'Gentlemen,' he said, 'your figures are wrong, your arguments false and your conclusions childish. I don't want to be offensive or personal, and I have the highest possible opinion of your service; but you must allow me to observe that you are all a pack of fools!' 'Capital,' cried Maud; 'and what do you do all the time, Mr. Desvoeux?' 'Oh, Vernon and I sit still and wink at each other and hope for the time when we shall have become idiotic enough to be on the Board ourselves. We are of the new _régime_, and are supposed to have wits, and we have a great deal of intelligence to get over. But you know how the old ones were chosen. All the stupidest sons of the stupidest families in England for several generations, like the pedigree-wheat, you know, on the principle of selection; none but the blockheads of course would have anything to do with India.' 'Don't abuse the bridge that carries you over,' Felicia said: 'No treason to India--it has many advantages.' 'Innumerable,' cried Desvoeux: 'first, a decent excuse for separation between husbands and wives who happen to be uncongenial--no other society has anything to compare with it. You quarrel, you know----' 'No, we don't,' said Felicia, 'thank you. Speak for yourself.' 'Well, I quarrel with Mrs. Desvoeux, we'll say--though, by the way, I could not quarrel even with my wife--but suppose a quarrel, and we become mutually insupportable: there is no trouble, no scandal, no inconvenience. Mrs. Desvoeux's health has long required change of air; I secure a berth for her on the P. & Q., escort her with the utmost politeness to Bombay, have a most affectionate parting, remit once a quarter, write once a fortnight--what can be more perfect?' 'But suppose,' said Maud, 'for the sake of argument, that you don't quarrel and don't want to separate?' 'Or suppose,' said Felicia, who knew that the conversation was taking just the turn she hated, 'that we try our duet, Mr. Desvoeux? You know that you are a difficult person to catch.' 'That is one of your unjust speeches,' said Desvoeux, dropping his voice as they approached the piano and becoming suddenly serious: 'You know that I come quite as often as I think I have a chance of being welcome.' Felicia ignored the remark and began playing the accompaniment with the utmost unconcern. The fact was that Desvoeux, though not quite such a Don Juan as he liked to be thought, had a large amount of affection to dispose of, and had given Felicia to understand upon twenty occasions that he would like to begin a flirtation with her if he dared. CHAPTER VII. THE RUMBLE CHUNDER GRANT. Monstrum horrendum--informe--ingens----