No More Learning

She was taken home just as every one was going to a dance at Viceregal
Lodge--"Peterhoff" it was then--and the doctor found that she had fallen
from her horse, that I had picked her up at the back of Jakko, and
really deserved great credit for the prompt manner in which I had
secured medical aid. She did not die--men of Schreiderling's stamp marry
women who don't die easily. They live and grow ugly.

She never told of her one meeting, since her marriage, with the Other
Man; and, when the chill and cough following the exposure of that
evening, allowed her abroad, she never by word or sign alluded to having
met me by the Tonga Office. Perhaps she never knew.

She used to trot up and down the Mall, on that shocking bad saddle,
looking as if she expected to meet some one round the corner every
minute. Two years afterward, she went Home, and died--at Bournemouth, I
think.

Schreiderling, when he grew maudlin at Mess, used to talk about "my
poor dear wife. " He always set great store on speaking his mind, did
Schreiderling!




CONSEQUENCES.

Rosicrucian subtleties
In the Orient had rise;
Ye may find their teachers still
Under Jacatala's Hill.

Seek ye Bombast Paracelsus,
Read what Flood the Seeker tells us
Of the Dominant that runs
Through the cycles of the Suns--
Read my story last and see
Luna at her apogee.

There are yearly appointments, and two-yearly appointments, and
five-yearly appointments at Simla, and there are, or used to be,
permanent appointments, whereon you stayed up for the term of your
natural life and secured red cheeks and a nice income. Of course, you
could descend in the cold weather; for Simla is rather dull then.

Tarrion came from goodness knows where--all away and away in some
forsaken part of Central India, where they call Pachmari a "Sanitarium,"
and drive behind trotting bullocks, I believe.
He belonged to a
regiment; but what he really wanted to do was to escape from his
regiment and live in Simla forever and ever. He had no preference for
anything in particular, beyond a good horse and a nice partner. He
thought he could do everything well; which is a beautiful belief when
you hold it with all your heart. He was clever in many ways, and good to
look at, and always made people round him comfortable--even in Central
India.

So he went up to Simla, and, because he was clever and amusing, he
gravitated naturally to Mrs. Hauksbee, who could forgive everything
but stupidity. Once he did her great service by changing the date on an
invitation-card for a big dance which Mrs. Hauksbee wished to attend,
but couldn't because she had quarrelled with the A. -D. -C. , who took
care, being a mean man, to invite her to a small dance on the 6th
instead of the big Ball of the 26th. It was a very clever piece of
forgery; and when Mrs. Hauksbee showed the A. -D. -C. her invitation-card,
and chaffed him mildly for not better managing his vendettas, he really
thought he had made a mistake; and--which was wise--realized that it
was no use to fight with Mrs.