Miss Baker could ride; not a doubt about that, thought Philip. She sat squarely in her saddle, hands down, right shoulder well back; her habit skirt was very short, she wore a stiff white shirt and collar, and a linen coat. The whole effect was neat and smart and pleasing. How she chattered as they rode over the bare, dusty plain! Some of her theories rather startled her cavalier; for example, she considered it immoral of people to have large families unless they could afford to educate the children highly—this with reference to some friends of Miss Abigail's who had spent the previous day in the Zenana Mission camp on their way to the nearest station, a missionary with his spouse and offspring.

"Did you tell them so?" asked Flint with amused curiosity.

"Yes, of course I did; and I asked them how they were going to provide for three boys and two girls in the future."

"What did they say?"

"They said the Lord would provide, and that the mission granted an extra allowance for each child!"

"Then you can hardly blame them, I suppose."

"I think that clergymen, and doctors, and schoolmasters ought all to be celibates. They should be able to give their whole attention to their work unhampered by domestic affairs."

"That is expecting a good deal, surely?"

"I don't see it. Marriage isn't everything. Now if I were a man I should never marry."

"And not being a man?"

"Oh, I dare say I shall marry some day, but my husband would have to share my views on all the important questions of the day, and believe absolutely in the equality of the sexes. At present I hate men."

"Oh, dear!"

"Yes, that is partly why I came out to India, to escape"—she checked herself as though she had been on the brink of a confidence, then added—"to escape worrying attentions."

"Then it was not entirely devotion to the downtrodden masses of this miserable country?" he asked slyly.

She flushed and said with lofty evasion: "I felt India needed me, I wanted to help India. I don't mean to stay out here permanently, of course; only till I have collected enough information and proof to open the eyes of the electors at home. I shall write a book. I think I shall call it 'What I saw in India.'"

"Why not 'The Evil English in the East,'" he suggested amiably. "An alliterative title is always arresting. The one you have thought of might be regarded as almost too uncommon?"

She laughed as though unable to help herself. At least, it seemed she had some saving sense of humour.

"How silly you are! You don't take life seriously at all!"

"Perhaps not;" he spoke carelessly, but he felt he could have shaken Miss Baker—conceited, self-satisfied monkey!—puffed up with her superficial views, untouched as she was by trouble or experience, so ready to blame and condemn where she did not understand. Of what avail to argue with her, why should he bother about what she thought, if she ever really thought at all! Help India, indeed! Who was she to help or even hinder the great machinery of Eastern administration, and as to her independence of sex—some day she would learn that she was but flying in the face of nature, and he hoped she would suffer for it.

"We must get on," he said; and as they put their horses into a gallop he found himself admiring the way in which she handled the mount he had lent her, a high-spirited young chestnut, unaccustomed to a side-saddle, yet aware that liberties could not be taken with his present rider; Flint noted the strong turn of her wrist, the firmness of her long, slim foot in the stirrup, the poise of her straight young figure. It crossed his mind, but for her wild ideas what a wife she would make for a man whose life was all action; ready for emergencies and discomforts, willing to rough it, daring, unafraid. She ought to marry a colonial, go with him to Canada, Australia, his equal in physical endurance, and disregard of convention, yet mastered by his manhood, the mother of a string of strong children whether they could be educated highly or not! An unworthy temptation assailed him; as they arrived at an outstanding relief camp he helped her from her saddle with a bold tenderness that held an element of revenge, held her hand a little longer than was strictly necessary, looked into her fine grey eyes, of purpose intently. He could not tell if she recognised the unspoken signal; if she did she ignored it, and presently they were deep in the object of their expedition, tramping over hot, hard ground, watching the slow movements of the ragged crowd—women and children breaking up dry clumps of soil, carrying it on their heads in baskets; men and boys digging, scraping. It was like an ants' nest without the energy and diligence of those insects, for the workers were weak and apathetic, only looking forward, as was natural, to the distribution of food and money that was to follow.

Flint was on the look out for bullying among the overseers, for petty pilfering on the part of the distributors of supplies; he listened patiently to complaints, investigated grievances, and entirely forgot Miss Baker except when she asked questions or got in his way. She followed him for the most part silently, unobtrusively, and the morning was well advanced before it suddenly struck him that his companion must be feeling the need of refreshment. They were a long way from headquarters, far from any place of accommodation; the sun was overpowering; he noted that she looked tired and hot, he himself felt fagged. His inspection was not yet completed. Never mind, he could return this evening and finish it at the price of a little extra pressure and exertion.

He took out his watch. "Look here," he said penitently, "you must be pretty well done. Let us get back as quick as we can and have a good breakfast in my camp."

She hesitated; if he could have seen into her mind she was thinking of the kind of meal she might expect on her return to Miss Abigail's tents (boiled rice and pulse, and perhaps a stew that had seen service already). She was despising herself because the temptation was strong to accept the invitation, and not altogether on account of the better fare.

"Wouldn't it be proper for you to breakfast with me alone?" he asked provocatively.

"I wasn't thinking of that!" she exclaimed with scorn, and added, not quite honestly: "I was only wondering if Miss Abigail would be keeping breakfast waiting for me——" She knew perfectly well that Miss Abigail would not.

"She knows you are with me, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes——"

"Then why worry? Come along."

On their way back she asked him: "You do this kind of thing every day?"

"Certainly. It's my job."

"But you are paid for it," she remarked vindictively.

"One must live, though perhaps in my case you don't see the necessity. Anyway I get no extra pay, so it's not for pure love of gain!"

"How do you mean? Weren't you ordered to do the work?"

"As it happens, no. I volunteered."

"Then where would you have been if you hadn't?"

"At Simla perhaps, or somewhere away from the famine area in my own province."

"Then you don't belong to this part?"

"No, I've been lent."

"At your own request?"

"Haven't I just said so?"

For a space she was silent. Then she said grudgingly: "After all, it's nothing so very wonderful!"

"I quite agree. I lay no claim to doing anything wonderful. Now you, on the other hand, have left a comfortable home and quite a different kind of life at, I am sure, an enormous sacrifice, to come out and help India!"

She winced obviously, and he enjoyed her discomfiture; yet his conscience smote him, for he queried inwardly if he would have been here at all but for the fateful happenings at Rassih! At the same time he did not intend to enlighten Miss Baker on that point. For the sake of other Englishmen who had given their services in this terrible affliction without reserve, better let her believe that he had been actuated solely by a stern sense of duty. The result of his work was the same, he had foregone advancement, was out of the running, over-working himself without hope of reward in the future. If he were not on the spot someone else would be; the whole thing was general, not individual. England was doing her duty by India comprehensively, he was but a fly on the wheel, and he neither desired nor expected special recognition. But he felt entitled to exact just approbation, on these grounds, from this arrogant girl who, in her way, represented a certain section of public opinion at home.

Save for a few desultory remarks on the scenery she said little more as they urged their horses onward, but he noted a new diffidence in her attitude; she was less aggressive, a little softer, and despite his contempt for her outlook on Indian affairs he could not forbear to take advantage of her weakening. He talked seriously, earnestly, of the problems and peoples of the country, set forth their helpless dependence on disinterested rule, defended British enterprise; and to his satisfaction she listened. Through it all he watched her clever, expressive face; how she showed her feelings!—an undisciplined nature. One moment he saw hesitation, doubt of her own judgment; the next incredulity, impatience of his arguments; again a little light of enthusiasm in her eyes, albeit reluctant, as he spoke of the long line of heroes who had made India what she was—prosperous, peaceful, secure, in so far as such a vast and complex country could be secure, unless danger was fostered from within.... She had a good heart if her brain was ill-trained, falsely developed; he wondered what her childhood had been like, how she had been brought up, and later, as they were seated at breakfast in his tent, he asked her if she had ever been at school.

"Oh, yes, the ordinary thing, a rotten place at Brighton—all music and French and dancing. You see, we are very rich people! My father is a big manufacturer, he began life with the proverbial half-crown in his pocket. We are not blue-blooded at all, I can assure you! My mother was the daughter of a small artisan. To the day of her death, a few years ago, she hated late dinner, and was afraid of the servants. I firmly believe she died, poor dear, because she had to live in an atmosphere that was too much for her. She couldn't stand the strain when my father bought a place in the country and a house in London, and she was obliged to entertain and meet people she had never been accustomed to. She was a victim to the intermediate stage. In time, of course, all the big places will be in the hands of go-ahead men like the pater who have made their own fortunes, and the idle rich will disappear."

"What about the descendants of the go-ahead men?" put in Philip. "Have you any brothers?"

"Yes, two——"

"And are they working for their livings?"

"Well," she moved uneasily, "one is in the Guards and the other is still at Oxford——"

"And you were sent to an expensive school for young ladies at Brighton? In a few generations, I suppose, you will be ousted from your big place in your turn!"

"But we know how to take care of our money. It won't be squandered in racing and cards and dissolute living."

"How do you know? Doesn't it depend on the individual? There are plenty of pedigree landlords who are models of stewardship and right thinking, doing their duty by the country and their responsibilities, just as there are self-made men who are selfish and hard and tyrannical. It isn't entirely a question of birth and heredity. I am of opinion that if a man with an inherited position and property is false to his trust he should be deprived of it by law, but when he does his best he should be protected from attacks that are prompted more often by jealousy than by concern for the poor. What do the majority of self-made men go for, once they are 'made'? Titles and 'places.' Isn't it true?"

The girl crumbled the toast on her plate with restless fingers. "Everything is all wrong," she burst out presently. "My father won't see that we ought to keep only just enough for ourselves and share the rest with the people who have helped him to make his money. Why should we have an estate in the country and a sort of palace in London, while our workmen are living in slums! It's abominable. I admit we are as bad in our way as the families that can trace their descent for hundreds of years and look upon their lands and their tenants as just mediums of supply for their luxuries and amusements. It will always be the same, I suppose!"

"It has been the same since the beginning of the world," said Flint, "each man for himself. It's human nature. Have some more coffee?"

"Yes, please. It's delicious. Miss Abigail seems to think it's wrong to have decent food. Why she and her kind aren't all dead from poisoning I can't imagine."

"The survival of the fittest, perhaps."

"Their hearts and their souls are bound up in the work, and their stomachs don't seem to matter. I feel I am horribly material and greedy. Perhaps I haven't a soul or a heart, only a stomach!"

"In that case you wouldn't be out here," he suggested for her comfort, "giving your time and your money in a good cause."

"I don't want to take credit for that. I am beginning to see that I may have come out with a mistaken motive, not so much to do my little bit over the famine as to find fault with what seemed to me an autocratic mode of government. If all Indian officials were like you——"

"Like me!" Philip gave a bitter little laugh. "I may also have had my motive in doing famine work apart from the welfare of the people. We are all actuated by motives, principally selfish and private."

She finished her coffee. "Anyway," she said, rising, "I am glad we have met, though you have upset my ideas and made me feel horrid when I thought I was such an angel of mercy and reform! I am afraid I am very conceited, but it is so nice to feel superior and generous!"

He saw tears in her eyes, and he took her outstretched hand in true comradeship, ashamed of his attempt that morning to play upon her natural instincts. "Don't bother about motives," he said in friendly understanding, "go on with your blessed work. We are all doing what we can for the people of this great old country, and believe me they aren't insensible to our efforts. They know in their hearts. Some day they will stand by us and give all they can in recognition of what we have done in the past for them. The test is bound to come, and whoever gets the credit doesn't matter. The result will be our reward. The only fear is that all the drudgery and the sacrifice may be undone, go for nothing, wrecked by a clique composed of self-seekers, encouraged by those who have quite other ends to gain."

They left the tent together. He helped her into her saddle, and watched her ride off attended by the syce who would bring back the chestnut; the Honourable Dorothy Baker—born of the people, reared as an aristocrat, who had set out to patronise those among whom such an anomaly was impossible, unthinkable! How invaluable might be the zeal of her kind rightly inspired and directed in the cause of India, could they only divest themselves of the very arrogance they were so anxious to impute to the men who were guarding the safety of the brightest jewel in the crown of England....

For the next few hours Flint buried himself in papers. The heat and the dust and the flies were distracting; he found it hard to fix his mind on his work, and his thoughts wandered perversely. He remembered he had not yet written his weekly letter to his mother; it had been so difficult to write naturally after the upheaval at Rassih, he had felt such a hypocrite—allowing his parents to infer that in volunteering for famine work he had been prompted solely by a sense of duty; yet to tell them the truth was beyond him. He pictured the old people in their comfortable South Kensington home; his father always busy over local charities and municipal boards and councils. Major-General Sir Philip Flint had not shed his energy and public spirit with his retirement from Indian service. Dear old chap!—white haired, courtly, ever ready to listen when people came to him with grievances, real or imaginary; and the mater, with her large circle of old Indian friends, her bazaars, and her tea parties, and the never ending stream of visitors she was always so ready to "put up," people just arrived from India, old friends settled in the country who were intent on a week's shopping; hospitality was in her bones. She would have loved to harbour grandchildren. Philip knew how she regretted that his sister was not the wife of an Indian civilian, or an Indian Army man, though her marriage to a prominent specialist in Harley Street had been highly satisfactory, as Lady Flint admitted; of course, she would say, it was a comfort to feel that Grace was so well provided for, but Grace lived in such a different world from their own—a world composed of public people, people connected with the stage, and literature, and art, politics, the law; no dull old Generals, or members of the Indian Council, and so on for Grace! and there were no babies to come and spend the day with Granny, to be taken to the seaside, to be fussed over and spoiled.... Her great hope now, as she told him in her letters, was that Philip would marry some dear girl whose family, like his own, had served the Indian Government for generations, so that they would all understand each other and carry on the old traditions comfortably, friends in every sense. Grace's friends and in-laws were a sort of nervous terror to poor Lady Flint. What would be her feelings, questioned her son as he sat dreaming of his mother in his tent, so far away from her, could she know the truth, could she realise that her hopes of such a daughter-in-law would never be fulfilled so long as Stella Crayfield claimed his heart; and that would be for always—till he died....

The pen dropped from his fingers, he leaned back in his chair, drowsy, inert. Jacob was snoring in a corner; from without came the ceaseless murmur of the concourse awaiting his decisions, and on his table lay such piles of papers still to be examined. From sheer weariness he fell asleep and dreamed of Stella, of their hopeless love, and mingled with it all was the memory of Dorothy Baker, vigorous, purposeful, arresting. He seemed to be standing between the two girls at the base of a long flight of steps; they were urging him upward, but he felt tired, slack-limbed, heavy-hearted; he wanted to rest. The steps were so steep, high as a pyramid of Egypt; he could not see the top, it was lost in a haze of luminous light. "Go on, go on," they were saying; they were holding each other's hands, as it seemed to him conspiring to urge him forward. "Go on; they have all gone up in their turn—look! some are already at the top, some have died on the way, some have lost everything, but never mind—go on, go on...."

And he struggled, lifting his feet to the steps that were rough and burning, to find himself in the midst of a ghostly pageant. Near him was a little old man with dim tragic eyes, dressed in a blue coat and knee breeches. Where had he seen him before? There was a world of sorrow, of bitter disappointment in the small, bowed figure, so pathetic, yet breathing a spirit of wisdom and untiring tenacity. "Who are you, little old man, tell me who you are?" Philip heard himself asking. And faintly, as though borne on the hot west wind, came the whisper of a name—was it Warren Hastings? A wrinkled yellow hand was raised, pointing upward.... A few more steps; now he was pushing through a motley host all strangely garbed. Some of them held up a Cross and a Book, some displayed tokens of trade; there were women with empty arms, weeping for the husbands and the children they had lost, yet glorying in the sacrifice; and a band of people, half English half Indian, who had given their lives in the cause of their great two parents. They were lining the ladder, the stiff, steep ladder.... Someone stepped out from the crowd and laid an encouraging hand on his arm: "Go on, my boy, fight! There is nothing like fighting!" and to his horror Philip saw that the speaker's throat was cut, that he held in his hand a little penknife and a pen, just a quill pen.... Who was it? Who was it had ended his life in a moment of mad impulse, the fine brain snapping with the strain and the fervour of work and responsibility? Ah, now he remembered; it was Clive, great Clive! so noble, so strong in his influence and judgment, in his making of Indian history. Always a fighter, even from his schoolboy days.... What a pitiful end to a brave career! and yet what matter when the task had been accomplished, victories won; at least he had but sought peace and repose in his own way and at his own time. The hand that held the fatal little knife was also waving him upward, pointing to the top.... With him were others, ghosts from the past, whispering names, magical names, that lived not only in the memories of those of their own race and colour but in the hearts of the people they had served and fought for, and saved; also great fighters with dusky faces and flashing eyes, faithful supporters, fearless and fierce, without whose allegiance all the strife and the sacrifice might have been useless; one in spirit with their leaders, East and West bound together by one high aim—that of justice and right.... "Don't fail us," they chorused. "Keep going, give of your best as we did before you!" And they waved their swords and their scimitars, and the Cross, driving him upward, till at the summit he saw a speck of light that, as he climbed, grew in brilliance, took shape, and formed itself into letters of fire: Star of India."

He cried: "What can I do? I am only one of a crowd, a fly on the wheel!" The sound of his own voice wakened him; he stood up, still dazed, haunted by the fantastic dream. Jacob was snoring in the corner; hoarse voices murmured outside; a swirl of hot dust and wind shook the tent. Mechanically Flint sorted his papers, put on his hat, and went forth into the hot stillness of the evening.