"You think not? I am of another opinion. I put my wife's peace of mind higher than your old-maidish alarms." Travers faced his companion with the assurance of a man who feels that he has the whip-hand. His experience taught him that a man of certain orthodox principles has a very limited sphere of action. He runs in herds with hundreds of other men of the same mould, and under given circumstances has only one course of conduct open to him. Had Travers been in Stafford's place, no one living could have told what he would do. But Stafford had no choice--at least, so Travers judged. "You are one of honor's Pharisees, my dear fellow," he said frankly. "You can't get out of your promise, and you know it. You cling to the letter of the law. It is your way. You had better go back to the Colonel and tell him to manage the Rajah in his own style." The clock on the table chimed the half-hour. It was ten minutes' full gallop back to the Colonel's bungalow. Stafford set his teeth in a white heat of despair. "If you have no consideration for the Station, for your own wife, for your own country, at least consider yourself!" he exclaimed. "Are you blind to the danger? We have scarcely fifty men, and up there are thousands quietly waiting for the Rajah's signal. You must have seen them with your own eyes pouring through--" "I saw any amount of dirty pilgrims, and got out of the way as fast as I could," was Travers' smiling retort. Stafford stood baffled and helpless. For the first time he was able to recognize and appreciate a certain type of Englishman to which he himself to some extent belonged--an arrogant ignoramus who, encamped behind his wall of superiority, fears nothing because he sees nothing, and sees nothing because outside the walls there can not possibly be anything worth looking at. Nicholson had torn down Stafford's imagined security, and he stood aghast at his old insolent self-confidence as reflected in Travers' smiling face. "To be quite honest with you," the latter went on, after a moment's pause, "I have very little faith in our dreadful danger. Admitted that I led the Rajah on a more than doubtful speculation, admitted that Miss Cary went further than she need have done, it is still most unlikely that his injured feelings are going to lead him to such a desperate step as to enter into conflict with the whole Empire. Believe me, Stafford, the idea is ridiculous, and I have not the least intention of throwing up my own hard-won security--" It was a bad slip, and he knew it. Stafford, who had stood with his face half averted, in an attitude of irresolution, swung round. "Your security?" he echoed. Travers shrugged his shoulders. He had made a mistake, but he saw no reason to be afraid of Stafford or of any one in Marut. "I said 'my security,'" he repeated. Stafford clenched his fists. The expression on his gaunt, rugged face showed that he had understood the full import of Travers' words.