"Oh, you know—and you know too, that it's no good hankering after that girl—not a little bit. I grant you she is handsome and ladylike, but—keep her relations well in your mind's eyes. Think of the future cousins in the bazaars."
"Oh, you be hanged! Of course you have never been near the place?"
"I should say not! The Chandos bungalow is out of bounds; Chandos himself is a shady old chap, who shows his sense by never leaving cards on a mess, and never enters the station. His 'Mem Sahib' is all over the shop, flitting in and out of the club, and hanging on to the coat-tails of society. Of course we meet her at times in the reading room, and to speak to. She has a whole clan of brown relations in the city, called Jones. The man only wants a turban to be a khidmutgar!"
"Then you don't know them at all?"
"Oh, yes; I know Dom—she is different; she is not off the cab rank, and is rare good fun, and says the most amusing and unexpected things. We are tremendous pals, though I need scarcely remark that we don't publish the fact on the club notice board, or in the market place."
"Um—no; but where else——?"
"We write one another nice little notes. Our post office is a book in the library—last volume on fourth shelf. It is called 'Two Kisses'—rather neat, eh—quite my own idea——"
"Do you merely correspond?"
"Oh, no," responded Jimmy, with an airy flip of his cigarette, "on moonlight nights I drive out to Manora after mess; I have a rare stepper, and the cart has rubber tyres. I wait behind a little tope of trees for Dom, and we go for a couple of hours' spin. It's all as still as death and as bright as day; we have the whole country to ourselves. I'm not a fellow for humbugging about scenery, and the picturesque, but I tell you, Malcolm, that there's something in the quiet, still, spreading plains—with a silver shine on them, and the river here and there—flashing at one like a looking glass—that makes me feel quite—er—er—enthusiastic—and impressed, and all that sort of thing!"
"Oh! and I should like to know how Mr. Chandos would be impressed and all that sort of thing, if he met you and his daughter scouring the country in the middle of the night?"