Deodars and soft green stretches of turf, surrounded by a map of Asia in high relief; silver streaks of rivers at the bottom of the map; snowy peaks and passes at the top of the map, just as if they were set there to show comparative lengths and heights. Such was the scene from the ridge chosen out for what is called a Rajah's picnic. What Rajah or Maharajah, what Nizam or Nawab, matters not. Some one of the many feudatories who crowd to prefer their claims to something at Simla had asserted his dignity by giving a picnic to society, and society had consented to come and eat pÂte de foie gras and drink champagne on a hill-side, at the expense of a man to whom one or other of these two things was an abomination. That is the case in a nutshell; and so long as the pÂte was not bought cheap from a box-wallah, and the champagne was drinkable, nobody cared whether the host was or was not performing the whole duty of man in tempting his fellows to do those things which he himself considered worthy of purgatorial pains. But then, to nine-tenths of the guests the host was a mere lay figure imported into society on certain occasions, in order to give it local colour by the display of gold tissue and diamonds.

Barring the shock it gives to first principles in some minds, a Rajah's entertainment is generally pleasant enough; never more so than when it takes the form of a picnic--which, by the way, the natives translate adroitly into pÂgul khÂna, or 'fool's dinner.' This one was no exception to the rule. Two huge flat-roofed tents, open on all sides save for a deep valance of gay appliquÉ-work, and supported by fern and flower-wreathed poles, served as marquees, where a most elaborate lunch was laid out in a style worthy of the great Simla caterer. What the cost was to be per head to the unfortunate noble playing the part of host is a trivial detail. So, to him, was the lunch itself, seeing that in this particular case, the host was a Hindu of the strictest caste; too pure, too proud even to sit down at a table spread with such abhorred viands. His part consisted, therefore, in receiving the company in a Cashmir shawl tent with silver poles, yawning between the handshakes, and thereinafter, when the outcasts were safely started on the champagne and the pÂte, jolting back joyfully in a jhan-pan to Simla in order to purify himself in unmentionable ways before eating his own dinner. The next day or the day after he would pay the bills, some official would be told off to congratulate him on the success of the entertainment; perhaps, if he was a great swell, to say that H---- E----y had enjoyed it immensely. And then the only thing remaining to be done would be to enter the cost in the State accounts. Under what heading outsiders cannot presume to say; possibly civilisation.

But none of the guests troubled themselves about these details. The sky was blue as blue could be, the grey bloom on the spreading deodar branches glinted white in the strong light, the shadows beneath them showed black. Across the valley, contours of terraced crops round a cluster of apricot-trees marked the village sites. Blue air lay between you and them, blue air between them and the snows, blue air gave a thousand iridescent tints to the plains rolling up into the southern sky beyond the dotted ridge of Simla. And below you, drifting up the valleys like grazing sheep, were little fleecy mist-clouds, inconsequent, hopelessly astray.

'Poor things! How lost they look!' said Gwen gaily, pointing at them with her white lace parasol.

'A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind,' quoted one of her circle. 'Mrs. Boynton knows what it is for a heavenly being to be condemned to earth.'

'That sounds prettier than it is. An angel astray! Lewis! defend me from my friends!'

She turned to him with the prettiest air of appeal, the sweetest confidence in a regard, which to the outside world was cousinly, to these two something more. Such a bait seldom fails to rouse a man's vanity, even if it leaves his heart untouched.

'My dear Gwen,' he replied readily, 'there is no need for defence. The angel is not astray since you are here with us, and we are in Paradise.'

George Keene applauded with both hands as he sat at her feet looking out over the plains. Once more it seemed incredible that there should be such a place on God's earth as Hodinuggur.

'Well, some of us will be sitting at the gate thereof disconsolate ere long,' remarked a man leaning against a rock, with a cup of black coffee and a cigarette. 'By the way, Keene, we might share a tonga the day after tomorrow.'

'Mr. Keene is not going,' interrupted Mrs. Boynton quickly. 'No one wants him down there, and we need dancing men dreadfully. Miss Tweedie had spoken to her father about it?'

'And you?'

The question, which came almost in a whisper, was answered by a smile only; but it brought a sort of mist to George Keene's young eyes as he looked out over the plains again. The spiritual exaltation of it all was almost too much at times for the hard-headed young fellow who had clothed his own honest uprightness with a woman's softness and sweetness, in order to worship it.

Now, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Boynton had said nothing to Colonel Tweedie about the lad's leave; still, as she fully intended doing so in the course of the afternoon, her smile was perhaps excusable. 'What is more, she kept to her intention. Half an hour afterwards any one rash enough to do so might have interrupted a tÊte-À-tÊte she was conceding to the Colonel in the shade of a huge deodar tree to one side of a level stretch where two mud tennis-courts had been laid out. But no one did. A certain officialdom prevails in Simla society, and the heads of departments have recognised rights and privileges. The Colonel, however, would scarcely have admitted that he owed his good fortune to his seniority, for he felt juvenile in a new lounge suit with very baggy trousers--quite the thing for lolling about in on the grass while a pretty woman leant over the shafts of the dandy she was using as a seat, and asked for your opinion on a number of trivial personal questions. Yet Gwen Boynton was in earnest about it all--to judge from her eyes--as she let the conversation drift further afield.

'He is such a nice boy--one of those boys who make a woman think how delightful it would be to have a son in her old age. But he looks as if he would be the better of another week in the hills; and I suppose even you cannot manage that.'

He smiled condescendingly.

'The Lieutenant-Governor might object, of course.'

'Then you can! Ah! Colonel Tweedie, if you would! He really isn't fit to go down, and Mr. Fitzgerald, who is as strong as a horse, could easily stop at Hodinuggur. He wouldn't like it, of course, but it won't hurt him. Only----' She paused, looked at her companion, and shook her head gravely.

'Only?' echoed her elderly admirer, his heart, which had melted like wax at her cavalier mention of Dan, stiffening again at what might be consideration for that most ill-advised person.

'Only George won't consent to that, I'm afraid. He has such a ridiculous attachment to Mr. Fitzgerald. And I suppose it would be quite impossible to leave the place even for a few days without a really first-class man in charge. What a comfort it must be for you to have officers on whom you can rely, like Mr. Fitzgerald.'

Colonel Tweedie gave his little preparatory cough. 'No doubt, no doubt. At the same time, I am not aware that Mr. Fitzgerald's presence--er--is so--er--indispensable. The fact is, my dear Mrs. Boynton, that, owing--er--to previous occurrences, we were anxious to keep him out--er--out of the responsibility as much as possible. In fact, but for his own request I should not--er--have arranged for him to take Mr. Keene's work at all. To refuse, however, would have--er--given rise to--er--unfounded comment, and so----'

She interrupted his halting mixture of dignity and desire to be at once considerate and captious with a sigh.

'Poor Mr. Fitzgerald, he has been unlucky. And I suppose if anything were to go wrong when he was there you would have to take notice of it. How dreadful for him! Perhaps, after all, it would be better for George to go back. One would need to be omnipotent to carry out all one's kindly impulses, wouldn't one, Colonel Tweedie? And we women are so helpless.'

He leant forward and laid his hand close to hers as it rested on the framework of the dandy. 'Unless you have a stronger arm at your disposal, as you have now--my dear lady--if only for your kindness to my daughter, and, as you say, young Keene is not quite the thing. Besides--I--I mean you--I mean there are privileges which----'

What those privileges were remained unexplained, though Gwen, no doubt, had a shrewd guess at them, for, just at that moment Dalel Beg, having no fear of Departments before his eyes, came swaggering up in a bright-green velvet coat.

'Aha, you here! Hi, you kitmutghar, bring me champagne cup. Jolly, Tweedie, ain't it?' The Colonel's face belied the proposition, but the new-comer was not one of those who look for support to surroundings; he was a law unto himself only. 'You see I wear swagger clothes like you, Mrs. Boynton. Rajah Sahib old-style man, so I come as native of India to please him. He is neighbour, Mrs. Boynton, by Hodinuggur, down waste-water canal cut. You give him water, sir, he give you lakhs on lakhs.'

This time the Colonel's expression was a study, but Gwen, despite her usually keen sense of the ludicrous, did not add a smile to the Mirza sahib's crackling laugh.

'I regret,' began the head of the Department loftily, but Dalel's mind was full of one thing only, and that was himself; his immense superiority over the Rajah Sahib, his equality with the sahib-logues.

'Hi, kitmutghar. Ai, soor ke butcha kyon nahin suntÉ ho? (Ah, son of a pig, why don't you listen?) Ek glass curaÇoa. Cup what you call hog-wash, eh, Tweedie? Rajah, poor chap, know nothing about cup. Khansamah do him in the eye, hee, hee! Poor old chappie. Gone home to do poojah and have baths. What rot!'

'Will you take me to get a cup of coffee?' said Gwen hastily to Colonel Tweedie. 'I won't trouble you to bring it here; it spills so in the saucer and then it drops over one's best frock.'

The courteous excuse for escape, which came quite naturally to Gwen's lips, pleased neither of her companions. The gracious instinct prompting it, which to Colonel Tweedie seemed uncalled for, was totally lost on the Mirza. He scowled after her, and muttering something as he tossed off the curaÇoa, went off to bestow his favours elsewhere.

A minute or two afterwards, George Keene ran up to the empty dandy and pushed something under the cushion.

'She won't mind,' he said half aloud, 'and it's safer there than in the tent. Wouldn't do to lose it here, of all places in the world. All right, Markham, I'm coming! Spin for court. Rough? Rough it is. If I'd only known they were going to put me up in the doubles, I'd have come in flannels.'

With coat and waistcoat off, however, his white shirtsleeves rolled up, showing young, white round arms, and his Cooper's Hill scarf doing duty as a belt, George looked workman-like enough to play in the impromtu match of civil against military; and being of wholesome mind and person straightway forgot the round world in the effort to keep one ball a-rolling.

The sun hung in the west above a frilled edging of lilac-tinted hills, the snows began to glisten, the valleys on either side grew fathomless as the mist rose from the streams dashing through them. On the ridge itself the deodars sent long shadows eastward, though the yellow sunshine still seemed to crisp the tufted parsley-fern among which civilisation grouped itself in cliques and sets for afternoon tea, and in which the servants, decked in gorgeous liveries for the occasion, flitted about like gay butterflies. A great content was on all; perhaps the memory of an excellent lunch lingered with the men, the gratifying consciousness of being well-dressed with the women, but the most of them felt that it was good to be there, transfigured, as it were, on a hill-top, forgetful even of Simla, whose shingled roofs showed on a jagged outline to the south. Yet Gwen Boynton, who, as a rule, would have shown at her best in such a scene, a situation, a society, pleaded a headache as an excuse for getting away early; so that when George came back to where he expected to find her dandy, she was already on her way back to Simla.

'What is it, Mr. Keene?' asked Rose, who was mounting her pony close by.

'Oh, nothing; only I put my watch and keys under the cushion of Mrs. Boynton's dandy, and now she has gone off. If you see her on the road, you might tell her. I have to play a return match--bad luck to it!'

'You don't look very unhappy,' laughed the girl, as he finished the task of putting her up by professional little tugs at her habit to make it sit wrinkle-less. 'And oh! by the way, it's all right about your leave. Father has arranged it; he told me so just now.'

'How good you are! If I could only leave my interests in your hands, always, the future would have no terrors for me, as they say in the melodramas. Good-bye, Miss Tweedie, till dinner-time, and--you won't forget about the watch, will you? I don't want Mrs. Boynton----'

'I'll take care she doesn't make off with it,' interrupted Rose, wilfully unsympathetic, as she moved away at a walk. A hundred yards or so along the broad ride--which had been cut for the occasion in the hill-side from the high road to the picnic place--a zigzag bridle-path led down into the valley. Rose had never ridden that way, but she knew that, once at the stream below her, a recognised short cut would take her direct to her destination. At the worst, she might have to dismount and lead her horse for a while, and there was something decidedly fascinating in a downward path at all times, more especially when every step showed something new stealing into vision out of a blue mist. In addition, she would avoid the rush of people, and of late Rose Tweedie had found a large proportion of her fellow-creatures very tiresome; perhaps because humanity is only gifted with a certain capacity for liking, and she expended too much of hers on one person. The first mile or so fully justified her choice; the path, if steep, was safe, and, after passing over a small bridge, she was about to follow a track, apparently leading down the right side of the ravine to the road below, when she heard a faint shout behind her to the left. With her experience of the Himalayas, she stopped instantly, knowing she must be on the wrong track, and retraced her steps, expecting, after a few turns, to come on the shepherd or coolie, who, having seen her from above, had raised the warning cry. Instead of this she came on Lewis Gordon, riding at what was really a breakneck pace for the style of the path. He pulled up suddenly.

'Miss Tweedie! you don't mean to say it was you I saw on the other bank? I had half a mind not to shout, for a man with a clever pony could do it easily. What a piece of luck for you I did!'

She flushed up at once. 'I'm afraid I don't see it in that light. I've no doubt I could have done it as easily as a man, and it is annoying to be brought back half a mile out of your road for nothing.'

'Unless that road happens to be a mile longer to begin with, as it is in this case,' replied Lewis coolly. 'But you really ought not to have tried the short cut alone. Your father, of course, had arranged to meet the Lieut.-Governor, and Keene couldn't get away; but if you had asked me, I should have been delighted to do my duty--I suppose you won't let me say pleasure; that is reserved for my juniors.' There was a certain snappishness in the conclusion of his speech which somehow appeased Rose's wrath.

The futility of many proverbs has scarcely a better example than that one which sets the orthodox number for anger at two, when almost universally it is either one or three. For the spectacle of another man losing his temper is almost sure to soothe the first offender, unless dispassionate humanity reappears in the shape of a spectator. So Rose said sweetly that he was always very kind, and she certainly would have asked him to pioneer her, had she anticipated any difficulty; since no one could give a better lead over than Bronzewing and her rider. And then, having reached the valley and a broader path, they dawdled along it at a walk beside the very edge of a stream splashing and dashing over its pebbly bed, and curving round tiny meadows just large enough to serve as a stand for some huge walnut tree. The soft mist they had seen from above, now they were in it, only intensified the blueness of the shadows or the gold of the sunlight following the contours of the hills. Down in the hollows the maiden-hair fern grew like a forest, out in the open great turk's-cap lilies rose higher than the blue and white columbines, and in every cranny the potentilla hung out its bunches of scarlet, tasteless, strawberry-like fruit.

Side by side they strolled for a mile or more, along a level grassy path, as if there were no such thing as effort in the world, as if civilisation and comfort, dinner and bed, all the necessaries of life in fact, did not lie two thousand feet or so over their heads.

'This way, I'm afraid,' said Lewis at last, turning his pony into a road joining the path at right angles; an engineered road with drains and retaining walls, scientific, uninteresting, guiltless of ups and downs, facing the ascent evenly.

'Oh dear!' cried Rose in tones of regret. And then they both laughed. But the peace of the valley went with them, so that their gay chatter echoed up the zigzagging road to where glimpses of a dandy toiling on ahead showed through the trees. Its occupant looking downwards could see them far below, the girl in front, the man behind, their voices becoming clearer and clearer, until just at the last turn where the zigzag merged into the high road, each careless word was distinctly audible as they came scrambling up below the retaining wall, which at this point carried the branch to its junction with the main road. Gwen Boynton's hand closed tight on the shaft of her dandy, partly in sympathy with her thoughts, partly because the coolies swung round the last corner sharply. The wall, which was not two feet high at the first turn sloped rapidly up to some fifteen feet before ending in the one which supported the big road. As is usually the case, it was built in steps or terraces giving the required slant of support. Just as the dandy was at the turn of the road a horseman, followed by two mounted orderlies, came clattering along it; perhaps this frightened Rose's pony; perhaps the sudden swerve of the dandy to get out of the new-comer's way just as the girl was about to pass it, actually forced her mount into shying and backing. Anyhow, it did. There was a struggle, a rattle of stones over the edge, a slip, then a jerk back as the beast found a momentary foothold for its hind legs on the narrow step some two feet down. A cry of dismay broke from the spectators--for with the next movement a fall backwards seemed inevitable--but it ended in one of relief, as Rose wheeled the pony clear round with swift decision, and giving it a cut with her whip leapt into the road below. It was a bold stroke for life instead of death, and as the pony came on its knees with the shock, it seemed for an instant as if both it and its rider must go rolling over and over down the side of the hill. The next they had both struggled to their feet, and stood quivering all over, but safe and absolutely unhurt. Lewis, who had pulled up at the corner aghast with impotent horror, was back beside them, almost incoherent in his relief and admiration.

'And--and--I only had a snaffle,' said Rose with a tremulous laugh not far removed from tears. She felt it imperative, if she were to be calm, that they should descend to commonplace at once, being aided in this by Dalel Beg, who having reined in at the sight of a disaster for which he was partly responsible, was now standing by Gwen's dandy oblivious of apology.

'ShÂhbÂsh. Well done indeed. Pretty! pretty. You are rippin' rider, Miss Tweedie. If you race, you win like Gordon. Aha! Gordon. I congratulate you for lucky accident of paint. That Crosbie take me in also. He swore it was foul, Mrs. Boynton, and I thought I saw foul--you believe that, eh, Gordon?'

Lewis, to whom the temporising decision of the judges, that foul or no foul, Mr. Crosbie was out of it by having been at the wrong side of some post at some part of the course, had been irritating, scowled up at the group above.

'I am sure you saw foul,' he replied. 'Now, Miss Tweedie, if you please. The beast is all right and the sooner you get home for a quiet rest the better.'

He was so occupied with the shock to her that he scarcely seemed to realise that it must have been one to his cousin also, though Rose as she passed paused to say that she was absolutely unhurt and that it was nobody's fault but her own for riding an unsteady pony on the hills. They had gone on nearly half a mile before she recollected George Keene's message.

'I don't see the necessity for going back at all,' said Lewis crossly, 'but since you are so determined to obey orders, I'll go. If you ride on at a reasonable pace I'll catch you up again in no time---- What was it he left in her dandy?'

'His watch,' called Rose after him.

As he galloped back his temper was none of the best. He objected to a great many things. To George's familiarity with Gwen, to Rose's familiarity with George, and as he came on the dandy, to Dalel Beg's familiarity with it; for the Mirza had dismounted and was walking along with his hand on the shaft--just like an Englishman. The sight enlarged the focus of Lewis's displeasure, making it include Gwen.

'It was only a message from Keene,' he said curtly in reply to her welcoming smile. 'He asked Miss Tweedie to tell you, but she forgot; so I came back. He put his watch in your dandy to keep it safe.'

'His watch!' echoed Gwen, feeling at the same time among the cushions. 'Yes! here it is. Lewis! what am I to do with it? Won't you take it?' For, without drawing rein he had turned his pony and was riding off. He looked back carelessly.

'Keep it, I suppose, till Keene comes to claim it. That won't be long.'

As he rounded the next curve in the road, Mrs. Boynton and Dalel Beg were left face to face with George Keene's watch between them. It had a Chubb's key attached to the chain, and Dalel Beg's eyes, as he stood beside the dandy, clothed in a green velvet coat and European rowdyism, were attached to the key. Gwen's were on Lewis's retreating figure, and there was real jealousy and anger at her heart.

An hour and a half later, George, galloping the hired pony along the Mall after the manner of very young men on hired ponies, pulled up at the side of Mrs. Boynton's dandy in pleased surprise.

'I'm so glad!' she exclaimed before he could say a word; 'there is your watch.'

As she handed it over to him their eyes met, and his took an expression of concern.

'I'm afraid your headache is very bad. You should have been at home hours ago.'

'On the contrary, it is better,' she replied quickly. 'I came by the low road and dawdled. Besides, I had to call at the dressmaker's, and she kept me waiting for ages. By the way, Colonel Tweedie says you are to have another week's leave----'

'So his daughter told me. How good you both are to me! Only, Hodinuggur will be worse than ever--afterwards.'

He would have liked to say 'after Paradise,' but he refrained. She gave a nervous little laugh.

'Don't think of it yet. I hate thinking. It does no good, for one never knows what mayn't happen. You are safe for a week, anyhow.'

As she lay awake that night in defiance of her own wisdom, thinking over the matter in all its bearings, she told herself that he was safe for more than a week. Every one was safe. At the worst, Dan might lose his promotion, but even that would be no unmixed evil if it forced him into independence. Indeed, if he knew of her worries, of the snare laid for her, of the covert hints about an esclandre involving both him and George Keene which were wearing her to death, he would gladly sacrifice something for the sake of safety. If by any chance the sluice were to be opened during that week of absence, how it would simplify the whole business! And, after all, what had she done? nothing. Surely a woman might go and see her dressmaker sometimes and leave her dandy outside? Was it her fault if the dressmaker lived in a house close to the bazaar in full view of Manohar LÂl's shop? Was it her fault if the coolies slipped away to smoke their hookahs? Was it her fault that the key of the sluice was behind the cushions of the dandy, and that Dalel Beg knew it was there? What had she done? What had she said? Nothing. Had she not set aside the Mirza's suggestion that she should look in on Manohar LÂl's new jewelry on her way home, by saying that she had no time, that she must go to the dressmaker's? Had she not hitherto refused to listen to hints or threats? Had she not even defied Manohar LÂl? And now would it really be her fault if any one had taken advantage of her absence? Gwen turned her face into the pillow and moaned helplessly, telling herself that never was woman before so beset by misfortune. She had meant no harm, yet George had given her the pot, and Dan had taken the jewels to Manohar LÂl's. There was no proof, of course, but the esclandre would kill her, and that must be averted at all costs.