aptain? I
believe that if it had been my case I'd have, well, I'd have known that
it was because the girl cared. Elizabeth is undemonstrative--too much
so, in fact; but I fancy--well, never mind: it's so long ago that I
took notice of these things that I find I'm trying to speak in an
unknown tongue."

The little man rose and bustled about, pulling out drawers from the
cabinet and shoving them back again, venting little asthmatic coughs of
sheer nervousness. Then coming up to Barlow he held out his hand
saying: "My dear boy, God be with you; but don't take chances--will
you?"

At that instant Elizabeth appeared at the doorway: "Captain Barlow will
have breakfast with us, won't he, father--it's all ready, and Boodha
says he has a chop-and-kidney curry that is a dream?"

"Jupiter!" Hodson exclaimed; "fancy I'm getting India head; was sending
Barlow off without a word about breakfast. Of course he'll
stay--thanks, Elizabeth."

The tired drawn parchment face of the Resident became revivified, it
was the face of a happy boy; the grey eyes blued to youth. Inwardly he
murmured: "Elizabeth is wonderful! I knew it; good girl!"

It was a curious breakfast--mentally. Elizabeth was the Elizabeth of
the verandah. Perhaps it was the passionate beating of the pillow the
day before, when she had realised for the first time what Barlow meant
to her, that now cast her into defence; encased her in an armour of
protection; caused her to assume a casualness. She would give worlds
to not have said what she had said the day before, but the Captain must
know that she had been roused by a knowledge of his intimacy with the
Gulab. Just what had occurred did not matter--not in the least; it was
his place to explain it. That was Elizabeth's way--it was her manner
of thought; a subservience of impulse to propriety, to class. In the
light of her feeling when she had lain, wet-eyed, beating the pillow,
she knew that if he had put his arms about her and said just even
stupid words--"I'm sorry, Beth, you know I love you"--she would have
capitulated, perhaps even in the capitulation have said a Bethism: "It
doesn't matter--we'll never mention it again."

But Barlow, very much of a boy, couldn't feel this elusive thing, and
rode away after breakfast from the bungalow muttering: "By gad!
Elizabeth should have said something over roasting me. Fancy she
doesn't care a hang. Anyway--I'll give her credit for that--she
doesn't hunt with t