“May be. Never before have I desired to settle down like my folk at home. Perhaps had there been children, ’twould have been otherwise. But the Giver sent none, and then took away her who might have been their mother. So I desired even less than before to stay settled, and as I had done before sought new faces, strange places, feeling called to wander. But now somehow I think that I will cease roaming, and stay under my own roof on my own land. Yet I do not desire to return to the Punjab.” “Well, anyway, it’s a long way off, and there is a war first. After that we shall see what we shall see. Your Book says that God has bound the fate of every man about his neck. Doubtless He has fixed ours, too, and sooner or later we shall know what it is.” “Most surely He has. You and I were at the _tangi_ when the Shahzadi was about to be killed, so she escaped. The Shahzadi knew of the only way up the cliffs, so that we are now in this country. Yes, undoubtedly we shall know presently what Khuda has bound about our necks.” We were riding up the lane toward Paulos’s house as he spoke, and a little later we entered the trim garden. The servants ran out to take the horses, and, walking through the great hall, I found Paulos sitting in the sun in the back verandah. He greeted me very kindly, and was, I think, pleased to see me. We breakfasted out in the verandah, and spent a quiet afternoon talking of many things in which he was interested, especially of all the countries he knew of from his readings. He showed me one or two old manuscripts, things which would have been priceless to collectors at home. Luckily I had kept up my readings of the classics and studied the geography of the old world, and so was able to talk with some show of knowledge. Later in the afternoon we put away the past, and, turning to the present, talked of the situation in Sakaeland, of its peoples, and then inevitably passed to personalities, speaking of the different people I had met. Paulos is always tact itself, but somehow I could not help feeling that he was trying to read my thoughts when the conversation turned to Aryenis. I did not turn it there--at least I don’t remember doing so--but somehow she crept in. She is hard to keep out of anything once you have met her. And once she had entered--unbidden--Andros also came up. “I have not seen Andros for many a day,” said Paulos, “though he used to be a frequent visitor. He and Aryenis are old friends, and when she was staying with me in the spring he often rode over here.” “Friends are they?” said I. “Why do you ask in that tone?” said Paulos, looking at me. “Well, I have thought sometimes that they were more than friends or fast becoming so. He is one with whom any woman might desire more than friendship.”