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 Age was evidently one of the things that must not be talked about in India. I made a note of it. 'Then there is Mrs. Caramont. You'll like her. She really is young and bright and pretty, and she's only been out here about a year, so she hasn't had time to get stale like most of us. And that's about all the ladies in the station, except Mrs. Proudfoot.' From Berengaria's tone it was evident that Mrs. Proudfoot was the kind of person you called to mind last of all, whom you asked to dinner not because you wanted her but simply because she was a human being and counted one, aadand [sic] filled a vacant place. You all know the kind of person that I mean.

'Poor dear thing,' said Berengaria kindly. 'I'm afraid twenty years of Mr. Proudfoot has rather knocked it out of her. But she hasn't lost her smile, though it has become rather a placid one, and that's something. Empsey—Miss Proudfoot—is rather like her mother, with the exception that she never had in her what her mother has had knocked out of her, but, of course, it comes to much the same thing in the end. They do say that young de Vere Smith de Vere is going to marry her. But I really think she has got more sense. He's the young policeman here, you know.' 'Policeman?' I repeated, finding it hard to think of a policeman in love with one of Berengaria's friends. 'Oh, not a constable or a Bobby,' laughed