Duff read both communications—­Laura’s to the priest was brief and very technical—­between the business quarters of Ralli Brothers and the Delhi and London Bank, with his feet in the opposite seat of his office-gharry and his forehead puckered by an immediate calculation forward in rupee paper.  His irritation spoiled his transaction—­there was a distinct edge in the manager’s manner when they parted, and it was perhaps a pardonable weakness that led him to dash in blue pencil across the page covered with Arnold’s minute handwriting, “Then you have done with pasty compromises—­you have gone over to the Jesuits.  I congratulate you,” and readdressed the envelope to College Street.  The brown tide of the crowd brought him an instant messenger, and he stood in the doorway for a moment afterwards frowning upon the yellow turbans that swung along in the sunlight against the white wall opposite, across the narrow commercial road.  The flame of his indignation set forth his features with definiteness and relief, consuming altogether the soft amused well-being which was nearly always there.  His lips set themselves together, and Mrs. Sand would have been encouraged in any scheme of practical utility by the lines that came about his mouth.  A brother in finance of some astuteness, who saw him scramble into his gharry, divined that with regard to a weighty matter in jute mill shares pending, Lindsay had decided upon a coup, and made his arrangements accordingly.  He also went upon his way with a fresh impression of Lindsay’s undeniable good looks, as sometimes in a coin new from the mint one is struck with the beauty of a die dulled by use and familiarity.

Stephen Arnold, receiving his answer, composed himself to feel distress, but when he had read it, that emotion was lightened in him by another sentiment.

“A community admirable in many ways,” he murmured, refolding the page.  “Does he think he is insulting me?”

Whatever degree of influence, Jesuitical or other, Lindsay was inclined to concede to Stephen’s intermediary, he was compelled to recognise without delay that Captain Filbert, in the exercise of her profession, had not neglected to acquire a knowledge of defensive operations.  She retired effectively, the quarters in Crooked Lane became her fortified retreat, whence she issued only under escort and upon service strictly obligatory.  Succour from Arnold doubtless reached her by the post; and Lindsay felt it an anomaly in military tactics that the same agency should bring back upon him with a horrid recoil the letters with which he strove to assault her position.  Nor could Alicia induce any sortie to Middleton Street.  Her notes of invitation to quiet teas and luncheons were answered on blue-lined paper, the pen dipped in reticence and the palest ink, always with the negative of a formal excuse.  They loosed the burden of her complicity from Miss Livingstone’s shoulders, these notes which bore so much the atmosphere of Crooked