ion which he described as
"entirely unofficial" almost every day. He seemed to entertain a vast
admiration for Nick, and as Olga was wholly in sympathy with him on this
great point, they did not find it difficult to agree upon smaller
matters. She even bore with his bare-faced Irish compliments, mainly
because she knew he did not mean them and she found it easier to be
amused than offended.

The new life was undeniably one of considerable interest, and now and
then, more particularly when she went for her morning ride with Nick--a
function which Noel almost invariably attended when off duty, appearing
with a brazen smile and not the faintest suggestion of an excuse--the
old zest would awake within her, almost deluding her into the belief
that her lost youth had returned.

She still had her hours of depression and strange heart-heaviness so
alien to her nature, and even in her lighter moments she was far more
restrained than of yore--shrewd still, quick of understanding still, but
infinitely graver, more womanly, more reserved.

Nick, who watched her as tenderly as a mother, sometimes asked himself
if after all he and Jim had done the right thing. Her remoteness worried
him. She seemed to live in a world of her own, asking no questions,
making no confidences. Not that she ever barred him out. He was well
aware that she had not the vaguest desire to keep him at a distance. But
her old spontaneity, her child-like demonstrativeness, seemed to have
gone, and a nameless shadow haunted the eyes that once had been so
clear.

They often sat together on the verandah as now, when the day's work was
done, sometimes talking, sometimes silent, always in complete accord.

Olga's remark that the India to which Nick had introduced her was wholly
unlike her expectations had been called forth by some comment of his
upon the Rajah's exceedingly British tastes.

"I thought things would be much more primitive," she said.

And Nick laughed, and after a long draught of whisky and soda observed
that possibly they were more primitive than she imagined. After which he
stretched himself luxuriously, and asked her if she were aware that they
were within a week of Christmas Day.

"Of course," she said. "Did you imagine I had forgotten? It seems so
strange to have nothing to do."

He sat up very abruptly with his knees drawn up to his chin and blinked
at her with extreme rapidity. "Olga," he said, "I believe you're
homesick."

The colour