hands
and eyes.

'I daresay not,' he said drily. 'I wish he'd keep away though. Let's
walk up.'

He took a stride or two away from Alastair. Victoria followed him. She
was rather taken with his rough simplicity, the comfort of his apparent
obtuseness. So like an uncle, she thought.

'Well, Mrs Fulton,' said Cairns, 'I suppose you're glad to be here, as
usual.'

'As usual?'

'Yes, as usual; people are always glad to be on board. If they're going
home, they're going home and if they're going out they're thinking that
it's going to be full pay instead of half.'

'It hadn't struck me like that,' said Victoria with a smile, 'though I
suppose I am glad to go home.'

'Funny,' said the Major, 'I never found a country like India to make
people want to come to it and to make them want to get out of it when
they were there. We had a sub once. You should have heard him on the
dead cities. Somewhere south east of Hyderabad, he said. And native
jewellery, and fakirism, and all that. He's got a liver now and the last
I heard of him was that he put his shoulder out at polo.'

Victoria looked out over the immense oily greenness of the water. Far
away on the skyline a twirling wreath of smoke showed that some tramp
steamer was passing them unseen. The world was between them; they were
crawling on one side of the ball and the tramp on the other, like flies
on an orange. Was that tramp, Bombay bound, carrying more than a cargo
of rolling stock? Perhaps the mate had forgotten his B.S.A. fittings and
was brooding, he too, over the dead cities, somewhere south-east of
Hyderabad.

'No,' repeated Victoria slowly, 'it hadn't struck me like that.'

Cairns looked at her curiously. He had heard of Fulton and knew of the
manner of his death. He could not help thinking that she did not seem
to show many signs of a recent bereavement, but then she was well rid
of Fulton. Of course there were other things too. Going back as the
widow of an Indian officer was all very well if you could afford the
luxury, but if you couldn't, well it couldn't be much catch. So, being
thirty eight or so, he prudently directed the conversation towards the
customary subjects discussed on board a trooper: the abominable
accommodation and the appalling incompetency of the government with
regard to the catering.

Victoria listened to him placidly. His ancient tittle-tattle had been
made familiar to her by three years' association with his fellows, and
she had