a dangerous game.  A desire that the native team should win woke in her and grew strong just because of that slim youth’s extraordinary skill.  Time after time he relieved his side, and once, as it seemed to her, he picked the ball out of the very goalposts.  The bugle, she remembered afterwards, had just sounded.  He drove the ball out from the press, leaned over until it seemed he must fall to resist an opponent who tried to ride him off, and then somehow he shook himself free from the tangle of polo-sticks and ponies.

“Oh, well done! well done!” cried Violet Oliver, clenching her hands in her enthusiasm.  A roar of applause went up.  He came racing down the very centre of the ground, the long ends of his white turban streaming out behind him like a pennant.  The seven other players followed upon his heels outpaced and outplayed.  He rode swinging his polo-stick for the stroke, and then with clean hard blows sent the ball skimming through the air like a bird.  Violet Oliver watched him in suspense, dreading lest he should override the ball, or that his stroke should glance.  But he made no mistake.  The sound of the strokes rose clear and sharp; the ball flew straight.  He drove it between the posts, and the players streamed in behind as though through the gateway of a beleaguered town.  He had scored the first goal of the game at the end of the first chukkur.  He cantered back to change his pony.  But this time he rode along the edge of the stand, since on this side the ponies waited with their blankets thrown over their saddles and the syces at their heads.  He ran his eyes along the row of onlookers as he cantered by, and suddenly Violet Oliver leaned forward.  She had been interested merely in the player.  Now she was interested in the man who played.  She was more than interested.  For she felt a tightening of the heart and she caught her breath.  “It could not be,” she said to herself.  She could see his face clearly, however, now; and as suddenly as she had leaned forward she drew back.  She lowered her head, until her broad hat-brim hid her face.  She opened her programme, looked for and found the names of the players.  Shere Ali’s stared her in the face.

“He has broken his word,” she said angrily to herself, quite forgetting that he had given no word, and that she had asked for none.  Then she fell to wondering whether or no he had recognised her as he rode past the stand.  She stole a glance as he cantered back, but Shere Ali was not looking towards her.  She debated whether she should make an excuse and go back to her camp.  But if he had thought he had seen her, he would look again, and her empty place would be convincing evidence.  Moreover, the teams had changed goals.  Shere Ali would be playing on this side of the ground during the next chukkur unless the Dragoons scored quickly.  Violet Oliver kept her place, but she saw little of the game.  She watched Shere Ali’s play furtively, however, hoping thereby to learn whether he had noticed her.  And in a little while she knew.  He played wildly, his strokes had lost their precision, he was less quick to follow the twists of the ball.  Shere Ali had seen her.  At the end of the game he galloped quickly to the corner, and when Violet Oliver came out of the enclosure she saw him standing, with his long overcoat already on his shoulders, waiting for her.