e remark of his. "It is
pleasant to find a kindred spirit in this desolate place. The ladies and
the other officers of your regiment are Philistines. Ragtime is more in
their line than Grieg or Brahms. And the other day Captain Ross asked me
if Tschaikowsky wasn't the Russian dancer at the Coliseum in town."

Wargrave laughed.

"I know. I became very unpopular when I was Band President and made our
band play Wagner all one night during Mess. I gave up trying to elevate
their musical taste when the Colonel told me to order the bandmaster to
'stop that awful rubbish and play something good, like the selection
from the last London _revue_.'"

"Are you a musician yourself?" she asked.

"I play the violin."

"Oh, how ripping! You must come often and practise with me. I've an
excellent piano; but I rarely touch it now. My husband takes no interest
in music--or indeed, in anything else I like. But, then, I am not
thrilled by his one absorbing passion in life--insects. So we're quits,
I suppose."

Their horses were walking silently over the soft sand; and Wargrave
heard her give a little sigh. Was it possible, he wondered, that the
husband of this charming woman did not appreciate her and her
attractions as he ought?

She went on with a change of manner:

"When are you coming to call on me? I am a Duty Call, you know. All
officers are supposed to leave cards on the Palace and the Residency."

"The call on you will be a pleasure, I assure you, not a mere duty, Mrs.
Norton," said the subaltern with a touch of earnestness. "May I come
to-morrow?"

"Yes, please do. Come early for tea and bring your violin. It will be
delightful to have some music again. I have not opened my piano for
months; but I'll begin to practise to-night. I have one or two pieces
with violin _obligato_."

So, chatting and at every step finding something fresh to like in each
other, they rode along down sandy lanes hemmed in by prickly aloe
hedges, by deep wells and creaking water-wheels where patient bullocks
toiled in the sun to draw up the gushing water to irrigate the green
fields so reposeful to the eye after the glaring desert. They passed by
thatched mud huts outside which naked brown babies sprawled in the dust
and deer-eyed women turned the hand-querns that ground the flour for
their household's evening meal. Stiff and sore though Wargrave was after
these many hours of his first day in the saddle for so long, he
thoroughly enjoyed his r