“Honestly, sir, I should infinitely prefer to leave her in the charge of Mr Franks, but I can’t flatter myself she would remain there unless she chose.”
“Precisely. And to embark on adventures of her own selection in a country swarming with enemies might entail consequences that would load us with remorse for the rest of our days—and none more than myself. She shall accompany you and the force, but I will give her a little good advice first.”
“May I say, General, how deeply I deplore that Mrs Ambrose’s conduct should require to engage your attention at such a moment?”
“Nonsense, my good fellow! I have often thought you don’t half appreciate your good fortune in finding yourself linked to a lady happily endowed with perennial youth. Now don’t look for a nasty meaning when I intend a compliment of a sort, but do me the favour to find out whether Bayard has any more maggots in his brain.”
This meant that Eveleen became Sir Henry’s companion. She did so with a certain diffidence, for it had begun to dawn upon her that her presence was not precisely welcome. Possibly Captain Crosse had aided her to make the discovery by a muttered remark about charming ladies who would poke their noses in where they weren’t wanted. He had said from the first that European women had no business in Khemistan, she might remember? She did remember, but would not flatter him by acknowledging it, nor take any notice now when he murmured what sounded like “something like a wigging!” The news of Tom Carthew’s death had subdued her a good deal, so that the severe glance Sir Harry turned upon her did not, as it would generally have done, pique her to fresh flightiness.
“And pray, ma’am, why did you force yourself into Colonel Bayard’s mission to Qadirabad?” he asked her.
She scorned the quibble that the Colonel had said he would welcome her presence. “Ah, now, Sir Harry, wouldn’t you have found Sahar dull if you’d been me?”
“Was that your sole reason, pray?”
“Not a bit of it. Ambrose wouldn’t take me with him to Sultankot, so I told him the next time I’d come without asking. And I did.”
“I see. That you might boast a cheap triumph over your husband, you chose to double—or at least to add very largely to my anxieties at this time?”