ll not be
alive in twenty-one years to avert the danger I foresee, or to laugh at
my fears if I am wrong. They can do what they like in Rajputana and
Bengal and Bombay. But on the Frontier I want things to go well. Oh, how
I want them to go well!"

Luffe had grown very pale, and the sweat glistened upon his forehead.
Dewes held to his lips a glass of brandy which stood upon a table
beside the bed.

"What danger do you foresee?" asked Dewes. "I will remember what you
say."

"Yes, remember it; write it out, so that you may remember it, and din it
into their ears at Government House," said Luffe. "You take these boys,
you give them Oxford, a season in London--did you ever have a season in
London when you were twenty-one, Dewes? You show them Paris. You give
them opportunities of enjoyment, such as no other age, no other place
affords--has ever afforded. You give them, for a short while, a life of
colour, of swift crowding hours of pleasure, and then you send them
back--to settle down in their native States, and obey the orders of the
Resident. Do you think they will be content? Do you think they will have
their heart in their work, in their humdrum life, in their elaborate
ceremonies? Oh, there are instances enough to convince if only people
would listen. There's a youth now in the South, the heir of an Indian
throne--he has six weeks' holiday. How does he use it, do you think? He
travels hard to England, spends a week there, and travels back again. In
England he is treated as an _equal_; here, in spite of his ceremonies, he
is an _inferior_, and will and must be so. The best you can hope is that
he will be merely unhappy. You pray that he won't take to drink and make
his friends among the jockeys and the trainers. He has lost the taste for
the native life, and nevertheless he has got to live it.
Besides--besides--I haven't told you the worst of it."

Dewes leaned forward. The sincerity of Luffe had gained upon him. "Let me
hear all," he said.

"There is the white woman," continued Luffe. "The English woman, the
English girl, with her daintiness, her pretty frocks, her good looks,
her delicate charm. Very likely she only thinks of him as a picturesque
figure; she dances with him, but she does not take him seriously. Yes,
but he may take her seriously, and often does. What then? When he is
told to go back to his State and settle down, what then? Will he be
content with a wife of his own people? He is already a strange