"It sounds nice, but my confidences are depressing." "So are mine rather. Do you like this part of the world?" "Do I like myself, in other words? Not much." "Don't be philosophical. When all is said, there is nothing like gossip. I don't like this part of the world; in fact, I don't know myself in it; it is a fast, frivolous, imbecile world!" "Socially speaking, I presume, not geographically. At least, those are not strictly the adjectives I should apply to my surroundings. How come you to be in such a world?" "Oh, I met Kirkhope a few years ago. He was indulging in a fashionable run across India, and he ran up against me. I was able to put him up to a thing or two, and last month when I met him in Edinburgh, he invited me down. In a weak moment I accepted his invitation, and now you see Fortune has been kinder to me than I deserve." "I saw you in Edinburgh as I went through one day," said Mona, and she told him she had been disappointed not to be able to speak to him at the station. "How very disgusting!" he said. "Yes, Edinburgh is my home--my father's, at least." "And had you never met Doris before I introduced you to her?" The Sahib did not answer for a moment. "I had not been introduced. I had seen her. Hers is not a face that one forgets." "And yet it only gives a hint of all that lies behind it. You might travel from Dan to Beersheba without finding such a gloriously unselfish woman, and such a perfect child of Nature." "She is delightfully natural and unaffected. I think that is her great charm. What sort of man is Colquhoun? Of course every one knows him by name." "Yes; he is very near the top of the tree in his profession. He is a scientist, too, but in that capacity he is a trifle--pathetic. Shall you call when you go back?" "I have obtained permission to do so." "You would do me a personal favour if you would enter into his scientific fads a little. Dear lovable old man! You will have to laugh in your sleeve pretty audibly before he suspects that you are doing it." "I don't think I shall feel at all inclined to. Is Miss Colquhoun a scientist too?" "She is something better. She loves a dog because it is a dog, a worm because it is a worm. Science must stand cap in hand before such genuine inborn love of Nature as hers." Again there was a pause before the Sahib answered. Then he roused himself suddenly. "It seems to me, Miss Maclean, that you are shirking your part of the bargain. I have confided to you how it is I come to be here. It is your innings now." Mona sighed. "When I last saw you, you were a burning and shining medical light. Wherefore the bushel?" "That is right. Strike hard at the root of my _amour propre_. It is good for me, though I wince. I am here, Sahib, mainly because I failed twice in my Intermediate Medicine examination." Another of the Sahib's characteristic pauses.