She turned back now, at the sickle. Perhaps Mark would come to meet her.
He didn't come. She found them sitting close on the drawing-room sofa; the tea-table was pushed aside; they were looking at Mark's photographs. She came and stood by them to see.
Mark didn't look up or say anything. He went on giving the photographs to
Mamma, telling her the names. "Dicky Carter. Man called St. John. Man
called Bibby—Jonas Bibby. Allingham. Peters. Gunning, Stobart Hamilton.
Sir George Limond, Colonel Robertson."
Photographs of women. Mamma's fingers twitched as she took them, one by one. Women with smooth hair and correct, distinguished faces. She looked at each face a long time; her mouth half-smiled, half-pouted at them. She didn't hand on the photographs to you, but laid them down on the sofa, one by one, as if you were not there.
A youngish woman in a black silk gown; Mrs. Robertson, the Colonel's wife. A girl in a white frock; Mrs. Dicky Carter, she had nursed Mark through his fever. A tall woman in a riding habit and a solar topee, standing very straight, looking very straight at you, under the shadow of the topee. Mamma didn't mind the others so much, but she was afraid of this one. There was danger under the shadow of the topee.
"Lady Limond." Mark had stayed with them at Simla.
"Oh. Very handsome face."
"Very handsome."
You could see by Mark's face that he didn't care about Lady Limond.
Mamma had turned again to the girl in the white frock who had nursed him.