There was no reason on earth, of course, why Dalel should not come; no reason on earth why the Governor-General should not shake hands with him, or any one else--that was part of the duty for which Governor-Generals were paid; but that Gwen Boynton should shake hands with him and allow him to speak to her familiarly, was different. That was a matter of feeling, not a matter of reason. Apart from the question of colour, Dalel was an objectionable brute--could scarcely be otherwise, considering his up-bringings. That much of this was sheer insular prejudice on Lewis Gordon's part may be true. If put to it, he would have frankly confessed to many another objectionable brute with a white face; but that the dark-skin should enter into the question is at present inevitable in India, where it is typical of those theories and practices which make real social intercourse between the upper classes of the two races an impossibility--_at present_. And, to say sooth, Dalel was not nice, outwardly or inwardly. Even the best tailor in Simla could not make him look aught but intolerable in his elaborate riding-gear, as he paused on his way to the racecourse before a small shop in the bazaar; a dark hole of a place, squalidly bare of all save a sign where, in crooked lettering, it was announced that 'MUNAHRLALLOFDELHIJEWLERGOLDWORKS' was ready 'TOBYANDSELL.' 'No news of the pearls yet?' asked Dalel in an undertone of the man in dirty white waist-cloth and low turban, who came out hastily to cringe at his stirrup. 'Huzoor, no! The ayah saith they have not come. Perhaps the little sahib----' A measured shuffle of footsteps and a gay laugh arrested the deprecating voice. It was Mrs. Boynton, carried by four men arrayed in white; she herself being a vision of angelic spotlessness. Beside her, his hand on the shafts of her _dandy_, his young face intent on hers, came George Keene. It needs great ignorance or great experience to walk in this fashion, without appearing either ridiculous or unseemly. George looked neither; only supremely happy. 'Who was that?' he asked, as his companion bowed. Her little gloved hand resting so close to his tightened nervously. 'Dalel Beg. He bowed to me.' George gave a quick glance backwards. 'By Jove, so it is! What cheek!' He thought so, honestly, as they passed on between the irregular rows of shingled huts, leaving the group before the jeweller's shop, looking after them curiously. Past the bazaar, down many a turn, till a bare zigzag showed on the hill-side beneath them, and below that again a green oval of valley set in trees. The eye following each angle of the descent, could see, as it were in terraces, an almost continuous stream of _dandies_, _rickshaws_, and ponies, all bent towards that grassy oasis where a tent or two gleamed white, and a crowd of humanity already swarmed like bees.