tions were made from what I saw as an
outsider. On the Irrawaddy you made the acquaintance of a man who came
out here a fugitive from justice. After you made his acquaintance, you
sought none other, in fact, repelled any advances. This alone decided
me."

"Then you were decided?" To say that this blunt exposition was not
bitter to her taste, that it did not act like acid upon her pride,
would not be true. She was hurt, but she did not let the hurt befog
her sense of justice. From his point of view the colonel was in no
fault. "Let me tell you how very wrong you were indeed."

"Doubtless," he hastily interposed, "you enveloped the man in a cloud
of romance."

"On the contrary, I spoke to him and sought his companionship because
he was nothing more nor less than a ghost."

"Ah! Is it possible that you knew him in former times?"

"No. But he was so like the man at home; so identical in features and
build to the man I expected to go home to marry. . . ."

"My dear young lady, you are right. Mediocrity is without imagination,
stupid, and makes the world a dull place indeed. Like the man you
expect to marry! What woman in your place would have acted otherwise?
And I have made my statements as bald and brutal as an examining
magistrate! Instead of one apology I offer a thousand."

"I accept each and all of them. More, I believe that you and I could
get on capitally. I can very well imagine the soldier you used to be.
I am going to ask you what you know about Mr. Warrington."

"This, that he is not a fit companion for a young woman like yourself;
that a detractable rumor follows hard upon his heels wherever he goes.
I learned something about him in Rangoon. He is known to the riff-raff
as Parrot & Co., and I don't know what else. All of us on shipboard
learned his previous history."

"Ah!" She was quite certain of the historian. "And not from
respectable quarters, either."

"If I had been elderly and without physical attractions?" Elsa inquired
sarcastically.

"We are dealing with human nature, mediocrity, and not with
speculation. It is in the very nature of things to distrust that which
we do not understand. You say, old and without physical attractions.
Beauty is of all things most drawing. We crowd about it, we crown it,
we flatter it. The old and unattractive we pass by. If I had not seen
you here to-night, heard you talk, saw in a kind of rebellious
enchantment over your knowledge of