"She is not so easily frightened, Major; it is just as well that she
should be prepared. Well, my dear Miss Hannay, Indian society has this
peculiarity, that the women never grow old. At least," he continued,
in reply to the girl's look of surprise, "they are never conscious
of growing old. At home a woman's family grows up about her, and are
constant reminders that she is becoming a matron. Here the children are
sent away when they get four or five years old, and do not appear on the
scene again until they are grown up. Then, too, ladies are greatly in
the minority, and they are accustomed to be made vastly more of than
they are at home, and the consequence is that the amount of envy,
hatred, jealousy, and all uncharitableness is appalling."

"No, no, Doctor, not as bad as that," the Major remonstrated.

"Every bit as bad as that," the Doctor said stoutly. "I am not a woman
hater, far from it; but I have felt sometimes that if John Company,
in its beneficence, would pass a decree absolutely excluding the
importation of white women into India it would be an unmixed blessing."

"For shame, Doctor," Isobel Hannay said; "and to think that I should
have such a high opinion of you up to now."

"I can't help it, my dear; my experience is that for ninety-nine out of
every hundred unpleasantnesses that take place out here, women are in
one way or another responsible. They get up sets and cliques, and break
up what might be otherwise pleasant society into sections. Talk about
caste amongst natives; it is nothing to the caste among women out
here. The wife of a civilian of high rank looks down upon the wives of
military men, the general's wife looks down upon a captain's, and so
right through from the top to the bottom.

"It is not so among the men, or at any rate to a very much smaller
extent. Of course, some men are pompous fools, but, as a rule, if two
men meet, and both are gentlemen, they care nothing as to what their
respective ranks may be. A man may be a lord or a doctor, a millionaire
or a struggling barrister, but they meet on equal terms in society; but
out here it is certainly not so among the women--they stand upon
their husband's dignity in a way that would be pitiable if it were not
exasperating. Of course, there are plenty of good women among them, as
there are everywhere--women whom even India can't spoil; but what with
exclusiveness, and with the amount of admiration and adulation they get,
and what with th