"Well, perhaps your cure will be best brought about by coming out here, after all! You'll get disillusioned fast enough. Mark my words, I shall enjoy watching the process! A vile, low set are these Eurasians—as they like to be called. Now look here, Cheveril, I'll make a compact with you. Watch these crawling creatures for six months in silence, without disclosing your connection with them, and at the end of that time I'll give you leave to proclaim yourself an East Indian!"
"Thanks, Rayner, you mean kindly, I've no doubt, but I cannot enter into such a compact with you or any man. Not that I'm vain enough to take it for granted that all the world is so interested in me or my forebears as to think it necessary to descant on them at every market cross, but truth and honour must be our shield and buckler," observed Mark in an earnest tone.
It was too dark for him to see the sardonic smile that crossed his companion's face, as he muttered to himself: "High-flown young fool! But I must at once annex Hester, so that I may preserve him as a useful friend in that Puranapore business. I must write to Zynool and tell him to win over the young cub, by hook or by crook, before he cuts his teeth!"
The handsome Australians were now dashing along the avenue, and halted before the broad white flight of steps of the house in Clive's Road, which in the dusk looked a genuine marble palace. Its portico of chunam pillars was gleaming like the purest white Carrara. Lamps twinkled everywhere, for its owner liked a display of light. Through the many open windows of the large dining-room one could see the dinner table, with its tall silver lamps, artistic arrangement of flowers, and elegant furnishings, round which white-robed servants flitted.
Among the gleaming pillars of the verandah stood the lady of the house clad in shimmering white, with the red water-lilies at her breast and a joyful smile on her red lips.
"Here we are," said Rayner, throwing the reins to the syce. "If Mark Cheveril, I.C.S., will honour my humble abode with his presence," he added with a histrionic air.
"A humble abode, Rayner? Say rather a palace!" said Mark, springing from the mail-phaeton.
"Well, a palace if you like," returned his host with the pride of possession in his eyes. "And there stands my princess!"