the fair bird of passage on their left was left alone,
woman-like, dallying with the last sweets and finishing her demi
bouteille with true French deliberation. "It's a case of the wolf and
the sheep-fold!"

"Not that; not at all!" gayly answered Anstruther. "I have a long leave,
and I only ran over here to oblige His Excellency." He spoke with all
the easy disdain of all underlings born of an Indian official life--the
habitual disregard of the Briton for his inferior surroundings. "By
Jove! you may help me out yourself! You're an old Delhi man!" He gazed
earnestly at Hawke, who started nervously, and then said:

"You know I've been away for a good bit of the ten years in the far
Orient, but I used to know them all, before I went out of the line."

"Then you surely know old Hugh Johnstone, the rich, old, retired deputy
commissioner of Oude?" Alan Hawke slowly sipped his champagne, for his
Delhi memories were both risky and uncertain ground.

"I fail to recall the name, Johnstone--Johnstone," murmured Hawke.

"Why, everyone knows old Johnstone; he is an old mutiny man. You surely
do! He was Hugh Fraser until he took the name of Johnstone, ten years
or so ago, on a Scotch relative leaving him a handsome Highland estate!"
There was a warning rustle at Hawke's left, as the fair stranger
prepared for her flitting.

"I was very intimate with Hugh Fraser in my griffin days. But I thought
he had retired and gone back home. He is enormously rich, and an old
bachelor! I know him very well; he was a good friend of mine in the old
days, too!"

Anstruther leaned toward Hawke, as he signed to the waiter to refill his
hearer's glass. "Well, I can surprise even you! He has turned up with a
beautiful daughter--at Delhi--just about the prettiest girl I ever--"

"Je demande mills pardons, Madame!" politely cried Major Hawke, as his
fair neighbor's wineglass went shivering down in a crystalline wreck.

"Pas de quoi, Monsieur," suavely replied the woman whom till now he had
hardly noticed. A moment later the slight damage was repaired, and then
Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther had his little innings.

With courtly hospitality he offered the creamy champagne as a
remplacement for the lost vin du pays.

A charming smile rewarded the gallant youth, while Major Hawke turned
with interest to the renewal of the interrupted narrative. He had caught
a glance of burning intensity from the dark brown eyes of the lady a
la Houbigant