“You are just what I expected,” he exclaimed, after a long pause. “You have your mother’s eyes; but you are a Jervis. Of course you see a great change in me?” “Well, yes--rather,” acquiesced his son, with reluctant truthfulness. “India ages people.” “You think this a strange life that I lead, I am sure; miles away from my fellow-countrymen, buried alive, and long forgotten?” “No, not forgotten, sir. Do you recollect Pelham Brande of the Civil Service? He was asking for you only the other day.” “I think I remember him--a clever fellow, with a very pretty wife, who people said had been a servant. (How long these sort of things stick to people’s memories.) I’ve been out of the world for years.” “But you will return to it. Come back to England with me. What is there to keep you in this country?” “What, indeed!” with a jarring laugh. “No, my dear boy, I shall never leave the Pela Bungalow, as they call it, until I am carried out of it feet foremost.” “Why do you say this? You are a comparatively young man--not more than fifty-five.” “I feel a thousand years old; and I often wish that I was dead.” “I don’t wonder! I should say the same, if I had lived here alone for seven years. How do you kill time?” “I don’t kill time. Time is killing me. I walk in the garden sometimes, but generally I sit and think. You must be tired, my boy,” as if struck by a sudden thought. “Well, I am, I must confess. I was at a ball until four o’clock this morning.” “A ball till four o’clock this morning!” he repeated. “How strange it sounds. It seems the echo of a voice speaking twenty years ago!” * * * * * Dinner was served at a small table; a fowl for Mark, some patent food for Major Jervis. The cooking was atrocious, the attendance careless, the appointments splendid, but grimy. It was the same in every department--an extraordinary mixture of squalor and magnificence. It seemed to the indignant young man that these ruffians of servants thought anything good enough for his father. When Major Jervis’s huka was brought in he looked over at his son and said-- “You smoke, of course?” “Yes, thanks; but not that sort of thing. I would not know how to work it.” Last time he had lit a cigarette between four walls he little guessed at the style of his next surroundings. The room was not uncomfortable, the furniture was massively carved and luxurious, the carpet rich Persian; there were book-cases full of volumes, and there were fine pictures on the walls; but the paper was peeling off in strips, and cobwebs hung like ropes from the corners. The books were grimy with mould, the carpets and curtains inches deep in dust; certainly a sort of oasis had been cleared around Major Jervis’s chair, but everywhere the eye turned were tokens of neglect, poverty, and decay. His father’s slippers were in holes, his linen frayed; apparently he was a poor man. What had become of the begum’s fortune? CHAPTER XXXII.