Gossip subsided with the fluctuation of the European population of a large Indian station, where the military portion come and go, and civil officials are constantly transferred. Captain Coventry did not come back; he exchanged into the home battalion of his regiment. There came echoes and whispers that little Mrs. Coventry had returned to India after the decree had been made absolute, under the confiding impression that Mr. Kennard would make her his wife. But some declared that, of course, he was not such a fool; others that he had been blackguard enough to refuse to marry her; and what became of her nobody knew, and very few cared; for, after all, it was no one's immediate affair. CHAPTER VII TRIXIE It was sixteen years since the night of the ball in India when Mrs. Greaves had twisted her ankle, and had sat on the dais with the wife of a senior civilian discussing the unfortunate domestic affairs of Captain and Mrs. Coventry. Now Mrs. Greaves's husband was a retired colonel, and they were living comfortably, if dully, within their means in a convenient suburb of London, engrossed in the careers of their boys, content with their surroundings, with their well-built villa, their well-trained maids, their patch of garden and their neighbours--mostly staunch old Indian friends. Until lately Mrs. Munro, now for years a widow, had been one of these neighbours, living quietly with Trixie her daughter at the end of the Greaves's road in a little house called "Almorah." Hereabouts many of the houses bore names reminiscent of India--rather pathetic links with a past that some of the occupants frequently glorified into "happier days," forgetting as frequently how they had pined for an English home while living in exile. More or less unconsciously the little colony of "old Indians" preserved among themselves various propensities acquired during their service abroad. For example, they bought each others' furniture, borrowed and loaned belongings with ready good nature, paid informal visits chiefly in the mornings, quarrelled sometimes about nothing, and were inclined to be exclusive outside their own circle. They were all very happy and comfortable in spite of past glories, whether real or imagined, and when Trixie Munro grew up and clamoured for change, her godmother, Marion Greaves ("Gommie," as Trixie had called her ever since she could talk), urged Ellen Munro to let well alone and stay where she was--to pay no attention to Trixie's ridiculous hankerings after a London flat. "You can't afford the move, my dear," she had said with truth, "and the sooner Trixie learns that other things matter besides her own whims the better." Trixie and Gommie were more often at war than on terms of peace.