Then had come Babu Chandra's telegram; and—“distance and a change of milieu is the best palliative in the world,” had been his paternally cynical thought. In the golden romance of far Asia she would forget the romance her girlish heart had woven about “that card-cheating adventurer,” as he called him.
Therefore his invitation to come along with him.
Therefore, too, her warm, moist kiss.
Therefore, finally, Jane smiling impishly at a large bouquet of silvery Guelder roses that had come, that very morning, accompanied by a note which was typically English, both in its shy, clumsy self-consciousness and its unexpected, direct outspokenness, saying amongst other things:
“… and so I hope you'll accept these roses. I know I have not the right to be fond of you, but I can't very well help it, can I? No harm done, anyway. For, you see, I am off to India to-morrow morning, and the odds are rather long that I shall never see you again.”
The signature was:
“Hector Wade.”
Thus, Mr. Ezra W. Warburton was doubly shocked, when, having nursed his mal de mer in his cabin during the first few days of the journey, as was his habit, just as the Kashmere was sticking her dainty nose into the green swirl of the Bay of Biscay, and after he had decided that the world was not so bad when all was said and done and that he would be able to do with a cup of beef broth, a dry biscuit, and a glass
