The man, listening, moved his feet restlessly in his stirrups. It was too bad of Allie to provoke these sparring matches. Foolish, too, since Kate's tongue was sharp when she chose to rouse herself. None sharper, in his opinion.
"If you don't want the bird," he interrupted shortly, "tell the groom to wring its neck."
Mrs. Gissing looked at him, her reproachful blue eyes perfect wells of simplicity. "Wring its neck! How can you, when you paid all that money to save it from being killed! That is the real story, Mrs. Erlton; it is indeed----"
He interrupted his wife's quick glance of interest impatiently. "The main point being that I had, or shall have to pay fifty rupees--which I must get. So I must be off to the racecourse if I don't want to be posted. I ought to have been there a quarter of an hour ago; should have been but for that confounded bird. Are you coming, Mrs. Gissing, or not?"
"Now, Erlton!" she replied, "don't be stupid. As if he didn't know, Mrs. Erlton, that I am every bit as much interested as he is in the match with that trainer man!--what's his name, Erlton? Greyman--isn't it? I have endless gloves on it, sir, so of course I'm coming to see fair play."
Major Erlton shot a rapid glance at her, as if to see what she really meant; then muttered something angrily about chaff as, with a dig of his heels, he swung his horse round to the side of hers.
Kate Erlton watched their figures disappear behind the trees, then turned indifferently to the groom who was waiting for orders with the cockatoo. But she started visibly in finding herself face to face with a semi-circle of spectators which had gathered about the figure of an old man in a faded green turban who stood close beside the groom, and who, seeing her turn, salaamed, and with clasped hands began an appeal of some sort. So much she gathered from his bright eyes, his tone; but no more, and all unconsciously she drew back to the furthest corner of the carriage, as if to escape from what she did not understand, and therefore did not like. That, indeed, was her attitude toward all things native. Yet at times, as now, she felt a dim regret at her own ignorance. What did he want? What were they thinking of, those dark, incomprehensible faces closing closer and closer round her? What could they be thinking of, uncivilized, heathen, as they were? tied to hateful, horrible beliefs and customs, unmentionable thoughts; so the innate repulsion of the alien overpowered her dim desire to be kind.