He watched her while she spoke, his quietly observant eyes missing no detail of her face.
"And now you have got here, I wonder how it will strike you after the imposing official circles of Simla and Lahore. You'll find none of the 'beer and skittles' of the country up here. But the Frontier has its own fascination all the same; especially when a man has the spirit of it in his blood. Desmond, for instance, wouldn't give a brass farthing for life out of sight of those hard-featured hills. Do you know him and his wife at all?"
"I never saw him till yesterday, except in the distance at polo matches. But I have known her since she was quite a child."
"And I have known Desmond since he was thirteen. Rather odd! You can't fail to be good friends with him Miss Meredith."
"Are you as rabid as my brother and the Colonel because the poor man has dared to marry?" she asked, with an incurable directness which to some natures was a stumbling-block, and to others her chiefest charm. "It seems to be a part of the regimental creed."
"It is. And I subscribe to it ... as a creed. But my belief has not yet been tried in the fire. Desmond is the keenest soldier I know; yet he has seen fit to marry. I have an immense faith in him, and, whatever others may think, I prefer to reserve my judgment."
"If only a few more of us had the wisdom to do that," the girl said softly. "How much easier life would be for every one!"
Wyndham smiled.
"I have a notion that life isn't meant to be easy," he said. "And the fact remains that Meredith and the Colonel are right in principle. Few men are strong enough to stand the strain of being pulled two ways at once, and marriage is bound to be a grave risk for a man whose heart is set on soldiering—Frontier soldiering above all. But then Desmond loves a risk better than anything else in life."