Again he fell silent, watching her. "Yes?" she repeated after a moment, bending a little over the book she held. "They are very simple," he said quietly. "I'm going to a place I know of in the Himalayas where there is a wonderful river that one can punt along all day and all night, and never come to an end." Again he paused. The fingers that held the memorandum were not quite steady. "And you have come to say good-bye?" she suggested in her deep, sad voice. His eyes were turned gravely upon her, but there was a faint smile at the corners of his mouth. "No," he said in his abrupt fashion. "That isn't in the plan. Good-bye to the rest of the world if you will, but never again to you!" He drew close to her and gently took the cheque-book out of her grasp. "I want you to come with me, Naomi," he said very tenderly. "My darling, will you come? I have wanted you--for years." A great quiver went through her, as though every pulse leapt to the words he uttered. For a second she stood quite still, with her face lifted to the sunlight. Then she turned, without question or words of any sort, as she had turned long ago--yet with a difference--and laid her hand with perfect confidence in his. * * * * * THE RETURN GAME I "Well played, Hone! Oh, well played indeed!" A great roar of applause went up from the polo-ground like the surge and wash of an Atlantic roller. The regimental hero was distinguishing himself--a state of affairs by no means unusual, for success always followed Hone. His luck was proverbial in the regiment, as sure and as deeply-rooted as his popularity. "It's the devil's own concoction," declared Teddy Duncombe, Major Hone's warmest friend and admirer, who was watching from the great stand near the refreshment-tent. "It never fails. We call him Achilles because he always carries all before him." "Even Achilles had his vulnerable point," remarked Mrs. Perceval, to whom the words were addressed. She spoke with her dark eyes fixed upon the distant figure. Seen from a distance, he seemed to be indeed invincible--a magnificent horseman who rode like a fury, yet checked and wheeled his pony with the skill of a circus rider. But there was no admiration in Mrs. Perceval's intent gaze. She looked merely critical. "Pat hasn't," replied Duncombe, whose love for Hone was no mean thing, and who gloried in his Irish major's greatness. "He's a man in ten thousand--the finest specimen of an imperfect article ever produced." His enthusiasm fell on barren ground. Mrs. Perceval was not apparently bestowing much attention upon him. She was watching the play with brows slightly drawn.