"I feared so much that you might consider me intrusive," said Mrs
Jardine.

"On the contrary, I consider you most kind," replied Lady Cinnamond. She sat very erect, a beautiful woman still, with her dark eyes and white hair. Mrs Jardine was not an imaginative person, but the outlines of the Cinnamonds' family history had reached her, and her thoughts wandered involuntarily to the storming of Badajoz and the beautiful Spanish girl who had sought refuge in the British camp, and she found excuse for that infatuation on Sir Arthur Cinnamond's part which she had denounced bitterly when she first heard that "the new General's" wife was a foreigner. Not that she felt as yet quite at her ease with Lady Cinnamond. There was something that seemed to baffle her, a kind of regal willingness to hear all she had to say with courtesy, but with no promise to follow her advice.

"You see, dear Lady Cinnamond," she went on, "how I am placed. As the chaplain's wife one has a real duty—one can't doubt it, can one?—to promote peace, and one is so sorry to see what dear Colonel Antony calls his noble band of brothers disturbed by strife. And you being—may I say it?—a stranger here, and your sweet girl so young——"

"I have other daughters, and they have not been entirely without lovers." There was a slight quiver of amusement about the lips of the General's wife.

"Oh, dear Lady Cinnamond, how could you imagine that I would suggest such a thing? We all know how well you have married your girls, down to dear Mrs Cowper herself. And of course, if you are satisfied, I have nothing more to say. Only it seemed that as a true friend, if I may say so——"

"Indeed I should be very grieved if you might not. But perhaps I ought to tell you that Sir Arthur and I have a great idea of leaving young people to settle their own affairs as much as possible. It has always answered well hitherto, but Honour is, as you say, very young, and she has been brought up differently from the rest——"

"Yes?" said Mrs Jardine, with such breathless interest that her hostess had not the heart to baulk her curiosity.

"We were living at Boulogne before my husband was sent to the Cape," she said, choosing her words with care—"for the advantages of education, of course, and—well, dear Mrs Jardine, you know what half-pay means as well as I do, and I need not apologize, need I? Two elderly cousins of Sir Arthur's happened to pass through, and we were able to offer them hospitality when the packet was prevented crossing by a storm. They took the greatest fancy to little Honour, and wished to adopt her, but we refused. Then came the Cape appointment—to the Eastern Province, where the climate is so dangerous to young children born elsewhere, and they renewed their offer. And we consented to let them have Honour until she was seventeen. They were most kind to her, I am sure."

"Yes?" breathed Mrs Jardine softly again.

"Really, there is little more to say. Naturally your child becomes something of a stranger when you do not see her for fifteen years. But pray don't imagine that I blame the Miss Cinnamonds. Honour has been well educated, and taught to be a companion to her elders—rather too much so, perhaps. She has visited the poor, and taught a class in the village school, and practised all the good works which Sir Arthur says are new in England since his day, and I believe her aunts hoped to see her married to the curate. But unfortunately he went over to Rome."

"How truly terrible!" cried Mrs Jardine, then stopped in pitiable confusion, remembering that the lady before her had been almost certainly born and bred a Roman Catholic, though she now attended the tomb-church Sunday by Sunday with Sir Arthur, and betrayed far less impatience than he did when Mr Jardine's discourses exceeded the regulation length.

"It might have been much worse," said Lady Cinnamond innocently. "I cannot discover that Honour's heart was at all touched. But as you may imagine, her aunts were much distressed, and it was almost a relief to them to send her out to us as soon as an escort could be found."

"Yes?" said Mrs Jardine for the third time, but as it was evident no further information was forthcoming, she covered her disappointment with a little gush of friendly interest. "And do tell me, dear Lady Cinnamond, what is the dear girl's real name? As I said to Mr Jardine only two days ago, 'You may take my word for it, Samuel, Miss Cinnamond was baptized Honora or Honoria. Honour is merely a sweet little family name.'"

"I suppose it may sound foolish to strangers," said Lady Cinnamond, with a calmness that suggested she did not care whether it did or not. "It was a kind of joke of Sir Arthur's. I was playing with her one day when she was a baby, and calling her in Spanish the dearest thing in the world, and he pounced on me at once. 'I thought honour was the dearest thing in the world?' he said—I had told him so long before—and after that he would not hear of calling the baby anything but Honour."

She paused—with a definiteness which suggested that Mrs Jardine's call had lasted long enough, but the visitor was by this time aware that she had been guided dexterously away from her main object, and was determined to repair the omission.

"Then you are satisfied that nothing dreadful will occur at the ball to-night, dear Lady Cinnamond?" she asked anxiously. "Young men are so uncontrolled nowadays, you know, and Mr Charteris, I believe, is extremely passionate. I have heard that he makes use of the most frightful language to his servants——"

The slightest possible gesture from the great lady stopped her.

"I have no fear whatever that either my daughter or any gentleman who may be among the guests will transgress the laws of propriety," said Lady Cinnamond icily.

"Oh, I am so glad you think all will be well. I may tell my husband so? He was so troubled about it, and I ventured to take the liberty of calling upon you, just that I might relieve his mind. You must know best, of course."

"But what course were you intending to propose?" asked the hostess, with natural curiosity.

Mrs Jardine looked, as she felt, confused. "Oh, well," she murmured, "if Miss Cinnamond had remained away this evening——?"

"But would not that have been a little marked? I think we have all been making too much of a rather foolish affair, Mrs Jardine. After all, now that Honour has refused both of the young men, there is no reason——"

"Refused them both?" cried the visitor incredulously.

"Of course. I thought you would have been sure to know," said Lady Cinnamond sweetly. She rose as she spoke, and Mrs Jardine found it well to take her leave. Her hostess watched her depart, with a rather worried little smile, and then passed along the verandah to the dressing-room where her two daughters were arranging their dresses for the evening. Marian, the elder, had married her father's aide-de-camp soon after the move to Ranjitgarh, and the return from the honeymoon was the occasion for the ball to be given by the army in their honour. Vivid scarlet geraniums were to loop up Mrs Cowper's pale amber draperies, blush-roses to nestle in the airy folds of Honour's white tarlatan, and the bride claimed her mother's attention at once.

"Dear Mamma, I want your opinion. You have such excellent taste. Where ought this spray to go? Honour says here, and I say here," illustrating each position with the aid of a pin.

"Here," said Lady Cinnamond without hesitation, indicating a third place, and both girls cried out in admiration. That was just right. They knew it went awkwardly before, but they could not quite see where it should be. Their mother threw herself into their occupation, altering a fold here and pulling out a puff there, apparently engrossed in what she was doing, but conscious, through all Marian's light-hearted chatter, of the shade on Honour's brow. Her heart ached to see it, but she would not force the girl's confidence. There was not between her and her youngest-born the sympathy which had made those other handsome, capable daughters, whose married homes were landmarks of the wanderings of Sir Arthur and his wife, regard their mother almost in the light of an elder sister—only fifteen years older, indeed, than Charlotte, the eldest—and bring their joys and sorrows naturally to her. Honour was disappointed in her parents, her mother felt; it might almost be said that she disapproved of them, and though the feeling was not new to Lady Cinnamond in her own case, since she was obliged in every new station to live down the disadvantage of being a foreigner, it raised in her a tumult of indignation that any one, and most of all his own daughter, should presume to disapprove of Sir Arthur. But Honour was very young, and even if time did not soften her views, closer acquaintance must.

"Come to my room when you are dressed, Honour, and I will lend you my pearl necklace," said Lady Cinnamond, laying her hand on the girl's shoulder. Honour's response was drowned in the noise of horse-hoofs and clanking that announced an arrival in front of the bungalow.

"Dear Papa and Charles returned already!" cried Mrs Cowper, peering through the Venetians. "Fly, Mamma! Charley, Charley, come and see whether you approve of my gown!"

Lady Cinnamond fled, in answer to the sonorous shout of "Rosa! Rosita! Sita!" which pealed through the house, and Captain Cowper entered from the verandah.

"Stunning!" he breathed fervently. "Horrid shame to waste it all on a handful of politicals up in No Man's Land instead of exhibiting it at Government House. You wear this fallal on your head, I suppose?"

"Oh, Charley, you careless fellow!" Mrs Cowper rescued the broad strip of lace with indignation. "My beautiful berthe! It goes on the bodice—so, don't you know? On my head, indeed!"

"But it would look ravishing wherever you wore it," averred her husband, dodging the geranium-spray she threw at him, and there followed a brisk engagement with the flowers left in the box, to which Honour listened with some secret contempt but considerable interest, as she sewed on her roses where her mother had pinned them. Honour was learning lessons which ran counter to every maxim that had influenced her hitherto, and baffled all her efforts to reconstruct her vanished world. Those were the days when phrenology was considered an indispensable aid to instructors of youth, and a professor of the science had duly felt Honour's bumps, and recorded, for the guidance of her cousins, his mature opinion that, "though this young lady will not find it easy to apply herself to fresh subjects of study, yet she will never lose what she has once mastered." But in this case the mastering was the difficulty. To her, life had hitherto meant a round of recurring duties, to be performed conscientiously as they came, and love a blinding illumination revealing to a humble worshipper the form of a hero and a saint, but ending preferably in renunciation—if voluntary and wholly unnecessary so much the nobler and better. To think of love in connection with an ordinary, average man was something very like sacrilege, and poor Honour fairly shuddered when Mrs Jardine, who bore her a grudge for unsettling Mr Jardine's mind with the new views she had brought from home, broke to her the horrible fact that she had made two ordinary young men fall in love with her. It was of a piece with the disturbing discovery that whereas she had come out, as she understood, to soothe the declining years of her aged parents, those parents, though grey-haired, were disconcertingly hale and hearty, and asked only that she would be happy and make herself agreeable—two tasks of which Honour found the first impossible, and the second extremely difficult.

Her daughters took a very secondary place in Lady Cinnamond's mind when her husband was in question, and it was seldom that Sir Arthur had to complain of his wife's not being present to receive him when he returned from his duties. She ran into his snuggery now like a girl, and broke into the liquid Spanish which formed such an effective defence against the ears of aides-de-camp or English-speaking servants.

"You are tired, my Arturo. The sitting has been very long. Were the
Durbar open to reason?"

"My dearest, they have no thought but to procrastinate and obstruct business, and our excellent Colonel indulges them far too tenderly. Every form of ceremony must be observed, and all the long-drawn compliments duly inserted, until a whole morning is wasted over one small matter."

"And my poor Arturo must sit and listen to it?"

"For his sins he must." Sir Arthur smiled whimsically at his wife. "Judge for yourself how contentedly he did it to-day, my sweet one. The Durbar knew that the home mail had come in, and scented a glorious opportunity. Every man had to be satisfied of the health of her Majesty, Prince Albert, all the little princes and princesses, the Duke of Wellington, and the Chairman of the Court of Directors. When the memory or ingenuity of one failed, his neighbour took up the tale. Then some genius remembered a precious piece of gup, and asked with all solemnity whether it was true that a new Governor-General had been appointed, which led to a canvass of the merits of all possible candidates. There sits poor Antony with agony in his eyes, seeing his time wasted to no purpose, and all the business left undone, while he can't bring himself to check the Sirdars in their loquacity. I saw James Antony fuming behind him. Rose of my heart, your Arthur will be indiscreet enough to confide to you a profound secret. If the Resident goes up to the hills, and his brother takes his place, the Sirdars will be taught the meaning of despatch."

"So much the better for the conduct of business, then. But they will not love him as they do the Colonel."

Sir Arthur laughed. "I fancy James can dispense with their affection if he secures their obedience. The Colonel desired his compliments to you, my love, and begged that you would not consider his absence this evening in any way a slight, since his principles demand it of him. The furbelows all ready, eh?"

"Nearly. But, Arturo, I have been entertaining Mrs Jardine the greater part of the morning."

"Some nice new piece of scandal, eh? What was the 'real duty' that brought her out in the heat?"

"An earnest desire to promote peace. She thought it might be better if Honour did not appear to-night. No, my Arturo,"—as Sir Arthur moved explosively,—"it was a warning given out of pure kindness to me, a foreigner. I told her what had happened, and she went away, I trust, satisfied. She thought me cold, I fear, for I restrained both voice and words."

"Better, much better. But that a woman of that kind should have it in her power to—— That Honour should contrive to get herself talked about!"

"She is so young, Arturo; she did not understand. And it was not all her fault."

"Which means that it was her father's. Well, but how was I to know that a daughter of yours and mine would turn out a fool? When she overwhelms me with a cool proposal to set up schools and I don't know what for the European women and children, what could I do but tell her it was the chaplain's business? You won't say that I ought to have encouraged her? Think of all the unpleasantness it would have caused in the regiments! And surely it was only natural to turn aside the matter by pointing out a sphere where her efforts would be more acceptable? Why, if I had said such a thing to Charlotte, or Eliza, or Marian, they would have blushed prettily and said, 'Oh, Papa!' and Marian might have giggled, but would any of them ever have thought of actually carrying it out?"

For this was the unfortunate result of Sir Arthur's ill-timed jocularity in advising his daughter to turn her enthusiasm for humanity to account in reforming some of Colonel Antony's assistants, instancing Gerrard and Charteris as standing in special need of her services. Young ladies were scarce, Honour was handsome and had inherited a touch of her mother's dignity, and when she unbent and displayed a flattering interest in the moral and spiritual welfare of each young man, the mischief was done.

"And then, to improve matters, she refuses both of them!" went on Sir
Arthur despairingly. "What does she want? No one seems to please her."

"If we were in Spain, it would be very simple," mused Lady Cinnamond.
"She would go into religion."

Sir Arthur bristled up at once. "What, ma'am! a convent for my daughter? I'd have you remember——"

His wife laughed, and patted his hand. "Calm yourself, my Arturo. No well-regulated convent would keep a daughter of yours within its walls for a day, nor would she care to stay there. Even Honour's romance would not survive the actual experience. But since we are not in Spain, we cannot hope to cure her fancies so quickly. Still——"

"Aye, romance—all romance!" growled Sir Arthur. "For your sake and mine, my dear, I trust it may wear off soon, but I doubt it. What hope is there of a girl who wears King Charles the First's hair in a locket?"

Sir Arthur's pessimism did not keep him from paying Honour a fatherly compliment on her appearance that evening—a compliment accompanied, however, as the jam by the powder, with the reminder that she might be thankful if she ever arrived within measurable distance of her mother in looks. Lady Cinnamond, in pink satin, with a black lace shawl depending from a high jewelled comb at the back of her head in a manner reminiscent of the mantilla of her youth, laughed at the assurance, and hurried her party out to the elephant which was in waiting. The bridal pair were inclined to be pensive, privately lamenting the waste of a whole evening in public which might have been spent in a sweet solitude À deux on the verandah. Ostensibly out of consideration for the ladies' dresses, Captain Cowper had suggested that he and his wife should follow on a second elephant, but this was vetoed by his father-in-law, who declared that they would, in pure absence of mind, go for a moonlight ride through the city, and never arrive at the ball. Thus, with jests and counter-jests, they reached the great shamiana, erected for the occasion, and were swallowed up in an overwhelming flood of scarlet and dark blue uniforms. When Honour took off her wrap, her mother observed with vexation that they had both forgotten the pearl necklace, but it did not occur to her that the girl's absence of mind was due to the fact that she was nerving herself to a desperate deed.

With the laudable idea of discouraging gossip by behaving as if nothing unpleasant had happened, Gerrard secured a dance, and sheer pity for his embarrassed partner impelled him to make conversation while they waited for the music to begin. Colonel Antony disapproved of dancing, especially in India, on account of the effect on the natives, but his brother James had just passed them, with Marian Cowper, a radiant vision, on his arm, and Gerrard ventured a remark on the contrast between the stern-featured civilian and his partner. Receiving nothing but an almost inaudible murmur of assent, he observed how well and happy Mrs Cowper was looking.

"Oh yes. Of course, she likes India." The sigh which accompanied the
words told more than Honour had intended, and she went on hastily.
"She has a sort of natural connection with it, you know, for Mrs
Hastings was her godmother."

"Mrs Hastings? Not——?"

"Yes, the widow of Warren Hastings. Doesn't it carry one back into history?" Honour had forgotten her embarrassment, for things of this kind had a way of making links between Gerrard and herself.

"I should have thought it was impossible."

"Oh, she only died about ten years ago—yes, the year the Queen came to the throne. So I am not making poor Marian out to be terribly old."

The minds of both were wandering back to Westminster Hall filled with serried rows of faces, with all eyes turned upon a small pale man in the midst, when they were suddenly recalled to the present by the indignant approach of Bob Charteris.

"Pardon me—my dance, I think?" he said, glaring at Gerrard.

"No, excuse me—my dance," returned Gerrard, maintaining his position, and suspecting his friend unjustly of having supped early and too well.

"I really must appeal to Miss Cinnamond," said Charteris, with barely veiled hostility. "You promised me this dance, didn't you?"

"I was under the impression that Miss Cinnamond had promised it to me," said Gerrard, more sternly than he realised.

"Oh, please," stammered Honour, not at all in the dignified way in which the beautiful and stately ladies of her favourite German stories were wont to intervene between knights contending for their favours—"I am afraid I have behaved very badly again. I—I wanted to speak to you both, and—and I did not know how to do it except by giving you the same dance."

"We are only too much honoured," said Gerrard, with overwhelming courtesy. He was inwardly furious, but the girl looked ready to cry, and a burst of tears in public was above all things to be avoided in the circumstances. "You find the tent too crowded? Let us look for a quieter place, then. If you could get hold of a shawl or something, Bob?"

Charteris obeyed, with exemplary outward meekness, and joined them immediately in a smaller tent arranged as a card-room, but not yet put to its intended use. Disregarding Gerrard's movement, he put the shawl round Honour himself, and they stood waiting her pleasure in silence, while she gripped her fan so hard in both hands that it broke in two. She raised a crimson face at last.

"I wanted to speak to you together," she began again. "You both think I have treated you badly, but indeed I did not mean it. But that was not what I wished to say. I hear—some one—a friend—tells me that you are angry with one another on my account. It makes me so unhappy, and I don't see why——"

Her voice failed, and Charteris and Gerrard remained awkwardly silent, each intensely conscious of the extreme superfluity of the other's presence. Alone, either might have made shift to say something, but with his rival there, whatever was said would only make things worse. Looking up despairingly, Honour saw in their faces what made her cry out in terror.

"Oh, you wouldn't! you wouldn't! Don't make me feel that I have done such a dreadful thing! If you fought a duel about me I should die. There is no need. I will promise never to marry any one—ever. I will do it willingly, gladly. Isn't that enough? What more can I do? Only tell me, and don't do such a wicked, unchristian thing."

"For pity's sake, Hal—you have the gift of the gab," growled Charteris in Gerrard's ear, as she turned agonized eyes upon them.

"Play up to me, then," muttered Gerrard in response, and spoke aloud and cheerfully. "My dear Miss Cinnamond, pray don't distress yourself. My friend Charteris and I have no intention whatever of fighting a duel. There has been a—a temporary misunderstanding between us, but it is absolutely cleared up, I assure you."

"And as for the promise which you are good enough to offer to make, we should regret it more than any one else, because, you see, we both hope you will marry one of us," said Charteris, almost with levity.

"I shall never marry any one," said Honour remorsefully. "I have done too much harm already."

"Harm? oh, nonsense!—if you'll forgive me for saying so," returned
Charteris. "It's done Gerrard and me a lot of good, hasn't it, my boy?
(Why don't you back me up, surly?) We shall thank you for it yet—like
eels getting used to being skinned, you know——"

"On my honour, Miss Cinnamond," said Gerrard, fearing the heights of metaphor to which his friend's ardour might carry him, "we are both quite prepared to abide by your decision for the present, but we think we may fairly claim the right of trying to induce you to change it, after a proper interval——"

("Couldn't have put it better myself," said Charteris, with enthusiasm.
"Fire away, Hal.")

"But nothing is farther from our thoughts than to cause pain or anxiety to a lady whom we both admire and respect so highly," went on Gerrard, in his best manner. "We have made up our minds not to suffer our friendship to be broken by attempts to supplant each other secretly, and if at length one of us is so happy as to win your regard, the other will bow absolutely to your decision."

"Question!" said Charteris sharply, but at the sight of returning anxiety in Honour's eyes, he capitulated. "And if it would give you any pleasure to see us shake hands, Miss Cinnamond, the word is with you."

"It would, indeed," she said, smiling gratefully—and they did it, Charteris with a wicked twinkle in his eye. Honour stood up, tears contending with smiles in her face.

"Thank you both so much," she said. "But I think I ought to tell you that your friendship will never be put to the test. I could never, never choose."

"Cheerful!" said Charteris. "But we will hope on."

"Please take me back to my mother," said Honour, in some confusion, as a party of elderly officers invaded the room, eager to enjoy their hookahs, the bearers of which were waiting outside.

"You might bring Miss Cinnamond's fan, Hal," said Charteris, dexterously offering his arm first, and thus they returned to Lady Cinnamond, who had been a prey to grievous anxiety, disguised with an iron will lest public attention should be attracted to Honour's absence.

"Oh, Hal, my hated r-r-rival!" breathed Charteris, slapping his friend on the back when they got out into the open air. "Ain't it as good as a play? But what a monster of iniquity a man feels beside a girl like that!" he added sentimentally. "Do you wonder that I fell in love with her?"

"No, I don't," said Gerrard savagely. "But I wish with all my heart you hadn't!"

"The same to you, my boy!" laughed Charteris.