is elbow. This was another of those occasions that
showed him how, during the later years of his service in Madras and
Upper Burmah, when Dolly's health had not been equal to the heat, she
had picked up in London a queer way of looking at things--as if they
were not--not so right or wrong as--as he felt them to be. And he
repeated those two French words in his own way, adding:

"Isn't that just what I'm saying? The sooner he stands clear, the
better."

But Mrs. Ercott, too, sat up.

"Be human," she said.

The Colonel experienced the same sensation as when one suddenly knows
that one is not digesting food. Because young Lennan was in danger of
getting into a dishonourable fix, he was told to be human! Really, Dolly
was--! The white blur of her new boudoir cap suddenly impinged on his
consciousness. Surely she was not getting--un-English! At her time of
life!

"I'm thinking of Olive," he said; "I don't want her worried with that
sort of thing."

"Perhaps Olive can manage for herself. In these days it doesn't do to
interfere with love."

"Love!" muttered the Colonel. "What? Phew!"

If one's own wife called this--this sort of--thing, love--then, why had
he been faithful to her--in very hot climates--all these years? A sense
of waste, and of injustice, tried to rear its head against all the side
of him that attached certain meanings to certain words, and acted up
to them. And this revolt gave him a feeling, strange and so unpleasant.
Love! It was not a word to use thus loosely! Love led to marriage;
this could not lead to marriage, except through--the Divorce Court. And
suddenly the Colonel had a vision of his dead brother Lindsay,
Olive's father, standing there in the dark, with his grave, clear-cut,
ivory-pale face, under the black hair supposed to be derived from a
French ancestress who had escaped from the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Upright fellow always, Lindsay--even before he was made bishop! Queer
somehow that Olive should be his daughter. Not that she was not upright;
not at all! But she was soft! Lindsay was not! Imagine him seeing that
young fellow putting her handkerchief in his pocket. But had young
Lennan really done such a thing? Dolly was imaginative! He had mistaken
it probably for his own; if he had chanced to blow his nose, he would
have realized. For, coupled with the almost child-like candour of
his mind, the Colonel had real administrative vigour, a true sense of
practical values; an ounce