"You know my standpoint pretty well by now," he said, as, seated in a comfortable lounge chair, he watched Beatrice busy over some patterns which she had just received from London. "It isn't your standpoint, of course, and no doubt you would be fully in your right to say, 'I told you so,' when I confess that I am beginning to waver." "I never say, 'I told you so,'" she returned, smiling. "That is the war-cry of those accustomed to few triumphs." "Not that by wavering I mean that I am coming round to your opinions," he went on. "On the contrary, nothing on this earth will shake my theory that a mingling of races is an impossibility. They must and will, with few exceptions, remain separate to all eternity, and one or the other must have the upper hand if there is to be any law or order. No, it's not that. It's my self-satisfaction that is beginning to waver." "You must be more explicit," Beatrice observed. "I mean, men like myself--in fact, most Englishmen--are pretty well convinced, even when they have the rare tact of keeping it to themselves, that they are the salt of the earth. They may be, as a whole, but there are exceptions all round, which we are inclined to overlook because of the foregone conclusion. It has struck me lately that there are some of us--well, not up to the mark." "Has this revelation come to you by force of contrast?" she asked. "Haven't you been out with the Rajah?" He looked at her with the pleasure of a man who has been saved the bother of going into explanatory details. "Yes, I have," he admitted, "and you are not far wrong when you talk about the force of contrast. You know what I thought of the Rajah. There are any amount of good-looking native princes with nice surface manners--that sort of thing wouldn't impress me. But this man has more than good looks and manners. He is a born leader. You should have seen him this afternoon. There wasn't a thing he overlooked or forgot. Every detail was at his fingers' ends, and he has a fire, an energy, an idealistic belief in himself and in the whole world which fairly sweeps you off your feet. It did me. I believe it did the Colonel, and I know it did the natives. The dust wasn't low enough for them. And it wasn't face worship, either. It came straight from the heart; I could see that they were ready to die for him on the spot, at his mere word." "What a power!" Beatrice murmured. She had stopped turning over the patterns and was leaning back in her chair, her eyes fixed thoughtfully in front of her. "Yes, it is a power," he echoed emphatically, "and I wish to goodness we had more men like him on our side. We English take things too lightly--most of us. And in India it is not safe to take things lightly."