"Thanks, I will," said Graeme, filling his glass, "and about Tirah—going up, are we, when?"
"Surely, Sir Reginald, there's no chance of that?" said Lucy, with startled eyes.
"No chance whatever, Mrs. Graeme, no chance at all, I should say; foolish of me to have mentioned it, must have been dreaming. A native regiment or two may have to go, that is, if the Afridis really mean trouble, which I doubt, but hardly British cavalry. No, no, set your mind at rest."
"Native troops again," muttered Graeme discontentedly; "it's always the same story. They have all the fun, while we fool about in cantonments. Wish to Heaven I was in a black corps."
"You'd very soon wish yourself out again, my friend," said his host. "I know I'd give something to be back in the old 12th," his thoughts reverting as he spoke to the days when he was a subaltern in a fashionable Hussar regiment. "Gad, what times we used to have, and what an infernal young fool I was to come the mucker I did. Real life that was, not this tin-pot grandeur and importance."
Lady Wilford at once intervened. To her, a former Mussoori belle and daughter of a police official in that place, Sir Reginald's London reminiscences were always distasteful. India, not England, was her native country, and she was not going to hear the former or its dignity derided, certainly not in the presence of a mere soldier officer, who, as everyone knows, is in no way the equal of an Indian civilian.
"Of course, you don't mean that, Reginald," she observed with some asperity, "and I confess I'm rather surprised that you, in your position, should have made such a remark. You'll be giving our guests an altogether wrong impression, but," turning to Hector, "you mustn't take what my husband says seriously, Captain Graeme; he often jokes in this way."
"Mayfield's your cousin, ain't he, Sir Reginald?" said Hector, unheeding. "He and Lady Edith were staying with my governor last covert shooting."
"No; she is. Rockingham was my father's brother. Good old Uncle Jack, wonder when I'll see him again. Gad, I remember...."
"Won't you tell us about the frontier, Reginald?" said Lady Wilford. "You know, Captain Graeme, my husband's one of the great authorities on the subject; indeed, his Excellency, a great friend of ours, once told me he considered him the greatest. I'm sure you would like to hear about it, both of you."