wine, untasted all those years, went to my head. 'That's a vigorous
bit above,' I continued.

'Oh, well! It isn't really up to much, you know. It's Rosario's.
He photographs mostly, but he has a notion of colour.'

'Really?' said I, thinking with regard to my eye that the sun of
that atrocious country had put it out. 'I expect I've lost it,' I
said aloud.

'Your eye? Oh, you'll easily get a fresh one. Do you go home for
the exhibitions?'

'I did once,' I confessed. 'My first leave. A kind of paralysis
overtakes one here. Last time I went for the grouse.'

He glanced at me with his light clear eyes as if for the first time
he encountered a difficulty.

'It's a magnificent country for painting,' he said.

'But not for pictures,' I rejoined. He paid no attention, staring
at the ground and twisting one end of his moustache.

'The sun on those old marble tombs--broad sun and sand--'

'You mean somewhere about Delhi.'

'I couldn't get anywhere near it.' He was not at that moment
anywhere near me. 'But I have thought out a trick or two--I mean to