d to know so much
about it.... But, then, see how he grasped his head, and ruffled his
hair, and shut his eyes, and clenched his teeth over his efforts to
recollect whether he had really been there himself, or only read it
all in the "Century" or "Atlantic Monthly"! Surely he was in earnest
then.

Sally's speculations lasted her all the way to No. 260, Ladbroke Grove
Road, where she was going to a music-lesson, or rather music-practice,
with a friend who played the violin; for Sally was learning the
viola--to be useful.

CHAPTER VII

CONCERNING PEOPLE'S PASTS, AND THE SEPARATION OF THE SHEEP FROM THE
GOATS. OF YET ANOTHER MAJOR, AND HOW HE GOSSIPPED AT THE HURKARU
CLUB. SOME TRUSTWORTHY INFORMATION ABOUT AN ALLEGED DIVORCE

You who read this may have met with some cross-chance such as we are
going to try to describe to you; possibly with the same effect upon
yourself as the one we have to confess to in our own case--namely,
that you have been left face to face with a problem to which you have
never been able to supply a solution. You have given up a conundrum
in despair, and no one has told you the answer.

Here are the particulars of an imaginary case of the sort. You have
made acquaintance--made friends--years ago with some man or woman
without any special introduction, and without feeling any particular
curiosity about his or her antecedents. No inquiry seemed to be
called for; all concomitants were so very usual. You may have felt a
misgiving as to whether the easy-going ways of your old papa, or the
innocent Bohemianisms of his sons and daughters will be welcome to
your new friend, whom you credit with being a little old-fashioned
and strait-laced, if anything. But it never occurs to you to doubt or
investigate; why should you, when no question is raised of any great
intimacy between you and the So-and-sos, which may stand for the name
of his or her family. They ask no certificate from you, of whom they
know just as little. Why should you demand credentials of a passer-by
because he is so obliging as to offer to lend you a Chinese vocabulary
or Whitaker? Why should your wife try to go behind the cheque-book and
the prayer-book of a married couple when all she has had to do with
the lady was, suppose, to borrow a square bottle of her, marked off
in half-inch lengths, to be shaken before taken? Why not accept her
unimpeachable Sunday morning as sufficient warranty for talking to
her on the beach ne