'It still gives you so much pleasure?' he said, looking at her a little askance.
Her face changed at once.
'And you?—you are beginning to be tired of it?'
'One gets a sort of indigestion.—Oh! I shall be all right to-morrow.'
Both were silent for a moment. Then he resumed.—
'I met General Fenton in the Borgia rooms this morning.'
She turned, with a quick look of curiosity.
'Well?'
'I hadn't seen him since I met him at Simla three years ago. I always found him particularly agreeable then. We used to ride together and talk together,—and he put me in the way of seeing a good many things. This morning he received me with a change of manner—can't exactly describe it; but it was not flattering! So I presently left him to his own devices and went on into another room. Then he followed me, and seemed to wish to talk. Perhaps he perceived that he had been unfriendly, and thought he would make amends. But I was rather short with him. We had been real friends; we hadn't met for three years; and I thought he might have behaved differently. He asked me a number of questions, however, about last year, about my resignation, and so forth; and I answered as little as I could. So presently he looked at me and laughed—"You remind me," he said, "of what somebody said of Peel—that he was bad to go up to in the stable!—But what on earth are you in the stable for?—and not in the running?"'
Mrs. Burgoyne smiled.