“I have told her nothing. ‘Where ignorance is bliss’--you know the rest. Although I have married her to a Mohammedan--and roused your indignation by doing so--I did what I could to keep her happy as his wife. She does not know that I am an Englishman, and I have never even taught her English; although for years I used to hold long conversations with myself or with imaginary friends when I was alone, that I might not forget my own language.” And Jahan Beg went on his way, leaving Georgia oppressed with a sense--which was by no means new to her, but had never made itself felt so clearly as to-night--of the complexity of life. She sat looking out over the Moslem city, and pondering the various problems which the Amir’s words had started in her mind, while Lady Haigh and Fitz settled down to a game of halma, and North carried off Dr Headlam to show him a new kind of locust, which one of the servants had caught and brought to him. The doctor welcomed the discovery with rapture, and conveyed the insect in triumph to his own quarters, while Dick returned to the terrace. Georgia turned to him impulsively as he mounted the steps close beside her. “What is your opinion of compromises? Can they ever be morally justifiable?” Now it was more than a month since Dick and Georgia had exchanged any conversation but the merest commonplaces, and Dick was so well satisfied with this state of affairs as to vow to himself every day that he would take care their acquaintance remained on this somewhat restricted footing for the future. Yet although he felt that Georgia had not intentionally appealed to him in preference to any one else, and would have attacked Sir Dugald or Stratford on the subject, if either of them had appeared at the moment, as readily as himself, he sat down near her, and hastily collected his views on the question of compromise. “It rather depends upon the nature of the compromises, doesn’t it?” he asked--“whether they refer to essentials or non-essentials, I mean. For instance, one’s whole existence is a series of compromises.” “In the sense in which all social life is a compromise between the demands of the individual and those of the race?” said Georgia. “Yes, but those refer to non-essentials, of course.” “Non-essentials to the race now; but I dare say they seemed essential enough to the individual at one time. For instance, in the district in India in which I served first, the natives thought it essential to offer human sacrifices every year. Their crops depended upon it, they said. But we have taught them otherwise, and now they compromise matters by sacrificing goats.” “But that was not really an essential matter; it was only that they thought it so. What I want to know is, how can one tell, in questions of right and wrong, where conciliation ends and compromise begins?”