'I wonder,' said she, in a tone of preposterous melancholy, 'if
eventually I have to marry one of them.'

'Not necessarily,' I said. She looked at me with interest, as if I
had contributed importantly to the matter in hand, and resumed
tapping her boot with her riding-crop. We talked of indifferent
things and had long lapses. At the close of one effort Dora threw
herself back with a deep, tumultuous sigh. 'The poverty of this
little wretched resort ties up one's tongue!' she cried. 'It is the
bottom of the cup; here one gets the very dregs of Simla's
commonplace. Let us climb out of it.'

I thought for a moment that Ronald had been too much for her nerves
coming down, and offered to change saddles, but she would not. We
took it out of the horses all along the first upward slopes, and as
we pulled in to breathe them she turned to me paler than ever.

'I feel better now,' she said.

For myself I had got rid of Armour for the afternoon. I think my
irritation with him about his pony rose and delivered me from the

too insistent thought of him. With Dora it was otherwise; she had
dismissed him; but he had never left her for a moment the whole long
afternoon.

She flung a searching look at me. With a reckless turn of her head,
she said, 'Why didn't we take him with us?'

'Did we want him?' I asked.