantly, though the provokingly ready blush of a fair man leaped to his face. He looked at her, angry with himself for reddening, and angrier with her for blazoning her indifference, by means of a question that seemed to him the height of bad taste and spitefulness. As he looked, the colour that burned in his own face repeated itself in hers with slow relentlessness; at the sight of it a sudden revulsion of feeling brought him dangerously near to calling her by her name, with reproaches for her heartlessness, but before the word took form she had risen quickly, and, saying something incoherent about ordering tea, moved towards the bell, her head turned from him with the helpless action of a shy child.
Hawkins, hardly knowing what he was doing, started forward, and as he did so the door opened, and a well-known voice announced,
The owner of the voice advanced into the room, and saw, as anyone must have seen, the flushed faces of its two occupants, and felt that nameless quality in the air that tells of interruption.
“I took the liberty of announcing myself,” she said, with her most affable smile; “I knew you were at home, as I saw Mr. Hawkins’ trap at the door, and I just walked in.”