One moment Singh’s face, quivering with emotion, was hidden in the Colonel’s breast; the next, he rushed from the room, closely followed by Glyn.
Chapter Thirty Seven.
The Sore Place in the Fence.
Time had gone on after his good old fashion, moving silently and insidiously, seeming to crawl to those who were waiting for something, till it suddenly dawns upon them that he has been making tremendous strides with those long legs of his which puzzled the little girl who asked her mother whether it was true that Time had those means of progression. Many will remember that the mother asked the child why she supposed that Time had legs, “Because,” she replied, “people speak about the lapse of Time, and if he has laps he must have legs to make them of.”
The troubles connected with the disappearance of the belt, and the unpleasant weeks during which masters, scholars, and servants seemed to have been mentally poisoned by suspicion and were all disposed to look askant at each other, had passed away, and, in his busy avocations and joining in the school sports, Singh was disposed to look upon the theft of his pseudo-heirloom as something which had never happened.
“Even if it had been real, Glyn,” he said one night as they lay talking across the room in the dark, and the boy had grown into a much more philosophical state of mind, “what would it have mattered?”
“Not a jolly bit,” said Glyn drowsily.
“I suppose it’s being here in England,” continued Singh, “where you people don’t think so much about dressing up, and getting to be more English myself, that I don’t seem to care about ornaments as I used. Sometimes I think it was very stupid of me to want to bring such a thing to school with me in my travelling-trunk.”