secret of yearning, something altogether chaste. And that was
only the beginning. It was all unexpected; that was the charm of the
whole relation. Skag found that Cadman had a real love for India; that
he saw things from a nature full of delicate inner surfaces; that his
whole difficulty was an inability to express himself unless he found
just the receiving-end to suit. Indian affairs, town and field, an
infinite variety, Cadman discussed penetratingly, but as one who looked
on from the outside.

"She is like my old Zoo book to me," he said, speaking of India their
first night out. "A bit of a lad, I used to sit in my room with the
great book opened out on a marble table that was cold the year round.
There were many pictures. Many, many pictures of all beasts--wood-cuts
and copies of paintings and ink-sketchings--ante-camera days, you know.
All those pictures are still here--"

Cadman blew a thin diffusion of smoke from his lungs, and touched the
third button down from the throat of his grey-green shirt.

"One above all," he added. "It was the frontispiece. All the story of
creation on one page. Man, beautiful Man in the centre, all the
tree-animals on branches around him, the deeps drained off at his feet,
many monsters visible or intimated, the air alive with wings--finches
up to condors. That picture sank deep, Skag, so deep that in
absent-minded moments I half expected to find India like that--"

There were no better hours of life, than these when Cadman Sahib let
himself speak.

"I haven't found the animals and birds and monsters all packed on one
page," he added, "but highlights here and there in India, so that I
always come back. I have often caught myself asking what the pull is
about, you know, as I catch myself taking ship for Bombay again. Oh, I
say, my son, and you never got over to the lotus lakes?"

"Not yet," Skag said softly.

"There's a night wind there and a tree--I could find it again. I've
lain on peacock feathers on a margin there--unwilling to sleep lest I
miss the perfume from over the pools. . . . And the roses of Kashmir,
where men of one family must serve forty generations before they get
the secrets; where they press out a ton of petals for a pound of
essential oil! And that's where the big mountains stand by--High
Himalaya herself--incredible colours and vistas--get it for yourself,
son."

It was always the elusive thing that Cadman didn't say, that left
Skag's mind