"Princess!" he whispered back.
With an effort she raised herself, leaning against him.
"What happened? Were you hurt? Your face is all bleeding!"
"It's nothing!" he said jerkily. "It's nothing!"
She took his handkerchief in her trembling hand and wiped the blood away. She said no more of any sort. Only when she gave it back to him her eyes were full of tears.
And Hone caught the little hand in passionate, dumb devotion, and pressed it to his lips.
VII
"I am so sorry, Major Hone, but she is seeing no one. I would ask you to dine if it would be of any use. But you wouldn't see her if I did."
So spoke the colonel's wife three days later in a sympathetic undertone; while Hone paced beside her rickshaw with a gloomy face.