"Thank you very much for asking me," replied the subaltern. "I should have loved to accept your invitation; but it is our Guest Night and the Colonel likes all of us to be present at Mess on such evenings." "Oh, I forgot!" she exclaimed. "I ought to have remembered; for Mr. Raymond told me the same thing only last week when I invited him informally. Well, you must come some other night soon." Reluctant to part with her new playmate she accompanied him to the door and, to the scandal of the stately _chuprassis_, stood at it to watch him drive away and to wave him a last goodbye as he looked back when the pony turned out of the gate. India is a land of lightning friendships between men and women. CHAPTER III THE LOVE-SONG OF HAR DYAL The bugler was sounding the second mess-call as the Resident's carriage drew up before the steps of the Mess verandah on which stood all the officers of the regiment, dressed in the white drill uniform worn at dinner in India during the hot weather. From the carriage Major Norton, a stout, middle-aged man in civilian evening dress, descended stiffly and shook hands with the Commandant of the battalion, Colonel Trevor, who had come down the steps to meet him and whose guest he was to be. On the verandah Wargrave was introduced to him by the Colonel and took his outstretched hand with reluctance; for Frank felt stirring in him a faint jealousy of the man who was Violet's legal lord and an indefinite hostility to him for not appreciating his charming wife as he ought. And while the Resident was shaking hands with the others Wargrave looked at him with interest.