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“Well, Perky,” he said, slapping me on the back, “I’ve got everything now—what are you waiting for?”

“Your lady’s-maid,” I promptly answered, as I nodded at the banjo, pillows, and fan.

“I like to be comfortable,” he confessed. “One may as well take one’s ease as not; it has an excellent and soothing effect on the temper.”

But I noticed that he caught sight of Jones’s grin, and coloured deeply—whether with rage or shame, I could not guess. As I drove my guest up to our lines, I secretly marvelled as to what had brought him to our little Mofussil station, a two days’ railway journey through the flattest, ugliest country. He had been staying at Government House, Calcutta, at various splendid Residencies, and had had every opportunity of seeing India from the most commanding and luxurious point of view. Why had he sought me out?

Later on, as we sprawled in long chairs in my portico overlooking a sun-baked compound,—with a view chiefly consisting of the back of my neighbour’s stables, and Jones’s little brown bear, mowing and moping, under a scraggy mango tree,—I put the inevitable question: