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“Adela and I talk mostly about India. Dear, since you mention it, you’re quite right—you ought to be more alone with her than you are.”

“Yes, perhaps, but then people’ld gossip.”

“Well, they must gossip sometime! Let them gossip.”

“People are so odd out here, and it’s not like home—one’s always facing the footlights, as the Burra Sahib said. Take a silly little example: when Adela went out to the boundary of the club compound, and Fielding followed her. I saw Mrs. Callendar notice it. They notice everything, until they’re perfectly sure you’re their sort.”

“I don’t think Adela ’ll ever be quite their sort—she’s much too individual.”

“I know, that’s so remarkable about her,” he said thoughtfully. Mrs. Moore thought him rather absurd. Accustomed to the privacy of London, she could not realize that India, seemingly so mysterious, contains none, and that consequently the conventions have greater force. “I suppose nothing’s on her mind,” he continued.

“Ask her, ask her yourself, my dear boy.”