“He doesn’t—­that’s the trouble!  He gives us all the rope we want.  And the women may be trusted to take every available inch.  I’m not sure there isn’t a grain of wisdom in the Eastern plan; keeping them, so to speak, in a separate compartment.  Once you open a chink, they flow in and swamp everything.”

Up went Lance’s eyebrows.  “That—­from you?” And Roy made haste to add:  “I wasn’t thinking of mothers and sisters; but the kind you play round with ... before you marry.  They’ve a big pull out here.  Very good fun of course.  And if a man’s keen on marrying——­”

“Aren’t you keen?” Lance cut in with a quick look.

“N-no.  Not just yet, anyway.  It’s a plunge.  And I’m too full up with other things.—­But what about the birds?”

“Oh, we’ll let be—­as you sagely suggest!”

And they did.

More pig-sticking next morning, with two tuskers for trophies; and thereafter, they travelled reluctantly back to harness, by an afternoon train, feeling—­without exception—­healthier, happier men.

None of them, perhaps, was more conscious of that inner renewal than Lance and Roy.  The incident of the game seemed in some way to have cleared the air between them; and throughout the return journey, both were in the maddest spirits, keeping the whole carriage in an uproar.  Afterwards, driving homeward, Roy registered a resolve to spend more of his time on masculine society and the novel; less of it dancing and fooling about in Lahore....

* * * * *

A vision of his table, with its inviting disarray, and the picture of his mother for presiding genius, gave his heart a lift.  He promised himself a week of uninterrupted evenings, alone with Terry and his thronging thoughts; when the whole house was still and the reading-lamp made a magic circle of light in the surrounding gloom....

Meantime, there were letters:  one from his father, one from Jeffers; and beneath them a too familiar envelope.

At sight of it, he felt a faint tug inside him; as it were a whispered reminder that, away at Kapurthala, he had been about as free as a bird with a string round its leg.  He resented the aptness of that degrading simile.  It was a new sensation; and he did not relish it.  The few women he intimately loved had counted for so much in his life that he scarcely realised his abysmal ignorance of the power that is in woman—­the mere opposite of man; the implicit challenge, the potent lure.  Partly from temperament, partly from principle, he had kept more or less clear of ‘all that’.  Now, weaponless, he had rashly entered the lists.

He opened Miss Arden’s note feeling antagonistic.  But its friendliness disarmed him.  She hoped they had enjoyed themselves immensely and slain enough creatures to satisfy their primitive instincts.  And her mother hoped Mr Sinclair would dine with them on Wednesday evening:  quite a small affair.