"You wish me to give this to Captain Woodhouse?" Jane finished, a flicker of annoyance crossing her face. "Why me?" "You are at Government House, lady. Captain Woodhouse comes to tea--all newcomers to the garrison do that. If you would be so good----" Jane took the cigarette case from Almer's outstretched hand. Lady Crandall had told her the captain would be in for tea that afternoon. It was a small matter, this accommodation, as long as Almer did not insinuate--as he had not done--any impertinence; imply any over eagerness on her part to perform so minor a service for the officer. Almer bowed his thanks and lost himself in the crowd. Jane turned again to where Kitty and Kimball were chatting. "A dun for extra service the landlord forgot last night, I'll wager," the youth greeted her. "Oh, no, just a little present," Jane laughed back at him, holding up the silver case. "With Almer's compliments to Captain Woodhouse, who forgot it when he gave up his room to-day. I've promised to turn it over to the captain and save the hotel man a lot of trouble and red tape getting a messenger through to the captain's quarters." "By Jove!" Kimball's tired eyes lighted up with a quick flash of smoker's yearning. "A life-saver! Came away from my room without my pet Egyptians--Mr. Sherman yelling at me to hurry or we'd miss this slow show and all that. I'm going to play the panhandler and beg one of your captain friend's smokes. He must be a good sort or you wouldn't be doing little favors for him, Miss Gerson. Come, now; in your capacity as temporary executrix will you invest one of the captain's cigarettes in a demand of real charity?" Keen desire was scarcely veiled under Kimball's fiction of light patter. Smilingly the girl extended the case to him. "Just to make it businesslike, the executrix demands your note for--um--sixty days, say. 'For one cigarette received, I promise to pay----'" "Given!" He pulled a gold pencil from his pocket and made a pretense of writing the form on his cuff. Then he lit his borrowed cigarette and inhaled it gratefully. "Your captain friend's straight from Egypt; I don't have to be told that," Willy Kimball murmured, in polite ecstasy. "At Shepard's, in Cairo, you'll get such a cigarette as this, and nowhere else in a barren world. The breath of the acanthus blossom--if it really has a breath--never heard." "Back in Kewanee the Ladies' Aid Society will have you arrested," Kitty put in mischievously. "They're terribly wrought up over cigarettes--for minors." Kimball cast her a glance of deep reproach. As he lifted the cigarette to his lips for a second puff, Jane's eyes mechanically followed the movement. Something caught and held them, wonder-filled.