MR. JERVIS

NEW NOVELS AT ALL LIBRARIES.

AT MARKET VALUE. By Grant Allen. 2 vols.

RACHEL DENE. By Robert Buchanan. 2 vols.

A COUNTRY SWEETHEART. By Dora Russell. 3 vols.

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LOURDES. By E. Zola. 1 vol.

ROMANCES OF THE OLD SERAGLIO. By H. N. Crellin. 1 vol.

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THE SCORPION. A Romance of Spain. By E. A. Vizetelly. 1 vol.

London: CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly.

MR. JERVIS

BY
B. M. CROKER
AUTHOR OF
“PRETTY MISS NEVILLE,” “DIANA BARRINGTON,” “A BIRD OF PASSAGE,”
“A FAMILY LIKENESS,” ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.

London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1894

“Lord of himself, though not of lands;

And having nothing, yet hath all.”

Sir H. Wotton.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

MR. JERVIS.

CHAPTER XVII.
“TAKE A FRIEND’S ADVICE.”

Sarabella Brande was a truly proud woman, as she concluded an inspection of her niece, ere the young lady started to make her first appearance in public. There was not a fault to be found in that fresh white dress, pretty hat, neat gloves, and parasol—except that she would have liked just a bit more colour; but what Honor lacked in this respect, her aunt made up generously in her own person, in the shape of a cobalt blue silk, heavily trimmed with gold embroidery, and a vivid blue and yellow bonnet. Two rickshaws were in attendance, a grand new one on indiarubber tires, and four gaudy jampannis, all at the “Miss Sahib’s” service. Mrs. Brande led the way, bowling down the smooth club road at the rate of seven miles an hour, lying back at an angle of forty-five degrees, her bonnet-feathers waving triumphantly over the back of her vehicle. The club was the centre, the very social heart or pulse of Shirani. It contained rooms for reading, writing, dancing, for playing cards or billiards, or for drinking tea.

Outside ran a long verandah, lined with ill-shaped wicker chairs, overlooking the tennis courts and gardens, and commanding a fine view of the snows.

The six tennis courts were full, the band of the Scorpions was playing the last new gavotte, when Mrs. Brande walked up with head in the air, closely followed by her niece and Captain Waring. She felt that every eye, and especially Mrs. Langrishe’s eye, was on her, and was fully equal to the occasion. Mrs. Langrishe, faultlessly attired in a French costume, and looking the picture of elegant fastidiousness, murmured to her companion, Sir Gloster Sandilands—

“Not a bad-looking girl, really; not at all unpresentable, but sallow,” and she smiled with deadly significance, little supposing that her faint praise attracted the baronet to Honor on the spot. Then she rose, and rustled down with much frow-frowing of silken petticoats, and accosted her rival with expressions of hypocritical delight.

“Where have you been?” she inquired. “We thought you were in quarantine; but when I look at you, I need not ask how you are? Pray introduce your niece to me. I hope she and Lalla will be immense allies.” As she spoke, she was closely scrutinizing every item of Honor’s appearance, and experiencing an unexpected pang.

The girl was a lady, she had a graceful figure, and a bright clever face; and the old woman had not been suffered to dress her! Even her captious eye could find no fault in that simple toilet.

“How do you do, Miss Gordon? Had you a good passage out?” she asked urbanely.

“Yes, thank you.”

“You came out in the Arcadia, and most likely with a number of people I know, the Greys, the Bruces, the Lockyers.”

“No doubt I did. There were three hundred passengers.”

“And no doubt you had a very good time, and enjoyed yourself immensely.”

“No, I cannot fancy any one enjoying themselves on board ship,” rejoined Honor, with a vivid recollection of fretful children to wash and dress, and keep out of harm’s way.

“Oh!” with a pitying, half-contemptuous smile, “seasick the whole way?”

Honor shook her head.

“Well, I see you won’t commit yourself,” with a playful air, “but I shall hear all about you from the Greys,” and she nodded significantly, as much as to say, “Pray do not imagine that any of your enormities will be hidden from me!”

“Lalla!” to her niece, who was the centre of a group of men, “come here, and be introduced to Miss Gordon.”

Lalla reluctantly strolled forward, with the air of a social martyr.

“I think we have met before,” said Honor, frankly extending her hand.

Miss Paske stared with a sort of blank expression, and elevating her eyebrows drawled—

“I think not.” But she also made a quick little sign.

Unfortunately for her, she had to deal with a girl who could not read such signals, who answered in a clear, far-carrying voice—

“Oh, don’t you remember? I met you the other morning before breakfast up among the pine woods; you walking with Mr. Joy—surely you recollect how desperately our dogs fought!”

Lalla felt furious with this blundering idiot, and hated her bitterly from that day forth.

Mrs. Langrishe was made aware of Lalla’s early promenades for the first time, and her lips tightened ominously. She did not approve of these morning tête-à-têtes with an impecunious feather-head, like Toby Joy.

“Ah, yes, now that you mention it I do recollect,” responded Miss Paske, with an air which implied that the fact of the meeting required a most exhaustive mental effort. “But you were in deshabille, you see” (this was a malicious and mendacious remark), “and you look so very different when you are dressed up! How do you think you will like India?”

“It is too soon to know as yet.”

“I see you have the bump of caution,” with a little sneer; “now I make up my mind to like or dislike a place or a person on the spot. I suppose you are fond of riding?”

“I have never ridden since I was a child, but I hope to learn.”

“Then that mount on Captain Waring’s pony was your first attempt. How ridiculous you did look! I’m afraid you are rather too old to learn riding now. Can you dance?”

“Yes, I am very fond of dancing.”

“How many ball dresses did you bring out?” demanded Miss Paske.

“Only three,” replied the other, apologetically.

“Oh, they will be ample. India is not what it was. Girls sit out half the night. Don’t let your aunt choose your frocks for you, my dear—indeed, we will all present you with a vote of thanks if you will choose hers. I’ve such a painful sense of colour, that a crude combination always hurts me. Just look at that chuprassi, in bright scarlet, standing against a blazing magenta background—of Bourgainvillia—the contrast is an outrage. I must really ask some one to get the man to move on. Here comes Sir Gloster. We will go and appeal to him together,” and she walked off.

“I suppose that is the latest arrival?” said Sir Gloster, a big heavy-looking young man, who wore loose-fitting clothes, a shabby soft felt hat, and rolled as he walked.

“Yes—that is Miss Gordon, Mrs. Brande’s niece. She has half a dozen, and wrote home for one, and they say she asked for the best looking; and people here, who have nick-names for every one, call her ‘the sample.’”

“Excellent!” ejaculated Sir Gloster, “and a first-class sample. She might tell them to furnish a few more on the same pattern.”

“I expect we shall find one quite enough for the present,” rejoined Miss Paske rather dryly.

“Have all the people nick-names?”

“Most of them; those who are in any way remarkable,” she answered, as they paced up and down. “That red-faced man over there is called ‘Sherry,’ and his wife—I don’t see her—‘Bitters.’ Captain Waring, who is abnormally rich, is called ‘the millionaire;’ his cousin, the fair young man in flannels, who keeps rather in the background, is ‘the poor relation;’ Miss Clegg is known as ‘the dâk bungalow fowl,’ because she is so bony, and the four Miss Abrahams, who always sit in a row, and are, as you notice, a little dark, are ‘the snowy range.’”

“Excellent!” ejaculated Sir Gloster.

“That man that you see drinking coffee,” pursued the sprightly damsel, “with the great flat mahogany face, is ‘the Europe Ham’—is it not a lovely name? Those two Miss Valpys, the girls with the short hair and immense expanse of shirt fronts, are called ‘the lads;’ that red-headed youth is known as ‘the pink un,’ and the two Mrs. Robinsons are respectively, ‘good Mrs. Robinson’ and ‘pretty Mrs. Robinson.’”

“Excellent!” repeated the baronet once more. “And no doubt you and I—at any rate I—have been fitted with a new name, and all that sort of thing?”

“Oh no,” shaking her head. “Besides,” with a sweetly flattering smile, “there is nothing to ridicule about you.”

She was certainly not going to tell him that he was called “Double Gloster,” in reference to his size.

Sir Gloster Sandilands was about thirty years of age, rustic in his ideas, simple in his tastes, narrow in his views. He was the only son of his mother, a widow, who kept him in strict order. He was fond of ladies’ society, and of music; and, being rather dull and heavy, greatly appreciated a pretty, lively, and amusing companion. Companions of this description were not unknown to him at home, but as they were generally as penniless as they were charming, the dowager Lady Sandilands kept them and their fascinations at an impracticable distance. She trusted to his sister, Mrs. Kane, to look strictly after her treasure whilst under her roof; but Mrs. Kane was a great deal too much occupied with her own affairs to have any time to bestow on her big brother, who surely was old enough to take care of himself! He was enchanted with India; and the change from a small county club and confined local surroundings, the worries of a landlord and magistrate, to this exquisite climate and scenery, and free, novel, roving life was delightful. He had spent the cold weather in the plains, and had come up to Shirani to visit his sister, as well as to taste the pleasures of an Indian hill station.

Meanwhile Mrs. Brande had introduced her niece to a number of people; and, seeing her carried off by young Jervis, to look on at the tennis, had sunk into a low chair and abandoned herself to a discussion with another matron.

From this she was ruthlessly disturbed by Mrs. Langrishe.

“Excuse me, dear, but you are sitting on the World.”

“Oh no, indeed, I’m sure I am not,” protested the lady promptly, being reluctant to heave herself out of her comfortable seat.

“Well, please to look,” rather sharply.

“There!” impatiently, “you see it is not here. I don’t know why you should think that I was sitting on it.”

“I suppose,” with a disagreeable smile, “I naturally suspected you, because you sit on every one!” And then she moved off, leaving her opponent gasping.

“I never knew such an odious woman,” she cried, almost in tears. “She hustles me about and snaps at me, and yet she will have the face to write down and borrow all my plated side-dishes and ice machine the first time she has a dinner, but that is not often, thank goodness.”

In the meanwhile Honor had been leaning over a rustic railing watching a tennis match in which her uncle was playing. He was an enthusiast, played well, and looked amazingly young and active.

“So you have been making friends, I see,” observed Jervis.

“I don’t know about friends,” she repeated doubtfully, thinking of Lalla. “But I’ve been introduced to several people.”

“That verandah is an awful place. Waring has extraordinary nerve to sit there among all those strangers. I am much too shy to venture within a mile of it.”

“I believe he is quite at home, and has met no end of acquaintances. Have you paid any visits yet?”

“No; only one or two that he dragged me out to. I’m not a society man.”

“And how will you put in your time?”

“I’m fond of rackets and tennis. Your uncle has given me a general invitation to his courts. Do you think we could get up a game to-morrow—your uncle and I, and you and Miss Paske—or Mrs. Sladen?”

“Yes; if we could get Mrs. Sladen.”

“Not Miss Paske? Don’t you like her?” with a twinkle in his eye.

“It is too soon to say whether I like her or not; but she did not think it too soon to ridicule my aunt to me.”

“Well, Miss Gordon, I’ll tell you something. I don’t care about Miss Paske.”

“Why?” she asked quickly.

“Because she snubs me so ferociously. It was the same in Calcutta. By the way, how delighted she was just now, when you, with an air most childlike and bland, informed her aunt and most of Shirani of her pleasant little expeditions with young Joy.”

“Ought I not to have said anything?” inquired Honor, turning a pair of tragic eyes upon him. “Oh, that is so like me, always blundering into mistakes. But I never dreamt that I was—was——”

“Letting cats out of bags, eh?” he supplemented quietly.

“No, indeed; and it seemed so odd that she did not remember meeting me only three days ago.”

“You were thoroughly determined that she should not forget it, and we will see if she ever forgives you. Here comes old Sladen,” as a heavy figure loomed in view, crunching down the gravel, and leaning on the railings in a manner that tested them severely, he looked down upon the gay groups, and six tennis courts, in full swing. Colonel Sladen had an idea that blunt rudeness, administered in a fatherly manner, was pleasing to young women of Miss Gordon’s age, and he said—

“So I hear you came up with the great catch of the season. Ha, ha, ha! And got the start of all the girls in the place, eh?”

“Great catch?” she repeated, with her delicate nose high in the air.

“Well, don’t look as if you were going to shoot me! I mean the millionaire—that fellow Waring. He seems to be rolling in coin now, but I used to know him long ago when he had not a stiver. He used to gamble——”

“This is his cousin, Mr. Jervis,” broke in Honor, precipitately.

“Oh, indeed,” casting an indifferent glance at Jervis. “Well, it’s not a bad thing to be cousin to a millionaire.”

“How do you know that he is a millionaire?” inquired the young man coolly.

“Oh, I put it to him, and he did not deny the soft impeachment. He has just paid a top price for a couple of weight-carrying polo ponies—I expect old Byng stuck it on.”

“The fact of buying polo ponies goes for nothing. If that were a test, you might call nearly every subaltern in India a millionaire,” rejoined Jervis with a smile.

Colonel Sladen merely stared at the speaker with an air of solemn contempt, threw the stump of his cheroot into a bush of heliotrope, and, turning once more to Honor, said—

“You see all our smartest young men down there, Miss Gordon—at your feet in one sense, and they will be there in another, before long. I can tell you all about them—it’s a good thing for a strange young lady to know how the land lies, and get the straight tip, and know what are trumps.”

“What do you mean?” asked Honor, frigidly.

“Oh, come now,” with an odious chuckle, “you know what I mean. I want to point you out some of the people, and, as I am the oldest resident, you could not be in better hands. There’s Captain Billings of the Bays, the fellow with the yellow cap, playing with Miss Clover, the prettiest girl here——”

He paused, to see if the shot told, or if the statement would be challenged; but no.

“That is Toby Joy, who acts and dances and ought to be in a music-hall, instead of in the service. There is Jenkins of the Crashers, the thin man with a red belt; very rich. His father made the money in pigs or pills—not what you’d call aristocratic, but he is well gilded. Then there is Alston of the Gray Rifles—good-looking chap, eldest son; and Howard of the Queen’s Palfreys—old family, heaps of tin; but he drinks. Now, which of these young men are you going to set your cap at?”

“None of them,” she answered with pale dignity.

“Oh, come! I’ll lay you five to one you are married by this time next year.”

“No—not by this time five years.”

“Nonsense! Then what did you come out for, my dear young lady? You won’t throw dust in the eyes of an old ‘Qui hye’ like me, who has seen hundreds of new spins in his day? I suppose you think you have come out to be a comfort to your aunt and uncle? Not a bit of it! You have come out to be a comfort to some young man. Take a friend’s advice,” lowering his voice to a more confidential key, “and keep your eye steadily on the millionaire.”

“Colonel Sladen,” her lips trembling with passion, her eyes blazing with wrath, “I suppose you are joking, and think all this very funny. It does not amuse me in the least; on the contrary, I—I think it is a pitiable thing to find a man of your age so wanting in good taste, and talking such vulgar nonsense!”

“Do you really?” in a bantering tone, and not a wit abashed—in fact, rather pleased than otherwise. “No sense of respect for your elders! Ho, ho, ho! No sense of humour, eh? Why, I believe you are a regular young fire-ship! We shall be having the whole place in a blaze—a fire-Brande, that’s a joke, eh?—not bad. I see Tombs beckoning; he has got up a rubber at last, thank goodness! Sorry to tear myself away. Think over my advice. Au revoir,” and he departed, chuckling.

“Did you ever know such a detestable man?” she exclaimed, turning to Jervis with tears of anger glittering in her eyes.

“Well, once or twice it did occur to me to heave him over the palings—if I was able.”

Honor burst into an involuntary laugh, as she thought of their comparative weight.

“He did it on purpose to draw you, and he has riled you properly.”

“To think of his being the husband of such a woman as Mrs. Sladen! Oh, I detest him! Imagine his having the insolence to make out that every girl who comes to India is nothing but a scheming, mercenary, fortune-hunter! I am glad he pointed out all the rich men!”

“May I ask why?” inquired her somewhat startled companion.

“Because, of course, I shall take the greatest possible care never to know one of them.”

“So poverty, for once, will have its innings? You will not taboo the younger sons?”

“No; only good matches and great catches,” with vicious emphasis. “Hateful expressions! Mr. Jervis, I give you fair warning that, if you were rich, I would never speak to you again. You are laughing!”

He certainly was laughing. As he leant his head down on his arms, his shoulders shook unmistakably.

“Perhaps,” in an icy tone, “when your amusement has subsided, you will be good enough to take me back to my aunt!”

“Oh, Miss Gordon!” suddenly straightening himself, and confronting her with a pair of suspiciously moist eyes, “I must have seemed extremely rude, and I humbly beg your pardon. I was laughing at—at my own thoughts, and your wrathful indignation was such that—that——”

“You had better not say any more,” she interrupted; “you will only make matters worse.” Then added with a dawning smile, “It is what I always do myself. I speak from experience.”

“Promise me one thing,” he urged—“that you will not drop me when you are weeding out your acquaintance.”

“Pray, why should I drop you? My new rule does not apply to you. Are you a millionaire?” And she broke into a laugh.

A keener observer than the young lady would have noticed a shade of embarrassment in his glance as, after a moment’s hesitation, he said—

“I am quite an old Indian friend now, at any rate—almost your first acquaintance.”

“Yes, I admit all that; but you must not presume on our ancient friendship. I warn you solemnly that the next time you laugh at me—laugh until you actually cry—our relations will be—strained.”

It was becoming dark, the fires were visibly increasing on the distant hills, the first mess bugle had gone. There was a general getting into rickshaws, and calling for ponies, and presently the club was empty, the formidable verandahs deserted, and all the red-capped little tennis-boys went trooping home.

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE TABLE OF PRECEDENCE.

Time wore on; Honor was becoming familiarized with her new surroundings, had picked up some useful Hindustani words, made a round of calls, and shown that she had no mean skill at tennis. And Mrs. Brande had demonstrated that she was not a woman of words only. She had given young Jervis a general and urgent invitation to her house—moreover, he found favour in her husband’s eyes. He was a fine, well-set-up, gentlemanly young fellow, a keen tennis player, with no haw-haw humbug about him, therefore the Honourable Pelham heartily endorsed his wife’s hospitality.

As for Captain Waring, alas! the three days’ travelling intimacy—like steamer friendships—had flickered, and flickered, and sunk down, and died. Mrs. Brande’s state-dinners were unimpeachable, but desperately dull; and she was not in the “smart” set; her niece was far too downright and raw; her sincere grey eyes had a way of looking at him that made him feel uncomfortable—a blasé, world-battered, selfish mortal. She had a sharp tongue, too, and no fortune; therefore he went over to the enemy’s camp, and followed the standard of Mrs. Langrishe.

The first grand entertainment at which Honor had appeared was a large, solemn dinner-party, given by the chief medical officer in Shirani. There were to be thirty guests. This much Mrs. Brande’s cook had gleaned from Mrs. Loyd’s khansamah when he came to borrow jelly-tins and ice-spoons. Mrs. Brande delighted in these formal dinners, where she could enjoy herself most thoroughly as chief guest and experienced critic; and she looked forward to this feast with what seemed to her niece an almost infantile degree of glee and happy anticipation.

Mr. Brande was absent, but even had he been at home he was never enthusiastic respecting these functions. His wife had complained to Mrs. Sladen, “that he got into his evening clothes and bad humour at one and the same time,” save when he dined at home.

“You will wear your white silk, Honor,” observed her aunt, “and I my new pink brocade, with the white lace. I’m really curious to see what sort of a turn-out Mrs. Loyd will have. She has the Blacks’ old cook, and they never gave a decent dinner; but then Mrs. Black was stingy—she grudged a glass of wine for sauce, and never allowed more than half an anna a head for soup-meat. Now Mrs. Loyd is getting up fish from Bombay, so I fancy she means to do the thing properly. Have you ever been to a dinner-party, child?”

“No; not what you would call a party—six at the most; but I have come in after dinner.”

“Fie! fie! that is poor fun,” cried Mrs. Brande, with great scorn. “I should just like to see any one asking my niece to come after dinner! I wonder who will take you in? I know most of the people who are going, for I always read their names in the peon’s book when I get invitations. There will be Captain Waring, and young Jervis, and Sir Gloster Sandilands. I hope Captain Waring will take you in.”

“Oh, I hope not, aunt; he and I do not suit one another at all.”

“Why not?” rather sharply.

“I’ve not sufficient ‘go’ in me. I can’t talk about the people he knows. I’m not smart, or up to date. I can’t say amusing things like Miss Paske; I am merely a stupid little country mouse!”

“And she is a little cat!” with a quick nod. “Well, I must say I’d fifty times rather have Jervis myself. He has such nice manners—different to other young men, who come to my house, and eat and drink of the best, and scarcely look at me afterwards. There was that Thorpe; he never even got off his chair when I spoke to him at the club. I know I’m not a lady born—my father was a wheelwright—but he and his had been in the same place three hundred years. Still, I have my feelings, and that Thorpe, though he may be a lord’s son, is no gentleman. He thought I was deaf, and I heard him say to a man, when I was on his arm—

“‘I’m going to supper the old girl.’

“‘Not this old girl, thank you, sir,’ said I, and I drew back and went and sat down again. ’Ow he does ’ate me, to be sure. Well, Honor, I wish you a pleasant partner, for these dinners are long affairs.”

“Are they indeed, aunt? I am sorry to hear it.”

“If they bring the entrées in after the joint, which is new-fashioned and leading to mistakes, we are stuck for two mortal hours. These native servants are the ten plagues of Egypt. Once—oh lor! I shall never forget the lady’s face—I saw a man handing round mashed potatoes as an entrée—all alone! Once I saw a wretch offering mustard in a breakfast-cup, and the mistress having splendid silver cruet-stands. Of course he had some spite against her. It’s on these occasions they pay you out, when they know you are tied hand and foot. As for myself, I am all right, being senior lady—the doctor takes me. Mrs. Langrishe for once will be nowhere, for the Loyds (she being a commissioner’s daughter) know what’s what. They have the rules of precedence at their fingers’ ends, but anyway I can always lend them this,” and she took up a book bound in blue paper, and began to read aloud—

“‘All wives take place according to the rank assigned to their respective husbands.’ Do they indeed!” she snorted. “I’d like to know how many times Mrs. Langrishe has walked through that rule? Now my husband, being a member of council, comes next to a bishop. Do you see, Honor?”

“Yes, Aunt Sara.”

“Whilst Mrs. Langrishe ranks below political agents of twelve years’ standing. And I’m not at all sure that she ought to go in before the educational department, second class.”

“No, aunt,” replied Honor, endeavouring to look wise, and marvelling much at Mrs. Brande’s enthusiasm. Her colour had risen, her eyes shone, as she energetically brandished the pamphlet in her hand.

The great day arrived at last. People in Shirani did not give long invitations, and Mrs. Brande, in her new pink brocade, wearing all her diamonds, and a cap with three lofty pink plumes, departed in good time along with her niece, who wore her new white silk, and brought her violin—by special request.

Mrs. Loyd received them with effusion, the room was half full of the élite of Shirani wearing their best clothes, and their blandest official manners. Honor noticed Major and Mrs. Langrishe, Sir Gloster Sandilands, Captain Waring, Mr. Jervis, Captain Noble, the Padre and his wife, the Cantonment Magistrate and his wife, the Colonel commanding the Scorpions, and many others. It was a most solemn official party. Presently the dining-room door was flung wide, and a magnificent servant salaamed and said—

“Khana, mez pur;” i.e. “dinner is served.”

Mrs. Brande half rose from her seat, and smiled encouragingly at her host.

But—what was this? He was offering his arm to an insignificant little person in black, who was barely thirty years of age, and a complete stranger! Mrs. Brande, as she subsequently expressed it, “turned goose-flesh all over.”

What an affront, before the whole station, or at least the best part of it; and there was Mrs. Langrishe looking at her with, oh! such an odious smile. Well, at any rate she would not give her the satisfaction of seeing her break down or fly out. That smile was a stimulant, and rising, after some moments’ distinctly perceptible hesitation—during which the spectators almost held their breath—she accepted the escort of the gentleman who had humbly bowed himself before her, and with a dangerous-looking toss of her plumes, surged slowly into the dining-room.

She was conducted to a conspicuous place; but what of that? Nothing—no, not even a gilded chair, with a coronet on the back, would now appease or please her. Declining soup with a haughty gesture, she leant back and gazed about her scornfully. Yes, there was a distinct smell of Kerosine oil—one of the Khitmatghars wore a dirty coat; that was Mrs. Sladen’s claret jug, and most of the forks were borrowed. As for the dinner, she sent away dish after dish with ill-concealed contempt, slightly varying the monotony of this proceeding by leaving conspicuous helpings untasted on her plate—knowing well, that such behaviour is pain and grief to a hostess. Even the host noticed her scanty appetite, and remarked in his loud cheery voice—

“Why, Mrs. Brande, you are eating nothing.”

“Indeed,” she leant forward and called out, “I’m so far from you, I wonder you can notice it;” adding to this extremely ungracious reply, “I’ve no appetite this evening,” and she flung herself once more back in her chair, and waved her fan to and fro, passionately—not to say furiously.

There, to aggravate her still further, was that Lalla Paske opposite, sitting between Sir Gloster and Captain Waring, and ogling and carrying on. Little reptile! she would like to throw a plate at her. Honor was on Sir Gloster’s other hand, looking, as her aunt mentally noted, very “distangay” and animated. The baronet seemed to be greatly struck, and talked away incessantly; and this was the one miserable crumb of comfort on which the poor lady dined!

Honor was not too engrossed with her own affairs not to notice that her aunt appeared most dreadfully put out about something, and was looking exceedingly flushed and angry.

In fact, Miss Paske—good-natured, kind little soul—leant over, and said to her, “Have you noticed Mrs. Brande? Does she not look extraordinary? Her face is so red, and swelled up, I really believe she is going to have a fit of some sort! She is neither eating nor speaking.”

However, during dessert Mrs. Brande found her tongue. There was a general discussion on the subject of Christian names, and some one said that “Honor was a nice old-fashioned one.”

“Oh,” cried Lalla, “I think it hideous! You don’t mind, do you, Miss Gordon? How angry I should have been if my godfathers and godmothers had given it to me! It has such an abrupt sound, and is so very goody-goody.”

Mrs. Brande, who had hitherto refused to talk to her neighbour, even in the most ordinary way, to discuss the weather, the great diamond case, or the state of the rupee, now suddenly burst out—

“Anyway, it has a decent meaning; and if it is goody-goody, yours is not. I believe there was once a Miss Rooke, who had the same name, and was fond of play-acting and singing, and by all accounts no great shakes.”

In just alarm, Mrs. Loyd made a hasty signal, and the ladies arose as if worked by one spring, and departed into the drawing-room in a body. Mrs. Brande immediately seated herself in a large armchair, where she sat aloof and alone, looking stern and unapproachable, as she slowly turned over an album of photographs. The book was upside down, but this was evidently immaterial.

Vainly did Mrs. Loyd come and stand before her, and abase herself; vainly did she endeavour to propitiate her. Poor deluded little woman!—it was mere waste of time and breath to praise Mrs. Brande’s dress, Mrs. Brande’s niece, or even to beg for a recipe for chutney.

“I can give you a recipe for manners,” observed the outraged matron, in an awful tone; “I will send you the table of precedence, and I will write to you to-morrow.”

On hearing this terrible threat, Mrs. Loyd’s blood ran cold,—for she was a woman of peace,—and at this juncture the men appeared slouching in by twos and threes—as is their wont. They discovered the ladies scattered in couples about the room, all save one, who sat in solitary majesty.

Captain Waring sauntered over to Lalla, and remarked, as he glanced significantly at Mrs. Brande, who was motionless as a cloud on a hot summer’s day—a cloud charged with electricity, “When I look round I am inclined to say with the kind-hearted child, when he was shown Doré’s picture, ‘There is one poor lion who has got no Christian!’”

“She is by no means so badly off as you imagine,” rejoined Lalla with a demure face. “She has nearly eaten the hostess—does she not look ferocious? Whom shall we throw to her for a fresh victim? She is frightfully angry because she was not taken in to dinner first. Poor creature, she has so very little dignity, that she is always taking the greatest care of it. Hurrah! Hurrah! She is actually going. Oh, I am enormously amused.”

Yes, Mrs. Brande had already risen to depart. If not taken in first, she was firmly resolved to take this matter into her own hands, and to be the first to leave.

It was in vain that meek Mrs. Loyd pleaded that it was only half-past nine, that every one was looking forward to hearing Miss Gordon play, that she had promised to bring her violin.

“Surely, Mrs. Brande, you will not be so cruel as to take her away and disappoint the whole company!” urged Mrs. Loyd pathetically. “I am told that her violin-playing is marvellous.”

“The company have seen Miss Gordon’s aunt playing second fiddle all the evening, and that must content them for the present,” retorted Mrs. Brande, who was already in the verandah, robed in a superb long cloak, the very fur of which seemed to catch something of its owner’s spirit, and to bristle up about her ears, as with a sweeping inclination, and beckoning to Honor to follow her, she swept down the steps.

All the way home, and as they rolled along side by side, Mrs. Brande gave vent to her wrath, and allowed her injured feelings fair play. “Precedence” was her hobby, her one strong point. A woman might rob her, slander her, even strike her, sooner than walk out of a room before her. She assured her awestruck niece that she would write to “P.” before she slept that night, and unless she received an ample apology, the matter should go up to the Viceroy! What was the use of people getting on in the service, and earning rewards by years of hard work in bad climates and deadly jungles, if any one who liked might kick them down the ladder, as she had been kicked that evening!

“What,” she angrily continued, with voice pitched half an octave higher, “was the value of these appointments, or was it child’s play, and a new game? It would be a dear game to some people!”

She arrived at this conclusion and her own door simultaneously, and flinging off her wrap, and snatching a lamp from a terrified khitmatghar (who saw that the Mem Sahib was “Bahout Kuffa”), she hurried into her husband’s sanctum, and returned with a book.

“What was that person’s name, Honor?” she inquired; “did you happen to hear it?—the woman who was taken in first?”

“Mrs. Ringrose, I believe.”

“Ringrose, Ringrose,” hunting through the leaves with feverish haste. “Ye-es, here it is.”

“James—Walter—Ringrose—he is a member of council in Calcutta, and just one week senior to P.!” and she gazed at her niece with a face almost devoid of colour, and the expression of a naughty child who is desperately ashamed of herself. “So I’ve been in a tantrum, and missed my dinner and a pleasant evening, all for nothing! Well, to be sure, I’ve been a fine old fool,” throwing the book on the table. “But what brings Calcutta people up here?” she demanded pettishly.

“I think she is sister to some one in Shirani, and her husband has gone on to the snows, and left her here. Dear Aunt Sara,” continued Honor playfully, “why do you trouble your head about precedence? How can it matter how you go in to a meal, or where you sit?”

“My dear child, it’s in my very blood. I can’t help it; it is meat and drink to me; it is what a lover is to a girl, a coronet to a duchess, a medal to a soldier—it’s the outward and visible sign of P.’s deserts—and mine. And the sight of another woman sitting in my lawful place just chokes me. ‘A woman takes rank according to her husband,’ that seemed to be ringing in my ears all the evening. How was I to know her husband was in council too? However, I went in to dinner, that’s one comfort.” (It had not been much comfort to her cavalier). “At first I was in two minds to go straight home. I remember hearing of three ladies at a party, who each expected to go in with the host, and when he took one, the others got up and walked off supperless.”

“I think they were extremely foolish—they ought to have taken each other in arm-in-arm; it’s what I should have done,” said Honor emphatically.

“Yes, young people don’t care; but I can no more change than a leopard his skin, and a nigger his spots—well, you know what I mean. I am not always such a stickler, though—for instance, this very winter, when I happened to go into the ladies’ club at Alijore, and no one stood up to receive me, I took no notice, though I was so hurt that I scarcely closed an eye that night. Kiss me, dearie, and forgive me, as one of the party, for breaking up so early, and spoiling every one’s pleasure” (a supreme flight of imagination). “Maybe some day you will be touchy too.”

“Perhaps I may, but not about rank and precedence. Surely there is no precedence in heaven.”

“I’m not so certain of that,” rejoined Mrs. Brande; “an archangel is above an angel. However, I may leave my proud thoughts behind, for I shall have a lowly place—if I ever get there at all. Now, dear, I’m just starving; a morsel of fish and a spoonful of aspic was all I had. So call Bahadar Ali to get me some cold turkey and ham, and a glass of claret. Maybe you would take a pick too?”

“No indeed, thank you. I had a capital dinner.”

“And you found your partner pleasant?—a rising young civilian. I nursed him through typhoid, and I know him well. He draws twelve hundred a month. If you married him you would take the pas of Mrs. Langrishe.”

“Dear Auntie,” bursting out into a peal of laughter, “how funny you are! I am not going to marry any one; you must deliver me at home a single young woman.”

“What nonsense! However,” as if struck by a happy thought, “you might be engaged and still single; I saw you talking to Sir Gloster——”

“Yes, he is rather agreeable—he was telling me about his tour among the old cities of the Deccan. And——”

“And I noticed Miss Lalla trying to put in her spoon. What a pushing little monkey she is—her aunt’s very double!”

To show her penitence, instead of the letter she had threatened—which lay like a nightmare on poor Mrs. Loyd—Mrs. Brande sent restitution the next day in the form of a dozen pine-apples and a basket of fresh eggs. They were gladly accepted as peace-offerings, and Mrs. Loyd heard no more about “the table of precedence.”

CHAPTER XIX.
LET US TELL THE TRUTH.

A month had elapsed, and Shirani was as full and as gay as Miss Paske had predicted—there were dinners, dances, balls, theatricals, and picnics.

Visitors had shaken down into sets, and discovered whom they liked and whom they did not like. In a short hill season there is no time to waste on long-drawn-out overtures to acquaintance; besides, in India, society changes so rapidly, and has so many mutual friends—the result of so many different moves—that people know each other as intimately in six months as they would in six years in England. There were “sets” in Shirani, though not aggressively defined: the acting and musical set, which numbered as stars Miss Paske and Mr. Joy; also Captain Dashwood, of the Dappled Hussars; Mrs. Rolland, who had once been a matchless actress, but was now both deaf and quarrelsome; and many other lesser lights.

Then there was the “smart” set, headed by Mrs. Langrishe, who wore dresses more suitable to Ascot than the Hymalayas; drank tea with each other, dined with each other—talked peerage, and discussed London gossip; looked down on many of their neighbours, and spoke of them as being “scarcely human,” and were altogether quite painfully exclusive.

There was the “fast” set—men who played high at the club, betted on races in England (per wire); enjoyed big nights and bear fights, and occasionally went down without settling their club account!

And even Mrs. Brande had a set—yes, positively her own little circle for the first time in her life—and was a proud and happy woman.

“It made a wonderful difference having a girl in the house,” she remarked at least twice a day to “P.,” and “P.,” strange to say, received the well-worn observation without a sarcastic rejoinder.

Certainly Honor had made a change at Rookwood. She had prevailed on her aunt to allow her to cover the green rep drawing-room suite with pretty cretonne, to banish the round table with its circle of books dealt out like a pack of cards, to arrange flowers and grasses in profusion, and to have tea in the verandah. Honor played tennis capitally, and her uncle, instead of going to the club, inaugurated sets at home, and these afternoons began to have quite a reputation. There were good courts, good players—excellent refreshments. Mrs. Brande’s strawberries and rich yellow cream were renowned; and people were eager for standing invitations to Rookwood “Tuesdays” and “Saturdays.” Besides Mr. Brande and his niece—hosts in themselves—there were Sir Gloster, Mrs. Sladen, the Padré and his wife, and young Jervis, who were regular habitués. There were tournaments and prizes, and a briskness and “go” about these functions that made them the most popular entertainments in Shirani, and folk condescended to fish industriously for what they would once have scorned, viz.:—“invitations to Mother Brande’s afternoons.”

Captain Waring was tired of Shirani, though he had met many pals—played polo three times a week, and whist six times, until the small hours. Although invited out twice as much as any other bachelor, and twice as popular as his cousin, indeed he and his cousin—as he remarked with a roar of laughter—“were not in the same set.”

(Nor, for that matter, were Mrs. Langrishe and her niece in the same set; for Lalla was “theatrical” and her aunt was “smart.”)

Captain Waring and his companion lived together in Haddon Hall, with its world-wide reputation for smoking chimneys; but although they resided under the same roof, they saw but little of one another. Waring had the best rooms, an imposing staff of crest-emblazoned servants. Jervis lived in two small apartments, and the chief of his retinue was a respectable grey-bearded bearer, Jan Mahomed by name, who looked cheap. Jervis spent most of his time taking long walks or rides—shooting or sketching with some young fellows in the Scorpions—or up at Rookwood, where he dined at least thrice a week and spent all his Sundays, and where he had been warmly received by Ben, and adopted into the family as his “uncle”! No words, however many and eloquent, could more strongly indicate how highly he stood in Mr. and Mrs. Brande’s good graces. To be Ben’s “uncle” almost implied that they looked upon him as an adopted son.

Frequently days elapsed, and Clarence and his companion scarcely saw one another, save at polo. Mark kept early hours and was up betimes—indeed, occasionally he was up and dressed ere his cousin had gone to bed.

One afternoon, however, he found him evidently awaiting his arrival, sitting in the verandah, and not as usual at the club card-table.

“Hullo, Mark! what a gay young bird you are, always going out, always on the wing—never at home!”

“The same to you,” said the other cheerily.

“Well, I just wanted to see you and catch you for a few minutes, old chap. I’m getting beastly sick of this place—we have been here nearly six weeks—I vote, as the policeman says, we ‘move on.’”

“Move where?” was the laconic inquiry.

“To Simla, to be sure! the club here is just a mere rowdy pot-house. I never saw such rotten polo! My best pony is lame—gone in the shoulder. I believe that little beggar Byng stuck me; and besides this, Miss Potter—the girl with the black eyes and twelve hundred a year—is going away.”

“To Simla?” expressively.

“Yes. She does not want to move, but the people she is with, the Athertons, are off, and of course she is bound to go with them. That girl likes me—she believes in me.”

“Do you think she believes that you are what they call you here, a millionaire?”

“What a grossly coarse way of putting it! Well, I should not be surprised if she did!”

“Then if that is the case, don’t you think the sooner you undeceive her the better!”

“Excellent high-minded youth! But why?”

“Because it strikes me that we have played this little game long enough.”

“And you languish for the good old board ship and Poonah days over again! Shall we publish who is really who, in the papers, and send a little ‘para’ to the Pioneer?” with angry sarcasm.

“No; but don’t you see that when I took what you called a ‘back seat,’ I never supposed it would develop into a regular sort of society fraud, or lead us on to such an extent. I’m always on the point of blurting out something about money, and pulling myself up. If I speak the truth people will swear I am lying. I don’t mind their thinking me an insignificant, idle young ass; but when they talk before me of dire poverty, and then pause apologetically—when they positively refrain from asking me to subscribe to entertainments or charities—I tell you I don’t like it. I am a rank impostor. There will be an awful explosion some day, if we don’t look out.”

“A pleasant explosion for you. Surely you are not quite such a fool as to suppose that any one would think the worse of you because you are a rich man.”

Mark’s thoughts wandered to Honor Gordon, and he made no answer.

“We have gone too far to go back,” continued Waring, impressively, “at least as far as Shirani is concerned. We might shift our sky and go to Simla, and then after a time allow the truth to ooze out.”

“I am desperately sorry I ever tampered with the truth,” cried the other, starting to his feet and beginning to walk about the verandah. “I have never told a direct lie, and no one has ever suspected me—I have not a rich air, nor the tastes of a wealthy man; now, you”—suddenly halting before Clarence, and looking him all over—“have both.”

“True, oh king! and people jumped at their own conclusions. Can we help that? It has given me a ripping good time, and saved you a lot of bother and annoyance. Why, the girl in the plaid waistcoat would have married you months ago.”

“Not she! I’m not so easily married as all that!” rejoined the other indignantly.

“I am much relieved to hear it. I am glad you remember Uncle Dan’s instructions. I was afraid they were beginning to slip out of your head, and bearing them in mind, I think the sooner, for all parties, that you clear out of Shirani the better.”

“I am not going to budge,” said Jervis resolutely; “and you know the reason.”

Waring blew away a mouthful of smoke, and then drawled out—“Of course—Miss Gordon.”

“No; my father,” reddening like a girl. “You know he lives within forty miles of this, and that was what made me so keen to come to Shirani.”

“Yes, I understand perfectly; and so keen to stay!”

“I wrote to him,” ignoring this innuendo, “and said I would wait on here till October, hoping to see him.”

“You’ll never see him,” now bringing a volume of smoke down his nostrils.

“Time will tell—I hope I shall.”

“And time stands still for no man! The Athertons and Miss Potter start in ten days, and I shall accompany them; there is nothing like travelling with a young lady for advancing one’s interests—as you know, my boy. Now, don’t be angry. Yes, I’m off. I’m not heir to a millionaire, and I must consult my interests. If you will take my advice, you will join the little party.”

“No, thank you; I shall stay here.”

“Do you mean to say that you will stick to this dead-and-alive place for the next four months?”

“I do—at any rate till my father sends for me”—and he paused for a second—“or until the end of the season.”

“In fact, in plain English, until the Brandes go down,” repeated Clarence significantly; and rising, and tossing away the end of his cigarette, he strolled over to the adjacent mess.

CHAPTER XX.
MISS PASKE DEFIES HER AUNT.

Mrs. Langrishe gave an exceedingly languid acquiescence to the constant remark, “What a charming girl Miss Gordon is! and what a favourite she has become! Her aunt and uncle are quite devoted to her.” She was thinking sadly on these occasions of her own niece, Lalla, who danced like a fairy, or moonbeams on the sea, who was always surrounded at balls, whose banjo playing and smart sayings made her indispensable; no entertainment was considered complete without Miss Paske.

These social triumphs were delightful; but, alas! the fair Lalla was Joie de rue, douleur de maison, and her aunt, who smiled so complacently in public when congratulated on her young relative’s social successes, knew in her heart that that same relative had proved a delusion and a cruel fraud. Fanny had been much cleverer than she supposed in passing on a veritable infliction—a very base little counterfeit coin. It was true that Fanny had not actually lied in her description. Lalla was good-looking, piquante, accomplished, and even-tempered; but an uneven temper would have been far easier to cope with. When remonstrated with, or spoken to sharply, the young lady merely smiled. When desired not to do such and such a thing, she did it—and smiled. When her aunt, on rare occasions, lost her temper with her, she positively beamed. She never attempted to argue, but simply went her own way, as steadily obdurate as a whole train of commissariat mules.

She was distinctly forbidden to go to Sunday picnics, but went to them nevertheless. She was requested not to sit in “kala juggas” (dark corners) at balls. Mrs. Langrishe might have saved her breath, for at balls, if she happened by chance to glance into one, she was almost certain to see some young man in company with her incorrigible niece, who would nod at her with a radiant expression, and laughingly refuse to go home.

Poor Mrs. Langrishe! she could not make a scene. Lalla, crafty Lalla, was well aware that her aunt would patiently submit to any private indignity sooner than the world should suspect that her niece was wholly out of hand, and that she could not manage her. Miss Paske traded comfortably on this knowledge, until she nearly drove her stately chaperon crazy.

The young lady was determined to be amused, and to make the best of life, and possibly to marry well. She treated herself in her aunt’s house as an honoured and distinguished guest—ordered the servants about, upset existing arrangements, and asked men constantly to lunch or tea, or—oh, climax!—dinner. If remonstrated with, she merely remarked, with her serene, bewitching smile—

“Oh, but, darling”—she always called Mrs. Langrishe “darling,” even at the most critical moments—“I always did it at Aunt Fanny’s! she never objected; she was so hospitable.”

She gave no assistance in the house, and usually sat in her own room curling her fringe, studying her parts, or writing letters. Her chief intimate was Mrs. Dashwood, who had been on the stage, and the men of the theatrical set; and she blandly informed her horrified chaperon that she had been considered the fastest girl in India, and gloried in the distinction.

“In Calcutta they called me ‘the sky-scraper,’” she added, with a complacent laugh.

What was to be done? This was a question Mrs. Langrishe put to Granby, and then to herself. Never, never had she spent such a miserable time as during this last two months. To be flouted, mocked, and ordered about under her own roof; to be defied, caressed, and called endearing names by a penniless, detestable minx, who was dependent on her even for money for postage stamps and offertory! Should she pay her passage and pack her off home? No, she would not confess herself beaten—she, the clever woman of the family! She would marry the little wretch well—in a manner that would redound to her own credit—and then wash her hands of her for ever.

The first series of theatricals were an immense success. Miss Paske was the principal lady in the piece, and looked charming from across the footlights. Captain Waring, who was fond of the stage, had gone behind the scenes, and painted Lalla’s pert little face at her own request, which same civility occasioned considerable heartburning and jealousy among the other ladies, especially as the result was a complete artistic triumph.

Every one was carried away by the Prima Donna’s vivacious acting and sprightly dancing, which was both dashing and graceful—in short, the very poetry of motion. Her dress, too—what there was of it—was perfect in every detail. Skirt-dancing was as yet in its infancy—a lady figurante was a rare spectacle on an Indian stage, and the novel and astonishing character of the performance swept the spectators off their feet, and Lalla and Toby Joy shared the honours of the night between them.

Mrs. Langrishe was secretly horrified. She had only seen Lalla’s costume in the piece; Lalla and the Dirzee (whom she entirely monopolized) had composed it together—she had planned, he had carried out her sketch. There had been mysterious conferences and tryings on, from which her aunt had been rigidly excluded, and Mrs. Langrishe was much too proud to affect an interest or curiosity in the matter; but in her wildest moments she had never dreamt of the character of the dress—or its limits!

As she sat in the front row, gazing at the waving arms and supple limbs of her odious niece, little did her neighbours guess that a social martyr was among them,—a martyr whose sufferings were still further aggravated by the self-satisfied smirk and airy kiss the fair dancer had deigned to fling her!

Afterwards, when Lalla, closely cloaked and hooded, was modestly receiving the congratulations of her friends, she remarked to them bashfully—

“Oh, you have no idea how nervous I was at first! My poor little knees were actually shaking under me.”

“Were they? I did not notice them,” rejoined Mrs. Brande in her severest manner; and listeners allowed that on this occasion “old mother Brande had scored!”

Mrs. Langrishe the next morning, having first fortified herself with a glass of wine, entered her niece’s bower, in order to administer a really sound scolding, the gist of which was (as repeated by the listening Ayah to other deeply interested domestics, as she took a pull at the cook’s huka)—

“As long as you are in my house, and under my care, you must behave yourself properly. If this is impossible, as I fear it is, I shall send you straight home. The Ayah will take you to Bombay, and see you off second-class, though the class that best suits your manners is really the steerage. Your acting, and, to a certain extent, your dancing, was all very well; but I do not wonder that Mrs. Brande was shocked at your dress, or rather the want of it—scarcely below your knees!”

“Mrs. Brande is a narrow-minded old toad!” cried Lalla contemptuously. “I don’t believe she was ever in an English theatre in her life. She should see some of the dresses at home!”

“This is not the way to get yourself settled, and you know it,” pursued her aunt. “It was most fortunate that Sir Gloster was not present—he is a man with very correct ideas.”

“That stupid, sluggish bumpkin! what are his ideas to me?” scoffed Lalla, with a maddening smile.

“I wish he had an idea of you,” retorted her aunt. “I’m sure I should be most thankful. However, you are aware that we go down in four months, and remember, that this is your last chance!”

Hereupon, according to the Ayah, Miss Sahib “plenty laugh.”

But Miss Sahib evidently laid the advice to heart. For a few days she was extremely piano and demure, accepting her recently-won honours and the appellation of “Miss Taglioni” with an air of meek protest that was simply delightful.

The play was soon succeeded by a concert at the club; and here Miss Gordon, with her violin, put Miss Paske completely in the shade for once. What a contrast they presented. The little smirking, bowing, grimacing figure in pink, with clouds of fluffy hair, and banjo, streaming with gay ribbons, who made up for lack of voice, by expression, chic, and impudence, and threw Tommy Atkins, in the four anna seats, into a delirium of enthusiasm.

Then came the tall young lady in white, with statuesque arms, who gradually cast a spell of enchantment over her listeners, and held the emotions of her audience in the hollow of the small hand that guided her bow.

For once Mrs. Brande felt conscious that Honor had quite, as she mentally expressed it, “snuffed out that brazen little monkey,” and though personally she preferred the banjo and nigger melodies, the audience in the two rupee places apparently did not, for they applauded enthusiastically, and stamped and shouted, “Encore! encore!” and seemed ready to tear the house down. And even young Jervis, usually so retiring and undemonstrative, had clapped until he had split his gloves.

Mrs. Langrishe was not behindhand with her plaudits. She would not leave it in any one’s power to declare that she was jealous of Miss Gordon’s overwhelming success, but to herself she said—

“Oh, if Honor Gordon was but her niece! How thankfully would she exchange relations with Mrs. Brande. Here was a simple, well-bred girl, who could shine anywhere, and was quite thrown away in her present hands. It was true that Sir Gloster seemed much struck; everyone saw that, except the girl herself, and her old bat of an aunt. He had never taken his eyes off her, as she stood before the footlights, and she had made an undeniably charming picture, slim and graceful, with an old-fashioned air of maidenly dignity, and how she played!”

She glanced at her own special young lady, now coming forward to sing yet another ditty, amidst the uproarious encouragement of the back benches.

Lalla was pretty, her fair soft hair was wisped up anyhow (a studied art), her eyes were bright, her style piquante, but her expression was everything, and oh, what a little demon she was!

And then she sang—certainly she was the most successful cantatrice who ever sang without a voice.

“What a charming inmate your niece must be, Mrs. Langrishe,” observed a lady next her. “So amusing and bright, quite a sunbeam in the house.”

To which the poor martyr rejoined with a somewhat rigid smile, “Oh yes, indeed, quite delightful.”

She envied Mrs. Brande her treasure still more, when, as they were leaving the club, she noticed Honor affectionately wrapping up her aunt—for it had turned out a wet night—and making some playful joke as she tied a hood under her ample chin. Her niece had helped herself to the only mackintosh, and had rolled away in her rickshaw, among the first flight, with a young man riding beside her.

“She went off with Toby Joy! I really am astonished that Mrs. Langrishe allows her to be so independent,” said a voice (a woman’s) in the dark, close beside that ill-used lady, and happily unaware of her vicinity.

Miserable Mrs. Langrishe, if they only knew all, the most stony-hearted would surely commiserate her.

She returned home alone, firmly resolved to give Lalla a talking to, but when she arrived—her anger had ebbed. She discovered the culprit reclining in an easy-chair, smoking a friendly cigarette with Granby, and entertaining him with inimitable mimicry of some of her fellow performers.

“Oh, so you have appeared at last!” cried Lalla, with languid surprise. “Fie, fie, how late you are, darling! I’ve been home ages. I took the waterproof to cover up my beloved banjo—I ‘wrapped it up in its tarpaulin jacket,’ you know the song. I was sure, as I did not see you, that some horrible bore had got hold of you, and I knew you would hate to keep me waiting in the rain, so I dashed off home at once.”

CHAPTER XXI.
THE GREAT STARVATION PICNIC.

The “picnic” season at Shirani set in with unexampled severity. There were tea picnics—an inexpensive form of entertainment, dear to the economically disposed, who flattered themselves that they could wipe out all social debts by a table-cloth spread on a mossy slope (within an easy ride from cantonment), and to this they bid their friends in order to partake of cheap fruit, bazaar-made cake, and smoked tea—the selected “view” supplying every deficiency. There were snug little select tea-parties, where the viands were dainty and luxurious, and to match the company—appetizing luncheons, carried off to be discussed miles away under pine trees, and facing indistinct blue valleys and brilliantly white peaks; and of all these expeditions, the “Noah’s Ark” picnic was indisputably the most popular.

In June the climate, society, scenery of Shirani all pointed to picnics, with again picnics, and more picnics. They were unceremonious, easily enjoyed, easily declined. New-comers from below, after a month among dim cool pine woods, or a critical study of a deep valley, clothed with gorgeous forest trees, blazing with red, pink, and white rhododendrons, found it difficult to believe that there was such a place far beneath them as tawny-coloured hard-baked plains, over which, instead of a delicate fragrant breeze, roared the brazen-mouthed blast of the fire-eating hot winds. The al fresco season culminated in a “married ladies’” picnic—chiefly got up by Mrs. Langrishe and Mrs. Brande. There had been a committee meeting at the ladies’ room at the club; Mrs. Langrishe was voted secretary—being very capable with her pen. The conference had been held with closed doors—solemn—and secret.

All the same, some of the motions and arrangements had leaked out. It was known that Mrs. Brande had volunteered to provide the champagne—also fowls, hams, and raised pies. Mrs. Sladen was down for afternoon tea, cups and saucers, milk, sugar, and cake. Mrs. Dashwood provided cheroots, cigarettes, and pegs.

Mrs. Loyd, the sweets, tarts, jellies, and méringues.

Mrs. Clark, the soup.

Mrs. Glover, the ices. The thing was to be done in style.

Mrs. Paul, the Padré’s wife (having a large family), was let off with coffee.

“Your own cups and spoons of course,” added the secretary imperatively.