'She won't mind,' he said half aloud, 'and it's safer there than in the tent. Wouldn't do to lose it here, of all places in the world. All right, Markham, I'm coming! Spin for court. Rough? Rough it is. If I'd only known they were going to put me up in the doubles, I'd have come in flannels.' With coat and waistcoat off, however, his white shirtsleeves rolled up, showing young, white round arms, and his Cooper's Hill scarf doing duty as a belt, George looked workman-like enough to play in the impromtu match of civil against military; and being of wholesome mind and person straightway forgot the round world in the effort to keep one ball a-rolling. The sun hung in the west above a frilled edging of lilac-tinted hills, the snows began to glisten, the valleys on either side grew fathomless as the mist rose from the streams dashing through them. On the ridge itself the deodars sent long shadows eastward, though the yellow sunshine still seemed to crisp the tufted parsley-fern among which civilisation grouped itself in cliques and sets for afternoon tea, and in which the servants, decked in gorgeous liveries for the occasion, flitted about like gay butterflies. A great content was on all; perhaps the memory of an excellent lunch lingered with the men, the gratifying consciousness of being well-dressed with the women, but the most of them felt that it was good to be there, transfigured, as it were, on a hill-top, forgetful even of Simla, whose shingled roofs showed on a jagged outline to the south. Yet Gwen Boynton, who, as a rule, would have shown at her best in such a scene, a situation, a society, pleaded a headache as an excuse for getting away early; so that when George came back to where he expected to find her _dandy_, she was already on her way back to Simla. 'What is it, Mr. Keene?' asked Rose, who was mounting her pony close by. 'Oh, nothing; only I put my watch and keys under the cushion of Mrs. Boynton's _dandy_, and now she has gone off. If you see her on the road, you might tell her. I have to play a return match--bad luck to it!' 'You don't look very unhappy,' laughed the girl, as he finished the task of putting her up by professional little tugs at her habit to make it sit wrinkle-less. 'And oh! by the way, it's all right about your leave. Father has arranged it; he told me so just now.' 'How good you are! If I could only leave my interests in your hands, always, the future would have no terrors for me, as they say in the melodramas. Good-bye, Miss Tweedie, till dinner-time, and--you won't forget about the watch, will you? I don't want Mrs. Boynton----'