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“But what a life! and in the hot weather, too! Why don’t you go to the Hills, as the Punjab ladies do?”

“The Punjab ladies may, if their husbands can afford it. Have you any idea what it would cost to go to the Hills, or even down to Bab-us-Sahel, from here?”

“But why come here, then? What good does it do? Of course”—for Lady Haigh was beginning to look dangerous—“it’s delightful for Haigh to have you, and all that; but you won’t tell me he’s such a selfish chap that he wouldn’t rather know you were comparatively cool and comfortable down by the sea? You can’t make me believe it’s his doing.”

“No,” snapped Lady Haigh, “it’s ours. We are here for the good of the station. We are civilisation, society—refinement, if you like. We keep the gentlemen from getting into nasty jungly ways. You are looking rather jungly yourself.” She delivered this home-thrust suddenly, and Ferrers realised that his aspect was somewhat careless and unkempt for the place in which he found himself. “We keep things up to the standard, you see.”