Horror-stricken, Eveleen realised that she had not recovered her gold-mounted whip—the gift of the hunt on her marriage. “It’s gone—lost!” she said despairingly. “I must go back—or another day, perhaps—and look for it.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort. I understand, Sardar Sahib, there’s a small matter of money between us. It shall be sent to your quarters in an hour without fail. But I am still infinitely your debtor.”
“The obligation is on my side, sahib. May you be fortunate!” and with due interchange of compliments the two parties separated.
“This is the last time you’ll ride out without an escort, my dear!” said Richard pleasantly. “It’s clear you ain’t able to take care of yourself. That’s the Yankee chap who commands the Khans’ Artillery, I presume? How did he contrive to be on the spot so pat?”
“How would I know?” listlessly. “But it’s English he is—not American. I know him.”
“You have the most extraordinary set of acquaintances of any female I have ever met! He gives himself out as American—that’s all I know. Where have you seen him before?”
“He used to follow the hounds one season, a few years ago. ’Twas just when Pickwick was coming out, and everybody called him Mr Winkle, for he’d turn up on the most hopeless crocks you ever saw, and as often on the ground as in the saddle. Some sort of attorney’s clerk he was—hunting up evidence or something, but it wasn’t much he got, unless he found it in the mud.”
“His riding has improved since then, evidently—or he rides better horses,” drily. “What became of him?”
“My dear Ambrose, how would I know? I did hear a rumour that he had got into some trouble and enlisted, but ’twas likely nothing but scandal.”
“And then got into some more trouble and deserted—eh?”