Simla Club dining-room is built, as all the world knows, in two sections, with
an arch-arrangement dividing them. Come in, turn to your own left, take the
table under the window, and you cannot see any one who has come in, turning to
the right, and taken a table on the right side of the arch. Curiously enough,
every word that you say can be heard, not only by the other diner, but by the
servants beyond the screen through which they bring dinner. This is worth
knowing: an echoing-room is a trap to be forewarned against.
Half in fun, and half hoping to be believed, The Man who Knew told Churton the
story of the Bisara of Pooree at rather greater length than I have told it to
you in this place; winding up with the suggestion that Churton might as well
throw the little box down the hill and see whether all his troubles would go
with it. In ordinary ears, English ears, the tale was only an interesting bit
of folk-lore. Churton laughed, said that he felt better for his tiffin, and
went out. Pack had been tiffining by himself to the right of the arch, and had
heard everything. He was nearly mad with his absurd infatuation for Miss Hollis
that all Simla had been laughing about.
It is a curious thing that, when a man hates or loves beyond reason, he is
ready to go beyond reason to gratify his feelings.
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