"I thought you might," he returned, evidently pleased at his own acumen, "but I don't see it that way. Of course if--if you go in for those ideas, you know, you can make it seem--well--awful low; but I--" he paused before even a possible sounding of his own trumpet--"you see I think it's awfully jolly; besides, it's such ripping good exercise, and I have to be careful, I tell you, not to put on flesh. I ride thirteen-four, as it is." His face grew grave over the confession.
"Is that much?" she said, her eyes caught and held by the splendid figure beside her. "You are very tall, surely." There was almost a pride in her tone, certainly a tenderness.
He shook his head. "Not so tall as my people are generally. We Carlyons run to size. My uncle, Sir Lancelot's, six-three, and his son is six-four; but he's a bit weedy. So when you're only six-one and a half you can't afford to wax fat; you've got to keep the body in subjection. That's right, isn't it?" His pride in his Scriptural knowledge made it impossible for her to be stern, though she felt she ought to be.
"Quite right, Mr. Carlyon," she assented, hurriedly, "but see! the others have gone on, and I don't want to miss--She stumbled, in her haste to end the tête-à-tête, on a loose brick, and for an instant was over-near the edge of the abutment.
"Take care!" he said, his hand on hers to give support; a cool, strong hand, with an insistence in its clasp which seemed to single her out from the world to stand so, hand fast in hand. "You were very nearly over that time," he said, smilingly, as he released her. "Now let's come on, or, as you say, we shall be too late for the fair. Smith's going to show off his electric light in the tents, you know."
Perhaps it was the slip which had made her dizzy, but she walked beside him feeling as if she were in a dream. And, in truth, the scene which grew upon them as they went on had a strange unearthliness and unreality. She paused, and gave a little gasp of pleasure and surprise. "It seems impossible!" she said. "A week ago, when I was here, it was all sand, sand; and now--"
Her eyes met the wide, flower-set walks, the stately white palaces of the Vice-regal camp with absolute incredulity. "Did you do all this?" she asked, doubtfully. "Why, you've made a new world!" She felt inwardly as if he had, somehow, for her.
"Oh! Vincent did a lot of the decorations, you know. He's that sort. We--my fellows, I mean, and Dillon's gaol-birds--dug, and did the dirty work. But it looks all right, doesn't it?"
It did, indeed,--absolutely and entirely all right. So white, so straight, so disciplined; even to the very twist on the tent ropes.
"That peg's out of line," said Lance, pausing suddenly. "Here, sergeant!"