“So speaks one whose promises are given truly!  We are already friends.  I will tell you all that is in my heart now.”

“Tell me your name first.”

She was about to answer when interruption came from the direction of the gate.  There was a restless horse there, and a rider using resonant strong language.

“Tom Tripe!” said Tess.  “He’s earlier than usual.”

The Rajputni smiled.  Chamu appeared through the door behind them with suspicious suddenness and waddled to the gate, watched by a pair of blue eyes that should have burned holes in his back and would certainly have robbed him of all comfort had he been aware of them.

Chapter Two

Thaw on Olympus

Bright spurs that add their roweled row
To clanking saber’s pride;
Fierce eyes beneath a beetling brow;
More license than the rules allow;
A military stride;
Years’ use of arbitrary will
And right to make or break;
Obedience of men who drill
And willy nilly foot the bill
For authorized mistake;
The comfort of the self-esteem
Deputed power brings—­
Are fickler than the shadows seem
Less fruitful than the lotus-dream,
And all of them have wings
When blue eyes, laughing in your own,
Make mockery of rules!

And when those fustian shams have flown
The wise their new allegiance own,
Leaving dead form to fools!

“Friendship’s friendship and respect’s respect, but duty’s what I’m paid to do!”

The man at the gate dallied to look at his horse’s fetlocks.  Tess’s strange guest seemed in no hurry either, but her movements were as swift as knitting-needles.  She produced a fountain pen, and of all unexpected things, a Bank of India note for one thousand rupees—­a new one, crisp and clean.  Tess did not see the signature she scrawled across its back in Persian characters, and the pen was returned to an inner pocket and the note, folded four times, was palmed in the subtle hand long before Tom Tripe came striding up the path with jingling spurs.

“Morning, ma’am,—­morning!  Don’t let me intrude.  I’d a little accident, and took a liberty.  My horse cut his fetlock—­nothing serious—­and I set your two saises (grooms) to work on it with a sponge and water.  Twenty minutes—­will see it right as a trivet.  Then I’m off again—­I’ve a job of work.”

He stood with back to the sun and hands on his hips, looking up at Tess—­ a man of fifty—­a soldier of another generation, in a white uniform something like a British sergeant-major’s of the days before the Mutiny.  His mutton-chop whiskers, dyed dark-brown, were military mid-Victorian, as were the huge brass spurs that jingled on black riding-boots.  A great-chested, heavy-weight athletic man, a few years past his prime.

“Come up, Tom.  You’re always welcome.”

“Ah!” His spurs rang on the stone steps, and, since Tess was standing close to the veranda rail, he turned to face her at the top.  Saluting with martinet precision before removing his helmet, he did not get a clear view of the Rajputni.  “As I’ve said many times, ma’am, the one house in the world where Tom Tripe may sit down with princes and commissioners.”