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 more careful with our own sex, because we know they won't hesitate to give us as good as they get. So it's a woman's privilege to be rude to men, and I regret to say we use it to the full. Well, Major Street and I will never get back to that hotel if I keep running off the lines like this. We had got nearly there before the Major referred to the all-important subject again. 'I have to leave by to-night's train, so I can't see Boy through with it,' was all he said. It was his way of asking me again to go and countenance this amazing marriage. 'Nothing will induce me to go,' I said freezingly, as I got out of the carriage. 'Please tell the Boy that I am very sorry I cannot come.'

I passed on up the hotel steps, but like a woman, halfway, I half relented. I had been rather a brute to poor Major Street, and it really wasn't even just a little bit his fault. I turned round sharp midway up those steps. He was standing at the bottom of them, looking up after me with the most comical mixture of amusement and annoyance I have ever seen on any man's face. I beamed down upon him. He really was rather nice-looking.

'I'm so sorry you haven't had a pleasanter companion on the drive home,' I said.

He ran up half a dozen steps.

'So you will go to-morrow morning?' he asked eagerly. Now, wasn't that just like a man. Only because I had turned round and smiled on him just to