not expect to see you today!'

'Not till tomorrow,' she returned. 'You remember that we are sketching
tomorrow?'

He looked at her and smiled slightly; and then I remember noticing that
his full, arched upper lip seldom quite met its counterpart over his
teeth. This gave an unpremeditated casual effect to everything he found
to say, and made him look a dreamer at his busiest. His smile was at the
folly of her reminder.

'I've just been looking for something that you would like,' he said,
'but it isn't much good hunting about alone. I see five times as much
when we go together.'

He and his pony barred the way; he had an air of leisure and of
felicity; one would think we had met at an afternoon party.

'We are on our way,' I explained, 'to the gymkhana. Miss Harris is in
one of the events. You did enter for the needle-threading race, didn't
you, with Lord Arthur? I think we must get on.'

A slow, dull red mounted to Armour's face and seemed to put out that
curious light in his eyes.

'Is it far?' he asked, glancing down over the tree-tops. 'I've never
been there.'

'Why,' cried Dora, suddenly, 'you've been down!'

'So you have,' I confirmed her. 'Your beast is damaged too.'

'Oh, it was only a stumble,' Armour replied; 'I stuck on all right.'

'Well,' I said, 'you had better get off now, as you didn't then,
and look at your animal's near fore. The swelling's as big as a bun
already.'

Again he made me no answer, but looked intently and questioningly at
Dora.

'Get off, Mr. Armour,' she said, sharply, 'and lead your horse home. It
is not fit to be ridden. Goodbye.'

I have no doubt he did it, but neither of us were inclined to look back
to see. We pushed on under the deodars, and I was indulgent to a trot.
At the end of it Dora remarked that Mr. Armour naturally could not be
expected to know anything about riding, it was very plucky of him to get
on a horse at all, among these precipices; and I of course agreed.

Lord Arthur was waiting when we arrived, on his chestnut polo pony, but
Dora immediately scratched for the brilliant event in which they were
paired. Ronald, she said, was simply cooked with the heat. Ronald had
come every yard of the way on his toes and was fit for anything, but
Lord Arthur did not insist. There were young ladies in Simla, I am glad
to say, who appealed more vividly to his imagination than Dora Harris
did, and one of them speedily replaced her, a fresh-coloured young
Amazon w