The Native Born | Page 6

object to."
"Well, won't you introduce me, then, so that I can express my displeasure direct to the culprit?"
The ceremony of introduction was gone through, on Beatrice Cary's side with a sudden change of manner. Hitherto cold, indifferent, slightly supercilious, she now relaxed into a gentleness that was almost appealing.
"This is a new world for me," she said, looking up into Captain Stafford's amused face, "and I have so many questions to ask that I am afraid of turning into a mark of interrogation, or--as you said--a disturber of the peace."
"You won't ask questions long," he answered, with a wise shake of the head. "Nobody does. Wherever English people go they take their whole paraphernalia with them; and you will find that, with a few superficial differences, Marut is no more or less than a snug little English suburb. A little more freedom of intercourse--a little less Philistinism, perhaps--but the foundations are the same. As to India itself, one soon learns to forget all about it."
He then turned to Lois, who was intent on watching Mr. Travers.
"You weren't on the race-course this morning," he said in an undertone. "I missed you. Why did you not come?"
"I couldn't," she said. "There was too much to be done. We are rather short of servants just now, for reasons--well, that, according to you, ought not to be mentioned on a fine day."
He laughed, but not as he had hitherto done. There was another tone in his voice, warmer, more confidential. It attracted Beatrice Cary's attention, and she looked curiously from Lois to the man beside her. About thirty-five, with a passably good figure, irregular, if honest, features, and an expression usually somewhat grave, he made no pretensions to any exterior advantage. He could apparently be gay, as now, but his gaiety did not conceal the fact that it was unusual. Altogether, he had nothing about him which appealed to her, but Beatrice Cary was inclined to resent Lois' obvious intimacy with him as something which accentuated her own isolation.
"Can you make out what Mr. Travers is saying?" Lois asked, turning suddenly to her. "I can't hear a word, and I'm sure it's awfully interesting. Captain Stafford, do you know?"
"I can guess," he answered, half smiling. "When Travers has a suggestion to make, it usually means that some one has to stump up."
There was a general laugh. Travers looked around.
"Some one has accused me falsely," he declared. "I have a prophetic sense of injury."
"On the contrary, that is what I am suffering from," Stafford retorted. "Since hearing that you have a new scheme, I have been hastily reckoning how many weeks' leave I shall have to sacrifice to pay for it."
Travers shook his head.
"As usual--wrong, my dear Captain," he said. "My scheme has two parts. The first part is known to you all, though for the benefit of weak memories, I will repeat it. Ladies and gentlemen, in this Station we have the honor of being protected from the malice of the aborigine by two noble regiments. We count, moreover, at least thirty of the fair sex and forty miscellaneous persons, such as miserable civilians like myself, and children. Hitherto, we have been content to meet at odd times and odd places. When hospitality has run dry, we have resorted to a shed-like structure dignified with the name of club. Personally, I call it a disgrace, which should at once be rectified."
"I have already contributed my mite!" protested a young subaltern from the British regiment.
"I know; so has everybody. With strenuous efforts I have collected the sum of five hundred rupees. That won't do. We require at least four times that sum. Consequently, we must have a patron."
"The second part of your programme concerns the patron, then?" Captain Webb inquired, with an aspect of considerable relief. "Not yourself, by any chance?"
"Certainly not. If I had any noble inclinations of that sort I should have discovered them a long time ago. No, I content myself with taking the part of a fairy godmother."
"I'm afraid I don't follow," Stafford put in. "What is the fairy godmother going to do for us? Produce a club-house, a patron, or a cucumber?"
"A patron, and one, my dear fellow, whom I should have entirely overlooked had it not been for you."
"For me!"
"It was you who made the discovery that the present Rajah is not, as we thought, an imbecilic youth, but a man of many parts and splendidly adapted to our requirements."
"I protest!" broke in Stafford, with unusual earnestness. "It was by pure chance that, in an audience with the Maharajah Scindia, the late regent of Marut, I got to hear that his whilom ward was both intelligent and cultured. I believe it was a slip on his part, and, seeing that Rajah Nehal Singh has shunned all English intercourse, I