"And not being a man?"
"Oh, I dare say I shall marry some day, but my husband would have to share my views on all the important questions of the day, and believe absolutely in the equality of the sexes. At present I hate men."
"Oh, dear!"
"Yes, that is partly why I came out to India, to escape"—she checked herself as though she had been on the brink of a confidence, then added—"to escape worrying attentions."
"Then it was not entirely devotion to the downtrodden masses of this miserable country?" he asked slyly.
She flushed and said with lofty evasion: "I felt India needed me, I wanted to help India. I don't mean to stay out here permanently, of course; only till I have collected enough information and proof to open the eyes of the electors at home. I shall write a book. I think I shall call it 'What I saw in India.'"
"Why not 'The Evil English in the East,'" he suggested amiably. "An alliterative title is always arresting. The one you have thought of might be regarded as almost too uncommon?"
She laughed as though unable to help herself. At least, it seemed she had some saving sense of humour.
"How silly you are! You don't take life seriously at all!"
"Perhaps not;" he spoke carelessly, but he felt he could have shaken Miss Baker—conceited, self-satisfied monkey!—puffed up with her superficial views, untouched as she was by trouble or experience, so ready to blame and condemn where she did not understand. Of what avail to argue with her, why should he bother about what she thought, if she ever really thought at all! Help India, indeed! Who was she to help or even hinder the great machinery of Eastern administration, and as to her independence of sex—some day she would learn that she was but flying in the face of nature, and he hoped she would suffer for it.