"I beg your pardon, sir," said the girl, turning to Amber, "but it is very annoying." She looked him over, first with abstraction, then with a puzzled gathering of her brows, for he was far from her thoughts—the last person she would have expected to meet in that place, and very effectually disguised in dust and dirt besides, "The tire came off the wheel just as we got here, late yesterday evening, and in trying, or pretending to try, to fit it on again, that block-head of a tonga-wallah hammered the rim with a rock as big as his head and naturally smashed it to kindling-wood. Then, before I could stop him, he flung himself on the back of a pony and went away, saying that it was the will of God that he should return to Badshah for a better tonga. Since when I have had for company one stable-syce, one deaf-and-dumb patriarch of a khansamah and … the usual dak-bungalow discomforts—insects, bad food, and a terrible fear of dacoits."
"I am so sorry, Miss Farrell," Amber put in. "If I had only been here…."
The girl gave a little gasp and sat down abruptly in one of the veranda chairs, thereby threatening it with instant demolition and herself with a bad spill; for the chair was feeble with the burden of its many years, and she was a quite substantial young person. Indeed, so loudly did it croak a protest and a warning that she immediately arose in alarm.
"Mr. Amber!" she said; and, "Well …!"
"You'll forgive me the surprise?" he begged, going up on the veranda to her. "I myself had no hope of finding you here."
"But," she protested, with a pretty flush of colour—"but I left you in the States such a little while ago!"
"Yes?" he said gravely. "It seems so long to me…. And when you had gone, Long Island was a very lonely place indeed," he added, with calculated impudence.
Her colour deepened and she sought another chair, seating herself with gingerly decision. "I'm sure you don't mean me to assume that you've followed me half round the world?"
"Why not?" He brought another chair to face her. "Besides, I haven't seen anything of … India for a good many years."
"Mr. Amber!"