Part 8 (2/2)

”May I introduce you,” she said, ”I mean may I introduce to you my husband's cousin, General Lingard? I think you must have heard us speak of him----”

Athena Maule held out her little hand; it lay for a moment grasped in the strong fingers of her guest. She smiled up into his face, and instantly Lingard knew her for the woman in the railway carriage, the woman he had--snubbed; the woman he had--defended. ”I have often heard of General Lingard--not only from you”--she hesitated a moment--”but also from others, dear Mrs. Pache.”

Tom Pache gave a sudden laugh, as if his hostess had made an extraordinarily witty joke, and Athena nodded at him gaily. He and she were excellent friends, though Tom had never, strange to say, fallen in love with her.

For a moment the five men stood together on the hearthrug.

No formal introduction had taken place between Wantele and Lingard, but each man looked at the other with a keen, measuring look. ”My cousin never dines with us,” d.i.c.k said in a low voice, ”but we shall join him after dinner. He is looking forward to a talk with you.” Then he turned to young Pache. ”I'm afraid, Tom, you'll have to take in your sister.

There's no way out of it!”

Tom Pache made a little face of mock resignation.

”Isn't Miss Oglander here?” he whispered. ”Why isn't Miss Oglander here?” Then he drew the other aside. ”I say, d.i.c.k, isn't this a _go_?”

Wantele nodded his head; a wry smile came over his thin lips. ”Yes, it _is_ rather a go,” he answered dryly.

”We didn't even know Hew Lingard knew Miss Oglander!”

”And we only knew quite lately that you were related to General Lingard.”

Tom Pache grinned. ”Father was his guardian, and would go on guardianing him after he was grown up. He and my father had a row--years ago. But of course we made it up with him when he blossomed out into a famous character. Mother wrote and asked him to stay with us last time he was in England. He wouldn't come then. But the other day he wrote her quite a decent letter telling her of his engagement. They don't want it announced--I can't think why----”

”I suppose they both hate fuss,” said Wantele briefly. ”We tried to get Jane here before to-night--but she's nursing a sick friend, and she can't come for another week. By the way, I've forgotten to ask how you like your motor?”

”Ripping!” said young Pache briefly. ”Unluckily Patty insists on driving it, and father weakly lets her do it.”

Dinner was announced, and the four curiously a.s.sorted couples went into the dining-room.

While avoiding looking at him across the round table, Wantele was intently conscious of the presence of the man who was to become Jane Oglander's husband.

Hew Lingard was absolutely unlike what he had expected him to be.

Wantele had never cared for soldiers, while admitting unwillingly that there must be in the great leaders qualities very different from those which adorned his few military acquaintances. He had thought to see a trim, well-groomed--hateful but expressive phrase!--good-looking man. He saw before him a loosely-built, powerful figure and a dark, clean-shaven face, of which the dominant features were the strong jaw and secretive-looking mouth, which seemed rather to recall the wild soldier of fortune of another epoch than the shrewd strategist and coldly able organiser Lingard had shown himself to be.

Newspaper readers had been told how extraordinary was Lingard's personal influence over his men. An influence exerted not only over his own soldiers, but over the friendly native tribesmen.

Wantele, who read widely and who remembered what he read, recalled a phrase which had caught his fancy, a phrase invented to meet a very different case:

”They grow, like hounds, fond of the man who shows them sport, and by whose hallo they are wont to be encouraged.”

Lingard looked a man who could show sport....

Almost against his will, he could not help liking the look of Jane Oglander's lover. There was humour as well as keen intelligence in Hew Lingard's ugly face. When he smiled, his large mouth had generous curves which belied the strong, stern jaw. Wantele divined that he was half amused, half ashamed, at the honours which were now being heaped upon him, and certainly he was doing his best to make all those about him forget that he was in any sense unlike themselves.

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