Hauksbee did not reckon false modesty as one of her failings.
'Always with Mrs. Hauksbee!' murmured Mrs. Mallowe, with her
sweetest smile, to Otis. 'Oh you men, you men! Here are our
Punjabis growling because you've monopolised the nicest woman
in Simla. They'll tear you to pieces on the Mall, some day, Mr.
Yeere.'
Mrs. Mallowe rattled downhill, having satisfied herself, by a
glance through the fringe of her sunshade, of the effect of her
words.
The shot went home. Of a surety Otis Yeere was somebody in this
bewildering whirl of Simla had monopolised the nicest woman in
it, and the Punjabis were growling. The notion justified a mild
glow of vanity. He had never looked upon his acquaintance with
Mrs. Hauksbee as a matter for general interest.
The knowledge of envy was a pleasant feeling to the man of no
account. It was intensified later in the day when a luncher at the
Club said spitefully, 'Well, for a debilitated Ditcher, Yeere, you are
going it. Hasn't any kind friend told you that she's the most
dangerous woman in Simla?'
Yeere chuckled and passed out. When, oh, when would his new
clothes be ready? He descended into the Mall to inquire; and Mrs.
Hauksbee, coming over the Church Ridge in her 'rickshaw, looked
down upon him approvingly. 'He's learning to carry himself as if he
were a man, instead of a piece of furniture, and,' she screwed up
her eyes to see the better through the sunlight 'he is a man when he
holds himself like that.
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