“So you could actually give four-and-twenty hours to Chitipur, Mr. Thresk.  That was most kind and considerate of you.  Chitipur is grateful.  Let us drink to it!  By the way what will you drink?  Our cellar is rather limited in camp.  There’s some claret and some whisky-and-soda.”

“Whisky-and-soda for me, please,” said Thresk.

“And for me too.  You take claret, don’t you, Stella dear?” and he lingered upon the “dear” as though he anticipated getting a great deal of amusement out of her later on.  And so she understood him, for there came a look of trouble into her face and she made a little gesture of helplessness.  Thresk watched and said nothing.

“The decanter’s in front of you, Stella,” continued Ballantyne.  He turned his attention to his own tumbler, into which Baram Singh had already poured the whisky; and at once he exclaimed indignantly: 

“There’s much too much here for me!  Good heavens, what next!” and in Hindustani he ordered Baram Singh to add to the soda-water.  Then he turned again to Thresk.  “But I’ve no doubt you exhausted Chitipur in your twenty-four hours, didn’t you?  Of course you are going to write a book.”

“Write a book!” cried Thresk.  He was surprised into a laugh.  “Not I.”

Ballantyne leaned forward with a most serious and puzzled face.

“You’re not writing a book about India?  God bless my soul!  D’you hear that, Stella?  He’s actually twenty-four hours in Chitipur and he’s not going to write a book about it.”

“Six weeks from door to door:  or how I made an ass of myself in India,” said Thresk.  “No thank you!”

Ballantyne laughed, took a gulp of his whisky-and-soda and put the glass down again with a wry face.

“This is too strong for me,” he said, and he rose from his chair and crossed over to the tantalus upon the sideboard.  He gave a cautious look towards the table, but Thresk had bent forward towards Stella.  She was saying in a low voice: 

“You don’t mind a little chaff, do you?” and with an appeal so wistful that it touched Thresk to the heart.

“Of course not,” he answered, and he looked up towards Ballantyne.  Stella noticed a change come over his face.  It was not surprise so much which showed there as interest and a confirmation of some suspicion which he already had.  He saw that Ballantyne was secretly pouring into his glass not soda-water at all but whisky from the tantalus.  He came back with the tumbler charged to the brim and drank deeply from it with relish.

“That’s better,” he said, and with a grin he turned his attention to his wife, fixing her with his eyes, gloating over her like some great snake over a bird trembling on the floor of its cage.  The courses followed one upon the other and while he ate he baited her for his amusement.  She took refuge in silence but he forced her to talk and then shivered with ridicule everything she said.  Stella