“Oh, but I don’t think he meant it.”
“Then he has nothing to do but to say so. You had far better bring about an explanation, and have it over. It is certainly Major North’s turn to eat humble pie, and it will do him a world of good, and smooth your path very much in the future. Take my advice, dear, and let him see (or at any rate think) that you are prepared to abide by what he said.”
It was with great reluctance that Georgia consented to follow her friend’s counsel; but when she thought it over its wisdom commended itself to her, and she decided to carry it out rigorously, with results which seemed very hard to Dick. He only saw his doctor once a-day, and then she persisted in ignoring sternly all his attempts to extend the scope of the conversation beyond the business in hand. Then she discontinued her visits altogether, and the only explanation his bearer could offer was that the Doctor Miss Sahiba was very busy, and he supposed that she took no more interest in the protector of the poor now that he was so much better. It was the same when Stratford and Fitz came to see him. They agreed that Miss Keeling was very busy, and seemed rather surprised that he should ask after her. It even appeared to him that there was a slight constraint in their tones when they answered his questions. Dick pondered over the mystery without any satisfactory result for two days, and then announced that he was going to get up, and demanded his clothes. The bearer had anticipated this step, and replied promptly that the entire wardrobe of the protector of the poor was at the moment in the hands of a tailor in the town, to whom he had intrusted it for needed repairs, and who preferred to execute them on his own premises. Hari Das invited his master’s reproofs for his own remissness in postponing the operation for so long, but to his dismay discovered that Dick declined to be drawn into a tirade on the vices of bearers in general, illustrated from his experience of this particular specimen. He was too much in earnest in his determination to have time to waste in useless altercations, and, moreover, he knew his man.
“Ask the chota sahib to come to me,” he said. “I will borrow a suit of his clothes.”
The bearer looked blank.
“But the chota sahib’s clothes will not fit my lord,” he objected.
“That doesn’t signify,” said Dick. “Fit or no fit, I am going to get up,” and he only smiled in secret when the bearer returned after a short absence with one of his own suits, and announced that the tailor had brought it back unexpectedly soon. He found himself much weaker than he had anticipated as he dressed, but he disregarded the bearer’s doleful assurances that he would kill himself, and declined to return to his couch, although he was glad to accept the support of the servant’s arm as he crossed the hall and entered the passage leading into the harem. Lady Haigh, writing her home letters busily at a camp-table (for letter-writing had been dropped by common, though unexpressed consent, during those past days, when it seemed unlikely that either the letters or their writers would ever reach home), looked up in astonishment when he came in, and made haste to arrange a comfortable place for him with cushions upon the divan, remarking that he had better lie still and rest for a little and not talk. But this was not what Dick had come for.
“Lady Haigh, where is Georgie?” he asked, the moment after the bearer had departed.
“Well, I think she is busy just now,” Lady Haigh replied, with distinct coldness in her manner. As a matter of fact, at that moment Georgia was sitting outside on the terrace with Sir Dugald, who had by this time been promoted to a knowledge of the whereabouts of his party, and was entertaining him with an account of her visit to Bir-ul-Malikat and of the charms of Khadija.
“Every person that I have asked about her for the last three days has told me exactly that!” said Dick, with a good deal of indignation in his tone. “I should like to see her, if you please,” he went on, in the voice of one determined to obtain his just rights.