“Then he knew nothing of it?”
“No more than I did.”
“And Ashraf Ali was willing to take the Commissioner’s advice?”
“He hadn’t much choice. A glance from Major North would have turned the scale, but you know what the Major is, Mrs North—he will play fair by his own side, however badly they may have treated him. He gave him no encouragement to show fight, and Ashraf Ali took a back seat. It is rather tough to have to receive again into the bosom of your family an affectionate nephew who has tried to murder you, isn’t it?”
“But how does the Commissioner get over that little difficulty?”
“Airily ignores it. ‘Not guilty, and won’t do it again,’ is his view. Every prospect of domestic happiness in the Amir’s family circle in future.”
“Where is Dick now?” asked Georgia suddenly.
“I rather think he has gone to have it out with the Kumpsioner Sahib. He was horribly sick, and who can wonder?”
“I really think,” said Mabel, quite inconsequently, “that if I couldn’t pick up my own balls I wouldn’t play tennis.”
They were sitting in the verandah overlooking the tennis-court, and it was the sight of the squad of small boys in uniform who were being kept hard at work by the three men now playing that had called forth the remark.