ht be disagreeable."

"Oh then, stop. We can't quarrel yet--I've hardly seen you. Are you
comfortable here? Would you like some French novels?"

"Yes, thank you. Yes, please!" She grew before him into a light and
conventional person, apparently on her guard against freedom of speech.
He moved a blind and ineffectual hand about to find the spring she had
detached herself from, and after failing for a quarter of an hour he got
up to go.

"I shan't bother you again before Saturday," he said; "I know what a
week it will be at the theatre. Remember you are to give the man
his orders about the brougham. I can get on perfectly with the cart.
Good-bye! Calcutta is waiting for you."

"Calcutta is never impatient," said Miss Howe. "It is waiting with yawns
and much whisky and soda." She gave him a stately inclination with her
hand, and he overcame the temptation to lay his own on his heart in a
burlesque of it. At the door he remembered something, and turned. He
stood looking back precisely where Laura Filbert had stood, but the sun
was gone. "You might tell me more about your friend of the altruistic
army," he said.

"You saw, you heard, you know."

"But--"

"Oh," cried she, disregardingly, "you can discover her for yourself, at
the Army Headquarters in Bentinck Street--you man!"

Lindsay closed the door behind him without replying, and half-way down
the stairs her voice appealed to him over the banisters.

"You might as well forget that. I didn't particularly mean it."

"I know you didn't," he returned. "You woman! But you yourself--you're
not going to play with your heavenly visitant?"

Hilda leaned upon the banisters, her arms dropping over from the elbows.
"I suppose I may look at her," she said; and her smile glowed down upon
him.

"Do you think it really rewards attention?--the type, I mean."

"How you will talk of types! Didn't you see that she was unique? You
may come back if you like, for a quarter of an hour, and we will discuss
her."

Lindsay looked at his watch. "I would come back for a quarter of an hour
to discuss anything, or nothing," he replied, "but there isn't time. I
am dining with the Archdeacon. I must go to church."

"Why not be original and dine with the Archdeacon without going to
church? Why not say on arrival: 'My dear Archdeacon, your sermon and
your mutton the same evening--c'est trop! I cannot so impose upon your
generosity. I have come for the mutton!'"

Thus was Captain Laura