‘Chellao!’ she cried, crisply, and Ram Singh imperturbably lifted the reins. The little procession clanked and jingled along the hillside, always tending down, and broke upon the early grey melancholy with a forced and futile cheerfulness, too early, like everything else. As it passed the last of Simla’s little gardens, spread like a pocket-handkerchief on the side of the hill, the lady leaned forward and looked back as if she wished to impress the place upon her memory. Her expression was that of a person going forth without demur into the day’s hazards, ready to cope with them, yet there was some regret in the backward look. ‘It’s a place,’ she said aloud, ‘where EVERYBODY has a good time!’ Then the Amusement Club went out of sight behind a curve; and she settled herself more comfortably among her cushions, and drew a wrap round her to meet the chill wind of the valley. It was all behind her. The lady looked out as the ponies galloped up to the first changing-place, and, seeing a saddled horse held by a syce, cramped herself a little into one corner to make room. The seat would just hold two. Ram Singh salaamed, getting down to harness the fresh pair, and a man put his face in at the side of the tonga and took off his hat. ‘Are you all right?’ he said. His smile was as conscious as his words were casual. ‘Quite right. The ayah was silly about coming--didn’t want to leave her babies or something--so I had to leave her behind. Everything else is either here or in the ekkas.’ ‘The brute! Never mind--they’re not much use in a railway journey. You can pick up another at Bombay. Then I suppose I’d better get in.’ ‘I suppose you better had. Unless you think of walking,’ she laughed, and he took the place beside her. Ram Singh again unquestioningly took up the reins. ‘Nobody else going down?’ ‘Not another soul. We might just as well have started together.’ ‘Oh, well, we couldn’t tell. Beastly awkward if there had been anybody.’ ‘Yes,’ she said, but thrust up her under lip indifferently. Then, with the effect of turning to the business in hand, she bent her eyes upon him understandingly and smiled in frank reference to something that had not been mentioned. ‘It’s goodbye Simla, isn’t it?’ she said. He smiled in response and put his hand upon her firm, round arm, possessively, and they began to talk. Ram Singh, all unaware, kept his horses at their steady clanking downward gallop, and Simla, clinging to the hilltops, was brushed by the first rays of the sun.