His first impulse was to refuse; but her allusion to the slain creatures touched up his conscience.  To cap the omission by refusing her invitation might annoy her.  No sense in that.  So he decided to accept; and sat down to enjoy his home letters at leisure.

Lance, it transpired, had not been asked.  He and Barnard were the favoured ones,—­and, on the appointed evening, they drove in together.  Roy had been writing nearly all day.  He had reached a point in his chapter at which a break was distracting.  Yet here he was, driving Barnard to Lahore, cursing his luck, and—­yes—­trying to ignore a flutter of anticipation in the region of his heart....

As far as mere lust of the eye went—­and it went a good way with Roy—­he had his reward the moment he entered Mrs Elton’s overloaded drawing-room.  Rose Arden excelled herself in evening dress.  The carriage of her head, the curve of her throat, and the admirable line from ear to shoulder made a picture supremely satisfying to his artist’s eye.

Her negligible bodice was a filmy affair—­ivory white with glints of gold.  Her gauzy gold wedding-sash, swathed round her hips, fell in a fringed knot below her knee.  Filmy sleeves floated from her shoulders, leaving the arms bare and unadorned, except for one gold bangle, high up—­the latest note from Home.  For the rest, her rope of amber beads and long earrings only a few tones lighter than her astonishing hazel eyes.

Face to face with her beauty, and her discreetly veiled pleasure at sight of him, he could not be ungracious enough to curse his luck.  But his satisfaction cooled at sight of Talbot Hayes by the mantelpiece, inclining his polished angularity to catch some confidential tit-bit from little Mrs Hunter-Ranyard.  Of course that fellow would take her in.  He, Roy, had no official position now; and without it one was negligible in Anglo-India.  Besides, Mrs Elton openly favoured Talbot Hayes.  Failing Rose, there were two more prospective brides at Home—­twins; and Hayes was fatally endowed with all the surface symptoms of the ‘coming man’:  the supple alertness and self-assurance; the instinct for the right thing; and—­supreme asset in these days—­a studious detachment from the people and the country.  In consequence, needless to say, he remained obstinately sceptical as regards the rising storm.

Very early, Roy had put out feelers to discover how much he understood or cared; and Hayes had blandly assured him:  “Bengal may bluster and the D.C. may pessimise, but you can take it from me, there will be no serious upheaval in the North.  If ever these people are fools enough to manoeuvre us out of India, so much the worse for them; so much the better for us.  It’s a beastly country.”

Nevertheless Roy observed that he appeared to extract out of the beastly country every available ounce of enjoyment.  In affable moments, he could even manage to forget his career—­and unbend.  He was unbending now.