Alan Hawke knew very well at heart what the quickwitted woman would know. He sketched with grace, the natural features, the climatic conditions, the bizarre scenery of the million and a half square miles where the venerable Kaisar-i-Hind rules nearly two hundred millions of subjugated people. He portrayed all the light splendors of Mohammedan elegance, the wonders of Delhi and Agra, he sketched the gloomy temple mysteries of Hinduism, and holy Benares rose up before her eyes beneath the inspiration of his brilliant fancy. The ardent woman listened with glowing eyes, as Hawke proudly referred to the wonderful sweep of the sword of Clive, which conquered an unrifled treasure vault of ages, annexed a giant Empire, and set with Golconda’s diamonds the scepter of distant England. The year 1756 was hailed by the renegade as the epoch when England’s rule of the sea became her one vitalizing policy--her first and last national necessity--for the Empire of the waves followed the pitiful beginning in Madras. Temples, groves, and mosques peopled with the alien and warring races were conjured up, the splendid viceregal circle, the pompous headquarter military, the fast set, staid luxury-loving civilians, and all the fierce eddies and undercurrents of the graded social life, in which the cold English heart learns to burn as madly under “dew of the lawn” muslin as ever Lesbian coryphe’e or Tzigane pleasure lover. The burning noons, the sweltering Zones of Death, the cool hills, the Vanity Fair of Simla, the shaded luxury of bungalow life, and the mad undercurrent of intrigue, the tragedy element of the Race for Wealth, the Struggle for Place, and the Chase for Fame. Major Alan Hawke was gracefully reminiscent, and in describing the social functions, the habits of those in the swim, the inner core of Indian life under its canting social and official husk, he brought an amused smile to the mobile face of his beautiful listener. He did not note the passage of time. He could now hear the music floating up from the Casino below. He had answered all her many questions. He described pithily the voyage out, the social pitfalls, the essence of “good Anglo-Indian form,” and he was astonished at the keenness of the questions with which he was plied by his employer. “You have surely traveled in India,” he murmured, when his relation flagged. “So I have, by proxy, and, in imagination,” laughed Madame Berthe Louison, as she demurely held up her jeweled watch. “Ten minutes more, and then, Sir, I shall give you your ordre de route. For, I must go quietly. I trust to your experience and good judgment. There is nothing to say here. There will be no letters. My bankers have their orders. You must simply pay our bill, and depart quietly via Geneva. May I ask if you wish any more money? Some personal needs?”