she?”     

       “I don’t know.”     

       “I do,” interposed a young man, who wore an eye—glass and was in charge of a large jug. “She’s gone to Monte.”     

       “I might have known,” said Sir Roger. “Being missed here always means you’ve gone to Monte—like not being at church means you’ve gone to Brighton.”     

       “Surely she doesn’t play?” asked the General.     

       “Not she! She’s going to put it in a book. She writes books you know. She put me in the last—made me a dashed fool, too, by Jove!”     

       “That was unkind,” said the General, “from your wife.”     

       “Oh, Lord love you, she didn’t mean it. I was the hero. That’s how I came to be such an ass. The dear girl meant everything that was kind. Who’s taken her to Monte?”     

       “Charlie Ellerton,” said the young man with the eye-glass.     

       “There! I told you she was a kind girl. She’s trying to pull old Charlie up a peg or two. He’s had the deuce of a facer, you know.”     

       “I thought he seemed less cheerful than usual.”     

       “Oh, rather. He met a girl somewhere or other—I always forget places—Miss—Miss—hang it, I can’t remember names—and got awfully smitten, and everything went pleasantly and she took to him like anything—, and at last old Charlie spoke up like a man, and——”       Sir Roger paused dramatically.     

       “Well?” asked the General.     

       “She was engaged to another fellow. Rough, wasn’t it? She told old Charlie she liked him infernally, but promises were promises, don’t you know, and she’d thank him to take his hook. And he had to take it, by Gad! Rough, don’t you know? So Maud’s been cheering him up. The devil!”     

       “What’s the matter now?” inquired the General.     

       “Why, I’ve just remembered that I promised to say nothing about it. I say, don’t you repeat it, General, nor you either, Laing.”     

       The General laughed. 

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