For two or three days she waited impatiently, unable to carry out her plan, for Dr Tighe announced loudly that he was keeping Fitz a prisoner in hospital, and that he found him a perfect angel of a patient, not fussing a bit to be out before it was safe to let him go. Mabel received the statement with secret incredulity, judging of Fitz’s feelings by her own, but when she did see him next, the meeting proved grievously disappointing. On the first day of his convalescence Mrs Hardy invited him to tea in the inner courtyard, with the special intimation that his mission there was to cheer up the inmates, and he did his duty nobly. The tea was very weak, and without milk, and Anand Masih, with shamefaced reluctance, handed round a few broken biscuits--the last that could be mustered--in his mistress’s shining silver basket. It wounded his hospitable soul to see guests invited to a Barmecide feast, and when Mrs Hardy alluded pleasantly to the care he showed in keeping everything nice, he was covered with confusion. Fitz, decorated in several places with bandages and sticking-plaster, was the life of the party. He was particularly amusing on the subject of the stores, which came naturally to the front, since the rations had been reduced that day, in consequence of the deficiency caused by the unsoundness of some of the tinned provisions, of which Haycraft had spoken to Flora. Mabel sat listening, with an impatience that was almost disgust, to his funny stories of sieges and the shifts to which other besieged garrisons had been put--stories so palpably absurd that they could not shed any additional gloom on the present situation. Then he turned upon Rahah, who came out of Georgia’s room, followed by her inseparable companion, the great Persian cat. She had brought the baby for Fitz to see, with her mistress’s compliments, and was not the Baba Sahib grown? “I’m looking with wolfish eyes at that cat of yours, ayah,” he said, after duly admiring the baby. “Some morning you will find it gone.” “Then the Dipty Sahib will be found shot by Ismail Bakhsh,” said Rahah, unmoved. “Why, you don’t mean to say you would have me killed for trying to get one good meal? You shouldn’t keep the creature so fat if you don’t want it stolen, you know. What do you feed it on--rats?” “The cat shares with me, sahib.” “Well, that’s very noble of you, I’m sure; but it would really be safer for the poor thing if you let it shift for itself.” “No one will eat the cat but my Memsahib,” said Rahah severely. “When there is no food left, it will preserve her life for two or three days, and that is why I feed it with my own ration, sahib.”