st as the woman at the end of the table ceased
to talk an inspiration came to her. She would say nothing to Thresk, but
if he had eyes to see she would place him where the view was good.

"I have this to say," she answered in a low quick voice. "Go yourself to
Chitipur. You sail on Friday, I think? And to-day is Monday. You can make
the journey there and back quite easily in the time."

"I can?" asked Thresk.

"Yes. Travel by the night-mail up to Ajmere tomorrow night. You will be
in Chitipur on Wednesday afternoon. That gives you twenty-four hours
there, and you can still catch the steamer here on Friday."

"You advise that?"

"Yes, I do," said Mrs. Repton.

Mrs. Carruthers rose from the table and Jane Repton had no further word
with Thresk that night. In the drawing-room Mrs. Carruthers led him from
woman to woman, allowing him ten minutes for each one.

"He might be Royalty or her pet Pekingese," cried Mrs. Repton in
exasperation. For now that her blood had cooled she was not so sure that
her advice had been good. The habit of respect for authority resumed its
ancient place in her. She might be planting that night the seed of a very
evil flower. "Respectability" had seemed to her a magnificent poem as she
sat at the dinner-table. Here in the drawing-room she began to think that
it was not for every-day use. She wished a word now with Thresk, so that
she might make light of the advice which she had given. "I had no
business to interfere," she kept repeating to herself whilst she talked
with her host. "People get what they want if they want it enough, but
they can't control the price they have to pay. Therefore it was no
business of mine to interfere."

But Thresk took his leave and gave her no chance for a private word. She
drove homewards a few minutes later with her husband; and as they
descended the hill to the shore of Back Bay he said:

"I had a moment's conversation with Thresk after you had left the
dining-room, and what do you think?"

"Tell me!"

"He asked me for a letter of introduction to Ballantyne at Chitipur."

"But he knows Stella!" exclaimed Jane Repton.

"Does he? He didn't tell me that! He simply said that he had time to see
Chitipur before he sailed and asked for a line to the Resident."

"And you promised to give him one?"

"Of course. I am to send it to the Taj Mahal hotel to-morrow morning."

Mrs. Repton was a little startled. She did not understand at all why
Thresk asked for