THE VISITOR
It was on a Sunday evening of breathless heat that this conviction first took firm hold of Hope. Her uncle was away upon one of his frequent journeys of research. Her brother was up at the cantonments, and she was quite alone save for her ayah, and the punkah-coolie dozing on the veranda.
She had not expected any visitors. Visitors seldom came to the bungalow, for the simple reason that she was seldom at home to receive them, and the Magician never considered himself at liberty for social obligations. So it was with some surprise that she heard footsteps that were not her brother's upon the baked earth of the compound; and when her ayah came to her with the news that Hyde Sahib was without, she was even conscious of a sensation of dismay.
For Hyde Sahib was a man she detested, without knowing why. He was a civil servant, an engineer, and he had been in Ghantala longer than any one else of the European population. Very reluctantly she gave the order to admit him, hoping that Ronnie would soon return and take him off her hands. For Ronnie professed to like the man.
He greeted her with a cool self-assurance that admitted not the smallest doubt of his welcome.
"I was passing, and thought I would drop in," he told her, retaining her hand till she abruptly removed it. "I guessed you would be all forlorn. The Magician is away, I hear?"
Hope steadily returned the gaze of his pale eyes, as she replied, with dignity:
"Yes; my uncle is from home. But I am not at all lonely. I am expecting my brother every minute."
He smiled at her in a way that made her stiffen instinctively. She had never been so completely alone with him before.
"Ah, well," he said, "perhaps you will allow me to amuse you till he returns. I rather want to see him."