During the evening she sat with Lieutenant Walters in the conservatory. There were other guests at Hazlehurst, and Mrs. Foster had asked some of her neighbours to join them in an informal dance. Coloured lamps hung among the plants, throwing a soft light upon clustering blossoms and forcing up delicate foliage in black silhouette. Here and there lay belts of shadow, out of which came voices and a smell of cigar smoke; but near where Mrs. Chudleigh sat screened by a palm a French window opened into the hall. The half-light that fell sideways upon her face suited her, for it failed to reveal the hardness of her lips and eyes, and made her look gentler. Walters, who was charmed with her, had no suspicion that she had cultivated his society merely because she thought he might prove useful. On hearing what regiment he belonged to, she had marked him down for study.
"I'm afraid I'm selfish in keeping you here, though I know how good-natured you are," he said by and by. "You might have been enjoying yourself instead of letting me bore you."
Mrs. Chudleigh gave him a gracious smile. "I've lost my enthusiasm for dancing and need a rest now and then. Besides, I like a talk with interesting people."
"That's a thing I'm seldom credited with being. You're making fun of me."
"Far from it," she assured him. "If you are very modest, I'll confess that your knowing places and people I've seen in past days enhances the interest. Were you long in India?"
"Three years. In some respects, I was sorry to leave, but the doctors decided it would be twelve months before I was fit for work again, and I felt very much at a loose end when I got home. I can't dance, I can't ride, and I mustn't walk far; in fact, there seems to be nothing that I am allowed to do. I'd have found my helplessness harder only that you have taken pity on me."
"But you are getting stronger; I've noticed a marked improvement, since I came. But we were speaking of India. You were on the North-West frontier, were you not?"
"Yes," he said and looked round as a man passed the window. "Who's that? I've seen most of Lucy's neighbours, but I don't know him."
The man moved into the light and stood gazing towards them absent-mindedly, as if thinking of something. Walters noticed his white hair and thin face, the keenness of his blue eyes, the firmness of his mouth, and the erectness of his figure.
"That is Colonel Challoner," Mrs. Chudleigh replied.