The slippery path that lies between truth and direct falsehood had always been fatally easy for her to follow; and she followed it now more from natural instinct, and from the child's dread of making people "cross," than from any deliberate intent to deceive. It was so much easier to say nothing. Therefore she said nothing; and left the future to look after itself.
On returning from her first ride with Kresney, she found Honor in the verandah giving orders to a sais. The girl lifted her out of the saddle, and kissed her on both cheeks.
"Such a very early Ladybird!" she said, laughing. "You might have let me come too."
Accordingly they went out together the next morning, but on future occasions Evelyn returned more cautiously, and changed her habit before appearing at the breakfast-table. She went out once or twice in the afternoons also, and Honor's thoughts flew to the Kresneys as a matter of course; but remembering a certain incident at Murree, she held her peace. She was disheartened, and very far from satisfied, nevertheless.
In this fashion ten days slipped uneventfully past. Then, on a certain afternoon, Kresney again met Evelyn by chance,—and begged her to come back with him to tea before going home. Her consent was a foregone conclusion; and as they neared Kresney's whitewashed gate-posts, Captain Olliver trotted past. He had already met Miss Kresney jogging out to tea on a long-tailed pony of uncertain age; and glancing casually back over his shoulder, he saw Mrs Desmond's jhampan entering the gateway. Whereat he swore vigorously under his breath, and urged his pony to a brisker pace.
But of these facts Evelyn was blissfully unaware. Her uppermost thought was a happy consciousness of looking her best. From the forget-me-nots in her hat to the last frill of her India muslin gown all was blue—the fragile blue of the far horizon at dawn. And Kresney had an eye for such things.
She started slightly on discovering that the drawing-room was empty.
"Where's Miss Kresney?" she asked, stopping dead upon the threshold.