Voices in the Night. Flora Annie Webster Steel

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СКАЧАТЬ or absolutely omniscient; and either treatment annoyed her, for she was accustomed to consider herself, and be considered, thoroughly well informed.

      'The whole caboodle,' replied Jack Raymond tolerantly. 'You see there were kings in Nushapore----'

      'I know that, of course!' she interrupted impatiently, 'but do they still claim?'

      'Great Moses! Claim? Nushapore is a vox clamavi, chiefly to mutiny pensions which, being mortgaged up to the hilt, are of no use to any one but the usurers. But they will generally lend the bankrupts enough for the entrance-fee to the races, so of course they come here in crowds.'

      'Why?' asked the girl, feeling herself a mere mark of interrogation.

      'It's a change from betting on cocks and kites. Besides, there's the position.'

      'What position?' she asked, with a prayer for patience.

      He laughed easily. 'All races are equal on a course, Miss Drummond; and a racecourse is, practically, the only place where the native meets us on equal terms. Look! there's the biggest brute in Asia elbowing Mrs. Member-of-the-Board Collins at the totalisator! If he tried it on elsewhere, some one would kick him, and quite right too.'

      Lesley's disdain became active, though she told herself the remark was only to be expected from 'that type of man.'

      'May I ask why?' she said superbly.

      'Because it is contrary to his own estimate of the proprieties, and it is impossible to be virtuous on another person's decalogue, isn't it?' he replied coolly; then, ere she had time to reply, went on: 'There are a lot of chaps want kicking in this crowd, I can tell you. For instance, do you see that man buttonholing the Rightful Heir?'

      'With the red tie?' she asked, feeling interested in spite of herself. 'Is he English?'

      'God forbid!' said her companion piously. 'Grecian Archipelago, I should say for choice; but he won't let on. Anyhow, he's a merchant; wheat, diamonds, dust, bones--everything out of which he can screw a pice. And Jehân Aziz, the Rightful Heir, has the finest table emerald in the world--the old king's signet-ring. Now I don't mind betting it will be in Paris before the year's out.'

      'In Paris!--why in Paris? I don't understand--nobody could be expected--nobody could understand,' protested Lesley.

      Jack Raymond smiled. 'Filthy Lucre--his real name is Philip Lucanaster--does, I assure you, Miss Drummond! He knows that heirlooms always pay debts of honour.' He paused to lift his cap elaborately to a well-dressed fair woman who passed with a tall dark man, whose face had a wistful look. 'There's a case in point,' he went on carelessly. 'That fellow--he is a pure-bred Brahmin, Miss Drummond--is paying his heirlooms through the nose because he contracted a debt of honour in marrying an Englishwoman. She has made him sacrifice home, friends, relations; prints his cards Mr. and Mrs. Chris Davenant--his real name is Krishn Davenund--and so tries to hang on to the frayed edge of society'-he glanced at an effusive greeting between the lady in question and Mr. Lucanaster.

      'Poor thing!' ejaculated Lesley with the wholesale defence of all things feminine which belongs to her type. 'What a terrible experience for her--'

      'And for him,' retorted her companion drily. 'Matrimonial mistakes, though women will not recognise the fact, come inevitably in pairs.'

      Apparently there was some suggestion in his own words, for he looked ahead hastily, and finding himself closer to an advancing group than he wished to be, told Jerry he must be off, and turned back towards the paddock.

      'Who was that, Lesley?' asked Lady Arbuthnot, who, with her husband, formed the centre of that little knot of advancing notables. She was a beautiful woman, beautifully dressed, and with the beautiful manners which a perfectly calm consciousness of beauty always gives to a woman. Her soft voice softened still more as she spoke to her child's governess; so there was small wonder that the latter's face, as she replied, told yet one more tale of modern girlhood--the tale of one woman's blind hero-worship of another.

      'A race steward. Jerry took a violent fancy to him and I didn't! But he said he knew you--a Mr. Raymond----'

      A faint echo of the name was checked on Grace Arbuthnot's lips by a greeting to a new arrival, which, when she returned to the subject, lent them the continuance of a set smile of welcome.

      'Yes! I knew him very well years ago. I shall be glad to meet him again.' The faint unreality which previous rehearsal gives, even to truth, was in her voice.

      'He's up in this wace,' quoted Jerry sagely, 'or he'd have come, for he said you was orful nice. Oh, mum! do be quick, or we shan't see him win.'

      'Win? How do you know he's going to win, sonnie?' asked Grace Arbuthnot, and there was no unreality in her voice now, only a slightly troubled curiosity.

      ''Cos he will,' answered the child in childish fashion; whereat his mother flushed faintly, but smiled also.

      Jerry was a good prophet. Five minutes after, he was dancing on his chair, as crimson and gold came in first. 'Oh! did you see, mum?' he cried. 'He was quite quite first.'

      Lady Arbuthnot held out her hand to steady the child, and her voice seemed to need support also. 'Of course I saw, dear; and I am glad.'

      'So's every one, Lady Arbuthnot,' said young Nevill Lloyd--captain by virtue of his A.D.C.-ship--who stood behind her. 'Raymond is our most popular win.'

      It seemed so by the cheer which rose as the winners went by.

      'I suppose he has won a lot of money,' sniffed Lesley, noting the rider's pleased face.

      'Not a penny, Miss Drummond!' protested the young fellow. 'Raymond is only on the saddle when he rides another chap's horse, as he's doing to-day; and it is safer, you know.'

      'I do not know, Captain Lloyd,' she retorted loftily. 'I know nothing about horse-racing. Why is it safer?'

      He coughed uneasily. 'Ah! I thought you would know, you know, and it's a bit hard to explain. You see, Indian racing is sometimes a trifle odd--considering, I mean, that we are all gentlemen--or supposed to be so. But Raymond,' here he brightened up, 'is always a straight win. That's why Lucre and his crew----'

      He stopped short as one of a group of men, amongst whom Mr. Lucanaster showed conspicuous by his red tie, paused in the general exodus to answer a bystander's question.

      'Luck? How the deuce is any one to have luck when you can't get a fair bet placed? Even the Devil's Own didn't get on with His Royal Highness.'

      Mr. Lucanaster acknowledged another of his nicknames by a lavish smile. 'There is faith as mustard in Raymond among our nigger friends,' he said, with the eccentricity of accent and idiom which, following him into every language he knew, made his nationality an insoluble problem. He glanced back as he spoke towards a cluster of native gentlemen who, following a lead as ever, were also making their way from the stand. The similarity of their oval yellow faces, their thin curves of moustache trained to a fine sweep above the full betel-stained lips, proclaimed them of the same family; but Lesley singled out the Rightful Heir by his cloth-of-gold coatee, and by something which, rather to her own surprise, thrilled her unexpectedly--a green gleam of sovereignty on the small supple hand raised in a salaam of servitude as its owner passed the Lieutenant-Governor and his party.

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