posal--turned a speculative
eye on Roy.

"Lord, what a kid you are, still!"

"Well, I mean it. Out here, we're clear of all that. Over there, the
women call the tune--we dance. Sport's the God-given antidote! Though it
won't be so much longer--the way things are going. We shall soon have
'em after pig and on the polo ground----"

"God forbid!" It came out with such fervour that Roy laughed.

"He doesn't--that's the trouble! He gives us all the rope we want. And
the women may be trusted to take every available inch. I'm not sure
there isn't a grain of wisdom in the Eastern plan; keeping them, so to
speak, in a separate compartment. Once you open a chink, they flow in
and swamp everything."

Up went Lance's eyebrows. "That--from you?" And Roy made haste to add:
"I wasn't thinking of mothers and sisters; but the kind you play round
with ... before you marry. They've a big pull out here. Very good fun of
course. And if a man's keen on marrying----"

"Aren't you keen?" Lance cut in with a quick look.

"N-no. Not just yet, anyway. It's a plunge. And I'm too full up with
other things.--But what about the birds?"

"Oh, we'll let be--as you sagely suggest!"

And they did.

More pig-sticking next morning, with two tuskers for trophies; and
thereafter, they travelled reluctantly back to harness, by an afternoon
train, feeling--without exception--healthier, happier men.

None of them, perhaps, was more conscious of that inner renewal than
Lance and Roy. The incident of the game seemed in some way to have
cleared the air between them; and throughout the return journey, both
were in the maddest spirits, keeping the whole carriage in an uproar.
Afterwards, driving homeward, Roy registered a resolve to spend more of
his time on masculine society and the novel; less of it dancing and
fooling about in Lahore....

* * * * *

A vision of his table, with its inviting disarray, and the picture of
his mother for presiding genius, gave his heart a lift. He promised
himself a week of uninterrupted evenings, alone with Terry and his
thronging thoughts; when the whole house was still and the reading-lamp
made a magic circle of light in the surrounding gloom....

Meantime, there were letters: one from his father, one from Jeffers; and
beneath them a too familiar envelope.

At sight of it, he felt a faint tug inside him; as it were a whispered
reminder that, away at Kapurthala, he had been about as