"Well," said the friend good-humoredly, "Dick remembers you well enough."
The admirer threw a boot at his friend—the one he hadn't polished yet. "You know what I mean."
"I know what you mean," agreed the friend. "A cold fish." The admirer looked up from the boot-blacking angrily and the friend held up the extra boot like a shield. "Dick's stiff with honor. I daresay his sister's like that. You just don't know her well enough yet."
"Balls, dinner parties," moaned the admirer. "You know what they're like; it could take years." The friend in silent sympathy (thinking of Beth) tossed the boot back, and he began moodily to black it.
The object of his affections, had she known of this conversation, would have agreed with him on the subject of balls and dinner parties. In fact, she would have added the rider that she wasn't sure it could be done at all, getting to know someone at any succession of such parties, however prolonged. And the friend was right about Dick Crewe's powerful sense of honor. He knew well enough that at least two of his friends were falling in love with his sister; but it never crossed his mind to say anything about them to her. He could not compromise the privileged knowledge of friendship in such a way.
And Dick's sister, oblivious to the fact that she had won herself a place in the station hierarchy, chafed and fidgeted.
Lady Amelia arrived at the breakfast table next. They had just settled the question of Cassie and Beth coming to lunch—in almost the precise words anticipated—when the door to Sir Charles' study, across the hall from the breakfast room, opened; and Sir Charles and his secretary, Mr. Mortimer, entered to breakfast. The two women looked at them in surprise; they had the unmistakable air of men who have been awake several hours, working hard on nothing more than a cup or two of the dark heavy local coffee, and who will rush through their meal now to get back to whatever they have been doing. Neither of them looked very happy about their prospects.
"My dear," said Lady Amelia. "Whatever is wrong?" Sir Charles ran a hand through his white hair, accepted a plate of eggs with his other hand, and sat down. He shook his head. Philip Mortimer glanced at his employer but said nothing. "Richard's not here yet," said Sir Charles, as if his absence explained everything.
"Richard—?" said Lady Amelia faintly.
"Yes. And Colonel Dedham. I'm sorry, my dear," he said, a few mouthfuls of eggs seeming to restore him. "The message came quite out of the blue, in the middle of the night," he explained through his metaphors as well as his mouthful. "Jack—Colonel Dedham—has been out, trying to find out what he can, and I told him to come to breakfast and tell us what he's learned. With Richard—that boy knows how to talk to people. Blast them. Blast him. He'll be here in a few hours."
His wife stared at him in complete bewilderment, and his young guest averted her eyes when he looked at her, as it was not her place to stare. He laid down his fork and laughed. "Melly, your face is a study. Young Harry here is going to be a fine ambassador's wife someday, though: look at that poker face! You really shouldn't look so much like your brother; it makes you too easy to read for those of us who know him. Just now you're thinking: Is the old man gone at last? Humor him till we're sure; if he calms down a bit, perhaps we'll get some sense out of him even now." Harry grinned back at him, untroubled by his teasing, and he reached across the table, braving candlesticks and an artistically arranged bowl of fruit, to tap her cheek with his fingers. "A general's wife, on second thought. You'd be wasted on the diplomatic corps; we're all such dry paper-shufflers." He speared a piece of toast with his fork, and Lady Amelia, whose manners with her own family were as punctilious as if she dined with royalty, looked away. Sir Charles piled marmalade on his toast till it began to ooze off the edges, added one more dollop for good measure, and ate it all in three gulps. "Melly, I know I've told you about the difficulties we're having in the North, on this side of the mountains with our lot, and on the far side with whatever it is they breed over there—a very queer bunch, from all we can gather—and it's all begun to escalate, this last year, at an alarming speed. Harry, Dick's told you something of this?"
She nodded.
"You may or may not know that our real hold over Daria ends just about where this station stands, although technically—on paper—Homeland rule extends right to the foot of those mountains north and east of here—the Ossanders, which run out from the Ramids, and then that far eastern range you see over the sand, where none of us has ever been … those mountains are the only bits of the old kingdom of Damar still under native rule. There used to be quite a lot of fighting along this border—say, forty years ago. Since then their king—oh yes, there's a king—more or less ignores us, and we more or less ignore him. But odd things—call them odd things; Jack will tell you what he thinks they are—still happen on that plain, our no-man's-land. So we have the 4th Cavalry here with us.
"Nothing too odd has happened since the current king took the throne around ten years ago, we think—they don't bother to keep us up to date on such things—but it never does to be careless. Um." He frowned and, while frowning, ate another piece of toast. "Everything has been quiet for—oh, at least fifteen years. Nearly as long as I've been here, and that's a long time. Ask Jack, though, for stories of what it was like up and down the northern half of this border before that. He has plenty of them." He stood up from the table, and went across the room to the row of windows. He lifted the curtain farther back as he looked out across the desert, as if breadth of view might assist clarity of thought. It was obvious his mind was not on the explanation he was giving; and for all his assumed cheerfulness, he was deeply worried. "Damn! … Excuse me. Where is Jack? I expected he would have at least sent young Richard on ahead before now." He spoke as if to himself, or perhaps to Philip Mortimer, who made soothing noises, poured a cup of tea, and took it to Sir Charles where he stood squinting into the morning sunlight.
"Trouble?" said Lady Amelia gently. "More trouble?"
Sir Charles dropped the curtain and turned around. "Yes! More trouble." He looked down at his hands, realized he was holding a cup of tea in one of them, and took a swallow from it with the air of a man who does what is expected of him. "There may be war with the North. Jack thinks so. I'm not sure, but—I don't like the rumors. We must secure the passes through the mountains—particularly Ritger's Gap, which gives anybody coming through it almost a direct line to Istan, and then of course to the whole Province. It may only be some tribal uproar—but it could be war, as real as it was eighty years ago. There aren't many of the old Damarians left—the Hillfolk—but we've been forced to have a pretty healthy respect for them. And if King Corlath decides to throw his chances in with the Northerners—"