第37章

The moment I saw the young man, punctual and immediate and a little uncomfortable about the cuffs, I regretted not having asked one or two more fellows.It might have spoiled the occasion, but it would have saved the situation.That single glance of my accustomed eye--alas! that it was so well accustomed--revealed him anxious and screwed up, as nervous as a cat, but determined, revealed--how well I knew the signs!--that he had something confidential and important and highly personal to communicate, a matter in which I could, if Ionly would, be of the greatest possible assistance.From these appearances twenty years had taught me to fly to any burrow, but your dinner-table offers no retreat; you are hoist, so to speak, on your own carving-fork.There are men, of course, and even women, who have scruples about taking advantage of so intimate and unguarded an opportunity, but Armour, I rapidly decided, was not one of these.His sophistication was progressing, but it had not reached that point.He wanted something--I flew instantly to the mad conclusion that he wanted Dora.I did not pause to inquire why he should ask her of me.It had seemed for a long time eminently proper that anybody who wanted Dora should ask her of me.The application was impossible, but applications nearly always were impossible.Nobody knew that better than the Secretary to the Government of India in the Home Department.

I squared my shoulders and we got through the soup.It was necessary to apologize for the fish.'I suppose one must remember,'

I said, 'that it has to climb six thousand feet,' when suddenly he burst out.

'Sir William Lamb tells me,' he said, and stopped to swallow some wine, 'that there is something very good going in Calcutta and that I should ask you to help me to get it.May I?'

So the miserable idea--the happy thought--had occurred to somebody else.

'Is there?' I said, with interest and attention.

'It's something in the School of Art.A man named Fry has died.'

'Ah!' I said, 'a man named Fry.He, I think was Director of that institution.' I looked at Armour in the considering, measuring way with which we suggest to candidates for posts that their fitness to fill them is not to be absolutely taken for granted.'Fry was a man of fifty-six,' I said.

'I am thirty.' He certainly did not look it, but years often fall lightly upon a temperament.

'It's a vile climate.'

'I know.Is it too vile, do you think,' he said anxiously, 'to ask a lady to share?'

'Lots of ladies do share it,' I replied, with amazing calmness; 'but I must decline absolutely to enter into that.'

My frown was so forbidding that he couldn't and didn't dare to go on.He looked dashed and disappointed; he was really a fool of an applicant, quite ready to retire from the siege on the first intimation that the gates were not to be thrown open at his approach.

'Do you think you would like teaching?' I asked.

'I can teach.Miss--my only pupil here has made capital progress.'

'I am afraid you must not measure the Bengali art student by the standard of Miss Harris,' I replied coldly.He WAS a fool.We talked of other things.I led him on to betray his ludicrous lack of knowledge of the world in various directions.At other times it had irritated me, that night it gave me purest pleasure.I agreed with him about everything.

As he selected his smoke to go home with I said, 'Send your application in to the Director of Public Instruction, Bengal--Lamb will tell you how--and I'll see what I can do.'

They were only too thankful to get him.As a student it seemed he had been diligent both in London and Paris; he possessed diplomas or some such things bearing names which were bound to have weight with a Department of Public Instruction anywhere.I felt particularly thankful for this, for I was committed to him if he had not a rag to show.

The matter was settled in three weeks, during which Armour became more and more the fashion in Simla.He was given every opportunity of experiment in the society of which he was about to become a permanent item.He dined out four or five times a week, and learned exactly what to talk about.He surprised me one day with a piece of news of my own department, which was a liberty of a very serious kind, but I forgave him upon finding that it was not true.He rode Lamb's weight-carriers, to cross which his short legs were barely adequate, and apart from this disadvantage he did not ride them badly.Only one thing marred the completeness of the transformation--he didn't dismiss the dog.The dog, fundamentally, was still and ever his companion.It was a suspicious circumstance if we had known; but we saw in it only a kind heart, and ignored it.