But when she launched into expression of her personal views and
her wrongs, those small social differences that make the spice of Simla life,
Hannasyde was neither pleased nor interested. He didn't want to know anything
about Mrs. Landys-Haggert, or her experiences in the past--she had travelled
nearly all over the world, and could talk cleverly--he wanted the likeness of
Alice Chisane before his eyes and her voice in his ears.
Anything outside that, reminding him of another personality jarred, and he
showed that it did.
Under the new Post Office, one evening, Mrs. Landys-Haggert turned on him, and
spoke her mind shortly and without warning. "Mr. Hannasyde," said she, "will
you be good enough to explain why you have appointed yourself my special
cavalier servente? I don't understand it. But I am perfectly certain, somehow
or other, that you don't care the least little bit in the world for ME." This
seems to support, by the way, the theory that no man can act or tell lies to a
woman without being found out. Hannasyde was taken off his guard. His defence
never was a strong one, because he was always thinking of himself, and he
blurted out, before he knew what he was saying, this inexpedient answer:--"No
more I do.
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