"We will leave that subject alone, please," she said loftily; but when her husband joined them in the verandah, she went over ostentatiously to him and pinned a carnation in his buttonhole, hoping he would like it better than the rose she gave him the day before, which--this was in a louder tone for the doctor's benefit--he had forgotten to put in! "Did I, my dear?" replied her spouse. "Oh, yes! I remember you put it in my minim glass because I was working in my shirt-sleeves. Then I wanted the glass. So it got withered and the head snapped off." Dr. Dillon laughed--his usual dry laugh. "That is one of the many tragedies which come from the delusion all women have that flowers can't be out of place." CHAPTER XII THE CHURCH MILITANT When Roshan Khân had joined those two great stabilities, Faith and Love, into one passionate desire for Vincent Dering's damnation, he had meant to follow the English etiquette on such occasions, and keep his aspiration to himself. But it had been impossible for him instantly to rejoin the society in which he found himself; that is, a society which shared that fundamental crime--which more even than any definite jealousy had roused his anger against Captain Dering--of being alien to his creed, his customs, his code of conduct towards women. So he had wandered off into the garden again, shadowed by old Akbar's incredulity, curiosity, and sympathy; until, partly from sheer impatience, but mostly from sheer inherited habit of employing such as Akbar Khân in anything approaching an intrigue, he had made a clean breast of the situation. Even the latter, however, had, as it were, shied at the extreme novelty of the idea when it was first mooted; but, by degrees, its vast possibilities of advantage to faithful old retainers overpowered his abject terror at the bare idea of Father Narâyan suspecting such a thing. The old master, he told himself, was old, indeed! God only knew if he would last a year or a day; therefore it would be well to ensure the favour of the new mistress. And there could be no harm in sounding her as to what course that favour would follow. One could never tell with a woman; and his wicked, experienced old eyes had caught many a hint of Anâri Begum in Laila's childhood. Perhaps she had changed since she went to Calcutta. He could but try. So when, on the morning after the ball, Laila, in obedience to her pious resolve to do nothing really wrong, had bidden him--with threats of vengeance if he betrayed the fact of their having come at all--remove and return certain trays of clothes and jewels which had been smuggled by someone into her room, he had fallen at her feet, confessed falsely that he was the offender, and besought her not to impose so unmerited a disgrace on his employer, who had been actuated by the ordinary rules of native etiquette which prescribed some recognition of his cousin, the head of his family.