Denzil had a longing desire to do something brilliant, that he might shine in the estimation of Rose Trecarrel. With the combined vanity and diffidence natural to a young man, he sometimes flattered himself that his handsome uniform might regain him favour in her eyes, if no other merit, mental or physical, did so; but in that he reckoned without his host, for Rose was too much accustomed to see regimentals about her—the scarlet of the Queen's troops, the silver grey of the Indian cavalry, the blue and gold of the artillery, and the quaint, half-oriental splendour of the irregular horse. As a flirt she preferred the scarlet, and, perhaps, as one with an eye to a good marriage, the sombre black swallow-tail of the C.S.
With all her constitutional coquetry, she was not without a certain emotion, of compunction at times for the part she had played with Denzil. Of all the admirers she possessed, he had seemed the most earnest, the most bewildered by her beauty, and the most true; but then, as she said to Mabel, "he was so young, and, poor fellow, only a subaltern, so what did it matter in the long run, a little trifling with him, when it amused her, and Cabul had been so dull."
"Going to India to be married," said Mabel, "of course means going there to be married well. Trevelyan is only a subaltern, too."
"But the son and heir of Lord Lamorna; so one may cast one's hawks at him."
"And Polwhele is only a subaltern."
"But with a place that spreads from Cornwall into Devonshire. I shall not make a fool of myself, Mab—yet I shall marry for love, and love only, if I marry at all," said Rose, as her white fingers wreathed up the shining ripples of her hair before retiring for the night.
"Going out" was then one of the matrimonial institutions of Anglo-Indian society; but the P. and O. liners, with the Overland Route, have knocked that institution on the head, or nearly so.
"I told you how it would be, old fellow," said Polwhele to Denzil, who was sad and sombre; "she affects Trevelyan now, and we are all at a discount now, even the cavalry men."
"But Trevelyan has come back to India a lord's son, and is on papa's staff. A deuced fine thing it must be to wake up some morning and find oneself famous in that fashion," said Burgoyne of the 37th, ignorant of how galling his remarks were to Denzil.
And so several days of constant excitement were passed in the cantonments, yet no definite plan as to the future was formed, whether to risk a retreat through Khyber Pass, or throw the whole force into the Bala Hissar, and defend it to the last gasp, as more than once General Trecarrel had urged at the council of war, but urged in vain.