Sir Douglas looked sharply round the room without replying. "Is Mona here?" he said. "No; she could not spare enough time to come to dinner. We are to call for her." Sir Douglas frowned. "That's always the way. Upon my soul, for all we see of her, she might as well be at--Borrowness!" "Where in the world is that?" asked Lady Munro languidly. Then, with a sudden change of tone, "I have got such a piece of news for you," she said. "Another of our friends is engaged to be married." "Not Dickinson?" he said, glancing at the foreign letter in her hand. "Yes; the Indian mail came in to-day. Guess who the lady is?" "You know I hate guessing. Go on!" "Miss Colquhoun!" "What an extraordinary thing!" "Isn't it? It seems he wanted the thing settled before he sailed, but it took the exchange of a few letters to decide the question. I must say it is a great disappointment to me. I am quite sure the Sahib cared for Mona, and I did think she would take pity on him in the long-run." "How ridiculous!" said Sir Douglas testily. He wanted Mona to marry, because that was the natural and fitting destiny for a young and attractive woman; but it was quite another thing to think of her as the wife of any given man. "Of course we all know that Mona ought to marry a duke," said Evelyn quietly. She had entered the room a moment before, looking very fair and sweet in her white evening dress. "But even if the duke could be brought to see it, which is not absolutely certain,--I suppose even dukes are sometimes blind to their best interests--oh, father, _don't_!" For Sir Douglas was pinching her ear unmercifully. "You little sauce-box!" he said indignantly, but he did not look displeased. Evelyn had learned that approaching womanhood gave her the right to take liberties with her father which his wife would scarcely have ventured upon. "Well, whatever may be the cause of it," said Lady Munro, "Mona is not half so bright as she was a year ago." Evelyn laughed. "Do you remember what Sydney Smith said? 'Macaulay has improved of late,--flashes of silence!' Lucy told her yesterday that, to our great surprise, we find we may open our lips now-a-days, without having our heads snapped off with an epigram." "It's all nonsense," said Sir Douglas loftily. "Mona is not changed a bit. You did not understand her, that is all." But in truth no one had wondered over the change in Mona so much as he. He was perfectly certain that she did not care for the Sahib, and he had come at last to the conclusion that, with a girl like Mona, incessant hospital work was quite sufficient to account for the alteration. To his partial mind Mona's increased womanliness more than made up for her loss of sparkle. When friendship and affection are removed alike from all danger of starvation and of satiety, they are very hard to kill. At this moment Nubboo announced dinner, and an hour or so later the carriage stopped at the door of Mona's rooms in Gower Street.