Page:Quartette - Kipling (1885).djvu/101

 they had been shouted in my ear.) "It's some hideous mistake, I'm sure. Please forgive me, Jack, and let's be friends, again." The 'rickshaw hood had fallen back, and inside, as I hope and pray daily for the death I dread by night, leant Mrs. Keith-Wessington, handkerchief in hand, and golden head bowed on her breast.

How long I stared motionless at this horror I do not know. Finally, I was aroused by my syce taking the Waler's bridle and asking whether "the sahib was bemár." From the horrible to the commonplace is but a step. I tumbled off my horse and dashed, half fainting, into Peliti's for a glass of cherry-brandy. There two or three couples were gathered round the coffee-tables discussing the gossip of the day. Their trivialities were more comforting to me just then than the consolations of religion could have been. I plunged into the midst of the conversation at once; chatted, laughed, and jested with a face (when I caught a glimpse of it in a mirror) as white and drawn as that of a corpse. Three or four men noticed my condition; and, evidently setting it down to the results of over many "pegs", charitably endeavoured to draw me apart from the rest of the loungers. But I refused to be led away. I wanted the company of my kind—the more the merrier-as a child rushes into the midst of the dinner-party after a fright in the dark. I must have talked for about ten minutes or so, though it seemed an eternity to me, when I heard Kitty's clear voice outside inquiring of my syce where I was. In another minute she had entered the shop, prepared to roundly upbraid me for failing so signally in my duties as a faithful cavalier. Something in my face stopped her. "Why, Jack," she cried, "what have you been doing? What has happened? Are you ill?" Thus driven into a direct lie, I said that the sun had been a little too much for me. It was close upon five o'clock of a cloudy April afternoon, and the sun had been hidden all day. I saw my mistake as soon as the words were out of my mouth: attempted to recover it; blundered hopelessly and followed Kitty in a regal rage out of doors, amid the smiles of my acquaintances. Once outside I made some excuse (I have forgotten what) on the score of my feeling faint; and cantered away to my hotel, leaving Kitty to finish the ride by herself.

Arrived in my room I sat down and calmly tried to reason out the matter. Here was I, Theobald Jack Pansay, a