Honor listened with weary inattention, promised investigation of the matter, and passed on to the godown—a closet of broad shelves stocked with an incongruous assortment of household goods, and smelling strongly of kerosine oil and bar soap.
Here it was discovered that the oil had been disappearing with miraculous celerity, and Amar Singh cast aspersions on the kitmutgar and his wife. A jealous feud subsisted between him and them; and as ruler-in-chief of the Sahib's establishment, the bearer made it a point of honour to let no one cheat Desmond save himself. He had a grievous complaint to lodge against a sais, who had been flagrantly tampering with the Desmonds' grain, adding a request that the Miss Sahib would of her merciful condescension impart the matter to the Sahib. "For he sitteth much occupied, and his countenance is not favourable this morning."
Honor complied, with a half-smile at the irony of her own position, which, until to-day, she had accepted without after-thought, and which of a sudden seemed unendurable.
Desmond, much engrossed in regimental concerns, and anxious to get off to the Lines, was inclined to irritability and abruptness; and the delinquent, who, with his charger ready saddled, awaited the Sahib's displeasure in the front verandah suffered accordingly. He bowed, trembling, to the ground, and let the storm sweep over his head; making no defence beyond a disarming reiteration of his own worthlessness, and of his everlasting devotion to the Protector of the Poor.
Turning back to the hall for his helmet, Desmond encountered Honor in the doorway, and his wrath gave place to a smile of good fellowship that brought the blood into her cheeks.
"Hope my volcanics didn't horrify you," he said apologetically. "It seems almost as cowardly to fly out at those poor chaps as to strike a child; but they have a genius for tripping one up at critical moments."
He paused, and scanned her face with kindly anxiety. "You're all right again now? Not troubled any more—eh?"
"No. I'm perfectly well. Don't bother your head about me, please. You have so much more important things to think about."