amenting just now that we had
received this morning a note from a gentleman who was coming to
dine with us today, saying that he could not come; but now I regard
it as most fortunate, for of course we want you to come to us at
once. I suppose you have not made any engagements yet. We shall be
sixteen with you, and I think they are all nice people."

"I shall be very happy to come," he said. "I have certainly no
engagements. I looked in at the club last night. It was my first
appearance there, for my name only came up for election four months
ago, and I should have felt very uncomfortable if I had not
happened to meet two or three old friends. One of them asked me to
dinner for tomorrow. For today I am altogether free."

In the course of the evening Major Mallett received three or four
invitations to dances and balls, and, being thus started in
society, was soon out every evening. For the first week he enjoyed
the novelty of the scene, but very speedily tired of it. At dinners
the ladies he took down always wanted him to talk about India; but
even this was, in his opinion, preferable to the crush and heat of
the dances.

"How men can go on with such a life as this," he said to a friend
at the club, "beats me altogether, Colonel. Two or three times in
the year one might like to go out to these crowded balls, just to
see the dresses and the girls, but to go out night after night is
to my mind worse than hunting the rebels through the jungle. It is
just as hot and not a hundredth part so exciting. I have only had
three weeks of it, and I am positively sick of it already."

"Then why on earth do you accept, Mallett? I took good care not to
get into it. What can a man want better than this? A well-cooked
dinner, eaten with a chum, and then a quiet rubber; and perhaps
once a fortnight or so I go out to a dinner party, which I like
well enough as a change. I always get plenty of shooting in winter,
and am generally away for three months, but I am always heartily
glad to get back again."

"I am afraid I should get as tired of the club as I am of society,
Colonel."

"You have plenty of time, lad. I am twenty years your senior. Well,
there is plenty before you besides society and club life. Of
course, you will marry and settle down, and become a county
magistrate and all that sort of thing. Thank goodness, what money
came to me came in the shape of consols, and not in that of land. A
country life would be exile to me; but