For the moment he felt a self-pity which he cast from him. To this degradation at least he should never come. But as the thought of Alice came up ever and again, his longing for her seemed to be changed from hot pain to a chastened regret. The red hearth-fire was no more in his fancy. The hunger for domesticity had gone, and the girl was now less the wife he had desired than the dream of love he had vainly followed. As he came back across the moors, for the first time for weeks his jealous love left him at peace. His had been a fanciful Sylvia, "holy, fair, and wise"; and what if mortal Sylvia were unkind, there was yet comfort in this elusive lady of his memories.
He found George at the end of a second breakfast, a very ruddy, happy young man hunting high and low for a lost tobacco-jar.
"Oh, first-class," he said in answer to Lewis's question. "Out and out the best day's shooting I've had in my life. You were an ass not to come, you know. A lot of your friends there, tremendously disappointed too, and entrusted me with a lot of messages for you which I have forgotten."
His companion's high spirits infected Lewis and he fell into cheery gossip. Then he could contain the news no more.
"I had Tommy up last night on a flying visit. He says that Beauregard wants me to go out to Kashmir again. There has been some threatening of a row up there, and he thinks that as I know the place I might be able to get good information."
"Official?" asked George.
"Practically, yes; but in theory it's quite off my own bat, and they are good enough to tell me that they will not acknowledge responsibility. However, it's a great chance and I am going."
"Good," said the other, and his face and voice had settled into gravity. "Pretty fair sport up in those parts, isn't there?"
"Pretty fair? it's about the best in the world. Your ordinary man who goes the grand tour comes home raving about the sport in the Himalayan foothills, and it's not to be named with this."
"Good chance too of a first-rate row, isn't there? Natives troublesome, and Russia near, and that sort of thing?" George's manner showed a growing enthusiasm.
"A rather good chance. It is about that I'm going, you know."
"Then if you don't mind, I am coming with you."