e had begun to gather such things up, was precisely what
she had lost all inclination to do.

We were married the following October. We had a big, gorgeous official
wedding, which we both enjoyed enormously. I took furlough, and we went
home, but we found London very expensive and the country very slow; and
with my K.C.S.I. came the offer of the Membership, so we went back to
Simla for three perfectly unnecessary years, which we now look back upon
with pleasure and regret. I fear that we, no more than Ingersoll Armour,
were quite whole-hearted Bohemians; but I don't know that we really ever
pretended to be.

3. The Hesitation of Miss Anderson.

Chapter 3.I.

When it became known that Madeline Anderson had finally decided to go
abroad for two years, her little circle in New York naturally talked
a good deal, in review, about her curious reason for never having gone
before. So much that happened afterward, so much that I am going to
tell, depends upon this reason for not going before, that I also must
talk about it and explain it; I could never bring it out just as we went
along. It would have been a curious reason in connection with anybody,
but doubly so as explaining the behaviour of Miss Anderson, whose
profile gave you the impression that she was anything but the
shuttlecock of her emotions. Shortly, her reason was a convict, Number
1596, who, up to February in that year, had been working, or rather
waiting, out his sentence in the State penitentiary. So long as he
worked or waited, Madeline remained in New York, but when in February
death gave him his quittance, she took her freedom too, with wide
intentions and many coupons.

Earlier in his career Number 1596 had been known in New York society
as Mr. Frederick Prendergast, and for a little while he was disapproved
there on the score of having engaged himself to a Miss Anderson,
Madeline Anderson, whom nobody knew anything about. There was her
own little circle, as I have said, and it lacked neither dignity nor
refinement, but I doubt whether any member of it was valeted from
London, or could imply, in conversation, a personal acquaintance with
Yvette Guilbert. There is no need, however, to insist that there are
many persons of comfortable income and much cultivation in New York,
who would not be met by strangers having what are called the 'best'
introductions there. The best so often fails to include the better. It
may be accepted that Madeline Anders