of the sea became her one vitalizing policy--her first and last
national necessity--for the Empire of the waves followed the pitiful
beginning in Madras.

Temples, groves, and mosques peopled with the alien and warring
races were conjured up, the splendid viceregal circle, the pompous
headquarter military, the fast set, staid luxury-loving civilians,
and all the fierce eddies and undercurrents of the graded social
life, in which the cold English heart learns to burn as madly
under "dew of the lawn" muslin as ever Lesbian coryphe'e or Tzigane
pleasure lover.

The burning noons, the sweltering Zones of Death, the cool hills,
the Vanity Fair of Simla, the shaded luxury of bungalow life, and
the mad undercurrent of intrigue, the tragedy element of the Race
for Wealth, the Struggle for Place, and the Chase for Fame. Major
Alan Hawke was gracefully reminiscent, and in describing the
social functions, the habits of those in the swim, the inner core
of Indian life under its canting social and official husk, he brought
an amused smile to the mobile face of his beautiful listener. He did
not note the passage of time. He could now hear the music floating
up from the Casino below. He had answered all her many questions.
He described pithily the voyage out, the social pitfalls, the
essence of "good Anglo-Indian form," and he was astonished at the
keenness of the questions with which he was plied by his employer.

"You have surely traveled in India," he murmured, when his relation
flagged.

"So I have, by proxy, and, in imagination," laughed Madame Berthe