allowed that the poor people might just as well have it as not----' 'Keene sahib _salaam deta_,' said the servant, interrupting her soliloquy of smooth things. She rose with outstretched hand and kindly smile. 'Punctual as ever. We shall be in time for number two----' then she paused abruptly in careless surprise. George, who had been told off as escort during the three-mile _dandy_ ride to the Town Hall, was still in his light morning suit. Smart enough in his new shirts and ties, and with a carnation in his buttonhole, but still scarcely in the costume for a bachelors' ball. 'What is the matter? Aren't you coming?' she asked quickly as he stood silent yet disturbed, for the sight of her always had the nature of an electric shock upon him. 'To see you so far, of course. To the ball? I'm afraid not. You see I have to start to-night.' 'Start? Where? 'For Hodinuggur; where else?' He spoke lightly, but his face contradicted his tone. When is it a light matter to leave Paradise? 'Nonsense!' broke in Gwen sharply, startled out of all save negation. 'You must not go.' 'Must, I'm afraid,' he echoed, and his voice was a trifle unsteady. 'You see,' he went on more confidently, 'I ought never to have taken that offer of extra leave. I knew it at the time, but I thought Dan would stop, and the temptation---- However, I'm off now.' 'Now?' she echoed in her turn, still lost in her surprise. 'To-night I mean. Of course I have no chance of a tonga, so I must go by dhooli. It is a bore, but it can't be helped.' The phrase seemed to bolster up his manliness, and he smiled at her. Such a pleasant-faced boy! so clean, so wholesome, so full of promise for the future. A pang shot through Gwen's heart at the sight of him and roused quick opposition to unlucky chance. 'But why? It isn't as if you were keeping him--I mean Mr. Fitzgerald. We settled all that; he goes back to Rajpore all the same.' 'So Gordon told me this afternoon. That is why I must return--the place can't be left alone, of course.' As he stood leaning against the mantelpiece his eye caught his own sketch, and he took it up half mechanically. 'To think I shall be back in that hole the day after to-morrow,' he said with a short laugh. He felt very sore, yet determined to face his pain in dignified fashion. 'Meanwhile,' he added, 'you must not be late. Is that your cloak?' The futility of being tactful, even for your most familiar friends, was being borne in upon Gwen Boynton with the remembrance of her own certainty that Dan Fitzgerald's return to Rajpore must be necessary to the lad's acceptance of the leave. And here he was declaring it to be the stumbling-block! The thought sapped the very foundation of her general security, and made the results which this change in his plans might produce in hers strike her confusedly. She set aside the wrap he held out, with quite a tremulous hand. 'You are very foolish. Nobody wants you to go. Even Dan----'