The manner of his fall was in this way. He met a Miss Castries--d'Castries it was originally, but the family dropped the d' for administrative reasons--and he fell in love with her even more energetically that he worked. Understand clearly that there was not a breath of a word to be said against Miss Castries--not a shadow of a breath. She was good and very lovely--possessed what innocent people at home call a “Spanish” complexion, with thick blue-black hair growing low down on her forehead, into a “widow's peak,” and big violet eyes under eyebrows as black and as straight as the borders of a Gazette Extraordinary when a big man dies. But--but--but--. Well, she was a VERY sweet girl and very pious, but for many reasons she was “impossible.” Quite so. All good Mammas know what “impossible” means. It was obviously absurd that Peythroppe should marry her. The little opal-tinted onyx at the base of her finger-nails said this as plainly as print. Further, marriage with Miss Castries meant marriage with several other Castries--Honorary Lieutenant Castries, her Papa, Mrs. Eulalie Castries, her Mamma, and all the ramifications of the Castries family, on incomes ranging from Rs. 175 to Rs. 470 a month, and THEIR wives and connections again. It would have been cheaper for Peythroppe to have assaulted a Commissioner with a dog-whip, or to have burned the records of a Deputy Commissioner's Office, than to have contracted an alliance with the Castries. It would have weighted his after-career less--even under a Government which never forgets and NEVER forgives. Everybody saw this but Peythroppe. He was going to marry Miss Castries, he was--being of age and drawing a good income--and woe betide the house that would not afterwards receive Mrs. Virginie Saulez Peythroppe with the deference due to her husband's rank. That was Peythroppe's ultimatum, and any remonstrance drove him frantic. These sudden madnesses most afflict the sanest men. There was a case once--but I will tell you of that later on. You cannot account for the mania, except under a theory directly contradicting the one about the Place wherein marriages are made. Peythroppe was burningly anxious to put a millstone round his neck at the outset of his career and argument had not the least effect on him. He was going to marry Miss Castries, and the business was his own business. He would thank you to keep your advice to yourself. With a man in this condition, mere words only fix him in his purpose. Of course he cannot see that marriage out here does not concern the individual but the Government he serves.