young men immediately want to protect
her," he was wont to say, "and their trouble is that they can't find
anyone to protect her from."

He watched Shere Ali and Dick Linforth with a sly amusement, and as a
result of his watching promised himself yet more amusement during the
next two days. He was roused from this pleasing anticipation by his
irascible friend, Colonel Fitzwarren, who, without the slightest warning,
flung a loud and defiant challenge across the table to Shere All.

"I don't believe there is one," he cried, and breathed heavily.

Shere Ali interrupted his conversation with Mrs. Oliver. "One what?" he
asked with a smile.

"Tiger, sir, tiger," said the Colonel, rapping with his knuckles upon the
table. "Of what else should I be speaking? I don't believe there's a
tiger in India outside the Zoo. Otherwise, why didn't I see one?"

Colonel Fitzwarren glared at Shere Ali as though he held him personally
responsible for that unhappy omission. Sir John, however, intervened with
smooth speeches and for the rest of supper the conversation was kept to
less painful topics. But the Colonel had not said his last word. As they
went upstairs to their rooms he turned to Shere Ali, who was just behind
him, and sighed heavily.

"If I had shot a tiger in India," he said, with an indescribable look
of pathos upon his big red face, "it would have made a great difference
to my life."

CHAPTER VIII

A STRING OF PEARLS

"So you go to parties nowadays," said Mrs. Linforth, and Sir John Casson,
leaning his back against the wall of the ball-room, puzzled his brains
for the name of the lady with the pleasant winning face to whom he had
just been introduced. At first it had seemed to him merely that her
hearing was better than his. The "nowadays," however, showed that it was
her memory which had the advantage. They were apparently old
acquaintances; and Sir John belonged to an old-fashioned school which
thought it discourtesy to forget even the least memorable of his
acquaintances.

"You were not so easily persuaded to decorate a ball-room at Mussoorie,"
Mrs. Linforth continued.

Sir John smiled, and there was a little bitterness in the smile.

"Ah!" he said, and there was a hint, too, of bitterness in his voice, "I
was wanted to decorate ball-rooms then. So I didn't go. Now I am not
wanted. So I do."

"That's not the true explanation," Mrs. Linforth said gently, and she
shook her head. She spoke so gently and