MEANWHILE Peter was making discoveries about himself. He went back to his flat on the evening of the day Jan and the children sailed. Swept and garnished and exceedingly tidy, it appeared to have grown larger during his absence and seemed rather empty. There was a sense of unfilled spaces that caused him to feel lonely.

That very evening he decided he must get a friend to chum with him. The bungalow was much too big for one person.

This had never struck him before.

In spite of their excessive neatness there remained traces of Jan and the children in the rooms. The flowers on the dinner-table proclaimed that they had been arranged by another hand than Lalkhan's. He was certain of that without Lalkhan's assurance that the Miss-Sahib had done them herself before she sailed that very morning.

When he went to his desk after dinner—never before or after did Peter possess such an orderly bureau—he found a letter lying on the blotting-pad, and on each side of the heavy brass inkstand were placed a leaden member of a camel-corps and an India-rubber ball with a face painted upon it, which, when squeezed, expressed every variety of emotion. These, Lalkhan explained, were parting gifts from the young sahib and little Fay respectively, and had been so arranged by them just before they sailed.

The day before Jan had told the children that all this time they had been living in Peter's house and that she was sure Mummy would want them to be very grateful (she was careful to talk a great deal about Mummy to the children lest they should forget her); that he had been very kind to them all, and she asked if there was anything of their very own they would like to leave for Peter as a remembrance.

Tony instantly fetched the camel-corps soldier that kept guard on a chair by his cot every night; that Ayah had not been permitted to pack because it must accompany him on the voyage. It was, Jan knew, his most precious possession, and she assured him that Peter would be particularly gratified by such a gift.

Not to be outdone by her brother, little Fay demanded her beloved ball, which was already packed for the voyage in Jan's suit-case.

Peter sat at his desk staring at the absurd little toys with very kind eyes. He understood. Then he opened Jan's letter and read it through quite a number of times.

"Dear Mr. Ledgard," it ran.

"Whatever Mr. Kipling may say of the Celt, the lowland Scot finds it very difficult to express strong feeling in words. If I had tried to tell you, face to face, how sensible I am of your kindness and consideration for us during the last sad weeks—I should have cried. You would have been desperately uncomfortable and I—miserably ashamed of myself. So I can only try to write something of my gratitude.

"We have been your guests so long and your hospitality has been so untiring in circumstances sad and strange enough to try the patience of the kindest host, that I simply cannot express my sense of obligation; an obligation in no wise burdensome because you have always contrived to make me feel that you took pleasure in doing all you have done.

"I wish there had been something belonging to my sister that I could have begged you to accept as a remembrance of her; but everything she had of the smallest value has disappeared—even her books. When I get home I hope to give you one of my father's many portraits of her, but I will not send it till I know whether you are coming home this summer. Please remember, should you do so, as I sincerely hope you will, that nowhere can there be a warmer welcome for you than at Wren's End. It would be the greatest possible pleasure for the children and me to see you there, and it is a good place to slack in and get strong. And there I hope to challenge you to the round of golf we never managed during my time in India.

"Please try to realise, dear Mr. Ledgard, that my sense of your kindness is deep and abiding, and, believe me, yours, in most true gratitude,

"Janet Ross."

For a long time Peter sat very still, staring at the cheerful, highly-coloured face painted on Fay's ball. Cigarette after cigarette did he smoke as he reviewed the experience of the last six weeks.

For the first time since he became a man he had been constantly in the society of a woman younger than himself who appeared too busy and too absorbed in other things to remember that she was a woman and he a man.

Peter was ordinarily susceptible, and he was rather a favourite with women because of his good manners; and his real good-nature made him ready to help either in any social project that happened to be towards or in times of domestic stress. Yet never until lately had he seen so much of any woman not frankly middle-aged without being conscious that he was a man and she a woman, and this added, at all events, a certain piquancy to the situation.

Yet he had never felt this with Jan.

Quite a number of times in the course of his thirty years he had fallen in love in an agreeably surface sort of way without ever being deeply stirred. Love-making was the pleasantest game in the world, but he had not yet felt the smallest desire to marry. He was a shrewd young man, and knew that marriage, even in the twentieth century, at all events starts with the idea of permanence; and, like many others who show no inclination to judge the matrimonial complications of their acquaintance, he would greatly have disliked any sort of scandal that involved himself or his belongings.

He was quite as sensitive to criticism as other men in his service, and he knew that he challenged it in lending his flat to Mrs. Tancred. But here he felt that the necessities of the case far outweighed the possibilities of misconception, and after Jan came he thought no more about it.

Yet in a young man with his somewhat cynical knowledge of the world, it was surprising that the thought of his name being coupled with Jan's never crossed his mind. He forgot that none of his friends knew Jan at all, but that almost every evening they did see her with him in the car—sometimes, it is true, accompanied by the children, but quite as often alone—and that during her visit his spare time was so much occupied in looking after the Tancred household that his friends saw comparatively little of him, and Peter was, as a rule, a very sociable person.

Therefore it came upon him as a real shock when people began to ask him point-blank whether he was engaged to Jan, and if so, what they were going to do about Tancred's children. Rightly or wrongly, he discerned in the question some veiled reflection upon Jan, some implied slur upon her conduct. He was consequently very short and huffy with these inquisitive ones, and when he was no longer present they would shake their heads and declare that "poor old Peter had got it in the neck."

If so, poor old Peter was, as yet, quite unconscious of anything of the kind.

Nevertheless he found himself constantly thinking about her. Everything, even the familiar streets and roads, served to remind him of her, and when he went to bed he nearly always dreamed about her. Absurd, inconsequent, unsatisfactory dreams they were; for in them she was always too busy to pay any attention to him at all; she was wholly absorbed by what it is to be feared Peter sometimes called "those confounded children." Though even in his dream world he was careful to keep his opinion to himself.

Why on earth should he always dream of Jan during the first part of the night?

Lalkhan could have thrown some light upon the subject. But naturally Peter did not confide his obsession to Lalkhan.

Just before she left Jan asked Lalkhan where the sahib's linen was kept, and on being shown the cupboard which contained the rather untidy little piles of sheets, pillow-cases, and towels that formed Peter's modest store of house linen, she rearranged it and brought sundry flat, square muslin bags filled with dried lavender. Lace-edged bags with lavender-coloured ribbon run through insertion and tied in bows at the two corners. These bags she placed among the sheets, much to the wonder of Lalkhan, who, however, decided that it was kindly meant and therefore did not interfere.

The odour was not one that commended itself to him. It was far too faint and elusive. He could understand a liking for attar of roses, of jessamine, of musk, or of any of the strong scents beloved by the native of India. Yet had she proposed to sprinkle the sheets with any of these essences he would have felt obliged to interfere, as the sahib swore violently and became exceedingly hot and angry did any member of his household venture into his presence thus perfumed. Even as it was he fully expected that his master would irritably demand the cause of the infernal smell that pervaded his bed; so keen are the noses of the sahibs. Whereupon Lalkhan, strong in rectitude, would relate exactly what had happened, produce one of the Jan-incriminating muslin bags, escape further censure, and doubtless be commanded to burn it and its fellows in the kitchen stove. But nothing of the kind occurred, and, as it is always easier to leave a thing where it has been placed than to remove it, the lavender remained among the sheets in humble obscurity.

The old garden at Wren's End abounded in great lavender bushes, and every year since it became her property Jan made lavender sachets which she kept in every possible place. Her own clothes always held a faint savour of lavender, and she had packed these bags as much as a matter of course as she packed her stockings. It seemed a shame, though, to take them home again when she could get plenty more next summer, so she left them in the bungalow linen cupboard. They reproduced her atmosphere; therefore did Peter dream of Jan.

A fortnight passed, and on their way to catch the homeward mail came Thomas Crosbie and his wife from Dariawarpur to stay the night. Next morning at breakfast Mrs. Crosbie, young, pretty and enthusiastic, expatiated on the comfort of her room, finally exclaiming: "And how, Mr. Ledgard, do you manage to have your sheets so deliciously scented with lavender—d'you get it sent out from home every year?"

"Lavender?" Peter repeated. "I've got no lavender. My people never sent me any, and I've certainly never come across any in India."

"But I'm convinced everything smelt of lavender. It made me think of home so. If I hadn't been just going I'd have been too homesick for words. I'm certain of it. Think! You must have got some from somewhere and forgotten it."

Peter shook his head. "I've never noticed it myself—you really must be mistaken. What would I be doing with lavender?"

"It was there all the same," Mrs. Crosbie continued. "I'm certain of it. You must have got some from somewhere. Do find out—I'm sure I'm not wrong. Ask your boy."

Peter said something to Lalkhan, who explained volubly. Tom Crosbie grinned; he understood even fluent Hindustani. His wife did not. Peter looked a little uncomfortable. Lalkhan salaamed and left the room.

"Well?" Mrs. Crosbie asked.

"It seems," Peter said slowly, "there is something among the sheets. I've sent Lalkhan to get it."

Lalkhan returned, bearing a salver, and laid on the salver was one of Jan's lavender bags. He presented it solemnly to his master, who with almost equal solemnity handed it to Mrs. Crosbie.

"There!" she said. "Of course I knew I couldn't be mistaken. Now where did you get it?"

"It was, I suppose, put among the things when poor Mrs. Tancred had the flat. I never noticed, of course—it's such an unobtrusive sort of smell...."

"Hadn't she a sister?" Mrs. Crosbie asked, curiously, holding the little sachet against her soft cheek and looking very hard at Peter.

"She had. It was she who took the children home, you know."

"Older or younger than Mrs. Tancred?"

"Older."

"How much older?"

"I really don't know," said the mendacious Peter.

"Was she awfully pretty, too?"

"Again, I really don't know. I never thought about her looks ... she had grey hair...."

"Oh!" Mrs. Crosbie exclaimed—a deeply disappointed "Oh." "Probably much older, then. That explains the lavender bags."

Silent Thomas Crosbie looked from his wife to Peter with considerable amusement. He realised, if she didn't, that Peter was most successfully putting her off the scent of more than lavender; but men are generally loyal to each other in these matters, and he suddenly took his part in the conversation and changed the subject.

Among Peter's orders to his butler that morning was one to the effect that nothing the Miss-Sahib had arranged in the bungalow was to be disturbed, and the lavender bag was returned to rejoin its fellows in the cupboard.

It was four years since Peter had had any leave, and it appeared that the lavender had the same effect upon him as upon Mrs. Crosbie. He felt homesick—and applied for leave in May.