but also, nothing to antagonise him.

She must know that he was leaving on a dangerous mission; but she did
not bring it up. Perhaps with her usual diffident reserve she felt
that it was his province to speak of that.

At any rate she called to a hovering bearer telling him to give his
master Captain Barlow's salaams. Then with the flowers she passed into
the bungalow. She had quite a proppy, military stride, bred of much
riding.

Barlow gazed after Elizabeth ruefully, wishing she had thrown him a
life belt. However, it did not matter; it was up to him to act in a
sane manner, men of the Service were taught to rely on themselves. And
in Barlow was the something of breeding that held him to the true
thing, to the pole; the breeding might be compared to the elusive thing
in the magnetic needle. It did not matter, he would probably marry
Elizabeth--it seemed the proper thing to do. Devilish few of the chaps
he knew babbled much about love and being batty over a girl--that is,
the girls they married.

Then the bearer brought Hodson's salaams to the Captain.

And Hodson was a Civil Servant in excelsis. He took to bed with him
his Form D and Form C--even the "D. O.", the Demi Official business,
and worried over it when he should have slept or read himself to sleep.
Duty to him was a more exacting god than the black Kali to the
Brahmins; it had dried up his blood--atrophied his nerves of enjoyment.
And now he was depressed though he strove to greet Barlow cheerily.