"You are very much annoyed?" asked Vashti, suddenly serious. "Well, then, I am sorry. It was all my suggestion--though it never entered my head that anyone would be walking that way and catch sight of--of the thing. I meant it to be a little surprise for the Commandant when he came home from church; though when he returned and heard what had happened, he scolded me terribly." "You will excuse me"--the Lord Proprietor drew himself up stiffly--"if I fail to see either where the humour comes in, or why you--a stranger, unknown to me even by name----" "Ah, to be sure! My name is Cara." "Then, as I was saying, Miss Cara, I fail to see----" "And you are quite right of course," Vashti made haste to agree. "I ought not to have done it. But weren't you, too, a little bit to blame? It wasn't very nice of you, you know." "I beg your pardon? What wasn't very nice of me?" "Why, to hurt their feelings; and especially the Commandant's. He is a poor man; poor, and sensitive, and easily hurt." "You are talking to me in riddles, Miss Cara. I have done nothing at all to hurt the Commandant's feelings." "Not intentionally, of course. I told him--and I told the sergeant too--that I was sure you never meant to wound them. It would have been too cruel." "But," protested the Lord Proprietor, "I have done nothing, I tell you; nothing beyond presenting Sergeant Archelaus with--with an article of attire of which he stood badly in need. Miss Gabriel, some weeks ago, drew my attention to the state of the poor fellow's--er--wardrobe, and suggested that something might be done." "I thought so," Vashti nodded. "I dare say now," she went on, after seeming to muse for a moment, "you are one of those strong-minded men who find it hard to understand how sensible people can worry over what they put on their backs!" "That happens to be a constant source of wonder with me," he confessed; "though for the life of me I can't tell how you came to guess it." "Never mind how I guessed it," said Vashti, smiling. "The point is, that you take this lofty and very scornful view of clothes, and yet you must have noticed that many men of your acquaintance--men otherwise sensible--take quite another; that in the city, for instance, a hard felt hat is not usually worn with a frock coat." "Granted," said the Lord Proprietor; "though I could never understand why." "And you have noticed that soldiers are even more particular; and the reason with them is perhaps a little more easily grasped. Their uniform is a symbol, so to speak. It stands for the service to which a good soldier should be devoted." "If you had seen that man's small-clothes!" "Yes, I grant that Archelaus neglects his regimentals. But to neglect them, and to be willing to mix them up with civilian clothes, are two very different things. Perhaps you did not think of this?" "Really, now," answered Sir Caesar, "I should not have supposed that it mattered what these men wore, in such an out-of-the-world spot."