that he loved her as a father--and she besought him not
to be absurd. Later he loved her as an uncle, later still as a cousin,
later yet as a brother, and then as a man.

She had laughed deprecatingly at the paternal affection, doubtfully at
the avuncular, nervously at the cousinly, angrily at the brotherly,--and
not at all at the manly.

In fact--as the declaration of manly love had been accompanied by an
endeavour to salute what the General had called her damask-cheek--she
had slapped the General's own cheek a resounding blow....

"Called you 'Mrs. Darlingwoman,' did he!" roared Mr. Dearman upon being
informed of the episode. "Wished to salute your damask cheek, did he!
The boozy old villain! Damask cheek! _Damned_ cheek! Where's my
dog-whip?" ... but Mrs. Dearman had soothed and restrained her lord for
the time being, and prevented him from insulting and assaulting the
"aged roue"--who was years younger, in point of fact, than the
clean-living Mr. Dearman himself.

But he had shut his door to the unrepentant and unashamed General, had
cut him in the Club, had returned a rudely curt answer to an invitation
to dinner, and had generally shown the offender that he trod on
dangerous ground when poaching on the preserves of Mr. Dearman. Whereat
the General fumed.

Also the General swore that he would cut the comb of this insolent
money-grubbing civilian.

Further, he intimated his desire to inspect the Gungapur Fusiliers "on
Saturday next".

Not the great and terrible Annual Inspection, of course, but a
preliminary canter in that direction.

Doubtless, the new General desired to arrive at a just estimate of the
value of this unit of his Command, and to allot to it the place for
which it was best fitted in the scheme of local defence and things
military at Gungapur.

Perhaps he desired to teach the presumptuous upstart, Dearman, a little
lesson....

The Brigade Major's demy-official letter, bearing the intimation of the
impending visitation--fell as a bolt from the blue and smote the Colonel
of the Gungapur Fusiliers a blow that turned his heart to water and
loosened the tendons of his knees.

The very slack Adjutant was at home on leave; the Sergeant-Major was
absolutely new to the Corps; the Sergeant-Instructor was alcoholic and
ill; and there was not a company officer, except the admirable Captain
John Robin Ross-Ellison, competent to drill a company as a separate
unit, much less to command one in a batta