"A bullet won't feel a bit the more pleasant if it hits you as a captain," said a 37th man, laughing. Would Rose regret him? had been Denzil's secret thought; and now amid the gay clatter of tongues around him, the speculations as to the treaty on the tapis, the chances of a peaceful retreat, the pros and cons of why Sale did not cut his way back from Jellalabad, and some of that banter about women which seems inseparable from the conversation of young men--more than all, of military men--he was startled by some of the things that were said of Rose Trecarrel, and which, though bitter to hear, served to divert his grief. His self-esteem--his _amour propre_ had been severely wounded, and he had to conceal these emotions from Waller and Polwhele; yet they suspected that "something was up," by his ceasing to go near the Trecarrels, at whose villa near the Residency he had been almost a daily visitor. Could the young man have foreseen it, in his bitterness he might have rejoiced that the Afghan sabre was ere long to cut the Gordian knot of all his difficulties. Jack Polwhele, who had been eyeing him silently with a comical twinkle in his black eyes, said, in a low voice-- "So, Devereaux, the mistress of your destiny has proved slippery after all! Laugh at the whole affair, and you'll soon forget all about it. Were I in your place, she might--as the song has it--go to Hong Kong for me." Denzil knit his brow and reddened with irritation; but, tipping the ashes of his cigar and watching the smoke thereof as it ascended to the straw-roof of the bungalow, Jack resumed, in a voice so low as to be unheard by Waller-- "With a vast amount of _espièglerie_, Rose, I must admit, has many physical attractions; and, Denzil, you were her pet flirtation for the nonce--every fellow saw that--nothing more. It is a fine thing to talk to a handsome girl about 'elective affinities and the union of souls,' that 'marriages are made in heaven, and not in the money-market' or the shop of some sharping lawyer; but it often grows perilous work for a griff, with a girl like Rose, who cannot care very much for any one." Denzil still sat smoking in silence, and felt somewhat perplexed by the extreme candour of his brother-officer. In short, he knew not quite how to take it. "Could she only have been flirting with me?" thought he, and we fear Rose would have answered in the affirmative. "No two persons, I have heard, have exactly the same or correct idea of what flirting is (he had not): talking a deal to a pretty girl, or laughing much with her, are called so; but surely there may be deeper flirting, at times, in silence. Oh! we were not flirting: I loved her--I love her yet--and thought she loved me, when glance met glance, and eye answered to eye the unasked question!"