or what? A desk in a city
office; most likely a mercantile job on a third of the pay, and a life
to which he was as much suited as a square peg to a round hole. All
this, that the babe might be spared the illnesses that mortal flesh, in
infancy, is prone to, particularly in the East. It was utter nonsense!
For the first five years there would be need for special care and
intervals spent in a hill climate. In due time would come the change to
England and English environment necessary for the proper physical and
mental training of his child. This was the course usually followed by
English families in India of any social standing, and one which involved
submission on the part of the husband to short periods of separation
from the wife in the interests of the absent children. Thousands of
married couples faced these conditions; why not they?

He felt rebellious.

What was the matter with his luck that it threatened not to work? He had
no fortune on which to retire, only a modest return from savings
judiciously invested, while his wife would have nothing more than a
trifle till the death of her parents; and they were still young. To give
up the Service would, under the circumstances, be madness and folly.

Moreover, he loved the East. The climate had no grudge against his
English constitution, and had been kind to him. He enjoyed the freedom
of the life, India's great spaces; and the lurking risks made existence
a great and continued adventure. In England it would be monotonous and
flat. Though he loved the Motherland and was proud of her traditions, he
was of the stuff that made empires, and his tact and understanding of
the natives under his rule, made him an officer of exceptional ability
and service to the Executive Government. Then there was big game
shooting which he enjoyed, and all the happy freedom from narrow
conventions. Give up, indeed!

Time enough to think of retiring when past middle age with shaken nerves
and a growing appreciation of golf. Not while he could ride a
buck-jumper, handle a hog spear or a polo stick, and shoot straight. The
thrill of tracking a wild beast to its lair was something to live for,
and the hazards of his life made up its charm.

The greatest of all hazards, had he realised it, had been his marriage
with Joyce Wynthrop of Eagleton, Surrey.

She had put up her hair to attend the hunt ball the year he was home on
furlough and staying with his widowed sister, Lady Chayne, a neighbo