In Malpura Noreen was suffering bitterly for her foolish pride and jealous readiness to believe evil of the man she loved.  She knew that she was entirely to blame for her estrangement from him.  He never came to their garden now; and to her dismay her brother ignored all hints to invite him.  For the boy was divided between loyalty to Chunerbutty (whom he had to thank for his chance in life) and the man who had twice saved his sister.  Chunerbutty had reproached him with forgetting what he, the now despised Hindu, had done for him in the past, and complained sadly that Miss Daleham looked down on him for the colour of his skin.  So Fred felt that he must choose between two friends and that honour demanded his clinging to the older one.  Therefore he begged Noreen for his sake not to hurt the engineer’s feelings and to treat him kindly.  She could not refuse, and Chunerbutty took every advantage of her sisterly obedience.  Whenever they went to the club he tried to monopolise her, and delighted in exhibiting the terms of friendship on which they appeared to be.  The girl felt that even her old friends were beginning at last to look askance at her; consequently she tried to avoid going to the weekly gatherings.

It happened that on the occasion when Dermot, having arrived at Salchini on a visit to Payne, again made his appearance at the club, Daleham had insisted on his sister accompanying him there, much against her will.  Chunerbutty was unable to go with them, being confined to his bungalow with a slight touch of fever.

That afternoon Noreen was more than ever conscious of a strained feeling and an unmistakable coldness to her on the part of the men whom she knew best.  And worse, it seemed to her that some young fellows who had only recently come to the district and with whom she was little acquainted, were inclined to treat her with less respect than usual.  She had seen Dermot arrive with his host; but, although Payne came to sit down beside her and chat, his guest merely greeted her courteously and passed on at once.

All that afternoon it seemed to the girl that something in the atmosphere was miserably wrong, but what it was she could not tell.  She was bitterly disappointed that Dermot kept away from her.  It was not the smart of a hurt pride, but the bewildered pain of a child that finds that the one it values most does not need it.  Indeed her best friends, all except Payne, seemed to have agreed to ignore her.

Mrs. Rice, however, was even sweeter in her manner than usual when she spoke to the girl.

“Where is Mr. Chunerbutty today, dear?” she asked after lunch from where she sat on the verandah beside Dermot.  Noreen was standing further along it with Payne, watching the play on the tennis-court in front of the club house.

“He isn’t very well,” replied the girl.  “He’s suffering from fever.”

“Oh, really?  I am so sorry to hear that,” exclaimed the older woman.  “So sad for you, dear.  However did you force yourself to leave him?”