Nurse in India by Juliet Armstrong Page B

badly.”
    “Then perhaps, Verle, you ’ ll make the effort and drive over to Ghasirabad today to get them.” Chawand Rao ’ s tone was suave but resolute. “After what happened las t night you will be glad of a break—uncomfortable though the journey is, alas!” He paused for a second, fastening his eyes on the Frenchman. “I know I need not ask you to refrain from talking to your friends of your unpleasant experiences last night.”
    “It ’ s all just as you please, Your Highness.” Armand ’ s tone was weary. “I ’ ll go willingly, so long as Miss Hantley will be properly looked after—”
    The raja gave a faint, ironic smile. “I think I can guard her as well as you have done hitherto,” he observed coolly, and salaaming gravely left them.
    “That ’ s a nasty one for me!” Armand achieved a rueful grin. Then as Stella turned to go, he put out a detaining hand. “Just a minute, Stella. I haven ’ t thanked you half en ough for what you did for me last night. You were an absol ute angel.”
    “Angels don ’ t usually administer emetics, surely.” Her eyes twinkled.
    “ Don ’ t laugh at me, sweet.” A pleading note had crept into his voice. “I know that you ’ ve no use on earth for me; and Roger Fendish is the lucky devil who—”
    “How dare you talk such utter rubbish?” The color was hed into Stella ’ s face.
    “It isn ’ t rubbish. I only wish it were.” In. spite of her effo rts to free herself, he still held her by the wrist. “Oh, S tell a, haven ’ t you guessed that ever since I met you, I ’ ve bee n crazy about you?”
    With a final jerk she wrenched her h and free. “Non se nse! We ’ ve only known each other a matter of days.”
    “And how long have you been acquainted with Fendish? Weeks? Months?”
    I feel as though there was never a time when Roger and I were strangers, she thought with a rush of emotion that was bittersweet. But she said, coolly enough, “That drug seems to be taking a long time to wear off. The kindest thing I can do for you is to get you some more strong coffee,” and swept indignantly out of the room.
    She wondered seriously, later on, whether it really was the opium that had made him behave in such an odd fashion; for when, early that evening, he returned from Ghasirabad, he was his usual amusing and imperturbable self. At the same time he had something to tell her that she found decidedly disturbing.
    The letter she had written to Miss Jellings and that she had put into Chawand Rao ’ s hand herself—the letter that he had promised should be dispatched at once—had never reached its destination. Did it not look as though Chawand Rao ’ s power, even among his own servants, was limited — that in spite of his proud words, the old rani could circumvent him, how and when she pleased? And if this w as so, was she or Armand or poor little Prithviraj any safer now from her attentions than they had been the previous evening?
    She said nothing of her fears to Armand, who despite his cheerful manner was still looking white and tired. She simply thanked him with impersonal cordiality for fetching the much needed case of medical supplies and then tore open the note Jelly had enclosed.
    Characteristically Miss Jellings said little about herself beyond that she was “fairly fit,” but she had so much to say about Roger that Stella wished fervently she had waited to read, the letter until she was in the privacy of her own room—instead of under Armand ’ s keen eyes.
    Roger Fendish is worried to bits about you already, and what he ’ ll say when he hears of this latest development—that you are actually in the palace—I can ’ t imagine. He drops in to make inquiries about you—usually on some other pretext—every single morning and has succeeded in making me feel very guilty about sending you to Bhindi at all. You must, of course, see the child through the worst of the illness, but don ’ t stay on a day longer than is absolutely