The Doctor nodded. "With pleasure, Miss Hannay. It is a thing I enjoy.

There is nothing more lamentable than to see the ignorant, and I may almost say brutal, way in which people bunch flowers up into great ma.s.ses and call that decoration. They might just as well bunch up so many ma.s.ses of bright colored rags. The shape of the flower, its manner of growth, and its individuality are altogether lost, and the sole effect produced is that of a confused ma.s.s of color. I will undertake that part of the business, and you had better leave the buying of the flowers to me."

"Certainly, Doctor," the Major said; "I will give you carte blanche."

"Well, I must see your dinner service, Major, so that I may know about its color, and what you have got to put the flowers into."

"I will have a regular parade tomorrow morning after breakfast, if it would be convenient for you to look in then, and at the same time I will get you to have a talk with Rumzan and the cook. I am almost as new to giving dinner parties as Isobel is. When one has half a dozen men to dine with one at the club, one gives the butler notice and chooses the wine, and one knows that it will be all right; but it is a very different thing when you have to go into the details yourself.

Ordinarily I leave it entirely to Rumzan and the cook, and I am bound to say they do very well, but this is a different matter."

"We will talk it over with them together, Major. You can seem to consult me, but it must come from you to them, or else you will be getting their backs up. Thank goodness, Indian servants don't give themselves the airs English ones do; but human nature is a good deal the same everywhere, and the first great rule, if you want any domestic arrangements to go off well, is to keep the servants in good temper."

"We none of us like to be interfered with, Doctor."

"A wise man is always ready to be taught," the Doctor said sententiously.

"Well, there are exceptions, Doctor. I remember, soon after I joined, a man blew off two of his fingers. A young surgeon who was here wanted to amputate the hand; he was just going to set about it when a staff surgeon came in and said that it had better not be done, for that natives could not stand amputations. The young surgeon was very much annoyed. The staff surgeon went away next day. There was a good deal of inflammation, and the young surgeon decided to amputate. The man never rallied from the operation, and died next day."

"I said, Major, that a wise man was always ready to listen to good advice. I was not a wise man in those days--I was a pig headed young fool. I thought I knew all about it, and I was quite right according to my experience in London hospitals. In the case of an Englishman, the hand would have been amputated, and the man would have been all right three weeks afterwards. But I knew nothing about these soft hearted Hindoos, and never dreamt that an operation which would be a trifle to an Englishman would be fatal to one of them, and that simply because, although they are plucky enough in some respects, they have no more heart than a mouse when anything is the matter with them. Yes, if it hadn't been for the old Colonel, who gave me a private hint to say nothing about the affair, but merely to put down in my report, 'Died from the effect of a gunshot wound,' I should have got into a deuce of a sc.r.a.pe over that affair. As it was, it only cost me a hundred rupees to satisfy the man's family and send them back to their native village.

That was for years a standing joke against me, Miss Hannay; except your uncle and the Colonel, there is no one left in the regiment who was there, but it was a sore subject for a long time. Still, no doubt, it was a useful lesson, and my rule has been ever since, never amputate except as a forlorn hope, and even then don't amputate, for if you do the relatives of the man, as far as his fourth cousins, will inevitably regard you as his murderer. Well, I must be off; I will look in tomorrow morning, Major, and make an inspection of your resources."

"I am glad to see the Hunters are going to bring over their carriage,"

the Major said, two days later, as he looked through a letter. "I am very glad of that, for I put it off till too late. I have been trying everywhere for the last two days to hire one, but they are all engaged, and have been so for weeks, I hear. I was wondering what I should do, for my buggy will only hold two. I was thinking of asking Mrs. Doolan if she could take one of the Miss Hunters, and should have tried to find a place for the other. But this settles it all comfortably. They are going to send on their own horses halfway the day before, and hire native ponies for the first half. They have a good large family vehicle; I hoped that they would bring it, but, of course, I could not trust to it."

The Doctor presently dropped in with Captain Doolan. After chatting for some time the former said, "I have had the satisfaction this morning, Miss Hannay, of relieving Mrs. Cromarty's mind of a great burden."

"How was that, Doctor?"

"It was in relation to you, my dear."

"Me, Doctor! how could I have been a weight on Mrs. Cromarty's mind?"

"She sent for me under the pretense of being feverish; said she had a headache, and so on. Her pulse was all right, and I told her at once I did not think there was much the matter with her; but I recommended her to keep out of the sun for two days. Then she begun a chat about the station. She knows that, somehow or other, I generally hear all that is going on. I wondered what was coming, till she said casually, 'Do you know what arrangement Major Hannay has made as to his niece for the races?' I said, of course, that the Hunters were coming over to stay.

I could see at once that her spirit was instantly relieved of a heavy burden, but she only said, 'Of course, then, that settles the question.

I had intended to send across to her this morning, to ask if she would like a seat in my carriage; having no lady with her, she could not very well have gone to the races alone. Naturally, I should have been very pleased to have had her with us. However, as Mrs. Hunter will be staying at the Major's, and will act as her chaperon, the matter is settled.'"

"Well, I think it was very kind of her thinking of it," Isobel said, "and I don't think it is nice of you, Doctor, to say that it was an evident relief to her when she found I had someone else to take care of me. Why should it have been a relief?"

"I have no doubt it has weighed on her mind for the last fortnight," the Doctor said; "she must have seen that as you were freshly joined, and the only unmarried girl in the regiment, except her own daughters, it was only the proper thing she should offer you a seat in her carriage.

No doubt she decided to put it off as late as possible, in hopes that you might make some other arrangement. Had you not done so, she might have done the heroic thing and invited you, though I am by no means sure of it. Of course, now she will say the first time she meets you that she was quite disappointed at having heard from me that Mrs. Hunter would be with you, as she had hoped to have the pleasure of having you in her carriage with her."

"But why shouldn't she like it?" Isobel said indignantly. "Surely I am not as disagreeable as all that! Come, Doctor!"

Captain Doolan laughed, while the Doctor said, "It is just the contrary, my dear; I am quite sure that if you were in Mrs. Cromarty's place, and had two tall, washed out looking daughters, you would not feel the slightest desire to place Miss Hannay in the same carriage with them."

"I call that very disagreeable of you, Doctor," Isobel said, flushing, "and I shall not like you at all if you take such unkind and malicious views of people. I don't suppose such an idea ever entered into Mrs.

Cromarty's head, and even if it did, it makes it all the kinder that she should think of offering me a seat. I do think most men seem to consider that women think of nothing but looks, and that girls are always trying to attract men, and mothers always thinking of getting their daughters married. It is not at all nice, Doctor, to have such ideas, and I shall thank Mrs. Cromarty warmly, when I see her, for her kindness in thinking about me."

Accordingly, that afternoon, when they met at the usual hour, when the band was playing, Isobel went up to the Colonel's wife.

"I want to thank you, Mrs. Cromarty. Dr. Wade has told me that you had intended to offer me a seat in your carriage to the races. It was very kind and nice of you to think of me, and I am very much obliged to you.

I should have enjoyed it very much if it hadn't been that Mrs. Hunter is coming to stay with us, and, of course, I shall be under her wing.

Still, I am just as much obliged to you for having thought of it."

Mrs. Cromarty was pleased with the girl's warmth and manner, and afterwards mentioned to several of her friends that she thought that Miss Hannay seemed a very nice young woman.

"I was not quite favorably impressed at first," she admitted. "She has the misfortune of being a little brusque in her manner, but, of course, her position is a difficult one, being alone out here, without any lady with her, and no doubt she feels it so. She was quite touchingly grateful, only because I offered her a seat in our carriage for the races, though she was unable to accept it, as the Major will have the Hunters staying with him."

CHAPTER VI.

The clubhouse at Cawnpore was crowded on the evening before the races.

Up to eleven o'clock it had been comparatively deserted, for there was scarcely a bungalow in the station at which dinner parties were not going on; but, after eleven, the gentlemen for the most part adjourned to the club for a smoke, a rubber, or a game of billiards, or to chat over the racing events of the next day.

Loud greetings were exchanged as each fresh contingent arrived, for many newcomers had come into the station only that afternoon. Every table in the whist room was occupied, black pool was being played in the billiard room upstairs, where most of the younger men were gathered, while the elders smoked and talked in the rooms below.

"What will you do, Bathurst?" the Doctor asked his guest, after the party from the Major's had been chatting for some little time downstairs. "Would you like to cut in at a rubber or take a ball at pool?"

"Neither, Doctor; they are both accomplishments beyond me; I have not patience for whist, and I can't play billiards in the least. I have tried over and over again, but I am too nervous, I fancy; I break down over the easiest stroke--in fact, an easy stroke is harder for me than a difficult one. I know I ought to make it, and just for that reason, I suppose, I don't."

"You don't give one the idea of a nervous man, either, Bathurst."

"Well, I am, Doctor, const.i.tutionally, indeed terribly so."

"Not in business matters, anyhow," the Doctor said, with a smile. "You have the reputation of not minding in the slightest what responsibility you take upon yourself, and of carrying out what you undertake in the most resolute, I won't say high handed, manner."

"No, it doesn't come in there," Bathurst laughed. "Morally I am not nervous so far as I know, physically I am. I would give a great deal if I could get over it, but, as I have said, it is const.i.tutional."

"Not on your father's side, Bathurst. I knew him well, and he was a very gallant officer."

"No, it was the other side," Bathurst said; "I will tell you about it some day."

At this moment another friend of Bathurst's came up and entered into conversation with him.

"Well, I will go upstairs to the billiard room," the Doctor said; "and you will find me there, Bathurst, whenever you feel disposed to go."

A pool had just finished when the Doctor entered the billiard room.

"That is right, Doctor, you are just in time," Prothero said, as he entered. "Sinclair has given up his cue; he is going to ride tomorrow, and is afraid of shaking his nerves; you must come and play for the honor of the corps. I am being ruined altogether, and Doolan has retired discomfited."

"I have not touched a cue since I went away," the Doctor said, "but I don't mind adding to the list of victims. Who are the winners?"

"Messenger and Jarvis have been carrying all before them; there is a report they have just sent off two club waiters, with loads of rupees, to their quarters. Scarsdale has been pretty well holding his own, but the rest of us are nowhere."

A year's want of practice, however, told, and the Doctor was added to the list of victims: he had no difficulty in getting someone else to take his cue after playing for half an hour.

"It shows that practice is required for everything," he said; "before I went away I could have given each of those men a life, now they could give me two; I must devote half an hour a day to it till I get it back again."