against his horse's side), large-framed, and bony; his plain
strong face was tanned to swarthiness by exposure to wind and weather;
moreover, a pair of deep-set dark eyes and long, nearly black mustache
showed that he had been no fair, ruddy youth to begin with.

"No, by Jove!" exclaimed the first speaker. "I don't understand how it
is that I grow so infernally stout. I am sure I take exercise enough,
and live most temperately."

"Exercise! Yes, for five or six months; the rest of the twelve you do
nothing. And as to living temperately, what with a solid breakfast, a
heavy luncheon, and a serious dinner, you manage to consume a great deal
in the twenty-four hours."

"Come, De Burgh! Hang it, I rarely eat lunch."

"Only when you can get it. Say two hundred and ninety times out of the
three hundred and sixty-five days of the year."

"I admit nothing of the sort. The fact is, what I eat goes into a good
skin. Now you might _cram_ the year round and be a bag of bones at the
end of it."

"Thank God for all his mercies," replied De Burgh. "The fact is, you are
a spoiled favorite of fortune, and in addition to all the good things
you have inherited you pick up a charming wife who spoils you and
coddles you in a way to make the mouth of an unfortunate devil like
myself water with envy."

"None of that nonsense, De Burgh," complacently. "The heart of a
benedict knoweth its own bitterness, though I can't complain much. If
you hadn't been the reckless _roue_ you are, you might have been as well
off as myself."

De Burgh laughed. "You see, I never cared for domestic bliss. I hate
fetters of every description, and I lay the ruin of my morals to the
score of that immortal old relative of mine who persists in keeping me
out of my heritage. The conviction that you are always sure of an
estate, and possibly thirty thousand a year, has a terrible effect on
one's character."

"If you had stuck to the Service you'd have been high up by this time,
with the reputation you made in the Mutiny time, for you were little
more than a boy then."

"Ay, or low down! Not that I should have much to regret if I were. I
have had a lot of enjoyment out of life, however, but at present I am
coming to the end of my tether. I am afraid I'll have to sell the few
acres that are left to me, and if that gets to the Baron's ears, good-by
to my chance of his bequeathing me the fortune he has managed to scrape
together between windfalls and lucky inves