purer pleasure, touched a
finer level of purpose and of hope than to-day, when thinking of and now
when looking upon Damaris. He thankfully appraised her worth, and in
spirit bowed before it, not doatingly or weakly but with reasoned
conviction. Weighed in the balances she would not be found wanting, such
was his firm belief. For himself he accepted this recall to active
participation in affairs, active service to the State, with a lofty
content. But that his daughter, in the flower of her young womanhood,
would profit by this larger and more distinguished way of life, gave the
said recall its deeper values and its zest.

Still he put her off awhile as to the exact announcement, smiling upon
her in fond, yet stately approval.

"Let the telling keep until after dinner, my dear," he bade her. "Pacify
the cravings of the natural man for food and drink. The day has been
fertile in demands--strenuous indeed to the point of fatigue. So let us
comfort ourselves inwardly and materially before we affront weighty
decisions."

He kissed her cheek.

"By the way, though, does it ever occur to you to think of the Bhutpur
Sultan-i-bagh and wish to go East again?"

And Damaris, with still uplifted chin, surveyed him gravely and with a
certain wistfulness, Miss Felicia's attempted poaching forgotten and an
impression of Faircloth vividly overtaking her. For they were so
intimately, disturbingly alike, the father and the son, in voice as well
as in build and feature.

"Go East?" she said, Faircloth's declared preference for sailing into the
sunrise present to her. "Why, I go East in my dreams nearly every night.
I love it--love it more rather than less as I grow older. Of course I
wish to go--some day. But that's by the way, Commissioner Sahib. All that
I really want, now, at once, is to go wherever you go, stay wherever you
stay. You won't ask me to agree to any plan which parts us, will
you?--which takes you away from me?"

"Ruth to a strange Naomi, my dear," he answered. "But so be it. I desire
nothing better than to have you always with me.--But I will not keep you
on tenter-hooks as to your and my projected destination. Let them bring
in dinner in half an hour. Carteret and I shall be ready. Meanwhile, read
this--agreeing to relegate discussion of it to a less hungry season."

And taking the letter she had forwarded to him yesterday, bearing the
imprint of the Indian Office, from the breast pocket of his shooting
coat, he