o anything of
the sort! Only, Colonel Carlyon," she laid a pleading hand on his arm
and lifted a very anxious face, "you remember we used to be friends, if
you will allow the presumption of such a term. Won't you even try to
show me your point of view in this matter? I think I could understand. I
want to understand."

Carlyon leant his elbow on the mantelpiece and looked very gravely into
the girl's troubled eyes.

"You are very generous, Averil," he said.

"Generous," she echoed, with a touch of impatience. "No; I only want to
be just--for my own sake. I hate to take a narrow, cramped view of
things. I hate that Dick should. A few words from you would set us both
right, and we could all be friends again."

"Ah!" said Carlyon. "But suppose--I have nothing to say?"

"You must have something!" she declared vehemently. "You never do
anything without a reason."

"Generous again!" said Carlyon.

"Oh, don't laugh at me!" cried Averil, stung by the quiet unconcern of
his words.

He straightened himself instantly, his face suddenly stern. "At least
you wrong me there!" he said, and before the curt reproof of his tone
she felt humbled and ashamed. "Listen to me a moment! You want my point
of view clearly stated. You shall have it.

"I am employed by a blundering Government to do a certain task which
bigger men shirk. Carlyon of the Frontier, they say, will stick at no
dirty job. I undertake the task. I lay my plans--subtle plans which you,
with your blind British generosity, would neither understand nor
approve. I proceed to carry them out. I am within sight of the end and
success, when an idiotic fool of a boy, who is not so much as a
combatant himself, blunders into the business and throws the whole
scheme out of gear. He assumes the leadership of a dozen stranded
Goorkhas, and instead of bringing them back he drags them forward into
an impossible position, and then expects a rescue.

"I meanwhile have my own work to do. I am responsible to the Government
for the lives of my men. I cannot expend them on other than Government
work.

"On one side of the scale is this same Government and the plans made in
its interest; on the other the life of a boy, strategically speaking,
worth nothing, and the lives of half-a-score of fighting men, already
accounted a loss. It may astonish you to know that the Government turned
the scale. Those who had incurred the penalty of rashness were left to
pay it. That, Miss Eversley, is