She paid no attention to the laugh in which even Anne joined timidly. She was looking at Colonel Boucicault, who had shifted his position like a sleeper unpleasantly disturbed, but the remark which seemed on the edge of her compressed lips was not destined to be uttered.
At that moment a bell announced the next chukka; a stir passed round the enclosure and Mrs. Compton, who, in spirit, played a magnificent game for Gaya, forgot Boucicault and Tristram in her stern concentration on the field.
Rasaldû braced himself and turned with a smile to Sigrid. He felt more confident. In a minute she would be forced to look at him, to admire him, to acknowledge that he also "played the game."
"Wish me luck!" he begged cheerily.
"Return victorious!" she returned, in mock heroics. "For the victors, Mrs. Compton and I have prepared a mighty feast in the gardens of the dâk-bungalow, and the vanquished shall sit afar off and partake only of the crumbs of our graciousness. Be not among the vanquished, O Rajah!"
"To win the place of honour, I will make a goal every five minutes, or perish," he boasted elatedly.
He swung himself on to the back of the pony which his groom held ready for him, and with a flourish trotted to his place on the field.
Boucicault awoke then completely from his black brooding. He bent forward, staring straight into Sigrid Fersen's face, his clenched teeth shown in a smile that had in its mirthless, contained fury the elements of insanity.
"You are a very great friend of Rajah Rasaldû, Miss Fersen," he said.
She looked at him steadily, measuring the quality of the challenge which he had thrown down.