A. E. W. Mason

“ Shere Ali was stirred to yet more questions. He was anxious to understand thoroughly all that had moved this commonplace matter-of-fact man at his side.
"You found life in England so dull?" he asked.
"Well, one felt a stranger," said Dewes. "One had lost one's associations. I know there are men who throw themselves into public life and the rest of it. But I couldn't. I hadn't the heart for it even if I had the ability. There was Lawrence, of course. He governed India and then he went on the School Board," and Dewes thumped his fist upon the rail in front of him. ”

“ All that is bound to have broadened your mind. Don't you feel that your mind has broadened?"
"Tell me the use of a broad mind in Chiltistan," said Shere Ali. And Colonel Dewes, who had last seen the valleys of that remote country more than twenty years before, was baffled by the challenge.
"To tell the truth, I am a little out of touch with Indian problems," he said. "But it's surely good in every way that there should be a man up there who knows we have something in the way of an army. When I was there, there was trouble which would have been quite prevented by knowledge of that kind." ”

“ He spoke in a voice which was grave—so grave that Colonel Dewes looked quickly towards him.
"Do you think there will be trouble up there in Chiltistan?" he asked.
The Deputy-Commissioner, who was now Chief Commissioner, smiled wearily.
"There is always trouble up there in Chiltistan," he said. "That I know. What I think is this—Shere Ali should have gone to the Mayo College at Ajmere. That would have been a compromise which would have satisfied his father and done him no harm. ”

“ You live as if you were a lodger, don't you know, and it didn't matter for a little while whether you were comfortable or not. The little while slips on and on, and suddenly you find you have been in the country twenty or thirty years, and you have never taken the trouble to be comfortable. ”

“ Colonel Dewes began to talk of his meeting with Shere Ali that afternoon. At the mention of Shere Ali's name the official sat up and asked for more.
"He looked pretty bad," said Colonel Dewes. "Jumpy and feverish, and with the air of a man who has been sitting up all night for a week or two. But this is what interested me most," and Dewes told how the lad had implored him to bring Linforth out to India.
"Who's Linforth?" asked the official quickly. "Not the son of that Linforth who—"
"Yes, that's the man," said the Colonel testily. ”

“ Up there the great man stood—so his thoughts ran—complacent, self-satisfied, careless of the harm which his system wrought. Down here upon the grass walked a man warped and perverted out of his natural course. ”

“ Now these screens act as screens, are as impenetrable to the eye as a door—so long as there is no light behind them. But place a light behind them and they become transparent. This was what Violet Oliver had done. She had lit her candle and at once a part of the interior of her tent was visible to her maid as she lay in bed.
The maid saw the table and the sealed parcel upon it. Then she saw Mrs. Oliver come to the table, break the seals, open the parcel, take out a jewel case—a jewel case which the maid knew well—and carry it and the parcel out of sight. Mrs. ”