seemed. He pulled the door shut, and went back to his bed and finally
fell asleep, a thing of tortured unrest.




CHAPTER XVII

Barlow was up early next morning, wakened by that universal alarm clock
of India, the grey-necked, small-bodied city crow whose tribe is called
the Seven Sisters--noisy, impudent, clamorous, sharp-eyed thieves that
throng the compounds like sparrows, that hop in through the open window
and steal a slice of toast from beside the cup of tea at the bedside.

He mounted the waiting Cabuli pony and rode to the Residency. He had
much to talk over with Hodson in the light of all that had transpired
in the last two days, and, also, he had a hope that Elizabeth would be
possessed of an after-the-storm calm, would greet him, and somehow give
him a moral sustaining against his lapse in heart loyalty. Mentally he
didn't label his feeling toward Elizabeth love. Toward her it had been
largely a matter of drifting, undoubted giving in to suasion, more of
association than what was said. She had class; she was intellectual;
there was no doubt about her wit--it was like a well-cut diamond,
sparkling, brilliant--no warmth. When Barlow reflected, jogging along
on the Cabuli, that he probably did not love Elizabeth, picturing the
passion as typified by Romeo and Juliet as instance, he suddenly asked
himself: "By Jove! and does anybody except the pater love Elizabeth?"
He was doubtful if anybody did. All the servants held her in esteem,
for she was just, and not niggardly; but hers was certainly not a
disposition to cause spontaneous affection. Perhaps the word admirable