“Let me introduce him to you, Mrs. Brande--his name is Jervis,” said Captain Waring, with his most jovial air. “He is young, idle, and unmarried. My name is Waring. I was in the Rutlands, but I chucked the service some time ago.” “Well, now we know all about each other” (oh, deluded lady!) “let us begin our dinner,” said Mrs. Brande. “I am sure we are all starving.” Dinner proved to be excellent, and included mahseer from the lake, wild duck from the marshes, and club mutton. No! Mrs. Brande’s “chef” had not been over praised. At first every one (especially the hostess and Clarence Waring) was too frankly hungry to talk, but after a time they began to discuss the weather, the local insects, and their journey--not in the formal manner common to Britons on their mournful travels--but in a friendly, homely fashion, suitable to a whitewashed apartment, with the hostess’s bed in one corner. Whilst the two men conversed with her niece, Mrs. Brande critically surveyed them, “took stock” as she said to herself. Captain Waring was a man of five or six and thirty, well set up, and soldierly looking; he had dark cropped hair, bold merry eyes, and was handsome, though sunburnt to a deep tan, and his face was deeply lined--those in his forehead looking as if they had been ruled and cut into the very bone--nevertheless, his habitual expression was as gay and animated as that of Toby Joy himself. He had an extremely well-to-do air (undoubtedly had never known a money care in his life), he wore his clothes with ease, they fitted him admirably, his watch, studs, and linen were of the finest quality; moreover, he appreciated a good dinner, seemed to accept the best of everything as a matter of course, and looked about intelligently for peppers and sauces, which were fortunately forthcoming. “The companion,” as Mrs. Brande mentally called him, was a younger man, in fact a mere youth of about two and twenty, well set up, squarely built, with good shoulders and a determined mouth and chin. He wore a suit of flannels, a silver watch, with a leather chain, and looked exactly what he was--an idle, poor hanger-on! Mrs. Brande left him to talk to Honor, and indeed entirely neglected him for his more important kinsman. Her niece was secretly aware of (and resented) her aunt’s preference, and redoubled her efforts to entertain her slighted fellow-traveller. She had a fellow-feeling for him also. Were they not both dependents--both poor relations? “Well, Captain Waring, so you are coming up to see Shirani?” said Mrs. Brande, with her most gracious air. “Yes, and I rather want to recall old times out here, and have a nice lazy summer in the hills.” “Then you have been in India all the winter?” (The inspection of his kit the crafty lady kept to herself.) “Yes. We came out in October. Had a bit of a shoot in Travancore, and had a couple of months in Calcutta.”