"
It was the day after this that Glahn got the letter. There came a letter
for him, sent up by express messenger from the river station, and it had
made a detour of a hundred and eighty miles. The letter was in a
woman's hand, and I thought to my self that perhaps it was from that
former friend of his, the noble lady. Glahn laughed nervously when he
had read it, and gave the messenger extra money for bringing it. But it
was not long before he turned silent and gloomy, and did nothing but sit
staring straight before him. That evening he got drunk--sat drinking
with an old dwarf of a native and his son, and clung hold of me too, and
did all he could to make me drink as well.
Then he laughed out loud and said:
"Here we are, the two of us, miles away in the middle of all India
shooting game--what? Desperately funny, isn't it? And hurrah for all the
lands and kingdoms of the earth, and hurrah for all the pretty women,
married or unmarried, far and near. Hoho! Nice thing for a man when a
married woman proposes to him, isn't it--a married woman?"
"A countess," I said ironically. I said it very scornfully, and that cut
him. He grinned like a dog because it hurt him. Then suddenly he
wrinkled his forehead and began blinking his eyes, and thinking hard if
he hadn't said too much--so mighty serious was he about his bit of a
secret.
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