“We aren’t even seeing the other side of the world; that’s our complaint,”
said Adela. Mrs. Moore agreed; she too was disappointed at the dullness of
their new life. They had made such a romantic voyage across the Mediterranean
and through the sands of Egypt to the harbour of Bombay, to find
only a gridiron of bungalows at the end of it. But she did not take the disappointment
as seriously as Miss Quested, for the reason that she was forty
years older, and had learnt that Life never gives us what we want at the moment
that we consider appropriate. Adventures do occur, but not punctually.
She said again that she hoped that something interesting would be arranged
for next Tuesday.
“Have a drink,”

hich any mother credits her son. Miss Quested learnt it with anxiety, for
she had not decided whether she liked dignified men. She tried indeed to
discuss this point with Mr. Turton, but he silenced her with a good-humoured
motion of his hand, and continued what he had come to say. “The
long and the short of it is Heaslop’s a sahib; he’s the type we want, he’s one
of us,” and another civilian who was leaning over the billiard table said,
“Hear, hear!” The matter was thus placed beyond doubt, and the Collector
passed on, for other duties called him.