I shall
never be able to help you as you have helped me--and yet--will you
promise me something?"
"Anything in my power," she said faintly.
"It is not much--only this. If the time should ever come when you are
in trouble, if you should ever be in need of a true and devoted
friend, will you turn to me? Will you let me try to pay my debt of
gratitude to you?"
She lifted her head and looked at him with tear-dimmed eyes. Every
good woman sympathizes with those whose suffering she has
inadvertently caused, and in that moment Lois would have done anything
to alleviate Travers' pain.
"If it should ever be necessary, I will turn to you," she said gently.
"I promise you."
"Thank you!" he said, and, taking her out-stretched hand, raised it
reverently to his lips.
CHAPTER X
AT THE GATES OF A GREAT PEOPLE
Although Travers lost no time in setting to work on the task of
calling a new and suitable club-house into existence, he realized
immediately that, do what he would, he could not hope for completion
before the lapse of a considerable time, and this period of waiting
did not suit his plans. Already on the day after the Rajah's reception
he had arranged for a return of hospitality which was to take place in
his own grounds and to be on an unusually magnificent scale. The
European population of Marut shrugged its shoulders as it saw the
preparations, and observed that if Travers had been as generous in the
first place there would never have been any need to have sought for
support from a foreign quarter--at which criticism Travers merely
smiled.
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