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“Besides the ladies I am expecting one of my assistants—Narayan Godbole.”

“Oho, the Deccani Brahman!”

“He wants the past back too, but not precisely Alamgir.”

“I should think not. Do you know what Deccani Brahmans say? That England conquered India from them—from them, mind, and not from the Moguls. Is not that like their cheek? They have even bribed it to appear in text-books, for they are so subtle and immensely rich. Professor Godbole must be quite unlike all other Deccani Brahmans from all I can hear say. A most sincere chap.”

“Why don’t you fellows run a club in Chandrapore, Aziz?”

“Perhaps—some day . . . just now I see Mrs. Moore and—what’s her name—coming.”

How fortunate that it was an “unconventional” party, where formalities are ruled out! On this basis Aziz found the English ladies easy to talk to, he treated them like men. Beauty would have troubled him, for it entails rules of its own, but Mrs. Moore was so old and Miss Quested so plain that he was spared this anxiety. Adela’s angular body and the freckles on her face were terrible defects in his eyes, and he wondered how God could have been so unkind to any female form. His attitude towards her remained entirely straightforward in consequence.