ke care of yourself; at all events, I
only meant to warn you. But now you must tell me exactly what you mean
by this that you have said--this--about--'

'The fat's in the fire,' was Mrs. Innes's reflection.

'Certainly, I'll tell you--'

'Don't shout, please!'

'I mean simply that all Simla is talking about your affair with Miss
Anderson. You may imagine that because you are fifteen years older than
she is things won't be thought of, but they are, and I hear it's been
spoken about at Viceregal Lodge. I KNOW Lady Bloomfield has noticed it,
for she herself mentioned it to me. I told her I hadn't the slightest
objection, and neither have I, but there's an old proverb about people
in glass houses. What are you going to do?'

Colonel Innes's expression was certainly alarming, and he had made a
step toward her that had menace in it.

'I am going out,' he said, and turned and left her to her triumph.

Chapter 3.IX.

She--Violet--had unspeakably vulgarized it, but it must be true--it must
be, to some extent, true. She may even have lied about it, but the truth
was there, fundamentally, in the mere fact that it had been suggested
to her imagination. Madeline's name, which had come to be for him an
epitome of what was finest and most valuable, most to be lived for,
was dropping from men's lips into a kind of an abyss of dishonourable
suggestion. There was no way out of it or around it. It was a cloud
which encompassed them, suddenly blackening down.

There was nothing that he could do--nothing. Except, yes, of
course--that was obvious, as obvious as any other plain duty. Through
his selfishness it had a beginning; in spite of his selfishness it
should have an end. That went without saying. No more walks or rides. In
a conventional way, perhaps--but nothing deliberate, designed--and never
alone together. Gossip about flippant married women was bad enough, but
that it should concern itself with an unprotected creature like Madeline
was monstrous, incredible. He strode fiercely into the road round Jakko,
and no little harmless snake, if it had crawled across his path,
would have failed to suffer a quick fate under the guidance of his
imagination. But there was nothing for him to kill, and he turned upon
himself.

The sun went down into the Punjab and left great blue-and-purple hill
worlds barring the passage behind him. The deodars sank waist deep into
filmy shadow, and the yellow afterlight lay silently among the br