She told Stephen so, frankly, one afternoon when he charged her with being so unlike herself, and he heard her explanation with a gravity which contained an element of satisfaction.  “It is, of course, a pleasure to us to meet,” he said, “a pleasure to us both.”  That was part of the satisfaction, that he could meet her candour with the same openness.  He was not even afraid to mention to her the stimulus she gave him always and his difficulty in defining it, and once he told her how, after a talk with her, he had lain awake until the small hours unable to stop his excited rush of thought.  He added that he was now personally and selfishly glad she had chosen as she did three months before; it made a difference to him, her being in Calcutta, a sensible and material difference.  He had better hope and heart in his work.  It was the last luxury he would ever have dreamed of allowing himself, a woman friend; but since life had brought it in the oddest way the boon should be met with no grudging of gratitude.  A kind of sedate cheerfulness crept into his manner which was new to him; he went about his duties with the look of a man to whom life had dictated its terms and who found them acceptable.  His blood might have received some mysterious chemical complement, so much was his eye clearer, his voice firmer, and the things he found to say more decisive.  Nor did any consideration of their relations disturb him.  He never thought of the oxygen in the air he breathed, and he seldom thought of Hilda.

They were walking toward the Institution together the day he explained to her his gratification that she had elected to remain.  Sister Ann Frances and Sister Margaret led; Arnold and Hilda came behind.  He had an errand to the Mother Superior—­he would go all the way.  It was late in May and late in the afternoon; all the treetops on the Maidan were bent under the sweep of the south wind, blowing a caressing coolness from the sea.  It spread fragrances about and shook down blossoms from the gold-mohur trees.  One could see nothing anywhere, so red and yellow as they were, except the long coat of a Government messenger, a point of scarlet moving in the perspective of a dusty road.  The spreading acres of turf were baked to every earth-colour; wherever a pine dropped needles and an old woman swept them up, a trail of dust ran curling along the ground like smoke.  The little party was unusual in walking; glances of uncomprehending pity were cast at them from victorias and landaus that rolled past.  Even the convalescent British soldiers facing each other in the clumsy drab cart drawn by humped bullocks, and marked Garrison Dispensary, stared at the black-skirts so near the powder of the road.  The Sisters in front walked with their heads slightly bent toward one another; they seemed to be consulting.  Hilda reflected, looking at them, that they always seemed to be consulting; it was the normal attitude of that long black veil that flowed behind.