This arrangement was rendered needless, however, by Dudley's election as house-surgeon at St Kunigonde's,—an appointment which left him little time for reading, and less for any kind of recreation.
So they rarely saw each other more than once a week, and on these occasions Mona decreed that they should meet simply as good friends and comrades.
"For you must see, Ralph," she said, "how easy it is to crowd the life and energy of seven days into that one weekly meeting."
"Your will shall be law," he said. "What a spending we shall have some day, after all this saving!"
But I doubt whether any man ever got more pleasure from his courtship than Ralph did. There was a very subtle delight about the pretty pretence that the touch of Mona's hand meant no more than the touch of a friend's; and, in proportion as she gave him little, he valued that little much.
So the winter passed away, and summer came round once more.
Doris's marriage was to take place in August, and, a few weeks before the Sahib came to England to claim her, she went to London to visit Mona, and to order her outfit.
"I am just choosing my own things in my few spare hours," Mona said, the day after her friend's arrival, "so we can go shopping together."
They were sitting at afternoon tea, and Lucy had run in to borrow a book.
"You don't mean to say," Doris said, in great surprise, "that you are having a trousseau? When one is going to India, of course one requires things; but at home—it is a barbarous idea."