When Barlow came back he fell to wishing that they were at Mandhatta so that he would start on the rest of his journey in the morning; he dreaded the long evening with the girl. He could have sat there with Elizabeth, although their marriage hovered on the horizon, and talked of trivial things: of sport, of shooting; or damned the Executive sitting beneath _punkahs_ in offices with windows all closed, far away in Calcutta. Or could have traversed, mentally, leagues of sea and rehabilitated past scenes in London. It would be like talking to a brother officer. But with the Gulab, and the hush and perfume of the forest-clad hills, and the gentle glamour of moonlight, his senses would smother placid intellectuality; he would be like a toper with a bottle at his elbow mocking weak resolve. Then the girl said something: a shy halting request that set his blood galloping: "Sahib, it is not far to Mandhatta--four _kos_, or perhaps it is five; would it be unpermitted to suggest that we go there, for the moon is beautiful and the road is good." "All right, girl!" and remembering that he had spoken in English, he added, "It will be expedient, for you will there find shelter." "Yes, Sahib, Guru Swami will be there, and I am known of him; and there are places where one may rest." "I'll tell the driver to hitch up," Barlow declared, rising. But she laid a detaining hand upon his arm: "Sahib, the sweetest thing in all Bootea's life was the time she rode on the horse with him. Then, too, the moon, that is the soul of Purusha, smiled upon her. Would it be permitted to Bootea just one more happiness, for to-morrow--to-morrow--" The girl turned away, and seemed busy adjusting her gold-embroidered jacket. "So you shall, Gulab," Barlow declared. And he, too, thought of the sweetness of that ride where she lay like a confiding child in his arms; and also for him, too, was to-morrow--to-morrow; and for him, too, just one more foolish, useless happiness--just a sensuous burying of his face in flowers that on the morrow would have shrivelled. "I'll send the _tonga_ on ahead," he declared, "and we'll just have that jolly old farewell ride together, girl--I'd love it." Now she turned back to him and her face was placid, soft, content, as though Mona Lisa had stepped out from the painted canvas, and, now embodied, was there listening to the sigh of the night-wind through the feathered _sal_ forest. With ejaculations of "Bap, bap, bap! _Shabaz_!" and queer gurgling clucking of the throat, and a sonorous rumble from the wide, low wheels, the driver drove the tonga on into the moonlight. Barlow had saddled his horse and thrown his blanket loosely behind the saddle. The air was chilling, but his sheepskin coat would turn its cold breath; the blanket was for Bootea.