He looked very handsome, very happy, as he came up, with Gladys shaking her curls at him in outrageous flirtation.
"How kind!" said Muriel. "I don't know what I should do without you."
That was all; but it sent him off in absolute content to tackle the stoutest lady in the room.
"If you make the move, Mrs. Campbell," he said diplomatically, "everyone will follow, and I know Mrs. Smith is anxious we should start, as it will take some time to go round."
"Ay! that it will!" assented the good lady in a mournful Scotch accent. "'Deed if it were not for Dr. James--" she glanced fearfully at a tall man in a black frock coat--a man whose patriarchal beard had once been red and was now the colour of a carpet whisk--who was buttonholing Father Ninian; the latter, with his straight slenderness, looking almost youthful beside the other's burly bulk.
"I wouldn't go if I didn't want to," put in a sharp-featured lady who belonged to another black frock coat--a small one. "You spoil the doctor, Mrs. Campbell. As I tell my husband, I yield to him in spiritual matters--the mission, you know, and all that; but when it comes to realities--the housekeeping, and what we are to eat, and do, and that sort of thing--that is my province."
Mrs. Campbell turned her fat good-natured face on her neighbour's placidly. "Ay, my dear; but ye didn't promise to be a wife to Dr. James, an' I did. So, Captain Dering, if you can find my niece--"
"Miss Shepherd is quite safe, Mrs. Campbell. Carlyon's looking after her," interrupted Vincent, feeling another spasm of sheer virtue. He had seen the two sitting together at lunch, apparently interested in each other, and he had noticed how Lance, on entering the drawing-room, had made his way straight to those coils of red-bronze hair which had a trick of being the most conspicuous point in any group of which they formed part. So Lance would enjoy himself simply; he would not have to gain pleasure in complex fashion by dragging about a posse of uninteresting old ladies, for the sake of a lady who was neither. Vincent's face had a bored look as he began his task by piloting his charge into the verandah, and so on into the open.
It was hot work crossing the stretch of sand which lay between the bungalow and the red brick abutments of the canal head; but once there, with the broad still basin of the united rivers before you, a cool breeze blew pleasantly from that blue barrier of hills with the gold-spiked temples of Eshwara enamelled against it, and a soft white mist hiding the feet of the far-distant snows; so hiding the "Cradle of the Gods! The floods had gone, however, and so had the robe of righteousness. The sandbanks lay bare, of the earth, earthy. The logs, too, were no longer dipping and dancing in the currents. Some were piled criss-cross on the spit, awaiting ransomers, and a few lay like straight shadows, half in, half out of the receding water.
"A log! not a bit of it!" said someone, stooping for a stone. "Look!"