a gentleman, to compromise the young
lady by attentions which (as you know very well) can come to nothing?"

I was utterly unable to find words in answer.

"Excuse me if I cut this interview short," he went on. "It seems to me
doomed to come to nothing, and there is more attractive metal."

"Yes," I replied, "as you say, it cannot amount to much. You are
impotent, bound hand and foot in honour. You know me to be a man falsely
accused, and even if you did not know it, from your position as my rival
you have only the chance to stand quite still or to be infamous."

"I would not say that," he returned, with another change of colour. "I
may hear it once too often."

With which he moved off straight for where Flora was sitting amidst her
court of vapid youths, and I had no choice but to follow him, a bad
second, and reading myself, as I went, a sharp lesson on the command of
temper.

It is a strange thing how young men in their 'teens go down at the mere
wind of the coming of men of twenty-five and upwards! The vapid ones
fled without thought of resistance before the Major and me; a few
dallied awhile in the neighbourhood--so to speak, with their fingers in
their mouths--but presently these also followed the rout, and we
remained face to face before Flora. There was a draught in that corner
by the door; she had thrown her pelisse over her bare arms and neck, and
the dark fur of the trimming set them off. She shone by contrast; the
light played on her smooth skin to admiration, and the colour changed in
her excited face. For the least fraction of a second she looked from one
to the other of her pair of rival swains, and seemed to hesitate. Then
she addressed Chevenix:

"You are coming to the Assembly, of course, Major Chevenix?" said she.

"I fear not; I fear I shall be otherwise engaged," he replied. "Even the
pleasure of dancing with you, Miss Flora, must give way to duty."

For a while the talk ran harmlessly on the weather, and then branched
off towards the war. It seemed to be by no one's fault; it was in the
air, and had to come.

"Good news from the scene of operations," said the Major.

"Good news while it lasts," I said. "But will Miss Gilchrist tell us her
private thought upon the war? In her admiration for the victors, does
not there mingle some pity for the vanquished?"

"Indeed, sir," she said, with animation, "only too much of it! War is a
subject that I do not think should be talked of to a girl.