match between Chumba and
Dalhousie; in which contest victory was by no means always to the West,
since Jeff Bathurst, a famous performer, trained and captained the Chumba
team: and in another part of the green, three wooden sign-posts of
unequal height gave promise of tilting matches to come.

Couples and groups, in the lightest of muslins and flannels, sauntered
idly in the scented shadow of the pines; or lounged, smoking and talking,
on the warm green earth.

The appeal of the whole was to a spirit of enjoyment pure and simple, to
the casting aside of care and thought; a passing respite from the shadow
of the future: and Quita's native zest for happiness urged her to instant
response.

"Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them, if To-day be sweet,"

she quoted softly. "That is clearly the motto of the week; and it looks
as if every one intended to live up to it,--conscientiously."

Garth saw his advantage and pressed it home.

"You and I among the number, eh? At least we understand one another,
which is more than most of those philandering couples do. Why shouldn't
we make the most of our seven golden days and leave next week to look
after itself?"

"Why not, indeed?"

She spoke absently; her eyes resting on the snow-peak in the north. The
answer lay too deep down for utterance. But Garth took her enigmatical
echo for acquiescence, and laid his plans accordingly.

Nor were these two the only pair who arrived at Garth's philosophical
conclusion. Life was fulfilled, for the nonce, with laughter and
leisure; with the unchanging, passion-breathing blue and gold of a
Himalayan June; and on all sides the charmed circle of pines and deodars
shut them off from the forgotten world and 'them that dwell therein.'

Atmosphere, circumstance, and her own half-awakened heart conspired with
Michael Maurice to draw Elsie down, by slow and delicious degrees, from
the small pedestal whereon she had taken refuge since the night of the
Palace dinner; till all unaware, she acceded to his fantastic notion of
shutting the door upon Wisdom. Nor was it long before those whose profit
and pleasure it is to make capital out of their neighbours' doings had
assured themselves and each other that the 'week' would be responsible
for two engagements at least.

Such talk did not readily reach Lenox's ears. But Kenneth Malcolm, whose
aspirations were no secret to the busily idle world around him, was
speed