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Charteris was the head and front of the offending, for Gerrard's self-suppression in placing himself under his orders had had the unlooked-for effect of concentrating attention, and blame, on the man nominally responsible.
Nisbet and Cowper still slept in their desecrated grave in the precincts of Ratan Singh's tomb, not because the mind of General Speathley had yielded in the least to Gerrard's arguments, but on account of the opportune arrival of the ammunition for which the army had been waiting, and which enabled active work to begin at once.
Her hand barely touched Gerrard's, her eyes shunned his, and her manner was constrained almost awkward. Before Gerrard had crossed the verandah he had divined a reason for this change: she had read her own heart at last, and it was Bob Charteris that she loved.
Gerrard's heart gave an ecstatic bound when his host mentioned casually on meeting him that Miss Cinnamond was staying at the Residency during the absence of her father at the front and her mother in the hills.
Charteris obeyed, with exemplary outward meekness, and joined them immediately in a smaller tent arranged as a card-room, but not yet put to its intended use. Disregarding Gerrard's movement, he put the shawl round Honour himself, and they stood waiting her pleasure in silence, while she gripped her fan so hard in both hands that it broke in two. She raised a crimson face at last.
But I was born to be a comedian, Sir: so I ran away, and listed with the players, Sir; and I topt my parts at Amersham and Gerrard's Cross, and played my own father to his face, in his own town of Pogis, in the part of Gripe, when I was not full seventeen years of age; and he did not know me again, but he knew me afterwards; and then he laughed, and I laughed, and, what is better, the dry-salter laughed, and gave me up my articles for the joke's sake: so that I came into court afterwards with clean hands, with clean hands; do you see, Sir?
It was dark when he got back to his quarters, and he started when Charteris bounced up out of the depths of a long chair. "I thought you were never coming! Hal, I've seen her." His tone was so instinct with rapture that Gerrard's heart stood still. "Where?" he asked hoarsely. "At the band. Driving with her mother. Lady Cinnamond was uncommon kind let me ride on her side of the carriage.
"Sahib, I cannot be sure, but I think that old man is the Rajah Partab Singh, whom I have seen once at Nanakpur. Do not betray that you suspect him, but look at the mark of the kalgi on the turbans of the two." The words were so quickly spoken that Gerrard's pause was barely perceptible, and he went out to meet the newcomers without hesitation.
On the well-remembered verandah Gerrard's servant was putting the finishing touches to the supper-table, to furnish which he had raided the Resident's larder and suborned his cook, and Charteris threw himself into a chair with a sigh of satisfaction.
The Chevalier de Grammont had principally helped to make them fashionable, his suppers being served With the greatest elegance, attended by the choicest wits, and occasionally favoured with the presence of majesty itself. Nor were Lady Gerrard's PETIT SOUPERS less brilliant, or her company less distinguished.
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