The Pool in the Desert

sonality takes possession of one. I constantly go to that little hut of

completely forgot to reveal to him y

moment. But the conversation took a turn

hat might be. And it doesn't in the least matter,' she

time, for this struck me as a matter for offense. '

s not knowing it was known-ri

did he

ch. What sh

poor Kauffer's account,' I growled. Dora did

d!' I cried, pushing, a

xplai

O

sition, and of course he didn't real

t 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 o

looked haughtily about for explanations. A path dropped into the r

d was Armour on his much enduring

' I exclaimed. 'It isn't usual to put

hint that I was annoyed, but fixed hi

nd added, 'I did not ex

turned. 'You remember that

dom quite met its counterpart over his teeth. This gave an unpremeditated casual effect to everything

like,' he said, 'but it isn't much good hunting about

air of leisure and of felicity; one woul

s is in one of the events. You did enter for the needle-thread

our's face and seemed to put ou

cing down over the tree-top

a, suddenly, 'yo

firmed her. 'Your be

mble,' Armour replied;

you didn't then, and look at your animal's nea

er, but looked intently

arply, 'and lead your horse home. I

was indulgent to a trot. At the end of it Dora remarked that Mr. Armour naturally could not be expected to know anyt

he 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 he

e ruefully, eyeing the distance and the possi

nd I went feeling somehow chastened myse

d 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

y youth and high spirits-two goo

hey to know?'

eplied cheerfully; 'with the marks of Oxford and Cambridge and Sandhurst and Woolwich on t

preposterous melancholy, 'if even

-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

ered to change saddles, but she would not. We took it out of the horses all along the fi

tter now,'

is pony rose and delivered me from the too insistent thought of him. With Dora it was otherw

h a reckless turn of her head, she sa

ant him?'

I always

statement at some length in silence, but

ony home with one of our own servants-he

proper kit,' I

m about that. Make him get some t

get him asked to

to do so. I have done what I could. He has dined with us several

h old Lamb and Colonel Hamilton. He made us all miserabl

I've shown his pictures to everybody, and praised him and talk

'people might

stonishing girl, without flinching. She even sought my e

t the words that fell from me we

living a life that

y,' I said, and set my tee

fectionate gesture, and I was re

lked no more of Armour, or of anything,

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