Her husband sat up, dangling his hands idly between his knees. "I'm not sure about the wisdom of it. Personally I have no objection; besides, I hold that no one has a right to interfere with another person's harmless fancies; yet that sort of thing is invariably misunderstood in India. First by the natives; they think a woman's interest means a desire for power. Then by the men of one's own class; they drag up 'grey mare the better horse,' &c. How I hate proverbs! You see, women out here divide themselves, as a rule, betwixt balls and babies, so the men get _cliqué_. I don't defend it, but it's very natural. Most of us come out just at the age when a contempt for woman's intellect seems to make our beards grow faster, and we have no clever mixed society to act as an antidote to our own conceit. Now a woman with a clear head like yours, Belle, you are much cleverer than I thought you were, by the way, is sure with unbiassed eyes to see details that don't strike men who are in the game,--unpleasant, ridiculous details probably,--and that is always an offence. If you were stupid, it wouldn't matter; but being as you are, why, discretion is the better part of valour." "But if I have brains, as you say I have, what am I to do with them?" cried Belle, knitting very fast. "There are the balls,--and the babies; as Pendennis said to his wife, '_Tout vient à ceux qui savent attendre_.' By the way, I wonder where the dickens the postman has gone to to-day? It's too bad to keep us waiting like this. I'll report him." "_Tout vient--!_" retorted Belle, recovering from a fine blush. "Why are you always in such a hurry for the letters, John? I never am." "No more am I," he cried gaily, rising to his feet and holding out his hand to help her. "I never was in a hurry, except--" and here he drew her towards him in easy proprietorship--"to marry you. I was in a hurry then, I confess." "You were indeed," said the girl, who but a year before had felt outraged by the first passionately pure kiss of a boy, as she submitted cheerfully to that of a man whose love was of the earth, earthy. "Why, you hardly left me time to get a wedding-garment! But it was much wiser for you to spend the rest of your leave here, than to begin work and the honeymoon together." "Much nicer and wiser; but then you are wisdom itself, Belle. Upon my soul, I never thought women could be so sensible till I married you. As your poor father said the first time we met, I have the devil's own luck."