"You may thank your stars, there is not, for then you might have to canvass all the half-caste warrens, kiss babies as black as your boot, et cetera. Thank goodness, Englishmen will never sink to that! No, the constituency I desire you should cultivate is one of pure Englishmen. I've only given you the names of socially desirable people. You must plough through those calls, Cheveril, they are a sacred rite for the new-comer. Great mistake not to leave your card on all big entertainers, for instance! Puranapore is not so far off that you cannot respond to every desirable invitation. The fair Miss Clarice will be sure to claim you for her coming ball. In fact, I saw an invitation in her eyes, mouth, and every feature of her face!" he added, with a laugh which jarred upon Mark, who, though he was not what is called "a lady's man," and perhaps because he was not, possessed that innate chivalry for woman which seemed to rise to the surface when the slightest note of disrespect for them was sounded.
But truly, as Mark acknowledged to himself, Rayner was proving a most painstaking host. He was actually pressing the use of one of his carriages on his acceptance, and Hester assured him that the landau was at his service, as she had duly responded to all social obligations, having been, she laughingly assured him, kept up to the mark by her husband.
Mark would not hear of appropriating an article which, in this hot climate, he understood to be as essential as one's boots, and had, in fact, already ordered a hired carriage for this enforced round of visits.
His host at length departed for the High Court with semi-paternal injunctions that his guest must not skip a single name in his valuable list.
Presently the hired bandy, which had been waiting under a tree for some time, was summoned, and Mark's butler, whom, on his host's recommendation he had engaged that morning, stood salaaming below the verandah steps preparatory to opening the carriage door.
"Where master wishing to drive?" asked Narainswamy in his best English.
"Morpeth house, Vepery," was the reply.
CHAPTER V.
In a quarter of Madras where dwelling houses were not separated by so many acres of garden ground as in the more fashionable suburbs, there stood, at the corner of a shady road, a white wooden gate. It was a feature rare in the Belgravia of the town where peeling chunam posts with rusty iron sockets were often the only traces of the departed gate; one of the changing tenants having probably demanded that it should be dispensed with, another that it should be replaced, to be assured by the obsequious landlord that the order would be executed at once, though the gate in question was most likely broken up for firewood or eaten by white ants, the polite Mussulman not having the remotest intention of replacing it, however much he might assure successions of tenants that the gate was on its way to be fitted to the old posts.