He stooped and spoke lower. "Yes! it's a God-forsaken spot all round--for _you_. But, look here! I saw a _dhatura_ actually in blossom to-day--close to my bungalow. It's not unlike a lily--as white, anyhow--and sweeter. They use it in their temples--so why not in church? It doesn't do to be too particular--when you want anything." She shook her head again. "It's poisonous--besides, it doesn't do--to leave the beaten path." "Try!" There was a pause; for the undercurrent, which had seemed to sweep each trivial word to another meaning, seemed suddenly to sweep this man and woman within touch--dangerous touch--of each other. "What _are_ you two talking about?" asked Boy's mother, coming towards them. "What a lovely cross, Muriel! And why, please, should Christmas in India be skittles, Colonel Gould?" He laughed. "How stern you look! I wish I could get that righteous indignation up for orderly room. I need it!" "My husband never found the regiment difficult to manage," interrupted the wife of its absent commander jealously. "Nor do I," retorted its present head, "but--" he paused, not caring to explain that he, an outsider sent but lately to drill a corps back to the discipline it had lost after her husband's departure, had naturally a very different task. "Hullo, Boy!" he said, to change the subject, "that is a jolly little sword! Who gave it you?" "Hirabul Khan gaved it me," replied the child. "When I'm Colonel, he'sh going to be my risshildar, 'cos you shee he was my Daddy's orderly first, an' then Daddy made him--oh, lotsh of fings." "He'll have to look out if he doesn't want to lose some things," said Colonel Gould, sharply; then answering a vexed look of Boy's mother, continued: "He was a _protégé_ of your husband's, I know--but he really has wind in his head. For his own sake it must be got out. I put him under arrest to-day, and told him squarely I'd have to block his promotion." "What had he done?" She spoke quite fiercely. "Cheek, as usual. It was over that escape from the camp. Haven't you heard? Viljeon, that cantankerous brute who gives so much trouble, managed to get out again last night. I wish it had been any one else--for he's half mad and dangerous. I'm glad the General has ordered the search-party to shoot at sight if he offers resistance." Boy, in his white robe, his toy sword in his hand still, nodded his red aureole sagely. "The Tommies down at the camp told _me_. He'sh just an awful brute, Vile John is. He is goin' to kill all the little English children he meets, 'cos--'cos they killed his: but that's a damned lie." The calm deliberation of the last was so evidently imitative that Boy's mother smiled, despite a sudden pain at her heart.