Yet the next instant her face grew scarlet at the thought.  She sat for a long time motionless, thinking hard.  Then the idea occurred to her of writing to him, writing a chatty, almost impersonal letter, such as one friend could send to another without fear of her motives being misunderstood.  She had too high an opinion of Dermot to think that he would deem her forward, yet it cost her much to be the first to write.  But her anxiety conquered pride.  And she wrote the letter that Dermot read in his bungalow in Ranga Duar while the storm shook the hills.

The girl counted the days, the hours, until she could hope for an answer.  Would he reply at once, she wondered.  She knew that, even shut up in his little station, he had much work to occupy him.  He could not spare time, perhaps, for a letter to a silly girl.  And the thought of all that she had put in hers to him made her face burn, for it seemed so vapid and frivolous that he was sure to despise her.

On the fourth day after she had written to Dermot she was engaged to ride in the afternoon with Captain Charlesworth.  But in the morning a note came to her from him regretting his inability to keep the appointment, as the Divisional General had arrived in Darjeeling and intended to inspect the Rifles after lunch.  Noreen was not sorry, for she was going to a dance that evening and did not wish to tire herself before it.

Distracted and little in the mood for gaiety as she felt that night, yet when she entered the large ballroom of the Amusement Club she could not help laughing at the quaint and original decorations for the occasion.  For the entertainment was one of the great features of the Season, the Bachelors’ Ball, and the walls were blazoned with the insignia of the Tribe of the Wild Ass.  Everywhere was painted its coat-of-arms—­a bottle, slippers, and a pipe crossed with a latch-key, all in proper heraldic guise.  Captain Melville, who was a leading member of the ball committee and who was her particular host that night, spirited her away from the crowd of partner-seeking men at the doorway and took her on a tour of the room to see and admire the scheme of decoration.  She was laughing at one original ornamentation when a well-known voice behind her said: 

“May I hope for a dance tonight, Miss Daleham?”

The girl started and turned round incredulously, feeling that her ears had deceived her.  To her astonishment Dermot stood before her.  For a few seconds she could not trust herself to reply.  She felt that she had grown pale.  At last she said, and her voice sounded strange in her own ears: 

“Major Dermot!  Is it possible?  I—­I thought you—­”

She could not finish the sentence.  But neither man observed her emotion, for Melville had suddenly seized Dermot’s hand and was shaking it warmly.  They had been on service together once and had not met since.  The next moment, a committee man being urgently wanted, Melville was called away and left Dermot and the girl together.