pictures, politics, existing like a harem on the gossip of the
Viceroy's intentions, and depending for amusement on tennis and
bumble-puppy, and then consider, you yourself, whether you are the
sort of person to be unquestionably happy there. If you see no
reason to the contrary, pray do not go on. There were times when
Dora declared that she couldn't breathe for want of an atmosphere,
and times when I looked round and groaned at the cheerful
congratulatory aridity in every man's eye--men who had done things
at Oxford in my own year, and come out like me to be mummified into
a last state like this. Thank Heaven, there was never any cheerful
congratulation in my eye; one could always put there, when the
thought inspired it, a saving spark of rank ingratitude instead.

It was as if we had the most desirable things--roses, cool airs, far
snowy ranges--to build what we like with, and we built Simla--
altitude, 7,000, population 2,500, headquarters of the Government of
India during the summer months. An ark it was, of course; an ark of
refuge from the horrible heat that surged below, and I wondered as I
climbed the steeps of Summer Hill in search of I. Armour's
inaccessible address, whether he was to be the dove bearing
beautiful testimony of a world coming nearer. I rejected the
simile, however, as over-sanguine; we had been too long abandoned on
our Ararat.



Chapter 2.III.

A dog of no sort of caste stood in the veranda and barked at me
offensively. I picked up a stone, and he vanished like the dog of a