the early mornings, with the sea down there, and nobody trying
to get the better of anybody else. There were fellows never happy unless
they were doing someone in the eye. He had known men who would ride at
the devil himself, make it a point of honour to swindle a friend out of a
few pounds! Odd place this 'Monte'--sort of a Garden of Eden gone wrong.
And all the real, but quite inarticulate love of Nature, which had
supported the Colonel through deserts and jungles, on transports at sea,
and in mountain camps, awoke in the sweetness of these gardens. His dear
mother! He had never forgotten the words with which she had shown him
the sunset through the coppice down at old Withes Norton, when he was
nine years old: "That is beauty, Jack! Do you feel it, darling?" He had
not felt it at the time--not he; a thick-headed, scampering youngster.
Even when he first went to India he had had no eye for a sunset. The
rising generation were different. That young couple, for instance, under
the pepper-tree, sitting there without a word, just looking at the trees.
How long, he wondered, had they been sitting like that? And suddenly
something in the Colonel leaped; his steel-coloured eyes took on their
look of out-facing death. Choking down a cough, he faced about, back to
where he had stood above the pigeon-shooting ground. . . . Olive and
that young fellow! An assignation! At this time in the morning! The
earth reeled. His brother's child--his favourite niece! The woman whom
he most admired--the woman for whom his heart was softest. Leaning over
the stone parapet, no longer seeing either the smooth green of the
pigeon-shooting ground, or the smooth blue of the sea beyond, he was
moved, distressed, bewildered beyond words. Before breakfast! That was
the devil of it! Confession, as it were, of everything. Moreover, he had
seen their hands touching on the seat. The blood rushed up to his face;
he had seen, spied out, what was not intended for his eyes. Nice
position--that! Dolly, too, last night, had seen. But that was
different. Women might see things--it was expected of them. But for a
man--a--a gentleman! The fullness of his embarrassment gradually
disclosed itself. His hands were tied. Could he even consult Dolly? He
had a feeling of isolation, of utter solitude. Nobody--not anybody in
the world--could understand his secret and intense discomfort. To take
up a position--the position he was bound to take