y," Desmond remarked, as he dissected a fowl, cooked--by the
mercy of the gods--in that elusive interval between toughness and
putrescence, the pursuit of which gives to hot-weather housekeeping an
excitement peculiarly its own, "there's bad news from the Infantry camp
this morning. Poor old Buckley. A cramp seizure at midnight. Went
out in three hours; and was buried at dawn, Mackay showed me a note
from Dr Lowndes saying he believed it was one of those odd freaks of
disease, a spurious case. Sheer funk; and nothing else. Camp was in a
flourishing condition. No deaths for nearly a week. Then, yesterday,
the Colonel's bearer must needs appropriate an unattached germ; and it
seems that this got on the poor chap's nerves. He dined chiefly off
whisky; and afterwards yarned away to Lowndes about his wife and
children. Hadn't seen 'em for eight years. Never mentioned 'em to
Lowndes in his life before: and from what one has heard, the wire that
goes home this morning will barely spoil her appetite for dinner; which
only seems to add a finishing touch to the pity of it all. Mysterious
thing . . . marriage . . ."

He broke off short on the word. The thought of his own first venture,
and the misery that might have come of it, but for an accident so
strange as to seem unreal, sealed his lips on the subject of the
eternal riddle of the universe: and Paul, being blest with
understanding, unobtrusively shifted the talk to another channel.

There could be no thought of polo for Desmond that afternoon; though
Major Olliver came and reasoned with him forcibly in the verandah. He
devoted himself, instead, to the exhaustive disinfection of the
sick-room and dressing room. It was hot work; unpleasant work. But it
was good to be through with it; to have rid the house of the last
vestige of an uninvited and unwelcome guest. With which reflection
Desmond sat down finally in the sanctuary of his study; lit a cheroot;
and opened a battered original of Omar Khayyam, whose stately quatrains
and exquisite imagery were less hackneyed then, than they have since
become among modern devotees of culture.

A great silence pervaded the house. He had left Lenox in the blessed
borderland between sleeping and waking, with Zyarulla on guard; and
looking in on Paul, had found him dozing also, after the morning's
unwonted exertion. No doubt Frank would drive Honor back for tea: and
even while he read Desmond's ear was strained to catch t