To be frank, I can’t say I was at all pleased that the Governor’s visitor had turned out to be someone who’d seen me so often in the old days. I don’t want those days to be mixed up with these. Already a ghost or so out of those days had seemed inclined to come and haunt the lovely garden and the big, comfortable rooms at The Lawn! And now I seemed to see a regular Richard-the-Third-like procession of those ghosts rising up behind the little Major’s trimly-waisted figure—people with whom I’d associated last time he’d seen me—standing in judgment, echoing his “Who’d have expected to see _you_?”—adding their phantom stares to those of the two men whose eyes were actually upon me. It was tiresome; might mean all sorts of adaptations; even the assumption of a “Manner C” for the benefit of Major Montresor! As for him, he’s a rather amusing, tactless, talkative, would-be-man-of-the-world sort of person, who’d been quite ready to get up what Kipling calls the “You’re-only-a-little-girl type of flirtation” with me when I was seventeen or so. I hadn’t met him since, nor had I wanted to; though I had been distinctly interested, five years ago, to find that someone who possessed medals and a moustache cared to talk to me while I was still in the school-room. He’d got to look ever so much older since then, balder, stiffer of movement in his slim boots and his stays—I beg his pardon, I expect he called it his belt—and, apparently, more flirtatious than ever! Now, any _woman_ over thirty-five has to be fairly attractive before she’s allowed to flirt on without fear of ridicule. But a _man_ at fifty, or fifty-five, seems to claim the right to monopolize the prettiest and youngest girl he meets. It doesn’t matter if he hasn’t a hair on his head or a tooth of his own in it. As long as he’s single and wears trousers, he’s an eligible bachelor—or so he thinks. A mercy he doesn’t hear the ideas of the favoured girl on this subject! So, quite unsuspectingly, Major Montresor beamed upon me, and declared at least three times that this was a most _delightful_ surprise, upon his word!—seeming almost to forget his host, who stood a little aside, looking utterly disconcerted, as far as I could see without turning my eyes, to discover that this “business acquaintance” knew his official _fiancée_ better than her employer ever could! Christian names, too! “Monica—Bless my soul, what’s this?” “This” was an interruption that precipitated itself through the unlatched French window; a small white dog that bore in his mouth a large bone, noisome-smelling and of the earth, earthy, which he dumped upon the Major’s japanned boot.