Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/301

  at the Kurgan except the embers of fires and some camels feeding near by and scattered cartridge shells, the only signs of the recent fight, he was palpably downcast.

"My Garhwalis will never forgive me, quite. I promised them pukka fighting, and all we do, my dear chap, is to drop in on you for tiffin. You might at least tell us the whole story."

Donovan looked into Edith's eyes, over the camp fire.

"It might better keep," he said.

Fraser-Carnie surveyed a teacup. "Until the Viceroy hears it, of course. And that means we'll never have a whiff of it. Edith, my dear, you at least will enlighten us as to what happened here."

"M-mh," said Edith, a jelly spoon in her mouth. Flushed and happy and utterly worn out, she sat with her father's hand in hers. "Captain Donovan says I talk too much."

The major shook his head sadly.

"Rand," he observed, balancing a cigarette between two fingers, "do you realize we are snubbed? By our hosts, too. Deuced bad form, I call it. A cavalry officer—is it cavalry, Captain Donovan?—goes off hunting in the Himalayas after a confidential chat with the Viceroy of India, mind you. Just before war breaks. And the Central Asian tribes, that we fellows in India expected down on our backs momentarily, by some astounding miracle do not side against us. Then, after this same officer on his utterly foolish hunting trip, which, it seems, was with the Viceroy's consent, is mentioned for promotion he vanishes for a couple of years, to bob up with your daughter—and we are to ask no questions!"