The Pool in the Desert [59]
would have raised his hat and gone on without more words if Madeline had not thwarted him. 'What a stupidity for him to be haunted by afterward!' was the essence of the thought that visited her; and she put out a detaining hand.
'Really! By the Bombay mail, I suppose--no, an hour or so later; private tongas are always as much as that behind the mail.'
'About eleven, I fancy. You--you are not inclined for a canter round Summer Hill before breakfast?'
'I am terrified of Summer Hill. The Turk always misbehaves there. Yesterday he got one leg well over the khud--I WAS thankful he had four. Tell me, are you ready for Mrs. Innes--everything in the house? Is there anything I can do?
'Oh, thanks very much! I don't think so. The house isn't ready, as a matter of fact, but two or three people have offered to put us up for a day or so until it is. I've left it open till my wife comes, as I dare say she has already arranged to go to somebody. What are you buying? Country tobacco, upon my word! For your men? That's subversive of all discipline!'
The lines on his face relaxed; he looked at her with fond recognition of another delightful thing in her.
'You give sugar-cane to your horses,' she declared; 'why shouldn't I give tobacco to mine? Goodbye; I hope Mrs. Innes will like "Two Gables". There are roses waiting for her in the garden, at all events.'
'Are there?' he said. 'I didn't notice. Goodbye, then.'
He went on to his office thinking of the roses, and that they were in his garden, and that Madeline had seen them there. He thought that if they were good roses--in fact, any kind of roses--they should be taken care of, and he asked a Deputy Assistant Inspector- General of Ordnance whether he knew of a gardener that was worth anything.
'Most of them are mere coolies,' said Colonel Innes, 'and I've got some roses in this little place I've taken that I want to look after.'
Next day Madeline took Brookes, and 'The Amazing Marriage', and a lunch-basket, and went out to Mashobra, where the deodars shadow hardly any scandal at all, and the Snows come, with perceptible confidence, a little nearer.
'They almost step,' she said to Brookes, looking at them, 'out of the realm of the imagination.'
Brookes said that they did indeed, and hoped that she hadn't by any chance forgotten the mustard.
'The wind is keen off the glaciers over there--anybody would think of a condiment,' Miss Anderson remarked in deprecation, and to this Brookes made no response. It was a liberty she often felt compelled to take.
The Snows appealed to Madeline even more than did Carintha, Countess of Fleetwood, to whose fortunes she gave long pauses while she looked across their summits at renunciation, and fancied her spirit made strong and equal to its task. She was glad of their sanctuary; she did not know where she should find such another. Perhaps the spectacle was more than ever sublime in its alternative to the one she had come away to postpone the sight of; at all events it drove the reunion of the Inneses from her mind several times for five minutes together, during which she thought of Horace by himself, and went over, by way of preparation for her departure, all that had come and gone between them. There had been luminous moments, especially as they irradiated him, and she dwelt on these. There was no reason why she should not preserve in London or in New York a careful memory of them.
So the lights were twinkling all up and down and round about Simla when she cantered back to it and it was late when she started for the Worsleys, where she was dining. One little lighted house looked much like another perched on the mountainside, and the wooden board painted 'Branksome Hall, Maj.-Gen. T.P. Worsley, R.E.,' nailed to the most conspicuous tree from the main road, was invisible in the darkness. Madeline arrived in consequence at the wrong dinner- party, and was acclaimed and redirected with much gaiety, which gave her a further agreeable impression of the insouciance of Simla, but made her later still
'Really! By the Bombay mail, I suppose--no, an hour or so later; private tongas are always as much as that behind the mail.'
'About eleven, I fancy. You--you are not inclined for a canter round Summer Hill before breakfast?'
'I am terrified of Summer Hill. The Turk always misbehaves there. Yesterday he got one leg well over the khud--I WAS thankful he had four. Tell me, are you ready for Mrs. Innes--everything in the house? Is there anything I can do?
'Oh, thanks very much! I don't think so. The house isn't ready, as a matter of fact, but two or three people have offered to put us up for a day or so until it is. I've left it open till my wife comes, as I dare say she has already arranged to go to somebody. What are you buying? Country tobacco, upon my word! For your men? That's subversive of all discipline!'
The lines on his face relaxed; he looked at her with fond recognition of another delightful thing in her.
'You give sugar-cane to your horses,' she declared; 'why shouldn't I give tobacco to mine? Goodbye; I hope Mrs. Innes will like "Two Gables". There are roses waiting for her in the garden, at all events.'
'Are there?' he said. 'I didn't notice. Goodbye, then.'
He went on to his office thinking of the roses, and that they were in his garden, and that Madeline had seen them there. He thought that if they were good roses--in fact, any kind of roses--they should be taken care of, and he asked a Deputy Assistant Inspector- General of Ordnance whether he knew of a gardener that was worth anything.
'Most of them are mere coolies,' said Colonel Innes, 'and I've got some roses in this little place I've taken that I want to look after.'
Next day Madeline took Brookes, and 'The Amazing Marriage', and a lunch-basket, and went out to Mashobra, where the deodars shadow hardly any scandal at all, and the Snows come, with perceptible confidence, a little nearer.
'They almost step,' she said to Brookes, looking at them, 'out of the realm of the imagination.'
Brookes said that they did indeed, and hoped that she hadn't by any chance forgotten the mustard.
'The wind is keen off the glaciers over there--anybody would think of a condiment,' Miss Anderson remarked in deprecation, and to this Brookes made no response. It was a liberty she often felt compelled to take.
The Snows appealed to Madeline even more than did Carintha, Countess of Fleetwood, to whose fortunes she gave long pauses while she looked across their summits at renunciation, and fancied her spirit made strong and equal to its task. She was glad of their sanctuary; she did not know where she should find such another. Perhaps the spectacle was more than ever sublime in its alternative to the one she had come away to postpone the sight of; at all events it drove the reunion of the Inneses from her mind several times for five minutes together, during which she thought of Horace by himself, and went over, by way of preparation for her departure, all that had come and gone between them. There had been luminous moments, especially as they irradiated him, and she dwelt on these. There was no reason why she should not preserve in London or in New York a careful memory of them.
So the lights were twinkling all up and down and round about Simla when she cantered back to it and it was late when she started for the Worsleys, where she was dining. One little lighted house looked much like another perched on the mountainside, and the wooden board painted 'Branksome Hall, Maj.-Gen. T.P. Worsley, R.E.,' nailed to the most conspicuous tree from the main road, was invisible in the darkness. Madeline arrived in consequence at the wrong dinner- party, and was acclaimed and redirected with much gaiety, which gave her a further agreeable impression of the insouciance of Simla, but made her later still