And without another word he went back to the mess-room.
I went on and entered the palace. To reach the brigadier's quarters I had to pass down the whole length of the building, and I was not in the least surprised to see Elsie Matheson waiting for me in one of the passage-like ante-rooms. Elsie Matheson was bound to come into this matter sooner or later—I knew that; but I did not quite know in what capacity her advent might be expected.
“What is this news from Capoo?” she asked, without attempting to disguise her anxiety. Her father, assistant political officer in this affair, was not at Capoo or near there. He was upstairs playing a rubber.
“Bad,” I answered.
She winced, but turned no paler. Women and horses are always surprising me, and they never surprise me more than when in danger. Elsie Matheson was by no means a masculine young person. Had she been so, I should not have troubled to mention her. For me, men cannot be too manly, nor women too womanly.
“What is the illness they have?” she asked.
“I really cannot tell you, Elsie,” I answered. “Old Simpson has written me a long letter—he always had a fancy for symptoms, you know—but I can make nothing of it. The symptoms he describes are quite impossible. They are too scientific for me.”
“You know it is cholera,” she snapped out with a strange little break in her voice which I did not like, for I was very fond of this girl.
“Perhaps it is,” I answered.
She gave a funny little helpless look round her as if she wanted something to lean against.