But Mackay knew his men too well to have anything of the sort; and Desmond's eyes gleamed.

"How about uniform for me, sir?" he asked. "I could manage it after a fashion."

Colonel Buchanan smiled.

"No doubt you could! But I'll overlook it to-night. The fellows want you. Won't do to keep them waiting!"

Followed a babel of talk and laughter, in the midst of which Honor, who had moved a little apart, became aware that Desmond was at her side.

"Never mind them, Honor," he said in a low voice. "They mean it very well, and they don't realise that it's a little overwhelming for us both. I won't pile it on by saying any more on my own account. _Wait_ till I get a chance to repay you in kind--that's all!"

His words spurred her to a sudden resolve.

"You have the chance now, if it doesn't seem like taking a mean advantage of--things."

"Mean advantages are not in your line. You've only to say the word."

"Then _stick to the Frontier_!" she answered, an imperative ring in her low voice. "Doesn't to-night convince you that you've no right to leave them all?"

His face grew suddenly grave.

"The only right is to stand by Ladybird--at all costs."

"Yes, yes--I know. But remember what I said about her side of it. Give her the chance to find herself, Theo; and give _me_ your word now to think no more about leaving the Border. Will you?"

He did not answer at once, nor did he remove his eyes from her face.

"Do you care so much what I do with the rest of my life?" he said at last very quietly.

"Yes--I do; for Ladybird's sake."

"I see. Well, there's no denying your privilege--now to have some voice in the matter. I give you my word, and if it turns out a mistake, the blame be on my own head. The fellows are making a move now. I must go. Good-night."

The men departed accordingly with much clatter of footsteps and jingling of spurs; and only Mrs Olliver remained behind.

Evelyn Desmond had succeeded in slipping away unnoticed a few minutes earlier. She alone, among them all, had spoken no word of grat.i.tude to her friend.

CHAPTER IX.

WE'LL JUST FORGET.

"Les pet.i.tes choses ont leur importance; c'est par elles toujours qu'on se perde."--DOSTOIEVSKY.

"So the picnic was a success?"

"Yes, quite. Mrs Rivers was so clever. She paired us off beautifully.

My pair was Captain Winthrop of the Ghurkas; an awfully nice man. He talked to me the whole time. He knows Theo. Says he's the finest fellow in Asia! Rather nice to be married to the 'finest fellow in Asia,' isn't it?"

"Decidedly. But I don't think we needed _him_ to tell us that sort of thing." A touch of the girl's incurable pride flashed in her eyes.

"Well, I was pleased all the same. He said he was never so surprised in his life as when he heard Theo had married; but now he had seen me, he didn't feel surprised any more."

"That was impertinence."

"Not a bit! I thought it was rather nice."

A trifling difference of opinion; but, in point of character, it served to set the two women miles apart.

Evelyn's remark scarcely needed a reply; and Honor fell into a thoughtful silence.

She had allowed herself the rare indulgence of a day "off duty."

Instead of accompanying Evelyn to the picnic, she had enjoyed a scrambling excursion with Mrs Conolly--whose friendship was fast becoming a real possession--and her two big babies; exploring hillsides and ravines; hunting up the rarer wild flowers and ferns; and lunching off sandwiches on a granite boulder overhanging infinity. This was her idea of enjoying life in the Himalayas; but the June sun proved a little exhausting; and she was aware of an unusual weariness as she lay back in her canvas chair in the verandah of "The Deodars,"--a woodland cottage, owing its pretentious name to the magnificent cedars that stood sentinel on either side of it.

Her eyes turned for comfort and refreshment to the stainless wonder of the snows, that were already beginning to don their evening jewels--coral and amethyst, opal and pearl. The railed verandah, and its sweeping sprays of honeysuckle, were delicately etched upon a sky of warm amber, shading through gradations of nameless colour into blue, where cloud-films lay like fairy islands in an enchanted sea.

Faint whiffs of rose and honeysuckle hovered in the still air, like spirits of the coming twilight, entangling sense and soul in a sweetness that entices rather than uplifts.

Evelyn Desmond, perched lightly on the railings, showed ethereal as a large white b.u.t.terfly, in the daintiness of her summer finery against a background of glowing sky. She swung a lace parasol aimlessly to and fro, and her gaze was concentrated on the buckle of an irreproachable shoe.

Honor, withdrawing her eyes reluctantly from the brooding peace of mountain and sky, wondered a little at her pensiveness; wondered also where her thoughts--if mere flittings of the mind are ent.i.tled to be so called--had carried her.

As a matter of fact, she was thinking of unpaid bills; since human lilies of the field, though they neither toil nor spin, must pay for irreproachable shoes and unlimited summer raiment.

The girl's own thoughts, as they were apt to do in leisure moments, had wandered to Kohat: to the men who were working with cheerful, matter-of-fact courage in the glare of the little desert-station; and to the one brave woman, who remained in their midst to hearten them by her own indomitable gladness of soul.

The beauty of the evening bred a longing--natural in one so sympathetic--that they also could be up on this green hill-top, under the shade of the deodars, enjoying the exquisite repose of it all.

"Have you heard from Theo this week, Ladybird?" she asked suddenly. It was the first time she had used the name, for habit is strong; and Evelyn looked up quickly, the colour deepening in her cheeks.

"Don't call me Ladybird!" she commanded, with unusual decision. "It belongs to Theo."

Honor noted her rising colour with a smile of approval.

"I'm sorry, dear," she said gently. "I quite understand. But--have you heard lately?"

Evelyn's face cleared as readily as a child's.

"Oh, yes; I forgot to tell you. I had quite a long letter this morning. Perhaps you would like to read it."

And drawing an envelope from her pocket she tossed it into Honor's lap.

The girl glanced down at it quickly; but allowed it to lie there untouched. She knew that Desmond wrote good letters, and she would have dearly liked to read this one. But a certain manly strain in her forbade her to trespa.s.s on the privacy of a letter written to his wife.

"Thank you," she said; "I think I won't read it, though. I don't suppose Theo would care about his letters being pa.s.sed on to me. I only want to know if things are going on all right."