No More Learning

Saumarez was a strange man, with few merits, so far as men
could see, though he was popular with women, and carried enough
conceit to stock a Viceroy's Council and leave a little over for the
Commander-in-Chief's Staff. He was a Civilian. Very many women took an
interest in Saumarez, perhaps, because his manner to them was offensive.
If you hit a pony over the nose at the outset of your acquaintance, he
may not love you, but he will take a deep interest in your movements
ever afterwards. The elder Miss Copleigh was nice, plump, winning and
pretty. The younger was not so pretty, and, from men disregarding the
hint set forth above, her style was repellant and unattractive. Both
girls had, practically, the same figure, and there was a strong likeness
between them in look and voice; though no one could doubt for an instant
which was the nicer of the two.

Saumarez made up his mind, as soon as they came into the station from
Behar, to marry the elder one. At least, we all made sure that he
would, which comes to the same thing. She was two and twenty, and he was
thirty-three, with pay and allowances of nearly fourteen hundred rupees
a month. So the match, as we arranged it, was in every way a good one.
Saumarez was his name, and summary was his nature, as a man once said.
Having drafted his Resolution, he formed a Select Committee of One to
sit upon it, and resolved to take his time. In our unpleasant slang, the
Copleigh girls "hunted in couples. " That is to say, you could do nothing
with one without the other.
They were very loving sisters; but
their mutual affection was sometimes inconvenient. Saumarez held the
balance-hair true between them, and none but himself could have said to
which side his heart inclined; though every one guessed. He rode
with them a good deal and danced with them, but he never succeeded in
detaching them from each other for any length of time.

Women said that the two girls kept together through deep mistrust, each
fearing that the other would steal a march on her. But that has nothing
to do with a man. Saumarez was silent for good or bad, and as
business--likely attentive as he could be, having due regard to his work
and his polo. Beyond doubt both girls were fond of him.

As the hot weather drew nearer, and Saumarez made no sign, women said
that you could see their trouble in the eyes of the girls--that they
were looking strained, anxious, and irritable. Men are quite blind in
these matters unless they have more of the woman than the man in their
composition, in which case it does not matter what they say or think.
I maintain it was the hot April days that took the color out of the
Copleigh girls' cheeks. They should have been sent to the Hills
early. No one--man or woman--feels an angel when the hot weather is
approaching. The younger sister grew more cynical--not to say acid--in
her ways; and the winningness of the elder wore thin. There was more
effort in it.

Now the Station wherein all these things happened was, though not
a little one, off the line of rail, and suffered through want of
attention. There were no gardens or bands or amusements worth speaking
of, and it was nearly a day's journey to come into Lahore for a dance.