‘Next time you send for the doctor, let me know. I would like to have a word with him,’ she ordered. She gave a friendly pat on Sabhrai’s cheek and got up. ‘You mustn’t allow any visitors for some days. There must be no excitement at all. She is very ill.’

Among happily married people there grows up a private language of accent, emphasis, and gesture which makes privacy between them almost impossible. If they have shared a common past, they get to know each other’s reactions to particular situations and have an instinctive knowledge of each other’s attitude to any set of new circumstances. Sometimes, long forgotten tunes come up in their minds and without any reason at all they find themselves humming the same notes at the same time. Then there are ways of behaviour which indicate to no one but themselves what the other has in mind. Even at the dinner table the way the wife will pass the bread, or, later, the way she will walk up to her room will tell the husband that she wants to be slept with that night. It is not so simple when she wants favours others than sexual. Nevertheless the husband will become aware of something brewing in her mind long before it is put in words.

There was nothing subtle about Joyce Taylor’s fidgets the evening after she had returned from the Buta Singh home. It continued throughout dinner and she remained close to her husband afterwards. This was contrary to the normal practice of giving him an hour with his files before rejoining him for coffee.

‘Something on your mind, dear?’ Taylor asked at last.

‘Yes and no. I mean there is something but I don’t know exactly what it is.’

‘That doesn’t get us very far. What have you been doing with yourself all day?’

‘The same as any other day—apart from calling on old Buta Singh and his family. Curious lot, aren’t they?’

‘How did it go?’

‘Not too bad. I don’t understand the Old Walrus with his obsequious “respected Memsahib” and “our noble Deputy Commissioner”.’

‘Don’t be too hard on the old stick; he’s been brought up like that. The English are his Mai-Bap, Father-Mother when they are about; when they are not, he is more himself. But he is all right. Does his job honestly and has certainly done more for the war effort than any other officer in the district.’

‘What I cannot understand is if he really feels that way about the British Raj, that he should have a son mixed up with terrorists.’