"Yes. They have been quite charming about it, and I am so glad not to be driven away from the Frontier at once. I have been longing to get to it for years." He watched her while she spoke, his quietly observant eyes missing no detail of her face. "And now you have got here, I wonder how it will strike you after the imposing official circles of Simla and Lahore. You'll find none of the 'beer and skittles' of the country up here. But the Frontier has its own fascination all the same; especially when a man has the spirit of it in his blood. Desmond, for instance, wouldn't give a brass farthing for life out of sight of those hard-featured hills. Do you know him and his wife at all?" "I never saw him till yesterday, except in the distance at polo matches. But I have known her since she was quite a child." "And I have known Desmond since he was thirteen. Rather odd! You can't fail to be good friends with _him_ Miss Meredith." "Are you as rabid as my brother and the Colonel because the poor man has dared to marry?" she asked, with an incurable directness which to some natures was a stumbling-block, and to others her chiefest charm. "It seems to be a part of the regimental creed." "It is. And I subscribe to it ... _as_ a creed. But my belief has not yet been tried in the fire. Desmond is the keenest soldier I know; yet he has seen fit to marry. I have an immense faith in him, and, whatever others may think, I prefer to reserve my judgment." "If only a few more of us had the wisdom to do that," the girl said softly. "How much easier life would be for every one!" Wyndham smiled. "I have a notion that life isn't meant to be easy," he said. "And the fact remains that Meredith and the Colonel are right in principle. Few men are strong enough to stand the strain of being pulled two ways at once, and marriage is bound to be a grave risk for a man whose heart is set on soldiering--Frontier soldiering above all. But then Desmond loves a risk better than anything else in life." And with an abrupt laugh he dismissed the subject. "I must be going on now," he added. "But no doubt we shall meet again soon. I am constantly over at the bungalow." And, saluting her again, he trotted leisurely northward to the cavalry Lines. His thoughts as he went hovered about the girl. The mere picture she left upon his brain was not one to be lightly set aside by a man with an ardent eye for the beautiful, and a spirit swift to discern those hidden elements which gave to Honor Meredith's beauty its distinctive quality and charm. Some men are born with a genius for looking on at life, a form of genius not to be despised. They are of the type from which great naturalists, great philosophers are made; men quick to perceive, slow to assert; men whose large patience rests upon freedom from the fret of personal desire. Of such was Paul Wyndham, and in his accepted role of onlooker he fell to pondering upon the new element in his own immediate drama.