angers, but, since you are engaged to Olga, I hope you
will not place me in that category. You are very, very lucky to have won
her, and I wish you both every happiness."

Max bowed, still with a hint of irony. "It's nice of you not to condole
with Olga," he said. "I feel inclined to myself. Perhaps, if I am not
wanted, I may be allowed to go and have a smoke on the verandah. I am
expecting my traps to turn up directly," he added to Olga.

"Oh, we must come and see about them," she said. "The _khit_ will show
you your room. Max is going to put up with us now," she told Daisy, with
a smile that pleaded with her friend to be lenient.

Daisy's hand still held hers. "That is nice, dear," she said. "I must
be getting back to Peggy. Is your _fiance_ coming to the regimental
dance to-night?"

"Oh, Max,"--Olga's eyes shone upon him,--"you will, won't you? But of
course you will. Noel will have settled that."

The corner of Max's mouth went down. "Noel is not in the habit of
settling my affairs great or small," he observed. "If I go at all, it
will be in the little god's train and under his auspices alone. But I
warn you I'm not much of a dancer."

"What nonsense!" said Olga. "All doctors dance. It's part of their
hospital training."

"Is it?" said Max. "Then my medical education is incomplete. My partners
generally prefer to sit out after the first round."

"I shan't sit out with anyone," declared Olga. "It's such a waste of
time. One can do that any day."

"So one can," said Max. "I hope you are not hurrying away on my account,
Mrs. Musgrave. My business here is not urgent. It will very well wait."

He was evidently in an incurably cynical mood, and Olga gave him up in
despair. She went with Daisy to the gate, and, with her arms round her
neck, besought her, half-laughing, not to be misled by appearances.

"I was myself," she confessed. "I actually hated him once. But now--but
now--"

"But now it's all right," smiled Daisy. "Run back to him, dear child! I
should imagine he is the sort of young man who doesn't like to be kept
waiting."

That was all the criticism she permitted herself, but Olga, returning
slowly to Max on the verandah, was regretfully aware that the impression
he had made upon this friend of hers was far from favourable.

"It isn't nice of you, Max," she began, as she reached him. "It really
isn't nice of you."

But she got no further than that for the moment, for Max literally
lifted her off