But he put the idea from him, though he smiled as he re-read his orders and thought of her surprise when she saw him in Darjeeling. Would she really be pleased to meet her friend of the jungle in the gay atmosphere of a pleasure colony? Like most men who are not woman-hunters he set a very modest value on himself and did not rate highly his power of attraction for the opposite sex. Therefore, he thought it not unlikely that the girl might consider him as a desirable enough acquaintance for the forest but a bore in a ballroom. In this he was unjust to her.
He was surprised to discover that he looked forward with pleasure to seeing her again, for women as a rule did not interest him. Noreen was the first whom he had met that gave him the feeling of companionship, of comradeship, that he experienced with most men. She was not more clever, more talented, or better educated than most English girls are, but she had the capacity of taking interest in many things outside the ordinary range of topics. Above all, she inspired him with the pleasant sense of "chum-ship," than which there is no happier, more durable bond of union between a man and a woman.
The Season brought the work in which Dermot was engaged to a standstill, and, keen lover of sport as he was, he was not tempted to risk the fevers of the jungle. Life in the small station of Ranga Duar was dull indeed. Day and night the rain rattled incessantly on the iron roofs of the bungalows—six or eight inches in twenty-four hours being not unusual. Thunderstorms roared and echoed among the hills for twenty or thirty hours at a stretch. All outdoor work or exercise was impossible. The outpost was nearly always shrouded in dense mist. Insect pests abounded. Scorpions and snakes invaded the buildings. Outside, from every blade of grass, every leaf and twig, a thin and hungry leech waved its worm-like, yellow-striped body in the air, seeming to scent any approaching man or beast on which it could fasten and gorge itself fat with blood. Certainly a small station on the face of the Himalayas is not a desirable place of residence during the rains, and to persons of melancholy temperament would be conducive to suicide or murder. Fortunately for themselves the two white men in Ranga Duar took life cheerily and were excellent friends.
By this time Noreen considered herself quite an old resident of Darjeeling. But she had felt the greatest reluctance to go when her brother had helped her into the dogcart for the long drive to the railway. Fred was unable to take her even as far as the train, for his manager had one of his periodic attacks of what was euphemistically termed his "illness." But Chunerbutty volunteered to escort Noreen to the hills, as he had been summoned again to his sick father's side, the said parent being supposed to be in attendance on his Rajah who had taken a house in Darjeeling for the season. As a matter of fact his worthy progenitor had never left Lalpuri. However, Daleham knew nothing of that, and, being empowered to do so when Parry was incapacitated, gladly gave him permission to go and gratefully accepted his offer to look after the girl on the journey.
Noreen would much have preferred going alone, but her brother refused to entertain the idea. Although she knew nothing of the suspicions of her Bengali friend entertained by Dermot, she sensed a certain disapproval on his part of Fred's and her intimacy with Chunerbutty, and it affected her far more than did the open objection of the other planters to the Hindu. Besides, she was gradually realising the existence of the "colour bar," illiberal as she considered it to be. But it will always exist, dormant perhaps but none the less alive in the bosoms of the white peoples. It is Nature herself who has planted it there, in order to preserve the separation of the races that she has ordained. So Noreen, though she hated herself for it, felt that she would rather go all the way alone than travel with the Hindu.
The thirty miles' drive to the station of the narrow-gauge branch railway which would convey them to the main line did not seem long. For several planters who resided near her road had laid a dâk for her, that is, had arranged relays of ponies at various points of the way to enable the journey to be performed quickly. Noreen's heavy luggage had gone on ahead by bullock cart two days before, so the pair travelled light.
After her long absence from civilisation the diminutive engine and carriages of the narrow-gauge railway looked quite imposing, and it seemed to the girl strange to be out of the jungle when the toy train slid from the forest into open country, through the rice-fields and by the trim palm-thatched villages nestling among giant clumps of bamboo.
In the evening the train reached the junction where Noreen and Chunerbutty had to transfer to the Calcutta express, which brought them early next morning to Siliguri, the terminus of the main line at the foot of the hills, whence the little mountain-railway starts out on its seven thousand feet climb up the Himalayas.
Out of the big carriages of the express the passengers tumbled reluctantly and hurried half asleep to secure their seats in the quaint open compartments of the tiny train. White-clad servants strapped up their employers' bedding—for in India the railway traveller must bring his own with him—and collected the luggage, while the masters and mistresses crowded into the refreshment room for chota hazri, or early breakfast. Noreen was unpleasantly aware of the curious and semi-hostile looks cast at her and her companion by the other Europeans, particularly the ladies, for the sight of an English girl travelling with a native is not regarded with friendly eyes by English folk in India.