CHAPTER III.
FELLOW-TRAVELLERS.
Dick went home that night in a highly unsettled state of mind. He was cherishing a vague and unreasonable feeling of resentment against his own absence from Khemistan during Georgia’s visit to the province. It would have been very pleasant to come upon that missionary camp during his own hurried expeditions from point to point in the unquiet district for which he was responsible; pleasant also to watch Miss Keeling in her dealings with the people, among whom her father’s name was a synonym for all that was just and honourable. Perhaps, if he had met her again at that time, before she had been spoilt by her medical training, things might have fallen out differently for both of them. He might even——
But this was a forbidden subject. What were such speculations to him? Long ago Miss Keeling had refused plainly enough to have anything to do with him, and now he had ceased to wish to have anything to do with her. He was a fool to be thinking so much about her, he told himself angrily. Desiring to divert his mind from such an unprofitable theme, he turned to Mabel, and inquired whether she had noticed his capture by Mrs Egerton’s stepmother. In the course of the evening, Mrs Anstruther, a cheerful, sprightly Irish lady, had manœuvred him into a corner, and then and there seized the opportunity of commending her boy solemnly to his care, having already intrusted the same precious charge to Lady Haigh and Georgia, Sir Dugald, Mr Stratford, and the doctor. Knowing this, Dick had tried to comfort her with the assurance that if a multiplicity of guardians could keep Fitz out of mischief, his safety ought to be secured.
“And that’s not all,” responded Mrs Anstruther, brightly, accepting the consolation at once, and looking across the room to the opposite corner, in which Miss Hervey’s fan was obviously shielding two faces, “for the dear boy is very old for his age. Sure an attachment to a good girl is one of the best safeguards a young man can have, and Fitz has that.”
As in duty bound, Dick applauded this sentiment, while venturing to suggest a doubt as to the permanency of such early attachments, especially in cases in which the lady’s age exceeded that of the gentleman by some five years; but Mrs Anstruther was rendered indignant by what she chose to consider as an implied aspersion on her son’s character, and retorted hotly that she hadn’t a doubt Fitz would come back from Kubbet-ul-Haj as deeply in love as ever, and she was thankful Lady Haigh and Miss Keeling were going to accompany the Mission. Women respected deep feelings of this kind, instead of sneering or joking about them, like men.
“And, of course you told her that your own experience had convinced you of the truth of that?” asked Mabel.
“Certainly not,” returned Dick, with dignity. “I merely said that I thought it depended a good deal on the woman.”
Mabel laughed with great enjoyment. “Guess where Georgie and I are going to-morrow morning?” she said.
“To your dressmaker’s, or to some sale.”
“Not a bit of it. We are going to a shooting-gallery, to try a little revolver-practice. Now, don’t look disgusted, because you know you would give anything to go with us. If you had behaved sensibly I would take you, but you have been so horrid to Georgie that I shan’t.”