“I wish I could ask Mr Stratford what he thinks,” said Lady Haigh, reverting to her former strain. “It could do no harm.”
“But you don’t think that he can see further into a millstone than you can, do you, Lady Haigh? What difference could it make what he thought? He doesn’t know anything more than we do, and I am sure he couldn’t conjure up worse fears than those we have been indulging in lately.”
“He might think it better that you should not go,” said Lady Haigh, without considering the effect of her words.
“Then we may regard it as just as well that he is not here, since what he thought would make no difference to me,” said Georgia, with an ominous tightening of the lips. “Are you ready, Rahah?”
And the two veiled figures passed under the archway and through the outer court, entering the litter at the gate without attracting the attention of any of the diplomatists in the Durbar-hall, about the doors of which Lady Haigh hovered unhappily for two or three minutes, feeling undecided how to act, and only returned to her own domain on being assured over and over again by the servants that the conference was on no account to be interrupted. She went slowly back to Sir Dugald’s sick-room, and sat down by the bedside; but she could not be still. An unwonted restlessness was upon her, impelling her to move about the room and alter the position of every medicine-bottle and every piece of furniture in it. Presently she stepped out again on the terrace, and looked across at Bachelors’ Buildings, feeling half inclined to force her way into the Durbar-hall and interrupt the conference; but she scolded herself for her folly, and returned to her patient. What good could it possibly do to break up the durbar by calling Mr Stratford out in order to communicate to him the momentous intelligence that Miss Keeling had gone to visit her patient at the Palace? It was with this very object in view that she had come to Kubbet-ul-Haj.
“I am getting nervous,” said Lady Haigh to herself, “and I have always been so proud of being absolutely without nerves! I won’t give in to it. What is there to be frightened about? Georgia has gone to the Palace over and over again, and I have never minded it a bit.”
Nevertheless, she wandered desolately from the sick-room to the terrace and back again several times, and heaved a sigh of relief when she caught a glimpse through the archway of a bustle in the outer court, and gathered that the Vizier was taking his leave. Presently Stratford and Dick came in sight, and she had just time to decide that she would not trouble them with her ridiculous fancies, before they mounted the steps.
“Well, had Fath-ud-Din anything new to propose?” she asked.
“Oh no,” returned Stratford, with ineffable weariness. “It was the same old game all through. He wanted to bribe us to sign his treaty, or he didn’t mind our bribing him to sign ours. He has raised his terms, though—I think he imagines that we are of a more squeezable disposition than the Chief. He wants ten thousand pounds for himself, and a written promise that the Government will support Antar Khan in case of the King’s death. A little secret treaty all to himself would just meet his views.”
“He is really very tiresome,” said Lady Haigh, sympathetically. “One feels so dreadfully undignified staying on like this, when he is always making such insulting offers. I don’t want to interfere in your department, Mr Stratford, but if we hear nothing soon—say to-day or to-morrow—from Jahan Beg, would it not be advisable to think about sending a messenger to report our position at Fort Rahmat-Ullah?”