CHAPTER VIII

A STRING OF PEARLS

“So you go to parties nowadays,” said Mrs. Linforth, and Sir John Casson, leaning his back against the wall of the ball-room, puzzled his brains for the name of the lady with the pleasant winning face to whom he had just been introduced.  At first it had seemed to him merely that her hearing was better than his.  The “nowadays,” however, showed that it was her memory which had the advantage.  They were apparently old acquaintances; and Sir John belonged to an old-fashioned school which thought it discourtesy to forget even the least memorable of his acquaintances.

“You were not so easily persuaded to decorate a ball-room at Mussoorie,” Mrs. Linforth continued.

Sir John smiled, and there was a little bitterness in the smile.

“Ah!” he said, and there was a hint, too, of bitterness in his voice, “I was wanted to decorate ball-rooms then.  So I didn’t go.  Now I am not wanted.  So I do.”

“That’s not the true explanation,” Mrs. Linforth said gently, and she shook her head.  She spoke so gently and with so clear a note of sympathy and comprehension that Sir John was at more pains than ever to discover who she was.  To hardly anyone would it naturally have occurred that Sir John Casson, with a tail of letters to his name, and a handsome pension, enjoyed at an age when his faculties were alert and his bodily strength not yet diminished, could stand in need of sympathy.  But that precisely was the fact, as the woman at his side understood.  A great ruler yesterday, with a council and an organized Government, subordinated to his leadership, he now merely lived at Camberley, and as he had confessed, was a bore at his club.  And life at Camberley was dull.

He looked closely at Mrs. Linforth.  She was a woman of forty, or perhaps a year or two more.  On the other hand, she might be a year or two less.  She had the figure of a young woman, and though her dark hair was flecked with grey, he knew that was not to be accounted as a sign of either age or trouble.  Yet she looked as if trouble had been no stranger to her.  There were little lines about the eyes which told their tale to a shrewd observer, though the face smiled never so pleasantly.  In what summer, he wondered, had she come up to the hill station of Mussoorie.

“No,” he said.  “I did not give you the real explanation.  Now I will.”

He nodded towards a girl who was at that moment crossing the ball-room towards the door, upon the arm of a young man.

“That’s the explanation.”

Mrs. Linforth looked at the girl and smiled.

“The explanation seems to be enjoying itself,” she said.  “Yours?”

“Mine,” replied Sir John with evident pride.

“She is very pretty,” said Mrs. Linforth, and the sincerity of her admiration made the father glow with satisfaction.  Phyllis Casson was a girl of eighteen, with the fresh looks and the clear eyes of her years.  A bright colour graced her cheeks, where, when she laughed, the dimples played, and the white dress she wore was matched by the whiteness of her throat.  She was talking gaily with the youth on whose arm her hand lightly rested.