"That's almost as bad," she protested.
"I said incurable," pleaded Will. "I ought to know, for I fell a victim to it long ago."
She laughed softly against his shoulder. "Well, if you will have it so, it's very infectious, you know. And I am a victim too."
His arm tightened. "Mine was always a hopeless case, Daisy," he murmured half wistfully.
She turned her lips up to his. "When it attacks old folks—like you and me, dear—it always is," she said.
He kissed her again, lingeringly and in silence. There had been a time of which neither ever spoke when Will's love for his wife had been to her a thing of little value. He had not been the first comer. That time had passed long since, and with it the last of their youth. But though for them romance was no more, they had become lovers in a sense more true. Their lives were bound up together and woven into one by the Loom of God.
Whatever opportunities Noel might have missed that day, he certainly did not permit the thought of them to depress him. With his customary jauntiness, he took his departure; but he did not return straight to his quarters at the cantonments. He turned his steps in the direction of the dâk-bungalow, whistling in the starlight as he went.
A chilly wind was blowing, and the dust swirled about his feet. The road gleamed white and deserted before him. He swung along it, erect and British, caring nothing for dust or cold. From far away, in the direction of the jungle, there came the desolate cry of a jackal; but near at hand there was no sound but the rush of the wind past his ears and the swish of the dust along the way.
He came at length within sight of the dâk-bungalow and saw beyond it the lights of the native city. Nick's bungalow, tucked away amongst its trees, was not visible.
"They're horribly near that treacherous hound," he murmured to himself, as he strode along. "I wonder if Nick realizes the risk. They might be murdered in their beds any night, and none of us down at the cantonments any the wiser. The Rajah and old Kobad Shikan would be horrified of course. It's so easy to be horrified—afterwards."