The swing doors leading to the smoking-room of the fashionable club in London fell back with a slightly louder thud than usual, and more than one occupant of the room looked up--looked up, however, to smile, for the newcomer was a universal favourite. It was Marmaduke Muir, fresh from one of his many disappearances, for he was quartered at the new camp of Aldershot and his London visits were generally but a passing flash on his way to find sport in the counties. At seven-and-thirty he showed almost more youthful than he had done at seven-and-twenty, for he was thinner, more alert, and the laughter in his face seemed to belong to him more absolutely. For the rest he was handsome beyond compare, and dressed faultlessly in a taste that had sobered itself from those early days in England when Marrion Paul had found him _flamboyant_. There was still a slight exuberance in the carnation in his buttonhole and the immense size of the cigar he drew out of his case; but the case itself was simple, and there was a simplicity about his whole bearing which disarmed criticism. "What you b'in after, old chap?" said an occupant of an armchair, laying down the "Illustrated London News," in which he had been reading the pros and cons of beard and moustachios as against clean shaving. He felt his own chin doubtfully as he looked at Marmaduke's upper lip; but then he, of course, was a soldier. "Killin' somethin', I bet," yawned another. "What was it, Duke?" "Not ladies, anyhow," put in a third. "Our Adonis is a regular misogynist; and yet, just look at his letters--faugh! they make the place smell like Truefitt's." "Better than your fags, anyhow, Mac!" laughed Marmaduke, as he took the pile of notes and letters which the attendant had brought in on a salver. Then, as he threw himself into the most comfortable chair vacant, he held up half the bundle with a gay--"Anyone like them? They're all invitations, I expect, and I have to go back to-night!" "And moneylenders, Muir! Don't forget Moses!" put in the man he had called Mac. "Not so many of them either," retorted Marmaduke, "as you know Jack Jardine keeps us going. God bless him!" he added cheerfully. "Here, hand us over a few, Major!" said a callow youth who lived to envy the more fashionable habitués. "No go, Smithers!" remarked another youth less sallow; "even Nathan couldn't make you up to his form." But Marmaduke, after a hasty glance at the superscriptions, had dexterously flung a dozen or so of letters into the applicant's tall hat, which was obstructing the way between his chair and the next. One smaller than the rest which Marmaduke had overlooked flew over it and lay on the carpet. It was directed in an uneducated hand. "Hullo, pretty milliner, eh, Duke?" said Mac, taking it up and opening it. "No, no, fair play, you gave it----" Marmaduke, standing over him, blushed like a girl as he glanced at the writing. "It's nothing, Mac," he began. But Mac was not to be put off in a moment.