To this land of alien faiths and secular wonders, she found herself summoned, not as casual sightseer or tourist, but as among the handful of elect persons who count in its social, political and administrative life.  In virtue of her father’s position, her own would be both conspicuous and assured.  An intoxicating prospect this for a girl of one-and-twenty!  Intoxicating, yet, as she envisaged it, disquieting likewise.  She balanced on the thought of all it demanded as well as all it offered, of all it required from her—­dazed by the largeness of the purview, volition in suspense.

Carteret was the first to reappear, habited in the prescribed black and white of evening male attire.  In the last six months he had, perhaps, put on flesh; but this without detriment to the admirable proportions of his figure.  It retained its effect of perfect response to the will within, and all its natural grace.  His fair hair and moustache were still almost untouched with grey.  His physical attraction, in short, remained unimpaired.  And of this Damaris was actually, if unconsciously, sensible as he closed the door and, passing between the stumpy pillars, walked up the long narrow room and stood, his hands behind him, his back to the pleasantly hissing and crackling fire of driftwood.

“Alone, dear witch?” he said, and, seeing the open letter in her hand—­“Well, what do you make of this proposition?” And yet again, as she raised serious pondering eyes—­“You find it an extensive order?”

“I find it magnificent for him—­beautifully as it should be, adequate and right.”

“And for yourself?” Carteret asked, aware of a carefulness in her language and intrigued by it.

“Magnificent for me, too—­though it takes away my breath.”

“You must learn to breathe deeper, that’s all,” he returned, gently teasing her.

“And who is to teach me to breathe deeper, dear Colonel Sahib,” she quickly, and rather embarrassingly, asked.  “Not my father.  He’ll have innumerable big things to do and to do them without waste of energy he must be saved at every point.  He must not fritter away strength in coaching me in my odds and ends of duties, still less in covering up my silly mistakes.”

“Oh! you exaggerate difficulties,” he said, looking not at her but at the fierce yellow and black striped tiger skin at his feet.—­Bless the lovely child, what was she driving at?

Carteret started for Deadham under the impression he had himself thoroughly in hand, and that all danger of certain inconvenient emotions was passed.  He had lived them down, cast them out.  For over two years now he had given himself to the superintendence of his estate, to county business, to the regulation of his sister’s—­happily more prosperous—­affairs, to the shepherding of his two elder nephews in their respective professions and securing the two younger ones royally good times during their holidays at home.  Throughout the hunting season, moreover, he rode to hounds on an average of three days a week.  Such healthy sport helps notably to deliver a man from vain desires, by sending his body cleanly weary to bed and to sleep o’ nights.