him anything!
Anything in the wide world. He could have gone to the world's end. I
would have helped him. I made him, didn't I, Polly? Didn't I create
that man? Doesn't he owe everything to me? And to reward me, just when
everything was nicely arranged, by this lunacy that spoilt everything!'

'Very few men understand your devotion thoroughly.'

'Oh, Polly, don't laugh at me! I give men up from this hour. I could
have killed him then and there. What right had this man this Thing I had
picked out of his filthy paddy--fields to make love to me?'

'He did that, did he?'

'He did. I don't remember half he said, I was so angry. Oh, but such
a funny thing happened! I can't help laughing at it now, though I felt
nearly ready to cry with rage. He raved and I stormed I'm afraid we must
have made an awful noise in our kala juggah. Protect my character, dear,
if it's all over Simla by to-morrow and then he bobbed forward in the
middle of this insanity I firmly believe the man's demented and kissed
me.'

'Morals above reproach,' purred Mrs. Mallowe.

'So they were so they are! It was the most absurd kiss. I don't believe
he'd ever kissed a woman in his life before. I threw my head back, and
it was a sort of slidy, pecking dab, just on the end of the chin here.'
Mrs. Hauksbee tapped her masculine little chin with her fan. 'Then, of
course, I was furiously angry, and told him that he was no gentleman,
and I was sorry I'd ever met him, and so on. He was crushed so easily
then I couldn't be very angry. Then I came away straight to you.'

'Was this before or after supper?'

'Oh! before oceans before. Isn't it perfectly disgusting?'

'Let me think. I withhold judgment till tomorrow. Morning brings
counsel.'

But morning brought only a servant with a dainty bouquet of Annandale
roses for Mrs. Hauksbee to wear at the dance at Viceregal Lodge that
night.

'He doesn't seem to be very penitent,' said Mrs. Mallowe. 'What's the
billet-doux in the centre?'

Mrs. Hauksbee opened the neatly-folded note, another accomplishment that
she had taught Otis, read it, and groaned tragically.

'Last wreck of a feeble intellect! Poetry! Is it his own, do you think?
Oh, that I ever built my hopes on such a maudlin idiot!'

'No. It's a quotation from Mrs. Browning, and in view of the facts of
the case, as Jack says, uncommonly well chosen. Listen

Sweet, thou hast trod on a heart,
Pass! There's a world full of men;
And wo