At Muktiarbad, the usual form of evening entertainment was a dinner-party with music and bridge to follow; and Mrs. Bright, wife of the Superintendent of Police, was specially noted for her hospitality in this respect. The brief intervals spent at home by her husband between his rounds of inspection or inquiry in his District were always celebrated by herself and her daughter as festal occasions; and their friends were gathered together at short notice to eat, not the "fatted calf," as that would have offended the religious susceptibilities of the Hindus who held the animal sacred, but one of the fattened geese kept available for such occasions.

The ladies did not always accompany Mr. Bright on his journeys about the District, as they were usually hurried and undertaken with scant preparation. Very little of the flesh-pots of Bengal sufficed to satisfy Muktiarbad's Chief of Police, who had been thoroughly broken in to the rough-and-tumble of official life in the mafasil. The presence of his family in camp was a hindrance to Mr. Bright, and he was better pleased to return, after his strenuous duties, to the peace of domesticity at his bungalow in the Station. Moreover, there was little of interest in the monotony of camping in lonely places for a young girl to whom her mother wished to give every opportunity of settling in life, whatever might be her own ideas respecting a vocation. Muktiarbad, though a rural backwater of Bengal, and pronounced by the gay-minded, a penal settlement, had matrimonial possibilities not to be despised by anxious parents with daughters to be happily disposed of.

On the whole, it was a highly social if small community who made the most of their opportunities for enjoyment, accepting the limitations of the place to which it had pleased Providence and the Ruling Power to appoint them, with the usual healthy philosophy which has made India so rich in memories.

It mattered little if they had to endure the discomforts of the climate and various inconveniences besides; others were in a worse case. Nor did it matter if they never reached the goal for which they strove—it was Kismet!

Fatalism is a habit of mind peculiar to the people of the East, where the unexpected might happen at any time without warning; and it is not unusual for Europeans to slip half-consciously into the same mental attitude.

It is consequently not surprising that, in spite of many lurking dangers, life in the rural districts is careless and free. Risks of cholera, sunstroke, and snake-bite, are taken boldly without a thought of possibilities. India has need of resourceful minds and nerves of steel; and no use for the faltering and irresolute.

Even Mrs. Bright took chances for her family and friends when her cook at the eleventh hour sent to Robinath Mukerjea's store in the bazaar for tins of salmon (the fish procured from a local tank being deemed inevitably earthy in flavour); for Mukerjea bought his provisions at sales of old stock from the Army and Navy Stores, vowing they were fresh consignments from Belait; but no one was deceived when patronising his shop in spite of risks of ptomaine. However, a dinner cooked by Kareem Majid was an achievement more worthy of a Goanese than a Mohammedan, and none who dined at the Brights' was ever the worse.

"My dear," Mrs. Bright had been heard to observe in earlier days, "were it not for Honor and the necessity to cultivate the acquaintance of one's own child, I should never leave India. How I miss that treasure, Kareem! He has been with us since we were married, and there never was a more useful servant. Whether in camp or in my own bungalow, it is just the same; he rises to every emergency and cooks like a French chef. At a pinch he'll valet my husband. He has even in an emergency fastened the hooks of my blouse at the back; and when Honor was a child, played with her when she had the measles and kept her from crying herself into a fit. When other servants ran away from the cholera, he stayed and did everything but sweep the floors! And when any one is sick, I have never known the equal of his 'chicken jugs'! He is so self-reliant, too. I have only to say, 'Kareem, six guests for dinner tonight. Don't ask for orders—do just as you please, only don't mention the subject of food as you value your life!' And he will salaam and say, 'Jo hukum,' after which I have no responsibility whatever; dinner up to time, everything cooked to perfection, and when you think of what an Indian cook-house is, really, you are overcome with admiration. Can you fancy an English cook consenting to turn out dinners under like conditions? You get notice in a day! And who thinks of sparing Indian servants? As many courses as you like, with a wash-up like a small mountain, which the masalchi disposes of behind the pantry door on a yard or two of bamboo matting, with an earthen gumla, a kettle of boiling water, and an unthinkable swab! An English maid would have hysterics."

To make existence possible to the residents of Muktiarbad, there was the great, straggling bazaar on the outskirts of the Station ready to supply the necessaries of life. An enlightened confidence in the rule of the sahibs and in their honour and justice was a tradition with the local population whose trust in the Sarcar was unbounded; for sedition had not yet poisoned the minds of the peace-loving, contented agriculturists and shopkeepers who were as conservative as they were simple. It was only in outlying villages that occasional trouble brewed when ignorant and superstitious minds were played upon by malcontents.

Ten minutes' grace was allowed to Mrs. Meredith—no more—and Mr. Bright offered his arm to Mrs. Barrington Fox and led the way to the dining-room. Mr. Barrington Fox was seldom to be persuaded into accepting Station hospitalities; and usually made the time-worn excuse, as on the present occasion, of inspection duty on the line. The Station, however, understood it to mean that he had ceased to find pleasure in his wife's company and was determined not to be victimised.

The dining-room at the Brights' was a large apartment, whitewashed like a hospital ward, but redeemed by hunting pictures on the walls, graceful drapery, and good furniture. A punkha with a mat frill hung motionless overhead, as weather conditions were sufficiently altered to dispense with an artificial breeze; and the dining table beneath it presented an inviting aspect with its glittering mass of silver, glass, and flowers. A draught-screen concealed the door of ingress from the pantry where the business of serving was carried on by the khansaman assisted by a group of white-robed domestics. Agitated whispers from behind the screen were infallible indications of mistakes retrieved in the nick of time; otherwise, the occasional blow of the ice hammer, or the rolling of the ice machine on the outer door-mat were the only sounds audible from the dining-room.

Mrs. Bright, full of confidence in her staff and indifferent to mistakes which were not inexcusable, showed a complete detachment from the details of serving while she entertained her guests.

A little reshuffling of the order of precedence, when Mrs. Meredith's non-appearance was assured, had disposed of Tommy Deare to his entire satisfaction. Left to shift for himself he moved to the other side of Honor Bright whom Jack Darling had piloted in. He was a plain, freckle-faced boy of twenty-two with plenty to say for himself, and a most engaging smile. In height he was on a level with Honor who was considered tall; yet, to his disgust, he was referred to as a "little man." But since it was recognised that "valuable goods are packed in small parcels," he assured his friends of his inestimable worth, and was comforted.

"Mrs. Meredith is too absurd about that kid of hers," Mrs. Fox was heard to remark in the first hush that fell with the arrival of the soup. "Isn't it the baby who is ill tonight?" to Captain Dalton.

"If I had known, I should have mentioned it," said the doctor above his soup plate. The rudeness of the reply was characteristic of him.

"I understood from Mrs. Meredith that she and her offspring are in your charge. How neglectful of you to know nothing!"

"I am ready to attend to them when called in," he replied.

"Then you have not been wanted!" she laughed spitefully. "It must be very mortifying never to be wanted except when you are of use!"

"A doctor is the one man whom you are only too glad to see the last of," said Dalton coldly.

"All the same, I shouldn't be a bit surprised if it's the baby who is ill, and you are sent for before dinner is over. Mrs. Meredith said it would be the only reason that would stop her coming," put in Mrs. Bright, anxious to soothe.

"I hope not, indeed!" cried Mrs. Fox. "For now we've got you we mean to make you sing. Don't imagine we'll let you off."

The doctor bowed a stiff acknowledgment, which meant nothing, and entered into conversation with the Executive Engineer on the subject of a morass which he had condemned in his Sanitary Report, and recommended to be drained.

"The villagers won't stand it," said Mr. Ironsides. "They draw their drinking water from that jhil, and providing them with wells instead will not console them for its loss. Incidentally, they use it also for laundry purposes and bathing," he laughed.

"Exactly. So the sooner it is done away with the better for their health and the health of the District. Malaria and cholera have their source at Panipara."

"I hope you are not trying to deprive us of our duck-shooting, Doctor," said Mr. Bright in alarm. "We depend upon Panipara Jhil for game in the winters, and there is little sport besides, in this God-forsaken place."

"It will have to go if you want immunity from sickness," said Dalton.

"If they don't mind it, I don't know why we should. It rages chiefly in Panipara village itself, and is nothing to us."

"It comes on here afterwards with the flies," said Tommy.

"A few natives, more or less, wiped off the face of the earth hereabouts would be a benefit to Muktiarbad," drawled young Smart of the Railway from his seat on Mrs. Fox's right, which, by an unwritten law was always accorded to him at Station dinners.

"How very unfeeling!" cried two or three ladies in unison.

A vigorous argument arose to which Honor listened, deeply interested. Panipara Jhil lay a few miles outside the Station, with the village of the same name lying on its banks. It occupied an area of a square mile or two of marsh land, was overrun with water-weeds and lotus plants, and dotted about with islands full of jungle growth and date-palms—a picturesque but unhealthy spot, dear to lovers of sport.

"The natives haven't the foggiest idea of hygiene," said the doctor finally. "But they cannot be argued with. They will continue their filthy habits though twenty to thirty per cent. of them get wiped out by cholera annually. Drain the jhil and give them wells, and there'll be little or no sickness afterwards. Incidentally, several hundred bighas of ground will be reclaimed for agricultural purposes, which will be a benefit to the owner."

"The Government will take its own time to consider the proposition, and a few years hence, when it has exhausted all the red tape available, it will be put through," said Honor. "In the meantime, the cholera, like the poor, will be 'with us always!'"

"I shouldn't be at all surprised," said the doctor meeting her eyes in swift appreciation of her verdict.

He said no more to her, for others intervened and the conversation changed.

Captain Dalton looked a trifle more cynical and dissatisfied than usual, Honor thought. His strong jaw and irregular features hid his thoughts, but not their reflection which showed a mental unrest. He was clearly not a happy man, and was plainly a discordant element in light-hearted company. "A real wet blanket," Tommy whispered in her ear. "If one makes a joke he either doesn't hear it, or thinks it not worth laughing at. Something has turned him sour, so he hates to see people happy."

But Honor was not in agreement with him. "I grant he is an embittered man—he looks it; but he is quite willing that you should enjoy yourself so long as you don't force your high spirits on him. If one's mind is not in accord with blithesomeness, one surely might be excused from taking part in it."

"I do believe you like the blighter?" Tommy cried reproachfully.

"I have every reason to," she answered stoutly.

"Because he cured you of snake-bite? Doctors get a pull over us poor laymen when it comes to matters of life and death. They do their duty, and you are grateful for all time," at which Honor laughed heartily, for Tommy was looking personally injured.

"There's Mrs. Meredith!" he continued. "She talks of him with tears in her eyes as though he were a saint—Old Nick, more likely!—He has been endowed with every virtue when he has none, simply because he put the Squawk to rights." Tommy had seen Joyce that afternoon and went on to describe his visit. "She was looking topping, so was the kid; which makes it all the more mysterious, her not turning up. But, my word, she is pretty! One might be excused for any indiscretion when she makes eyes at one!"

However, to his disappointment, Honor showed no symptoms of jealousy. "I'll wager she neglected you for her baby!" She said. "Mrs. Meredith has no interest in young men."

"She had plenty in me. We grew quite intimate—talked of the weather and anopheles mosquitoes, and improved the occasion by rubbing eau de Cologne on the bites."

"How very thrilling! and she forgot all about you the moment you had left!"

"Everyone forgets all about Tommy the moment he has left," put in Jack, thinking it about time to remind them of his presence.

He was a handsome young athlete of twenty-five, with the reputation of having played in the Rugby International. He owned a complexion inconveniently given to blushing. He and Tommy chummed together in a three-roomed bungalow near the Police Court and were generally known as inseparables. Both played polo and tennis with skill and kept the Station entertained by their high spirits and resourcefulness.

Honor's attention was diverted by an animated discussion among her elders respecting the duties of a wife and mother in the East.

"A mother is perfectly justified in taking her child home if it cannot stand the climate," Mrs. Fox was saying.

"I suppose the question to be decided is, whom a woman cares most for, child or husband—whether she will live away from her husband for the sake of the child, or from the child for the sake of the husband, presuming that the climate is not suitable to children," said a guest.

A strident voice was heard to remark that women had no business to marry men whose careers were in the East, if they meant to live away from them most of the time. "It's a tragedy for which doctors are mainly responsible," with a sniff and a challenging glance at Captain Dalton.

"Oh, you doctors!" laughed Mrs. Bright, shaking her finger at him. "See what mischief you are accountable for!—ruined lives, broken homes!"

"In many cases, it is a charity to part husbands and wives," said the doctor grimly.

"Hear, hear!" from Mrs. Fox, at which Mrs. Ironsides was shocked.

"I hope Mrs. Meredith will not go home so soon," she said. "It will be a pity, when she and her husband have been so lately married. Somebody should influence her to remain and give the hills a trial. They seem to suit children very well."

"If she goes home it will be nothing short of a calamity," said Honor quietly, thinking of Ray Meredith's devotion and his wife's unsophisticated and undeveloped mind. "It would never do unless she means to return immediately."

"A child of tender years needs its mother," said a lady whose heart yearned for her little one in England. "No stranger will give it the same sympathy or care."

"It is a difficult problem to which there is no solution," said Mrs. Bright.

"I always feel, when I see a wife living for years at home while her husband remains out here, that there is no love lost between them. The children serve as an excellent excuse for the separation," said Honor, colouring at her own audacity in voicing an opinion so pronounced. "No reason on earth should be strong enough to part those who care deeply for each other."

"Hear, hear!" murmured Tommy under his breath, while Mrs. Fox laughed disagreeably. "An excellent sentiment coming from you, Miss Bright, who have no experience. Long may you subscribe to it."

Honor blushed still deeper. "I have my ideals," she returned.

"I trust they will never be shattered!" the lady sneered.

Again Dalton's eyes met Honor's with strange intentness. Feeling out of her depth she had looked involuntarily to him for the subtle sympathy, instinct told her was in his attitude to her, and she had received it abundantly in the slow smile which softened his expression to one of absolute kindness. It created a glow at her heart, to linger with her for the rest of the evening.

"Whenever I used to run home on short 'leave of absence' to see if Honor had not altogether forgotten me," said Mrs. Bright, smiling reminiscently, "and dared to hint at an extension, my husband would squander all his T.A. in cablegrams threatening to divorce me on the spot in favour of some mythical person if I did not return by the next mail. Wasn't that so, dear?"

"Gross exaggeration, my love. I could never get you to take a respectable holiday, for just as I was beginning to enjoy my liberty as a grass-widower, you would bob up serenely with 'No, you don't' on every line of your rosy face. It was worth anything, however, to see those English roses back again."

("The reason why Honor is such a nice girl," a lady once told Captain Dalton, "is because she has such a charming example of love in her home. Love is in her bones; her parents are so perfectly united that it is impossible for Honor to be anything but a good wife. Parents are immensely responsible for their children's psychology.")

"I have never ceased to thank Providence that I have no children!" said the wife of a railway official, with a sigh of contentment, "so the tragedy of separation has never affected me. I can honestly say that I have never left my husband for more than a day since we married, fifteen years ago!" and she reared her thin neck out of her evening gown and looked about her for congratulations.

"Lord, how sick of her he must be!" whispered Tommy under his breath, to the delight of Jack and Honor. "Life would be stale and unprofitable if I could not repeat the honeymoon every autumn when my wife returned from the hills. So thrilling to fall in love with one's own wife every year!"

"Which proves that you will make a very bad husband," said Honor severely. "Out of sight out of mind."

"He won't talk so glibly of sending his wife to the hills when he has discovered that she has been carrying on with Snooks of the Convalescent DepÔt while he has been stewing in the plains," said Jack with a blasÉ air.

"Since when have you turned cynic, Mr. Darling?" Honor asked, astonished. "It doesn't become you in the least!"

"Jack had an enlightening holiday in Darjeeling last month when he had ten days during the Pujas," Tommy explained with reprisals in his eye. "It accounts for his attitude of mind. Having strict principles and a faint heart, no one had any use for him up there but Mrs. Meredith and the Y. M. C. A.——"

"Don't listen to him, Miss Bright," Jack interrupted.

"—So in sheer desperation he turned nurse to Squawk and ran errands for its mother, wondering the while how it was that some men had all the luck!"

"Draw it mild, I say!"

"And now he sits up half the night composing odes to her eyebrows and boring me stiff with his sighs."

"Liar!" laughed Jack. "I couldn't write poetry to save my life."

"It doesn't prevent him from trying. Then there's her photograph——"

"It isn't hers, I told you!" Jack protested. "Tommy, you're a villain."

"It's jolly like her, what I saw of it when it fell out from under your pillow."

By this time Jack was crimson. He relapsed into sulky silence and devoted himself to his plate with appetite. Honor Bright wanted no better evidence of the fact that he was heart-whole, though she continued to wonder whose was the photograph he was treasuring so sentimentally.

Dinner progressed through its many courses towards dessert, when toasts were drunk to "Absent Ones," and "Sweethearts and Wives,"—the usual conclusion to dinners at the Brights'; then, with a loud scraping of chairs, the ladies rose and filed out of the room.

Later, when the gentlemen appeared having finished their smokes, it was discovered that Captain Dalton had retired. He had excused himself to his host on the plea of a late visit to his patient at Sombari, three miles out, and was gone.

"Dear, dear!" sighed Mrs. Bright. "How very disappointing! Evidently he had no intention of singing tonight, and I hear he has such a divine voice!"

"But we don't begrudge that poor girl his attention when she is so ill," put in Mrs. Ironsides.

"Indeed, no. I wonder how she is."

"Pretty bad, from all accounts," said Mr. Bright.

"Her poor mother must be distracted. The only real happiness she has in life is the companionship of this only child. Mr. Meek is so narrow-minded and autocratic in domestic life. He must be sorry now that he deprived the child of so many opportunities of innocent amusement."

"Not at all," said a guest. "He will congratulate himself that he kept her unspotted from the world. Muktiarbad is his idea of unadulterated godlessness. We are such a bad example to his converts, you know, with our tennis on Sundays!"

"Poor little Elsie! I hope she will recover," said Mrs. Bright.

Honor felt a distinct sense of depression when she heard that Captain Dalton had gone quietly away without even a hint to herself that he had had no intention of staying. It was clear that he had no interest in remaining; his excuse she disregarded, for he could have visited Sombari earlier in the evening when he knew that he was engaged to dine out. She believed he liked her ... but he was "not seeking to marry her," as he had said to Joyce in camp, so it was her duty to rise above the folly of thinking too much of a man who would never be anything more to her than a mere acquaintance. With a determined effort to stifle feelings of wounded pride and disappointment, she ordered Tommy to the piano to beguile the company with ragtime ditties at which he was past-master, and while he played and others sang, notably Bobby Smart, who was not to be chained to the side of Mrs. Fox, the latter was left to cultivate the acquaintance of the shy Apollo, Jack Darling, whom the Brights and Tommy had hitherto absorbed.

Jack met her ravishing smile with a blush of self-consciousness, fearing all eyes upon himself as he accepted the seat beside her on a chesterfield. He was so obviously new to the art of intrigue, so conspicuously ingenuous, that he had the charm of novelty for her. She believed that Mrs. Bright was manoeuvring to get him for a son-in-law and was chafing at Honor's lack of worldly wisdom in dividing her favours equally between him and Tommy whose prospects in life were less brilliant. The situation was one entirely after her own heart, to make or mar with impish deliberation. In spite of his comparatively inferior social standing and unattractive appearance, Tommy was popular with the girls for his ready wit. He dared to be unconscious of his disadvantages and stormed his way into the front rank of drawing-room favourites; but he was too unimpressionable and discerning to suit Mrs. Fox's taste, so she left him alone to see what she could make of Jack whose guilelessness was a strong appeal to women of her type. His development under her guidance seemed the only excitement life had to offer her in this rural backwater, and she was not one to miss her opportunities.

"I'd dearly love to act sponsor to a boy like you in the beginning of his career, Jack," she cried with a tender inflection of the voice. "By the way, I'm going to call you 'Jack'—may I?"

"Certainly, if you care to," he returned awkwardly.

"Oh, you are priceless! What an opportunity you missed for a pretty speech!" and she laid her hand caressingly on his for a moment to emphasise her delight in him.

"Why? what should I have said?" he asked, laughing boyishly, and wincing under her touch. The suggestion of intimacy in her manner somewhat embarrassed him.

"I should like to see you a few years hence when your education is complete," she returned, evading his question teasingly. "But you mustn't marry, or you will be utterly spoilt."

"There is no immediate prospect of that!" he said laughing and giving away the fact that he was heart-whole. "But won't you take up the job tonight and begin instructing me?"

"I am sorely tempted to," she replied, smiling affectionately on him. "You must really learn your possibilities. They are limitless. After that, everything will come naturally,—assurance, the wit to grasp opportunities, and a bold initiative, without which a man is no good."

"No good?—for what?" he pressed ingenuously.

"To pass the time with, of course, O most adorable infant!" she laughed silently, returning his look with an expression of half-veiled admiration.

In stations where officials came and went with meteoric suddenness owing to the reshuffling of the governmental pack of human cards, friendships were as sudden as they were transient. Jack Darling having arrived at Muktiarbad while Mrs. Fox was at a hill station, their acquaintance was only in its initial stage.

"Look at Mrs. Fox," whispered Mrs. Ironsides to Mrs. Bright. "She is doing her best to spoil that nice boy with her flattery! You can tell that she is pouring conceit into him by the bucketful. Shameless creature! I wonder her husband doesn't send her home."

"She prefers India," Mrs. Bright showed a restless eye.

"Mr. Smart will be only too glad if Mr. Darling relieves him of his attendance on Mrs. Fox. Did you notice how he yawned at table while she was talking to him?"

"He lives in her pocket, all the same, and is always at her beck and call."

"Was my dear. I have noticed a great change latterly, and I hear he is going to be transferred. Mr. Fox knows his people at home and is arranging it."

"And he knows his wife better," said Mrs. Bright with satire. It seemed at Muktiarbad everybody knew everybody else's affairs.

She allowed a brief interval to pass and then, using her privilege as hostess, captured Jack on the pretext of sending him to the piano, with Honor to select his song from a pile of music in a canterbury. By the time the ballad was finished and a chorus was in full swing, Mrs. Fox had been carried away by Mr. Bright to make a fourth at auction in another room.

Jack watched her go somewhat regretfully, wondering the while, shamefacedly, if he would be able to have another talk with her that night, and consigning all scandalmongers to perdition, who had dared to make free with her name. He refused to believe ill of so charming a lady, and was not surprised that Bobby Smart had found her company attractive—why not? When a brute of a husband spent all his time down the line instead of trying to make life pleasant for his wife, it was no wonder she was obliged to find entertainment for herself in the society of other men! Hers was a poor sort of life, anyway.

When the party broke up, Mrs. Fox elected to walk home as a tribute to the glorious moonlight, and Jack was commandeered to act as her escort. It was a good opportunity for the lady to show that renegade, Master Bobby Smart, that he was not indispensable. His yawn at dinner deserved a reprisal.

Bobby Smart, however, was not slow to profit by his release from escort duty, and wasted no time in pleasing himself. "I'll drop you home, Deare," he said cheerfully, "and we'll have a whisky-and-soda at your bungalow before you turn in."

"I should wait till I'm asked," said Tommy lighting a cigarette and dropping the match in a flower-pot on the verandah.

"I knew you were pining to have me round for a buk."[9]

"You can come in if you promise to go home by midnight," Tommy condescended. "I'll not be kept up later."

"On the stroke. That's a jolly good whisky you have. I was going to send to Kellner's for the same brand today, but forgot."

Tommy climbed into Smart's trap and consented to be driven home. His hospitality and Jack's was proverbial at Muktiarbad.