"How that young fellow is 'going the pace,'" whispered Polwhele to Burgoyne, with a covert laugh.
"Of course you can never feel dull when in your quarters, Mr. Devereaux?" said Rose; "young officers are said to have so many resources."
"Far from it; and, to tell the truth, I am always dull, weary and even sad, when not--here. You can never know," he added, colouring at the pointedness of his own remark, "how stupidly we fellows pass the time in cantonments; it is getting through the day anyhow--sipping everything, from iced champagne to cold tea and pale ale; smoking everything, from Latakia to Chinsurrah cheroots, and making bets on everything, from drawing the longest straw out of the bungalow roof to naming the winner of the Derby or St. Leger, the bet to be determined six months after, perhaps, when the mail reaches us."
"A profitable way of spending one's day. Do none of you, as a pastime, ever attempt to fall in love?"
The question was one of positive cruelty; but the beautiful eyes only beamed brighter with fun as she put this perilous query, which she would never have uttered to men like Waller or Polwhele.
She fanned herself, and waited for a reply.
"For others I cannot say," said Denzil, in low voice; "for myself, never till I came to Cabul--never till I met, I dare not here say _who_."
"For a griff, Devereaux, you give a capital answer," said Burgoyne, who had been gradually drawing near them; "we both fall in love and out of it too," he added, with a laugh that was almost saucy, for he had already suffered something at Rose's hands. "Love, like a month's pay, does not last for ever."
"Even in marriage, do you mean?" asked a lady, looking up from a book of prints.
"Less then, perhaps, according to Mr. Polewhele," said Rose; "orange blossoms fade and die as well as summer leaves."
"What a lovely little cynic it is!" said Waller in Mabel's ear; "but she never means all she says."
The conversation now became general; and save for a speaking glance from time to time, and--once at least--when their hands touched (involuntarily, of course) Denzil felt that his chances with Rose were over for the day.
"Our band plays to-morrow at the grand-stand," said an officer of the 54th Native Infantry.