nt she had
left, "here's the whole council meeting report set up and waiting
three-quarters of an hour--press blocked; and the printer Babu says
he can get nothing out of you. What the devil.... If the dak's* missed
again, by thunder!... paid to converse with itinerant females... seven
columns... infernal idiocy...."

* Country post.

Hilda descended in safety and at leisure, reflecting with amusement as
she made her way down that Mr. Sinclair was doubtless waiting until his
lady visitor was well out of earshot to make it warm for the editor.

CHAPTER XII

I find myself wondering whether Calcutta would have found anything very
exquisitely amusing in the satisfactions which exchanged themselves
between Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope's leading lady and the Reverend Stephen
Arnold, had it been aware of them; and I conclude reluctantly that it
would not. Reluctantly, because such imperviousness argues a lack of
perception, of flair in directions which any Continental centre would
recognise as vastly tickling, regrettable in a capital of such vaunted
sophistication as that which sits beside the Hooghly. It may as well be
shortly admitted, however, that to stir Calcutta's sense of comedy you
must, for example, attempt to corner, by shortsightedness or faulty
technical equipment, a civet cat in a jackal hunt, or, coming out from
England to assume official duties, you must take a larger view of your
dignities than the clubs are accustomed to admit. For the sex that does
not hunt jackals it is easier--you have only to be a little frivolous
and Calcutta will invent for you the most side-shaking nickname, as in
the case of three ladies known in a viceroyalty of happy legend as
the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. I should be sorry to give the
impression that Calcutta is therefore a place of gloom. The source of
these things is perennial, and the noise of laughter is ever in the air
of the Indian capital. Between the explosions, however, it is natural
enough that the affairs of a priest of College Street and an actress
of no address at all should slip unnoticed, especially as they did
not advertise it. Stephen mostly came, on afternoons when there was
no rehearsal, to tea. He, Stephen, had a perception of contrasts which
answered fairly well the purposes of a sense of humour, and nobody could
question hers; it operated obscurely to keep them in the house.

She told him buoyantly once or twice that he had been sent to he