"Neither am I when Mother comes out with us.... I want Mother."
"So do I want her. But I am man enough to put the aqueduct before the yearnings of my softer nature."
"Well, but you don't want to be sick."
Cyprian dropped the spade to look at him.
"What on earth are we going to do about it?" he asked at length. John showed him.
"And now," said Cyprian bitterly, "as, prompted by a kind and noble heart, I bought you the beastly stuff, I suppose she'll blame me!"
"I won't tell," John assured him faintly. And didn't.
* * * * * *
Almost immediately after this incident sealing his position in John's world, Cyprian received news of his Company's affiliation to a branch of mines in another district, and of his own transfer to a station more or less populated.
It meant a fresher beginning for himself and Ferlie in Burma than if he had remained under the eye of old acquaintances. He would be now, practically, in a managing position with much sedentary office-work in head-quarters and only a limited amount of inspecting.