dently agree with him."

"Absolutely."

"You will like my father when you meet him. He is the very best man
alive, I am sure."

"You two are great friends, then?"

"Great friends! He is the only friend I possess in the world."

"What! Is that quite accurate?"

"Oh, quite. Of course, Mr. Jenks, I can never forget how much I owe to
you. I like you immensely, too, although you are so--so gruff to me at
times. But--but--you see, my father and I have always been together. I
have neither brother nor sister, not even a cousin. My dear mother died
from some horrid fever when I was quite a little girl. My father is
everything to me."

"Dear child!" he murmured, apparently uttering his thoughts aloud
rather than addressing her directly. "So you find me gruff, eh?"

"A regular bear, when you lecture me. But that is only occasionally.
You can be very nice when you like, when you forget your past troubles.
And pray, why do you call me a child?

"Have I done so?"

"Not a moment ago. How old are you, Mr. Jenks? I am twenty--twenty last
December."

"And I," he said, "will be twenty-eight in August."

"Good gracious!" she gasped. "I am very sorry, but I really thought you
were forty at least."

"I look it, no doubt. Let me be equally candid and admit that you, too,
show your age markedly."

She smiled nervously. "What a lot of trouble you must have had
to--to--to give you those little wrinkles in the corners of your mouth
and eyes," she said.

"Wrinkles! How terrible!"

"I don't know. I think they rather suit you; besides, it was stupid of
me to imagine you were so old. I suppose exposure to the sun creates
wrinkles, and you must have lived much in the open air."

"Early rising and late going to bed are bad for the complexion," he
declared, solemnly.

"I often wonder how army officers manage to exist," she said. "They
never seem to get enough sleep, in the East, at any rate. I have seen
them dancing for hours after midnight, and heard of them pig-sticking
or schooling hunters at five o'clock next morning."

"So you assume I have been in the army?"

"I am quite sure of it."

"May I ask why?"

"Your manner, your voice, your quiet air of authority, the very way you
walk, all betray you."

"Then," he said sadly, "I will not attempt to deny the fact. I held a
commission in the Indian Staff Corps for nine years. It was a hobby of
mine, Miss Deane, to make myself acquainted with the best means of
victualing my