“Mrs Bush! Oh, I’m all right, really, but tired, you know.” Even her touch had not quite cleared his mind yet, then, with an effort, he pulled himself together. “I am waiting for my men, and I am afraid I was almost asleep. No, I don’t think I will come in. Captain Bush seemed a little annoyed, you know.”
Mrs Bush looked him square in the eyes. “Captain Hayle, I ask whom I think fit into my house. You will come now. You know your men can look after themselves. I have already sent word to Ah Lung to let them have what they want. The Scouts can guard Igut—now.”
He followed her in without a word. First she brought him brandy and soda water; and then she glanced at his torn and muddy uniform, and his soaking boots, one of which was minus a heel.
“I like you in those,” she said suddenly. “They tell me—they tell me—many things. Only, you must change. I will put some other clothes in the spare room for you.”
When he came out again, dressed in a white suit of Captain Bush’s, she had some breakfast ready for him, but he could not touch it for sheer weariness; whereupon she made a couch for him on one of the long cane sofas in the drawing-room, and then she left him. Within a couple of minutes he was fast asleep. Mrs Bush opened the door quietly, looked in, went on tiptoe to his side, and, stooping down, kissed his hair lightly.
“I know you did it for me, dearest,” she murmured; then she went out, just as her husband came into the house, accompanied by the Treasurer and the Supervisor. They were talking loudly, and did not appear to notice Mrs Bush until she spoke. “Please be more quiet,” she said. “Captain Hayle is asleep in the drawing-room.”
The Treasurer and the Supervisor exchanged sheepish glances, but Bush flushed. “I never asked him in here.” Then he was sorry he had spoken, for her answer came, cutting like a lash: “I asked him. But for him, none of us would be asking any one anywhere now.”
“There were the Scouts——” her husband began, but she did not let him finish.
“The Scouts! And where was the Scout officer, and the other white heroes, who would have saved Igut?” She turned away scornfully and swept upstairs.
“I say, Bush, we had better get out; we aren’t exactly welcome. The Virginian seems to be first favourite.” The Supervisor was already moving towards the door, when Captain Bush stopped him.