ith relief.

"I suppose that fellow in evening dress was the man from your garden, Miss
Daleham?" asked Bain, as they entered the ballroom.

"Yes; that was Mr. Chunerbutty, who escorted me to Darjeeling," she
answered.

"Well, if he's a friend of your brother, he ought to know better than to
introduce that fat brute of a rajah to you."

"Oh, he is staying at the Rajah's house here, as his father, who is ill, is
in His Highness's service."

"I don't care. That beast Lalpuri is a disreputable scoundrel. There are
awful tales of his behaviour up here. It's a wonder that the L.G. doesn't
order him out of the place."

"Really?"

"Yes; he's a disgraceful blackguard. None of the other Rajahs of the
Presidency will have anything to do with him, I believe; and the two or
three of them up here now who are really splendid fellows, refuse to
acknowledge him. Everybody wonders why the Government of India allows him
to remain on the _gadi_."

The Rajah had watched Noreen with a hungry stare as she walked towards the
ballroom. When she was lost to sight in the crowd of dancers he turned to
Chunerbutty and seized his arm with a grip that made the engineer wince.

"She is more beautiful than I thought," he muttered. "O you fools! You
fools, who have failed me! But I shall get her yet."

He licked his dry lips and went on:

"Let us go! Let us go from here! I am parched. I want liquor. I want
women."

And they returned to a night of revolting debauchery in the house that was
honoured by being the temporary residence of His Highness the Rajah of
Lalpuri, wearer of an order bestowed upon him by the Viceroy and ruler of
the fate of millions of people by the grace and under the benign auspices
of the Government of India.

CHAPTER XIV

THE TANGLED SKEIN OF LOVE

The Lieutenant-Governor's ball was for Noreen but the beginning of a long
series of social entertainments, of afternoon and evening dances,
receptions, dinner and supper parties, concerts, and amateur theatrical
performances that filled every date on the calendar of the Darjeeling
Season. Only in winter sport resorts like St. Moritz and Muerren had she
ever seen its like. But in Switzerland the visitors come from many lands
and are generally strangers to each other, whereas in the Hills in India
the summer residents of the villas and the guests at the big hotels are of
the same race and class, come from the same stations in the Plains or know
of each other b