For some reason, the match had never come off, and although she might convince herself that the simplest reason--incompatibility--was the true one, Miss Gabriel could hardly have been unaware that the women looked upon her as one who had missed her chance, and even blamed her a little--as women always will in such cases--in a conspiracy of sex acknowledging its weakness. Perhaps this made her defiant. She was handling the Commandant truculently to-night. "Of course," she continued, "even in those days the post--don't they say the same in England of a Deanery?--was looked upon as finishing a man's career. I don't know, for my part, the principle upon which the Horse Guards--it used to be the Horse Guards--sent Colonel Bartlemy down to us." "By selection, ma'am," said the Commandant, still patiently, as she paused; "by selection among a number of applicants." "I didn't want to be told that," snapped Miss Gabriel. "What I meant was, the Commander-in-Chief probably knew something of the man--had informed himself of something in his record--before sending him down to this exile." "And a jolly good exile, too!" put in Mr. Rogers, heartily. "It used to be," said Miss Gabriel. "This Colonel Bartlemy, for instance, was a coward. I've heard it told of him that once, during his command, a sort of mutiny broke out in the Barracks. It happened at a time when the newspapers were full of nonsense about France invading us by a sudden descent; and the noise, reaching him in the quarters where he lodged with his wife and one general maid-servant, put him in a terrible fright. He had fenced off these quarters of his for privacy, because Mrs. Bartlemy thought it would be a good deal better for the maid-servant; and they communicated with the Barracks by a staircase with a door of which he kept the key. On the first alarm he ran to this door and called through the key-hole for his orderly; but the orderly, who himself was taking part in the disturbance, did not hear. So the Colonel called up his wife and the servant, and joined them at the head of the stairs after he had slipped on his belt and sword. By this time the noise below was deafening. The Colonel, putting a brave face on it, managed to get the key into the lock and turn it. Then, as he flung the door open, he turned with a bow to his wife and said very politely, in French--for they were in the habit of talking French before the girl--'_Passez devant, madame!_'" "How did it end?" asked Mr. Rogers, after a guffaw. "Oh, it turned out to be just a barrack brawl. The soldiers were always the worst-behaved lot in the Islands, and perpetually grumbling--though in those days," added Miss Gabriel, "I always understood that they were fed and clothed sufficiently." The Commandant whitened. Mrs. Fossell, a nervous body in a cap with lilac ribbon, rose in some little fluster, and opined that it was almost time to cut for partners.