ick or two helped me," she
said, and glanced with vivacity at any other subject that might be
hanging on the wall or visible out of the window.

"And are you really invincible about not putting it on again in
Calcutta?" Duff asked.

"Not in Calcutta, or anywhere. The rest hate it--nobody has a chance but
me," Hilda said, and got up.

"Oh, I don't know," Alicia began, but Miss Howe was already half way out
of the discussion in the direction of the door. There was often a
brusqueness in her comings and goings, but she usually left a flavour of
herself behind. One turned with facility to talk about her, this being
the easiest way of applying the stimulus that came of talking to her. It
was more conspicuous than either of these two realised that they
accepted her retreat without a word, that there was even between them a
consciousness of satisfaction that she had gone.

"This morning's mail," said Alicia, smiling brightly at him, "brought
you a letter, I know." It was extraordinary how detached she was from
her vital personal concern in him. It seemed relegated to some
background of her nature while she occupied herself with the play of
circumstances or was lost in her observation of him.

"How kind of you to think of it," Lindsay said. "This was the first by
which I could possibly hear from England."

"Ah, well, now you will have no more anxiety. Letters from on board ship
are always difficult to write and unsatisfactory," Alicia said. Miss
Filbert's had been postcards, with a wide unoccupied margin at the
bottom.

"The _Sutlej_ seems to have arrived on the 3rd; that's a day later,
isn't it, than we made out she would be?"

Alicia consulted her memory and found she couldn't be sure. Lindsay was
vexed by a similar uncertainty, but they agreed that the date was early
in the month.

"Did they get comfortably through the Canal? I remember being tied up
there for forty-eight hours once."

"I don't think she says, so I fancy it must have been all right. The
voyage is bound to do her good. I've asked the Simpsons to watch
particularly for any sign of malaria later, though. One can't possibly
know what she may have imported from that slum in Bentinck street."

"And what was it like after Gibraltar?" Alicia asked, with a barely
perceptible glance at the envelope edges showing over his breast pocket.

"I'll look," and he sorted one out. It was pink and glossy, with a
diagonal water-stripe. Lindsay drew out the single