That would do supremely.  Mr. Sinclair could not conceal the admiration he felt for such a combination of talents.  He did not try; he accompanied it to the door, expanding and expanding until it seemed more than ever obvious that he found the sub-editorial sphere unreasonably contracted.  Hilda received his final bow from the threshold of what he called his “sanctum,” and had hardly left the landing in descent when a square-headed, collarless, red-faced male in shirt-sleeves came down, descending, as it seemed, in bounds from parts above.  “Damn it, Sinclair,” she heard as he shot into the apartment she had left, “here’s the whole council-meeting report set up and waiting three-quarters of an hour—­press blocked; and the printer-Babu says he can get nothing out of you.  What the devil....  If the dak’s[7] missed again, by thunder!... paid to converse with itinerant females ... seven columns ... infernal idiocy.”

[Footnote 7:  Country post.]

Hilda descended in safety and at leisure, reflecting with some amusement as she made her way down that Mr. Sinclair was doubtless waiting until his lady visitor was well out of earshot to make it warm for the editor.

CHAPTER XII.

I find myself wondering whether Calcutta would have found anything very exquisitely amusing in the satisfactions which exchanged themselves between Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope’s leading lady and the Reverend Stephen Arnold, had if been aware of them, and I conclude reluctantly that it would not.  Reluctantly because such imperviousness argues a lack of perception, of flair, in directions which any continental centre would recognise as vastly tickling, regrettable in a capital of such vaunted sophistication as that which sits beside the Hooghly.  It may as well be shortly admitted, however, that to stir Calcutta’s sense of comedy you must, for example, attempt to corner, by shortsightedness or faulty technical equipment, a civet cat in a jackal hunt, or, coming out from England to assume official duties, you must take a larger view of your dignities than the clubs are accustomed to admit.  For the sex that does not hunt jackals it is easier—­you have only to be a little frivolous and Calcutta will invent for you the most side-shaking nickname, as in the case of three ladies known in a viceroyalty of happy legend as the World, the Flesh and the Devil.  I should be sorry to give the impression that Calcutta is therefore a place of gloom.  The source of these things is perennial, and the noise of laughter is ever in the air of the Indian capital.  Between the explosions, however, it is natural enough that the affairs of a priest of College street and an actress of no address at all should slip unnoticed, especially as they did not advertise it.  Stephen mostly came, on afternoons when there was no rehearsal, to tea.  He, Stephen, had a perception of contrasts which answered fairly well the purposes of a sense of humour, and nobody could question hers; it operated obscurely to keep them in the house.