"He's jealous," said Violet.

"Of whom?" Nick was frankly curious.

"Of Major Hunt-Goring. He's been dangling after me half the afternoon.

How would you like me to marry him, Allegro?"

"Who?" said Olga, turning crimson.

"Oh, not Max, you may be sure!" Her friend laughed mischievously. "Max is only an interlude."

"And Hunt-Goring the main theme?" suggested Nick.

She laughed again indifferently. "Perhaps, I can't say I'm enamoured of him, though. He's rather a brute at heart, underneath the oil-silk.

Well, I'm going to lie in the hammock and sleep."

She got up, stretched luxuriously, and strolled away over the gra.s.s.

Nick watched her go with flickering, observant eyes; but he made no comment upon her. Only as she pa.s.sed from sight, he made an odd little grimace as if dismissing a slightly distasteful subject from his mind.

Then he turned to his niece.

"Well, my chicken, you've had a busy afternoon."

"A beastly afternoon, Nick!" she responded warmly. "And I'm very glad it's over, and I don't want to talk about it. Tell me about your doings instead! What were you wanted for?"

"Prepare for a shock!" said Nick. "I haven't got over it myself yet.

They want to pack me off to India again. I told 'em I couldn't go, but they seem to take it for granted that I shall. Don't know what Muriel will say to it, I'm sure. They say it would be only a six months' job, but I have my doubts of that."

"Nick! India!"

"India, my child--naked and unadulterated India! The Imperial Commissioners have quite decided that I'm the man for the job. I kept on saying 'Can't!' and 'Won't!' But that didn't make the least difference.

Old Reggie Ba.s.sett's doing, I'll lay a wager. He will have it that my genius is thrown away in England. And they inform me rather brutally that my seat in Parliament would be far more easily filled than this Sharapura post. Also the young Rajah has done me the honour to ask for me. We went pig-sticking together once--years ago, and I chanced to head off Piggie at a critical moment for young Akbar. On the strength of that, he wants me to go and be his political adviser for a few months.

It seems the State is in rather a muddle. His father was a shocking old shuffler, and there are plenty of _budmashes_ about, if report says true. But this young Rajah is anxious to get things straightened out, and the Commissioner wants a report made and so on. Altogether," Nick paused with a smile on his yellow face, "they were very persuasive," he said.

"Nick! You're going!" Olga exclaimed.

He laughed. "If you want my impartial opinion as to that," he said, "I believe I am."

She drew a deep breath. Her eyes were shining. "Oh, how I wish I were a man! I'd come with you."

"Ladies are admitted," said Nick.

"Ah! I wonder what Muriel will say," she said. "Does she like India?"

"India is a large place," he pointed out. "She doesn't like Ghawalkhand, and she isn't keen on Simla--which is sheer prejudice on her part.

Sharapura she has never seen. It's a small State in the very middle of the Empire. There are rivers and jungles and tigers and snakes--quite a lot of snakes; a decent little capital and a hill-station, healthy enough though not very high. The natives are exactly like monkeys. I learnt to speak their lingo one winter from a villainous bearer I had when some of us were stationed there. There is a small native garrison in cantonments at the capital. There is also a fort and a race-course. I won the Great Mogul's Cup there--a memorable occasion. My mount was a wall-eyed lanky brute of a Waler, with the action of a camel. But he had the spirit of an Olympian, and we won at a canter."

Nick stopped. His eyes also had begun to shine. Olga was listening enraptured.

"How I wish I was Muriel!" she said. "Of course she'll want to go, Nick.

It sounds perfectly enchanting."

"Especially the tigers and snakes," laughed Nick. "Poor Muriel! It's rather a shame to ask her. She had an overdose of the East at the outset, and she has never got over it."

"Oh, but that's aeons ago!" protested Olga.

"I know; but it went deep." Nick leaned back abruptly, with closed eyes.

"I wonder if I can bring myself to refuse finally and conclusively--without telling her," he said ruminatively.

"Never, Nick!" Olga sprang from her chair. "You shan't think of such a thing! Nick! A heaven-sent chance like that! Oh, it wouldn't be fair.

I'm sure she would say so. You must--you must tell her!"

Nick's hand clenched upon the arm of his chair. He kept his eyes shut.

"You see, dear," he said, "there's the kiddie too. I'm an unnatural beast. I'd actually forgotten him for the moment. One-eyed of me, wasn't it?"

"Nick--darling!" Suddenly Olga was kneeling beside his chair; she put her arms about his neck. "You shan't call yourself anything so horrid!"

she said. "Dad and I will take care of little Reggie. You know you can trust him to me, Nick. I'll watch over him day and night."

"Bless your heart!" said Nick. He lodged his head against her shoulder after the fashion she most loved. "You're a sweet little pal," he said.

"But I doubt if Muriel would consent to go so far away from him, and I'm a selfish hound myself to contemplate such a thing. No; don't contradict me! It's rude. I'm that, and several other things besides. I'd no idea I was so much in the grip of the East. It's a curious thing. One feels it in the blood. It's six years--more--since I climbed on to the shelf, and I've been quite smug and self-satisfied most of the time. There's been a twinge of regret every now and then, but nothing I couldn't whistle away. But now--" his words quickened; he spoke them whimsically, yet pa.s.sionately, in her ear--"between you and me, I'd give an eye, an ear, or a leg--anything I possess in duplicate--to come off the shelf, and have one more fling. I'm stiff! I'm stiff! And, ye G.o.ds, I'm only four-and-thirty! I always thought I'd go till sixty at least. I entered Parliament just to keep going; but that's only a steady progress downhill--a sort of frog's march in which you kick and are kicked, but don't do much besides. I'm a fighter, kiddie. I wasn't made to ornament the shelf. I'm not a hero; only an ordinary, restless, discontented mortal. They told me this afternoon that it was time I did something, that I was dropping out, that I should ossify if I sat still much longer. (A good term that; worthy of our friend Max!) And, by Heaven, they're right! But how can I help it? I know in my heart of hearts that it would be sheer brutality to spring this on Muriel now."

He ceased to speak, and there fell a silence. Olga's arms clasped him very tightly. Her cheek pressed his forehead. It was not often that Nick opened his heart to her thus. Only twice before had it ever happened, and on each occasion he had been in trouble--once when the woman he loved had sent back his engagement ring through her, and once again nearly two years later when that same woman--Muriel, his wife--had lain at death's door all through one dreadful night while they two, close pals, had waited huddled together in the pa.s.sage outside her room. Those two occasions were sacred to Olga, never spoken of to any, shrined deep in the most inner, most secret recesses of her heart. Nick's confidence had ever been her most cherished possession. It thrilled her now with something more than pride; and through her silence her sympathy came out to him in a flood of understanding which needed no verbal expression.

She spoke at last very softly, almost in a whisper. "Nick, you know, don't you, that you are dearer to me than anyone else in the world?"

He put up his hand and patted her cheek. "What! Still?" he said.

"Still, Nick? What do you mean?"

"Nothing at all," said Nick promptly. "Go on!"

She took his hand and held it. "Nick darling, do you remember how I came and kept house for you--years ago, at Redlands, when I was a child?"

"Rather!" said Nick. "Bully, wasn't it?"

She hesitated a little. "Nick, I'm going to make a perfectly awful suggestion."

"Don't mind me!" said Nick.

She laughed faintly. "I don't, dear,--formidable as you can be. It only flashed into my mind that if Muriel feels she really can't leave Reggie, and if she can possibly bear to part with you and you with her, could you possibly put up with me as a subst.i.tute for those few months and take me instead, if Dad could spare me?"

"By Jove!" said Nick, sitting up.

"I know it's great cheek of me to suggest it," Olga hastened to say.

"For of course I know I'd be a very poor subst.i.tute; but at least I could keep a motherly eye on you, and see that you were properly clothed and fed. And Muriel herself couldn't possibly love you more."

"By Jove!" Nick said again. Olga's face flushed and eager was close to his. He bent suddenly forward and kissed it. "And what about you, my chicken?" he said.

"I, Nick? I should love it!" she said, with candid eyes raised to his.

"You can't imagine how much I should love it."