"None at all. Honor will go, I daresay; and I shall run down for the polo. But fifteen days' leave is out of the question." Paul turned sharply in his saddle. "Now, look here, Theo--you're going too far. I make no offer this time. I simply insist!" Desmond hesitated. The thought of Evelyn was knocking at his heart. "You know I hate accepting that sort of thing," he objected, "even from you." Wyndham laughed. "That's your peculiar form of selfishness, my dear chap. You want to keep the monopoly of giving in your own hands. Very wholesome for you to have the tables turned. Besides," urged the diplomatist, boldly laying down his trump card, "it would be a great disappointment to your wife not to go down with us all and see the matches." "Yes. That's just the difficulty." "I'm delighted to hear it! The Lahore week shall be my Christmas present to her and you; and there's an end of _that_ dilemma." "Thank you, Paul," Desmond said simply. "I'll tell her to-night. Come over to dinner," he added as they parted. "The Ollivers will be there; and I may stand in need of protection." The sound of music greeted him from the hall, and he found Honor playing alone in the dusk. "Please go on," he said, as she rose to greet him. "It's what I want more than anything at this moment." The girl flushed softly, and turned back to the instrument. Any one who had heard her playing before Desmond came in, could scarcely have failed to note the subtle change in its quality. She made of her music a voice of sympathy, evolved from the heart of the great German masters; whose satisfying strength and simplicity--so far removed from the restless questioning of our later day--were surely the outcome of a large faith in God; of the certainty that effort, aspiration, and endurance, despite their seeming futility, can never fail to be very much worth while. In this fashion Honor reassured her friend to his complete comprehension; and while he sat listening and watching her in the half light, he fell to wondering how it came about that this girl, with her generous warmth of heart, her twofold beauty of the spirit and the flesh, should still be finding her central interest in the lives of others rather than in her own. Was the inevitable awakening over and done with? Or was it yet to come? He inclined to the latter view, and the thought of Paul sprang to his mind. Here, surely, was the one woman worthy of his friend. But then, Paul held strong views about marriage, and it was almost impossible to picture the good fellow in love.