It has been obvious, I hope, that Lewis Ancram was temperamentally equal to adjusting himself to a situation. His philosophy was really characteristic of him; and none the less so because it had a pessimistic and artistic tinge, and he wore it in a Persian motto inside a crest ring on his little finger. It can hardly be said that he adjusted himself to his engagement and his future, when it became apparent to him that the one could not be broken or the other changed, with cheerfulness—for cheerfulness was too commonplace a mental condition to have characterised Mr. Ancram under the happiest circumstances. Neither can it be denied, however, that he did it with a good deal of dignity and some tact. He permitted himself to lose the abstraction that had been overcoming him so habitually in Rhoda’s society, and he said more of those clever things to her which had been temporarily obscured by the cloud on his spirits. They saw one another rather oftener than usual in the fortnight following the evening on which Mr. Ancram thought he could suggest a course for their mutual benefit to Miss Daye and her daintily authoritative manner with him convinced him that his chains were riveted very firmly. At times he told himself that she had, after all, affectionate potentialities, though he met the problem of evolving them with a shrug. He disposed himself to accept all the ameliorations of the situation that were available, all the consolations he could find. One of the subtlest and therefore most appreciable of these was the necessity, which his earlier confidence involved, of telling Judith Church in a few suitably hesitating and well-chosen words that things were irrevocable. Judith kept silence for a moment, and then, with a gravely impersonal smile, she said, “I hope—and think—you may be happier than you expect,” in a manner which made further discussion of the matter impossible. It cannot be doubted, however, that she was able to convey to him an under-current of her sympathy without embarrassment. Otherwise he would hardly have found himself so dependent on the odd half-hours during which they talked of Henley’s verses and Swan’s pictures and the possibility of barricading oneself against the moral effect of India. Ancram often gave her to understand, in one delicate way or another, that if there were a few more women like her in the country it could be done.

The opinion seemed to be general, though perhaps nobody else formulated it exactly in those terms. People went about assuring each other that Mrs. Church was the most charming social success, asserting this as if they recognised that it was somewhat unusual to confer such a decoration upon a lady whose husband had as yet none whatever. People said she was a really fascinating woman in a manner which at once condoned and suggested her undistinguished antecedents—an art which practice has made perfect in the bureaucratic circles of India. They even went so far as to add that the atmosphere of Belvedere had entirely changed since the beginning of the officiating period—which was preposterous, for nothing could change the social atmosphere of any court of Calcutta short of the reconstruction of the Indian Empire. The total of this meant that Mrs. Church had a good memory, much considerateness, an agreeable disposition, and pretty clothes. Her virtues, certainly her virtues as I know them, would hardly be revealed in the fierce light which beats upon the wife of an acting Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal from November until April, though a shadow of one of them might have been detected in the way she behaved to the Dayes. Ancram thought her divine in this, but she was only an honest woman with a temptation and a scruple. Her dignity made it difficult; she was obliged to think out delicate little ways of offering them her friendship in the scanty half hours she had to herself after dinner, while the unending scratch of her husband’s pen came through the portiÈre that hung across the doorway into his dressing-room. What she could do without consulting them she did; though it is not likely that Colonel Daye will ever attribute the remarkable smoothness of his official path at this time to anything but the spirit of appreciation in which he at last found Government disposed to regard his services. The rest was not so easy, because she had to count with Rhoda. On this point her mother was in the habit of invoking Rhoda’s better nature, with regrettable futility. Mrs. Daye said that for her part she accepted an invitation in the spirit in which it was given, and it is to be feared that no lady in Mrs. Church’s “official position” would be compelled to make overtures twice to Mrs. Daye, who told other ladies, in confidence, that she had the best reason to believe Mrs. Church a noble-minded woman—a beautiful soul. It distressed her that she was not able to say this to Rhoda also, to be frank with Rhoda, to discuss the situation and perhaps to hint to the dear child that her non-responsiveness to Mrs. Church’s very kind attitude looked “the least bit in the world like the little green monster, you know, dearest one.” It was not, Mrs. Daye acknowledged, that Rhoda actively resisted Mrs. Church’s interest; she simply appeared to be unaware of it, and sat on a chair beside that sweet woman in the Belvedere drawing-room with the effect of being a hundred miles away. Mrs. Daye sometimes asked herself apprehensively how soon Mrs. Church would grow tired of coaxing Rhoda, how long their present beatitudes might be expected to last. It was with this consideration in mind that she went to her daughter’s room the day after the Maharajah of Pattore’s garden-party, which was Thursday. The windows of that apartment were wide open, letting in great squares of vivid sunlight, and their muslin curtains bellied inward with the pleasant north wind. It brought gusts of sound from the life outside—the high plaintive cheeling of the kites, the interminable cawing of the crows, the swish of the palm fronds, the scolding of the mynas; and all this life and light and clamour seemed to centre in and circle about the yellow-haired girl who sat, half-dressed, on the edge of the bed writing a letter. She laid it aside face downward, at her mother’s knock, and that amiable lady found her daughter seated before the looking-glass with a crumpled little brown ayah brushing her hair.

Mrs. Daye cried out at the glare, at the noise. “It’s like living in one of those fretwork marble summer-houses at Delhi where the kings of what-you-may-call-it dynasty kept their wives!” she declared, with her hands pressed on her eyes and a thumb in each ear; and when the shutters were closed and the room reduced to some degree of tranquillity, broken by glowing points where the green slats came short of the sash, she demanded eau-de-cologne and sank into a chair. “I’ve come for ‘Cruelle Enigme,’ Rhoda,” Mrs. Daye announced.

“No, you haven’t, mummie. And besides, you can’t have it—it isn’t a nice book for you to read.”

“Can’t I?” Mrs. Daye asked plaintively. “Well, dear, I suppose I must take your opinion—you know how much my wretched nerves will stand. From all I hear I certainly can’t be too thankful to you for protecting me from Zola.”

“Ayah,” Rhoda commanded in the ayah’s tongue, “give me the yellow book on the little table—the yellow one, owl’s daughter! Here’s one you can have, mother,” she said, turning over a few of the leaves with a touch that was a caress—“‘Robert Helmont’—you haven’t read that.”

Mrs. Daye glanced at it without enthusiasm.

“It’s about a war, isn’t it? I’m not fond of books about wars as a rule, they’re so ‘bluggy,’” and the lady made a little face; “but of course—oh yes, Daudet, I know he would be charming even if he was bluggy. Rhoda, don’t make any engagement for Sunday afternoon. I’ve accepted an invitation from Belvedere for a river-party.”

The face in the looking-glass showed the least contraction between the eyebrows. The ayah saw it, and brushed even more gently than before. Mrs. Daye was watching for it, and hurried on. “I gather from Mrs. Church’s extremely kind note—she writes herself, and not the aide-de-camp—that it is a little fÊte she is making especially, in a manner, for you and Mr. Ancram, dear—in celebration, as it were. She has asked only people we know very well indeed; it is really almost a family affair. Very sweet of her I call it, though of course Lewis Ancram is an old friend of—of the Lieutenant-Governor’s.”

The contraction between the girl’s brows deepened seriously, gave place to a considering air, and for a moment she looked straight into her own eyes in the glass and said nothing. They rewarded her presently with a bubble of mischievous intelligence, which almost broke into a smile. Mrs. Daye continued to the effect that nothing did one so much good as a little jaunt on the river—it seemed to blow the malaria out of one’s system—for her part she would give up anything for it. But Rhoda had no other engagement?

“Oh dear no!” Miss Daye replied. “There is nothing in the world to interfere!”

“Then you will go, dearest one?”

“I shall be delighted.”

“My darling child, you have relieved my mind! I was so afraid that some silly little fad—I know how much you dislike the glare of the river——” then, forgetfully, “I will write at once and accept for us all.” Mrs. Daye implanted a kiss upon her daughter’s forehead, with a sense that she was picturesquely acknowledging dutiful obedience, and rustled out. “Robert Helmont” remained on the floor beside her chair, and an indefinitely pleasant freshness was diffused where she had been.

As Rhoda twisted her hair a little uncontrollable smile came to her lips and stayed there. “Ayah, worthy one,” she said, “give me the letter from the bed”; and having read what she had written she slowly tore it into very small pieces. “After all,” she reflected, “that would be a stupid way.”