"The mornings are so nice," said Suzette.
"Yes, for people like you, who can do without sleep; people who have quicksilver in their veins."
"One learns to be fond of the early morning in India," explained Suzette.
"Because every other part of the day is intolerable," said Colonel Fordingbridge.
They were seated by this time, and Mrs. Mornington was sipping her first glass of champagne with an air of supreme content, while Allan helped her to lobster mayonnaise. Suzette was on his other side; and even while ministering to the elder lady his looks and his thoughts were on the younger.
How pretty she was, and how interesting. It seemed to him that he had never cared for English beauty; the commonplace pinkness and whiteness, chubby cheeks, blunt noses, cherry lips. Those delicate features, that pale dark skin, those brilliant dark eyes and small white teeth flashing upon him now and then as she smiled, with the most bewitching mouth—a mouth that could express volumes in a smile, or by a pouting movement of the flexible lips.
Allan and she were good friends in about five minutes. He was questioning and she answering. Surely, surely she did not like India as well as England—a life of exile—a life under torrid skies? Surely, surely, yes. There were a hundred things that she loved in India; those three years of her life in the North-West Provinces had been years in fairyland.
"It must have been because you were worshipped," he said. "You lived upon adulation. I'm afraid when a young lady is happy in India, it means that she is not altogether innocent of vanity."
"It is very unkind of you to say that. How sorry you must feel when I tell you that the happiest half-year I spent in India was when father was road-making, and the only other officer in camp was a fat, married major—an immense major, as big as this table."
"And you were happy! How?"