‘The fact is,’ I said to Dora as we rode down to the gymkhana, ‘his
personality takes possession of one. I constantly go to that little hut
of his with intentions, benevolent or otherwise, which I never carry
out.’
‘You mean,’ she answered, ‘that you completely forgot to reveal to him
your hateful knowledge about Kauffer.’
‘On the contrary, I didn’t forget it for a moment. But the conversation
took a turn that made it quite impossible to mention.’
‘I can understand,’ Miss Harris replied softly, ‘how that might be. And
it doesn’t in the least matter,’ she went on triumphantly, ‘because I’ve
told him myself.’
My nerves must have been a trifle strung up at the time, for this struck
me as a matter for offense. ‘You thought I would trample upon him,’ I
exclaimed.
‘No, no really. I disliked his not knowing it was known--rien de plus,’
she said lightly.
‘What did he say?’
‘Oh, not much. What should he say?’
‘He might have expressed a decent regret on poor Kauffer’s account,’ I
growled. Dora did not reply, and a glance showed her frowning.
‘I believe he apologized!’ I cried, pushing, as it were, my advantage.
‘He explained.’
‘Oh!’
‘Of course he hasn’t relished the position, and of course he didn’t
realize it before he came. Shall we trot?’
I was compelled to negative the idea of trotting, since we were
descending quite the steepest pitch of the road down to Annandale. We
went on at a walk, and it occurred to me, as my contemplative gaze
fell on my own pig-skins, that we were, even for Simla, an uncommonly
well-turned-out pair. I had helped to pick Dora’s hack, and I allowed
myself to reflect that he did my judgment credit. She sat him perfectly
in her wrath--she was plainly angry--not a hair out of place. Why is it
that a lady out of temper with her escort always walks away from him? Is
her horse sympathetic? Ronald, at all events, was leading by a couple of
yards, when suddenly he shied, bounding well across the road.
The mare, whose manners I can always answer for, simply stopped and
looked haughtily about for explanations. A path dropped into the road
from the hillside; something came scrambling and stumbling down.
‘Oh!’ cried Dora, as it emerged and was Armour on his much enduring
white pony, ‘how you frightened us!’
‘Why don’t you stick to the road, man?’ I exclaimed. ‘It isn’t usual to
put ponies up and down these coolie tracks!’
He took no notice of this rather broad hint that I was annoyed, but
fixed his eager, light, luminous eyes upon Dora.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and added, ‘I did not expect to see you today!’
‘Not till tomorrow,’ she returned. ‘You remember that we are sketching
tomorrow?’
He looked at her and smiled slightly; and then I remember noticing that
his full, arched upper lip seldom quite met its counterpart over his
teeth. This gave an unpremeditated casual effect to everything he found
to say, and made him look a dreamer at his busiest. His smile was at the
folly of her reminder.
‘I’ve just been looking for something that you would like,’ he said,
‘but it isn’t much good hunting about alone. I see five times as much
when we go together.’
He and his pony barred the way; he had an air of leisure and of
felicity; one would think we had met at an afternoon party.
‘We are on our way,’ I explained, ‘to the gymkhana. Miss Harris is in
one of the events. You did enter for the needle-threading race, didn’t
you, with Lord Arthur? I think we must get on.’
A slow, dull red mounted to Armour’s face and seemed to put out that
curious light in his eyes.
‘Is it far?’ he asked, glancing down over the tree-tops. ‘I’ve never
been there.’
‘Why,’ cried Dora, suddenly, ‘you’ve been down!’
‘So you have,’ I confirmed her. ‘Your beast is damaged too.’
‘Oh, it was only a stumble,’ Armour replied; ‘I stuck on all right.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘you had better get off now, as you didn’t then,
and look at your animal’s near fore. The swelling’s as big as a bun
already.’
Again he made me no answer, but looked intently and questioningly at
Dora.
‘Get off, Mr. Armour,’ she said, sharply, ‘and lead your horse home. It
is not fit to be ridden. Goodbye.’
I have no doubt he did it, but neither of us were inclined to look back
to see. We pushed on under the deodars, and I was indulgent to a trot.
At the end of it Dora remarked that Mr. Armour naturally could not be
expected to know anything about riding, it was very plucky of him to get
on a horse at all, among these precipices; and I of course agreed.
Lord Arthur was waiting when we arrived, on his chestnut polo pony, but
Dora immediately scratched for the brilliant event in which they were
paired. Ronald, she said, was simply cooked with the heat. Ronald had
come every yard of the way on his toes and was fit for anything, but
Lord Arthur did not insist. There were young ladies in Simla, I am glad
to say, who appealed more vividly to his imagination than Dora Harris
did, and one of them speedily replaced her, a fresh-coloured young
Amazon who was staying at the Chief’s. She wandered about restlessly
over the dry turf for a few minutes, and then went and sat down in a
corner of the little wooden Grand Stand and sent me for a cup of tea.
‘Won’t you come to the tent?’ I asked a little ruefully, eyeing the
distance and the possible collisions between, but she shook her head.
‘I simply couldn’t bear it,’ she said, and I went feeling somehow
chastened myself by the cloud that was upon her spirit.
I found her on my return regarding the scene with a more than usually
critical eye, and a more than usually turned down lip. Yet it was
exactly the scene it always was, and always, probably, will be. I sat
down beside her and regarded it also, but more charitably than usual.
Perhaps it was rather trivial, just a lot of pretty dresses and excited
young men in white riding-breeches doing foolish things on ponies in
the shortest possible time, with one little crowd about the Club’s
refreshment tent and another about the Staff’s, while the hills sat
round in an indifferent circle; but it appealed to me with a kind of
family feeling that afternoon, and inspired me with tolerance, even
benevolence.
‘After all,’ I said, ‘it’s mainly youth and high spirits--two good
things. And one knows them all.’
‘And who are they to know?’ complained Dora.
‘Just decent young Englishmen and Englishwomen, out here on their
country’s business,’ I replied cheerfully; ‘with the marks of Oxford and
Cambridge and Sandhurst and Woolwich on the men. Well-set-up youngsters,
who know what to do and how to do it. Oh, I like the breed!’
‘I wonder,’ said she, in a tone of preposterous melancholy, ‘if
eventually I have to marry one of them.’
‘Not necessarily,’ I said. She looked at me with interest, as if I had
contributed importantly to the matter in hand, and resumed tapping her
boot with her riding-crop. We talked of indifferent things and had long
lapses. At the close of one effort Dora threw herself back with a deep,
tumultuous sigh. ‘The poverty of this little wretched resort ties up
one’s tongue!’ she cried. ‘It is the bottom of the cup; here one gets
the very dregs of Simla’s commonplace. Let us climb out of it.’
I thought for a moment that Ronald had been too much for her nerves
coming down, and offered to change saddles, but she would not. We took
it out of the horses all along the first upward slopes, and as we pulled
in to breathe them she turned to me paler than ever.
‘I feel better now,’ she said.
For myself I had got rid of Armour for the afternoon. I think my
irritation with him about his pony rose and delivered me from the
too insistent thought of him. With Dora it was otherwise; she had
dismissed him; but he had never left her for a moment the whole long
afternoon.
She flung a searching look at me. With a reckless turn of her head, she
said, ‘Why didn’t we take him with us?’
‘Did we want him?’ I asked.
‘I think I always want him.’
‘Ah!’ said I, and would have pondered this statement at some length in
silence, but that she plainly did not wish me to do so.
‘We might perfectly well have sent his pony home with one of our own
servants--he would have been delighted to walk down.’
‘He wasn’t in proper kit,’ I remonstrated.
‘Oh, I wish you would speak to him about that. Make him get some
tennis-flannels and riding-things.’
‘Do you propose to get him asked to places?’ I inquired.
She gave me a charmingly unguarded smile. ‘I propose to induce you to
do so. I have done what I could. He has dined with us several times, and
met a few people who would, I thought, be kind to him.’
‘Oh, well,’ I said, ‘I have had him at the Club too, with old Lamb and
Colonel Hamilton. He made us all miserable with his shyness. Don’t ask
me to do it again, please.’
‘I’ve sent him to call on certain people,’ Dora continued, ‘and I’ve
shown his pictures to everybody, and praised him and talked about him,
but I can’t go on doing that indefinitely, can I?’
‘No,’ I said; ‘people might misunderstand.’
‘I don’t think they would MISunderstand,’ replied this astonishing girl,
without flinching. She even sought my eyes to show me that hers were
clear and full of purpose.
‘Good God!’ I said to myself, but the words that fell from me were, ‘He
is outside all that life.’
‘What is the use of living a life that he is outside of?’
‘Oh, if you put it that way,’ I said, and set my teeth, ‘I will do what
I can.’
She held out her hand with an affectionate gesture, and I was
reluctantly compelled to press it.
The horses broke into a trot, and we talked no more of Armour, or of
anything, until Ted Harris joined us on the Mall.
I have rendered this conversation with Dora in detail because subsequent
events depend so closely upon it. Some may not agree that it was basis
enough for the action I thought well to take; I can only say that it was
all I was ever able to obtain. Dora was always particularly civil and
grateful about my efforts, but she gave me only one more glimpse, and
that enigmatic, of any special reason why they should be made. Perhaps
this was more than compensated for by the abounding views I had of the
situation as it lay with Ingersoll Armour, but of that, other persons,
approaching the subject without prejudice, will doubtless judge better
than I.