"Oh, we’ve had several conversations," answered Bethune, following with his eyes the movement of the red head-dress in the distant hollow. "That is to say, I have done a lively bit of talking to him, and he has given me mighty polite answers and said nothing at all. Those fellows, Miss Aspasia, are queer cattle, proud as Lucifer, secret as the tiger in the jungle. That one down there, however, is of the modern school—a sort of animal I don’t profess to understand, but one, at any rate, I should not care to trust, myself. Sir Arthur would have done just as well to have left him in India." "Gracious!" cried Aspasia. "Lord!" Her mind sprang: "Perhaps he’s after Runkle! Oh, Major Bethune, you know what a mess poor Runkle is making of things out there; I shouldn’t like him to be thugged! I always told him he was laying the seed of mutiny," said Miss Aspasia, with tragic emphasis. Bethune gave his rare laugh. "Muhammed Saif-u-din would hardly have come over all the way to England to make his private mutiny when he could accomplish the matter with more kudos in India, and have a good chance of saving his own skin besides." Aspasia shook her head, preferring to cling to her own dramatic inspiration. "Well, I’ll give Runkle a warning, anyhow," said she. "There’s something fishy about Muhammed. You may laugh at me, if you like; but the man is eaten up with some secret thought, some sinister thought. There’s a look in his eyes that makes me shiver. And when he smiles—ugh! I do hate Easterns." He glanced at her reflectively, then he smiled. Such a sentiment from any one else would have aroused his indignation; but it was impossible to take Miss Aspasia Cuningham’s hatreds with seriousness. Only this morning he had seen her half strangle a protesting Jani in vehement embrace. "And as for Aunt Rosamond," went on the girl, comfortably, "it upsets her even to see the wretched being. That’s the reason we keep him to the orchard, you know; her windows look out on the front. I had to tell him—it was an awful moment; he was so hurt and so grand. Then I explained it was on account of poor Captain English, you know. Oh, you know...!" "Do I?" asked the man, with a faint raising of the brows. "Well, if it amuses you to pretend you don’t," she snapped back. "Anyhow, Muhammed did. He may be a cut-throat, but there’s something of a gentleman about it. He put his hand on his heart and bowed. ’The Lady Sahib’s wishes are sacred,’ he said. And I’ve seen the poor thing hide behind a tree when she is coming. Rather touching, don’t you think?" said the inconsequent Baby. "Did Lady Gerardine ask you to speak to Muhammed?" "No. Why do you want to know that?" "Mere idle curiosity," he answered, striking at a gorse bush with his stick and watching the melted rime fly out in spray.