Highly pleased, Mrs Jardine gave him a tap with her fan. "Oh, you quiet young men are just as naughty as the rest—with your compliments, indeed! But if I were to repeat to you what a little bird told me, you would never, never betray me?" Earnest assurances on Gerrard's part. "Well, then, I hear that Miss Cinnamond is not very happy at home!"
"I am sorry to hear it," said Gerrard mechanically.
Mrs Jardine looked a little nonplussed. "Of course it is very sad," she admitted. "But surely it has its brighter side? The fact is, the General and dear Lady Cinnamond are everything to each other. There is really no place for the poor girl. I confess she has made her mother wear caps like other people—makes them for her herself, I believe—instead of that extraordinary Popish veil—so like a nun's, I call it—though even she has not been able to get her to do anything to her hair." Like most of her contemporaries, Mrs Jardine regarded it as almost indecent to display grey or white hair, and herself wore a "front" which could hardly be considered an attempt at deception, so transparently artificial was it.
"You were saying something about caps?" hazarded Gerrard, as Mrs Jardine remained silent, apparently sunk in contemplation of the persistent defects of Lady Cinnamond's appearance.
"Oh yes, of course. Dear me, what was it? Oh, I remember. Well, you see, though it is very good and loving of her to do it"—Gerrard had to cast his mind back to discover what "it" was—"and must be a great saving of expense, with the Calcutta shops so frightfully dear, and boxes from home quite out of the question—though on the General's pay and allowances, of course—— Still, as I was saying, no parents with any proper feeling would wish a girl to remain single just for that reason, would they? And she has had so many offers—which is only natural in a society like this, with Sir Arthur's position and title and everything. It must be a great blow to him, I am sure, this honour conferred on Colonel Antony." Gerrard looked, as he felt, bewildered, not seeing the connection, since Colonel Antony had no marriageable daughter. "Oh, you haven't heard that the dear Colonel has got his K.C.B.? They are all talking about it to-night—it was in the mail that came in this afternoon."
"I have not had time to open any newspapers," said Gerrard wearily. "I am glad to hear it, if the Antonys are pleased."
"Of course a mere worldly distinction of that sort could never make any real difference to dear Colonel Antony—Sir Edmund, I should say." Mrs Jardine's tone was severe. "But as a token of his Sovereign's approbation, it must raise his position among the people here."
"Nothing could ever raise Colonel Antony higher in the minds of the people who really know him," said Gerrard.
"All the more reason that he should have this honour to recommend him to those who do not," retorted Mrs Jardine triumphantly. "That is exactly what I was saying—— Dear me! what was I saying? Oh, I remember; we were discussing Lady Cinnamond's assumption of superiority—just a little out of place in the case of a foreigner—you agree with me? Well, what I was going to say was, why should Miss Cinnamond, who is not happy at home, refuse so many eligible suitors, if it was not that her heart is already engaged? There! I mustn't bore you any longer. Why, you are looking quite excited! Have I given you just one little tiny crumb of comfort? Don't thank me; doing kindnesses is my only pleasure."
The lavender moiré antique squeezed through the doorway with much crackling of unseen starched flounces, but Gerrard had no time to analyse the effect upon himself of the news he had received. Sir Arthur Cinnamond was his next visitor, confirming the news of Colonel Antony's knighthood, and then came Captain Cowper to tell his chief that the acting-Resident was asking for him, and lingering to thank Gerrard, in the name of the whole Ranjitgarh force, for setting on foot such a capital little war as that with Agpur was bound to prove. The officer sent to bring Sher Singh to book could get no satisfaction from him, and was being kept fuming on the Agpur frontier in a most improper way, so that a punitive expedition was a practical certainty, and if Sir Arthur did not take the field in person, his son-in-law meant to get himself attached to some one who did, even if he had to go back to regimental employment.