clearly through the tumult of her perception, and no emotion could be
observed in the smiling attention which she gave to Captain Gordon's
account of the afternoon's tandem racing; but there was a furious
beating in her breast, and she thought she could never draw a breath
long enough to control it. It helped her that there was food to swallow,
wine to drink, and Captain Gordon to listen to; and under cover of these
things she gradually, consciously, prepared herself for the shock of
encounter which should be conclusive. Presently she leaned a little
forward and let her glance, in which no outsider could see the steady
recognition, rest upon the lady on the General's right, until that
person's agreeable blue eyes wandered down the table and met it.
Perhaps Madeline's own eyelids fluttered a little as she saw the sudden
stricture in the face that received her message, and the grimace with
which it uttered, pallid with apprehension, its response to a pleasantry
of General Worsley's. She was not consummate in her self-control, but
she was able at all events to send the glance travelling prettily on
with a casual smile for an intervening friend, and bring it back to her
dinner-roll without mischief. It did not adventure again; she knew, and
she set herself to hold her knowledge, to look at it and understand it,
while the mechanical part of her made up its mind about the entrees, and
sympathized with Captain Gordon on his hard luck in having three ponies
laid up at once. She did not look again, although she felt the watching
of the other woman, and was quite aware of the moment at which Mrs.
Innes allowed herself the reprieve of believing that at the Worsley's
dinner-party at least there would be no scandal. The belief had
its reflex action, doing something to calm her. How could there
be--scandal--she asked herself, and dismissed with relief the
denunciations which crowded vague but insistent in her brain. Even then
she had not grasped the salient points of the situation; she was
too much occupied with its irony as it affected her personally; her
impressions circled steadily round the word 'twice' and the unimaginable
coincidence. Her resentment filled her, and her indignation was like
a clear flame behind her smiling face. Robbed twice, once in New York
and--oh! preposterous--the second time in Simla! Robbed of the same
things by the same hand! She perceived in the shock of it only a
monstrous fatality, a ludicrously wicked