She led the way into the drawing-room and Raymond was left alone on the
verandah to smoke and listen for the rest of the evening, while the
others forgot him as they played and sang.

Suddenly he sat up in his chair and with a queer little pang of jealousy
in his heart stared through the open window at the couple at the piano.
He watched his friend's face turned eagerly towards his hostess.
Wargrave was gazing intently at her as in a voice full of feeling and
pathos, a voice with a plaintive little tone in it that thrilled him
strangely, she sang that haunting melody "The Love Song of Har Dyal."
Wistfully, sadly, she uttered the sorrowful words that Kipling puts into
the mouth of the lovelorn Pathan maiden:

"My father's wife is old and harsh with years,
And drudge of all my father's house am I.
My bread is sorrow and my drink is tears,
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!"

And the singer looked up into the eager eyes bent on her and sighed a
little as she struck the final chords. Out on the verandah Raymond
frowned as he watched them and wondered if this woman was to come
between them and take his friend from him. Just then the bare-footed
servants entered the room, carrying silver trays on which stood the
whiskies and sodas that are the stirrup-cups, the hints to guests that
the time of departure has come, of dinner-parties in India.

As the two subalterns drove home in Raymond's trap through the hot
Indian night under a moon shining with a brilliance that England never