of it, before the glittering trays were pushed
forward, and, while the hardened traveller shook his head and made off
in opposite directions, novices to the East gathered thick as flies
round a honey pot.

Katrine fell in love with half a dozen baubles, but her companion noted
that they were among the least costly on the tray, pretty, inexpensive
bits of colour, such as would satisfy a girl in her teens; the more
costly she fingered admiringly, but laid aside with the trained
resignation of years. Only one article seemed to exercise a definite
temptation, a dainty model of a banjo, in ivory and tortoise-shell, to
which her fingers returned once and again.

Bedford watching her smiled over the by-play, convinced that temptation
would override prudence, but he discovered his mistake when, with a
final sigh, she thrust the dainty morsel aside, and gathering together a
few trifles took out her purse to settle the account.

"You are not going to have the banjo then?" he enquired, and she
shrugged her shoulders in reply.

"No. It's absolutely useless, and unnecessary. That's why I want it,
but it can't be done. These little brooches and chains will do to send
home to girl friends, and the coral is for myself. I can't afford any
more."

Bedford lifted the tortoise-shell, and turned it over daintily with his
long, brown fingers.

"But it is good: well made? You consider it worth having?"

"I like it, yes! It's so pretty. I don't know if it is too
expensive..."

"I was not thinking about the price." He fixing a gold piece on the
tray, and for a moment Katrine held her breath. Was he about to offer
her a gift of an article which she had confessed herself unable to buy?
She shrank from the disillusionment which the action would bring, but
Bedford slid the tortoise-shell into a capacious pocket, without so much
as a glance in her direction. Evidently the purchase had been made
without any thought of herself. Katrine drew a sigh of relief, and than
incontinently sighed again. Of whom _was_ he thinking? Single men in
barracks did not indulge in such trifles for themselves, and Bedford's
interest in this special trifle had been of the most detached order.
Obviously he had questioned her to find out the feminine point of view,
so as to decide whether the offering were worthy of its future
recipient! "Whom could it be? I'll ask Dorothea!" Katrine decided,
and dismissed the matter from her mind. But it return