is arm, and led her through the verandah out into the
starshine,--which is a reality in India, on moonless nights.

"What a thundering relief it is to get away from it all!" he said at
length. "Would it bother you to stroll a little way up the hill? We
shall be crowded out here, in no time; and I must have another pipe."

"Let's stroll then, by all means. I should enjoy it; and you know how
I love tobacco. I saw you looking on at that dance; and I rather
envied you. I often wish I could set aside a few dances just for
looking on, without having to make talk for any one. People interest
me so passionately; always have done, since I can remember."

"Even Button Quails, and black-hearted woman-haters?"

"Yes. Especially the woman-haters; because they need converting!"

"And are unconvertible," Lenox declared with a laugh. "But don't you
ever get sickened with the deadly sameness of the whole tribe of
us,--grinding ourselves to dust in the eternal treadmill of hatred and
love, hope and despair? Every conceivable human complication has been
repeated _ad nauseam_ since Adam made a fool of himself in the garden
of Eden."

"And through all that endless sameness, no two men and women have ever
behaved twice alike! That's where the interest comes in, don't you
see? To-night, for instance, Miss Maurice and that pretty child Elsie
Mayhew are both wasting their sweetness on men quite unworthy of them;
but each is doing the same thing in a fashion so entirely her own, that
it is not like looking on at the same play at all. I am specially
concerned over the Mayhew muddle, for I believe that handsome Engineer
boy is capable of breaking his heart in earnest because Elsie has lost
hers _pro tem._,--engaging little goose that she is. Really I
sometimes think that the man and woman puzzle is just an endless game
of cross questions and crooked answers!"

Lenox laughed again, harshly.

"That's a straight shot!" he said. "It's a mad world; and the maddest
creature in it is the man who stakes his happiness on the state of a
woman's heart."

Honor slipped her hand from his arm.

"Really, Captain Lenox," she protested, half-laughing, half in earnest,
"that remark almost amounts to an insult! What do you suppose Theo
would say if he heard you?"

"Wouldn't stop to pick his language," Lenox answered with a twisted
smile. "But his testimony counts for nothing. He has found the one
woman among a thousand, that even Solom