From West Africa he was called to the Indian frontier, where he put in seven years in variegated and extremely useful service. He received his majority early, and disappeared for two years into Tibet, Manchuria, and China. After that he came back to England for polo, and met Estelle Fanshawe. She was lovely, gentle, intensely vain, and not very truthful. Lady Staines disposed of her at once as "a mincing ninny." The phrase aggravated Winn, and his fancy deepened. It was stimulated by the fact that Estelle was the belle of the neighborhood and had a large supply of ardent admirers. It was almost like running a race with the odds against you. Winn was not a conceited man, and perhaps he thought the odds more against him than they actually were. He was the second son of a man who was immensely rich, (though Sir Peter was reported stingy to his children). Everybody knew who the Staines were, while the Fanshawes after every effort and with nearly every attraction had not become a part of public knowledge. Besides, Estelle had been made love to for some time, and Winn's way was undeniably different from that of her other admirers. He met her at a dance, and insisted upon dancing with her the whole evening. He took her card away from her, and scored off all her indignant partners. In the interval of these decisive actions he made love to her in a steady, definite way that was difficult to laugh at and impossible to turn aside. When he said good-night to her he told her that he would probably come and see her soon. She went away in a flutter, for his words, though casual, had had a sharply significant sound; besides, he had very nearly kissed her; if she had been more truthful, she would have said quite. She didn't, in thinking it over, know at all how this had happened, and she generally knew precisely how these things happened. Lady Staines told her son at breakfast a few mornings later what she thought of Miss Fanshawe. "She's a girl," she observed, knocking the top off her egg, "who will develop into a nervous invalid or an advanced coquette, and it entirely depends upon how much admiration she gets which she does. I hear she's religious, too, in a silly, egotistical way. She ought to have her neck wrung." Sir Peter disagreed; they heard him in the servants' hall. "Certainly not!" he roared; "certainly not! I don't think so at all! The girl's a damned pretty piece, and the man's one of my best tenants. He's only just come, and he's done wonders to the place already. And I won't have the boy crabbed for fancying a neighbor! It's very natural he should. You never have a woman in the house fit to look at. Who the devil do you expect your boys to marry? Negresses or bar-maids?" "Gentlewomen," said Lady Staines, firmly, "unless their father's behavior prevents them from being accepted."