Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/357

Rh on perceiving the sort of fatherly way in which the doctor addressed his hostess, and the absence of embarrassment between the two. Soon the doctor and the commissioner rose and strolled into the garden, leaving Miss Cunningham and Yorke alone. But although the latter, fully impressed with the importance of the occasion, was in an agony of suspense as the brief moments flew by, he could not manage to rise in his conversation beyond the level of commonplace; and when the others returned he had only the consolation of there being still a long day before him, during which the commissioner must be absent in court, and then, perhaps, a word or hint, or even some glance exchanged, might tell him that his case was understood, and not hopeless, and embolden him to pour out his tale of love.

"I have been telling the commissioner," said the doctor, addressing that gentleman's daughter, "that I think your plan a very good one. What he wants just now is a little rest and change. I daresay a month at Patanpoor may do all that is needed; at any rate it will be time to think of a season in the hills if this little trip fails to set him up. On what day do you think of going away?"

"Going away!" exclaimed Yorke, and in a tone of such unfeigned concern that the other two gentlemen could not help smiling; and Miss Cunningham, with a little blush, explained that they were thinking of paying Colonel Falkland a visit for three or four weeks before the hot weather set in. Her father had been out of sorts for some time, but they hoped this change and the holiday might be sufficient to set him to rights again, and prevent the necessity for taking leave to the hills, "Papa dreads the idea of spending a whole hot season away from his beloved cutchery. You know he has never been to the hills all his life."

"Yes," broke in her father, "and I hope I never shall go; a season of Simla lounging would finish me off, I believe, if I went up ill in the first instance."

"And you?" said Yorke, turning to his daughter, — "what are your feelings in the matter? But I need not ask," he added, with a shade of bitterness in his voice. "Of course you must want to go. Simla is the gayest place in India." And the subaltern's heart sank within him as he pictured to himself for the moment its beautiful mistress treading the round of mountain dissipation, surrounded by all the male butterflies who flutter about that favourite resort.

"Of course I should like to see the hills," she replied; "it is impossible to watch the distant peaks lighted up of a morning from here without longing to explore them; but I am a domestic creature," she added, smiling, "although you may not suppose so, and I think I should like to spend my first year at any rate quietly here. I have been wandering all my life, and it seems really wrong to begin moving about again just when I am settled in a home at last. But I hope," she added, looking anxiously towards her father, "that it may not be necessary."

This little speech filled Yorke with a transport of delight. This desire to remain here, knowing as she must his feelings, might he not fairly interpret it to mean encouragement? Could she indeed have said more, without departing from proper maidenly reserve? And as she threw that glance of filial anxiety towards her father he thought she had never looked so beautiful before.

"Papa," said the young lady presently, who was employed on some embroidery work, "you have given Dr. Maxwell a cigar, but you have not offered one to Mr. Yorke."

"I did not know that Mr. Yorke smoked," replied her father, hastening to supply the omission by handing him his case; "he refused the offer of one last night in the billiard-room."

Yorke said, looking a little sheepish as he accepted the proffered cheroot, that he thought perhaps Miss Cunningham might not like the smell of tobacco.

"If she does not," said her father, "then she must be in perpetual discomfort, for I smoke all day long, and in every room in the house, I think. But I offered to give up the practice when first she came, and to keep my smoke to my own room — didn't I, Olivia?"

"You dear old papa! You must have had your old bachelor ways and comforts sufficiently broken in upon by my invasion, without my depriving you of your last remaining solace. Besides," she added, laughingly, "there was some real selfishness at the bottom of my request after all, for I did not want you to banish me to solitude in empty rooms. You are at home little enough as it is. It would be dreadful if you were to keep to your own room in order to enjoy your cigars there. Women should put up with smoking nowadays when it has become such a regular