“They are very lovely,” she said softly.

“I shall be glad to remember that you wore them to-night,” said Shere Ali; “for, as you know, I love you.”

“Hush!” said Mrs. Oliver; and she rose with a start from her chair.  Shere Ali did the same.

“It’s true,” he said sullenly; and then, with a swift step, he placed himself in her way.  Violet Oliver drew back quietly.  Her heart beat quickly.  She looked into Shere Ali’s face and was afraid.  He was quite still; even the expression of his face was set, but his eyes burned upon her.  There was a fierceness in his manner which was new to her.

His hand darted out quickly towards her.  But Violet Oliver was no less quick.  She drew back yet another step.  “I didn’t understand,” she said, and her lips shook, so that the words were blurred.  She raised her hands to her neck and loosened the coils of pearls about it as though she meant to lift them off and return them to the giver.

“Oh, don’t do that, please,” said Shere Ali; and already his voice and his manner had changed.  The sullenness had gone.  Now he besought.  His English training came to his aid.  He had learned reverence for women, acquiring it gradually and almost unconsciously rather than from any direct teaching.  He had spent one summer’s holidays with Mrs. Linforth for his hostess in the house under the Sussex Downs, and from her and from Dick’s manner towards her he had begun to acquire it.  He had become conscious of that reverence, and proudly conscious.  He had fostered it.  It was one of the qualities, one of the essential qualities, of the white people.  It marked the sahibs off from the Eastern races.  To possess that reverence, to be influenced and moved and guided by it—­that made him one with them.  He called upon it to help him now.  Almost he had forgotten it.

“Please don’t take them off,” he implored.  “There was nothing to understand.”

And perhaps there was not, except this—­that Violet Oliver was of those who take but do not give.  She removed her hands from her throat.  The moment of danger had passed, as she very well knew.

“There is one thing I should be very grateful for,” he said humbly.  “It would not cause you very much trouble, and it would mean a great deal to me.  I would like you to write to me now and then.”

“Why, of course I will,” said Mrs. Oliver, with a smile.

“You promise?”

“Yes.  But you will come back to England.”

“I shall try to come next summer, if it’s only for a week,” said Shere Ali; and he made way for Violet.

She moved a few yards across the conservatory, and then stopped for Shere Ali to come level with her.  “I shall write, of course, to Chiltistan,” she said carelessly.

“Yes,” he replied, “I go northwards from Bombay.  I travel straight to Kohara.”

“Very well.  I will write to you there,” said Violet Oliver; but it seemed that she was not satisfied.  She walked slowly towards the door, with Shere Ali at her side.