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 flare up. “You must forget your petty, withering pride. Go where your heart calls you. Follow the feet of your soul … out there! to Asia!”

And he rose, crossed the shop, drew up the window blind with an impatient gesture, and pointed to where already the moon was growing fainter and fainter and paling into the drab cosmos of the London morning and where, low in the eastern heaven, between the ragged cleft of Drury Lane, the sun was rising like a ball of somber, crumpled rose-pink.

Then, as if the sordid glimpse of London had broken the spell, he added:

“I am not altogether unselfish. You see, saheb, I am an Asian, and Asia is old and worn and tired. It needs fresh, strong blood. It needs men like yourself. We do not need the sahebs who simply go there to make money and who return to their own country to spend it. We need men who are willing to be one with us—unhappy men to whom their own country denies a chance. Here! Call it a loan!”

He drew a purse filled with sovereigns from the voluminous folds of his waist shawl and gave it to Hector, who weighed it in his palm and laughed, rather disagreeably.

“All right,” he said. “I agree to the bargain. But I give you fair warning you'll lose by it. I thought of going to India even before I read your advertisement. But—sober second thoughts …” he shrugged his shoulders. “It's really useless, you know. India is only an imperial suburb after all. It's just around the corner from Belgravia and Bond Street and Marlborough House. I—oh—I am mixed up in