Fifty-Two Stories For Girls Part 34

"My shoes are all cut to pieces," she owned ruefully. "I suppose we must wait. It was very lucky for me you were pa.s.sing just then."

"Yes, I had just cut the shop for an hour or two, and I came round here to have a quiet smoke. Lost my way, as a matter of fact."

"They must keep open very late at your shop," she remarked.

He hesitated a moment before he answered, "Very late."

"And I suppose you haven't dined?" she went on. "You must come back with me, and dine at the hotel. I cannot go on to the party now, at any rate; my clothes are in rags, and, besides, it must be quite late."

"Do you know your way back to the hotel?" he asked, as the time went on and the jampannis remained, to all appearance, as dead as ever.

"No, I have never walked down this way, and it is far too dark to attempt it now," said Elma very decidedly.

The time pa.s.sed pleasantly enough while they waited, and more than once their light-hearted laughter rang out into the night.

At last they heard a pattering of bare feet coming down the road. The stranger hailed in Hindustani, and the natives stopped and began an excited jabbering all together, which the stranger answered in their own language.

"These are the jampannis who were killed," he announced to Elma. "If you wish it, I will send one of them with a message to your mother, and the others can fetch a couple of jampans to take us to the hotel."

"You seem to know Hindustani very well," she remarked, when the men had been sent on their various errands.

"Yes, I have been some little time in India," he answered, "though I have only been a few days at Simla. Will you allow me to introduce myself? My name is Angus McIvor."

"And I am Elma Macdonald. I hope we shall not meet any one at the hotel before I can get to my room. Oh! and will you let me go on in front, and get out before you come?--I am so dreadfully tattered and torn."

"I promise not to look at you at all until you give me leave," he answered gravely. "And what about me? I have lost my hat, and as yet I have no idea of the extent of the damage my garments have sustained."

"Then I won't look at you either," said Elma, and they laughed together again in the gayest _camaraderie_.

Dinner was over at the Bellevue when they got back there; but they neither of them felt the want of other company. They had a very merry little dinner-party all to themselves, and Angus was able to look at the damsel errant he had rescued. Her beauty came upon him with a shock of surprise. He had seen many beautiful women in his time, but never anything so enchanting as the droop of her mouth, or the lovely curves of her throat, or the transparent candour of her sweet blue eyes.

What Elma saw was a tall, well-knit young fellow, with a dark, plain face, a hawk nose, and grey eyes. He was clean-shaven; no moustache or beard concealed the masterful squareness of his jaw or the rather satirical curve of his thin lips.

Directly dinner was over he left her, though she begged him to stay till her mother came home.

"Mother would like to thank you for what you did for me," she said.

"I will come and be thanked to-morrow morning, then," he said, laughing.

"I shall want to know how you are after your accident, you know--that is, if I can get away from the shop."

Mrs. Macdonald came home rather early, and not in the best of tempers.

She had been a good deal alarmed and upset when Elma failed to arrive at Government House; and even after the jampanni had brought the message that her daughter was safe at the hotel she was extremely annoyed at Elma's absence from the party. There were several bachelor guests whom she would have been glad to introduce to her; and when she thought of the radiant figure in the s.h.i.+mmering white robe that she had last seen on the hotel verandah, she was ready to cry with vexation and disappointment.

She listened with ill-concealed impatience to Elma's account of her accident. "And pray who is this Mr. McIvor who roams about rescuing distressed damsels?" she asked. "I never heard his name before."

"He said he came out of a shop," said Elma simply.

"A shop!" cried Mrs. Macdonald. "Really, Elma, you are no better than an idiot! The idea of asking a man who comes out of a shop to dine with you here! What will people say? You must be mad."

"But he was very kind to me, mother," said Elma, "and he missed his own dinner by helping me. And, you know, I might have lain in that horrible place all night if he had not helped me out. I don't see that any one here can complain about his shop; they were not asked to meet him: we dined quite by ourselves, he and I."

Mrs. Macdonald stamped her foot. "You are hopeless, Elma--quite hopeless!" she cried. "What was your aunt dreaming of to bring you up to have no more sense than a child of three years old?"

"He is very gentlemanly," said Elma, still gently expostulating. "You will see for yourself: he is coming to call on you to-morrow, and to ask how I am."

"Elma, I forbid you to see him again!" said the mother, now tragically impressive. "If he calls to-morrow, I shall see him alone. You are not to come into the room."

"I am afraid he will think it very unkind and rude," said Elma regretfully; "and I can never forget how kind he was and how glad I was to see him when he came down the _kudd_ after me."

But she made no further resistance to her mother's orders, having privately decided in her own mind to find out what shop in Simla had the advantage of his services, and to see him there herself and thank him again.

Angus McIvor duly called next morning, and was received by Mrs.

Macdonald alone; but what pa.s.sed between them at that interview remains a secret between him and that lady.

After lunch Elma strolled out for her usual solitary walk while her mother was enjoying her siesta. She wandered idly along under the trees down the road along which the jampannis had whirled her the evening before, and so to the broken edge of the _kudd_ where she had rolled over.

There, sitting on the bank, smoking serenely, was Angus McIvor. He threw away his cigar, and got up as soon as she saw him.

Her lovely face flushed, her blue eyes darkened with pleasure, as she held out her hand in greeting.

"I thought you would be sure to come here," he said, smiling down upon her.

"Oh, you expected me, then?" she said, and her eyes fell before his.

"Why weren't you there this morning when I came to be thanked?" he asked.

She turned her head away uneasily. "Mother did not wish me to come in,"

she said.

"Why not?"

No answer.

"Well, never mind that now," he said. "I will ask you again some other time. Now let us go up towards the top of Jacko; there are some pretty views I should like to show you."

And, nothing loth, Elma went with him.

"Why did your mother not wish you to see me this morning?"

"I cannot tell," said Elma lamely.

"Was it because of the shop?" he persisted. "Tell me. I promise you I will not mind. Was it?"

The fair head drooped a little, and the answer came in a whisper he could hardly hear: "Yes."

"And do you mind about the shop?"

She raised indignant blue eyes to his. "Of course not!" she said. "You ought to know that without asking me."