No More Learning

She was
marvellously like the girl who "took a deep interest" and the rest of
the formula. All things considered, it would be pleasant to make the
acquaintance of Mrs. Landys-Haggert, and for a little time--only a very
little time--to make believe that he was with Alice Chisane again. Every
one is more or less mad on one point. Hannasyde's particular monomania
was his old love, Alice Chisane.

He made it his business to get introduced to Mrs. Haggert, and the
introduction prospered. He also made it his business to see as much as
he could of that lady. When a man is in earnest as to interviews, the
facilities which Simla offers are startling. There are garden-parties,
and tennis-parties, and picnics, and luncheons at Annandale, and
rifle-matches, and dinners and balls; besides rides and walks, which are
matters of private arrangement.

Hannasyde had started with the intention of seeing a likeness, and
he ended by doing much more. He wanted to be deceived, he meant to be
deceived, and he deceived himself very thoroughly. Not only were the
face and figure, the face and figure of Alice Chisane, but the voice and
lower tones were exactly the same, and so were the turns of speech; and
the little mannerisms, that every woman has, of gait and gesticulation,
were absolutely and identically the same. The turn of the head was the
same; the tired look in the eyes at the end of a long walk was the same;
the sloop and wrench over the saddle to hold in a pulling horse was the
same; and once, most marvellous of all, Mrs. Landys-Haggert singing to
herself in the next room, while Hannasyde was waiting to take her for a
ride, hummed, note for note, with a throaty quiver of the voice in the
second line:--"Poor Wandering One!
" exactly as Alice Chisane had hummed
it for Hannasyde in the dusk of an English drawing-room. In the actual
woman herself--in the soul of her--there was not the least likeness; she
and Alice Chisane being cast in different moulds. But all that
Hannasyde wanted to know and see and think about, was this maddening and
perplexing likeness of face and voice and manner. He was bent on making
a fool of himself that way; and he was in no sort disappointed.

Open and obvious devotion from any sort of man is always pleasant to
any sort of woman; but Mrs. Landys-Haggert, being a woman of the world,
could make nothing of Hannasyde's admiration.

He would take any amount of trouble--he was a selfish man habitually--to
meet and forestall, if possible, her wishes.

Anything she told him to do was law; and he was, there could be no
doubting it, fond of her company so long as she talked to him, and kept
on talking about trivialities. 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?