With a grave air he selected his rooms and accommodations to suit
his swelling port, and even the club stewards nodded in recognition
of the tidal wave of Alan Hawke's mended fortunes.

With due official gravity the man "who had dropped into a good
thing," disappeared, to allow the gilded youth of Delhi to carry
the gossip to mess and bungalow. It was a welcome morsel to these
merry crows!

It was late when the handsome Major returned to find a small pyramid
of notes on his table and many letters in his box. He was in the
highest good humor, for the wary Ram Lal had most diplomatically
acquitted his task of opening a secret communication.

"Just as I thought," laughed the Major, as he sipped his pale
ale in Ram Lal's spacious room of pleasaunce. "They all protest,
woman-like, but they all come!"

The watchful Swiss exile's heart fluttered tenderly in the far-off
Lotos land at the arrival of a secret friend of her sage sister.
She longed for the morning to meet her new friend. Alan Hawke's
irresistible attractions had pointed the praises which flowed
smoothly over the double crossed letter which had preceded him!
The oily Ram Lal, a veteran observer of many an intrigue, scented
a budding rose of romance in the Major's adroit coup, and the
arrival of the only lady whom Alan Hawke had ever socially fathered
in Delhi.

"In three days I will be all ready! So you can telegraph to-night,"
reported the merchant, when the Major carefully went over all the