Lady Bassett had deemed it advisable to ignore the fact of Muriel’s brief engagement to Captain Grange since the girl’s return to India.  She knew, as did her husband, that it had come to an end before Grange’s death, but she withheld all comment upon it.  Her one desire was to get the dear child married without delay, and she was not backward in letting her know it.  Life at Ghawalkhand was one continuous round of gaiety, and she had every opportunity for forwarding her scheme.  Though she deplored Muriel’s unresponsiveness, she yet did not despair.  It was sheer affectation on the girl’s part, she would tell herself, and would soon pass.  And after all, that queenly, aloof air had a charm that was all its own.  It might not attract the many, but she had begun to fancy of late that Bobby Fraser had felt its influence.  He was not in the least the sort of man she would have expected to do so, but there was no accounting for taste—­masculine taste especially.  And it would be an excellent thing for Muriel.

She was therefore being particularly gracious to her young charge just then—­a state of affairs which Muriel endured rather than appreciated.  She would never feel at her ease with Lady Bassett as long as she lived.

She was glad when they drove away at length, for she wanted to be alone.  Those anecdotes of Bobby’s had affected her strangely.  She had felt so completely cut off of late from all things connected with the past.  No one ever mentioned Nick to her now—­not even her faithful correspondent Olga.  Meteor-like, he had flashed through her sky and disappeared; leaving a burning, ineradicable trail behind him, it is true, but none the less was he gone.  She had not the faintest idea where he was.  She would have given all she had to know, yet could not bring herself to ask.  It seemed highly improbable that he would ever cross her path again, and she knew she ought to be glad of this; yet no gladness ever warmed her heart.  And now here was a man who had known him, who had told her of exploits new to her knowledge yet how strangely familiar to her understanding, who had at a touch brought before her the weird personality that her imagination sometimes strove in vain to summon.  She could have sat and listened to Bobby’s reminiscences for hours.  The bare mention of Nick’s name had made her blood run faster.

Lady Bassett did not trouble her to converse during the drive back, ascribing to her evident desire for silence a reason which Muriel was too absent to suspect.  But when the girl roused herself to throw a couple of annas to an old beggar who was crouched against the entrance to the Residency grounds she could not resist giving utterance to a gentle expostulation.

“I wish you would not encourage these people, dearest.  They are so extremely undesirable, and there is so much unrest in the State just now that I cannot but regard them with anxiety.”

Muriel murmured an apology, with the inward reservation to bestow her alms next time when Lady Bassett was not looking on.