"That's where we stand, is it? All the more reason we should make it up, Mrs. Rayner. Nothing is more conducive to driving away evil spirits of all kinds than a walk on the sea-shore."
Mr. Worsley smilingly offered his hand to Hester to help her to alight.
"Cheveril, we're off for a stroll," he said, looking back at the young man, who still stood by the side of Mrs. Fellowes' carriage; and he now suggested that she should imitate the example of her friend. She acquiesced, and they were soon following the other pair of walkers.
"I always know from the pose of my chief's head whether he is happy with his companion or not. Unfortunately he too often shows that he is not so," said Mark.
"You seem entirely satisfied with the result in this instance, Mr. Cheveril," returned Mrs. Fellowes, with a frank smile. "But who could be otherwise? She is so dear and sweet."
"Well, the fact is there is triumph to me as well as satisfaction. I didn't exactly have a bet with Mrs. Rayner, but I prophesied that when she met Mr. Worsley she would come under his spell; while she evidently thought the reverse would happen. I feel quite easy in my mind now. I can see the spell is mutual."
"I expect Mr. Worsley is not a man who always does himself justice by any means. The Colonel sometimes deplores that he gives so much more encouragement to the Mahomedans than to the Hindus at Puranapore. The Campbells are friends of ours, so perhaps we hear most on the other side."
"Yes, that's a vexed question," replied Mark gravely. "But the Collector is getting his eyes opened to some things that were hidden from him for a time. Events are marching. You see he is so often away on tour. The town of Puranapore is but a very small corner of his dominion. His District is immense, and he takes as much interest in it as an English squire does in his acres—very much the same kind of interest too. His pride in land reclaimed and made to blossom is delightful to see. He has often made me ride miles out of the way with him to show me such a tract with its changed face. He would have made an ideal Forest Officer if he had not been Collector of the Revenue. Lately when we were camping, he pointed to a once fever-haunted jungle he had redeemed by draining the dreaded area. He smiled and said, 'I was just thinking last night as I read Tennyson's "Northern Farmer," that I could point to this bit of land made wholesome as my only good deed, like the old farmer who pinned his hope of salvation to his "stubbing of Thornaby waste!"'"
"You speak of his reading Tennyson, Mr. Cheveril? I thought one of his peculiarities was that he never read—that there wasn't a book to be picked up in his house? I've heard his bungalow at Puranapore described as the most dismal of abodes."
"Oh, yes, the Collector does read at times, and he does what is better, he thinks. He has a more original mind than most people, I assure you," argued Mark, not willing to admit the truth of the assertion concerning the absence of anything like a library from the Collector's shelves.