"She's not telling him! She never would dare to!" slipped from her unawares. "They are coming this way," Colonel Colquhoun observed significantly. "I shall go!" cried Mrs, Guthrie Brimston. "Come, Bobbie!" It was too late, however; they were surrounded, "Be good enough to remain a moment," Captain Clarence exclaimed authoritatively. Then turning to Colonel Colquhoun, he said; "I understand that these people have in their possession a letter containing a foul slander against my wife and myself, and that they have been using it to injure us in the estimation of everybody here. If it be possible, sir, I should like to have an official inquiry instituted into the circumstances of my marriage at once." "Very well, Captain Clarence," Colonel Colquhoun answered ceremoniously. "I'll apologise," Major Guthrie Brimston gasped. But Captain Clarence turned on his heel, and walked back to his wife as if he had not heard. How the inquiry was conducted was not made public. But when it was _said_ that the Clarences had been cleared, and _seen_ that the Guthrie Brimstons had not suffered, society declared it to have been a case of six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, which left matters exactly where they were before. Those who chose to believe in the calumny continued to do so, and _vice versa_, the only difference being that Evadne's generous action in the matter brought blame upon herself from one set, and also--what was worse--brought her into a kind of vogue with another which would have caused her to rage had she understood it. For the story that she had "said things which no woman could repeat," added to the fact that she was seen everywhere with a lady whose reputation had been attacked, made men of a certain class feel a sudden interest in her. "Birds of a feather," they maintained; then spoke of her slightingly in public places, and sent her bouquets innumerable. Her next decided action, however, put an effectual stop to this nuisance. CHAPTER IX. Colonel Colquhoun came to Evadne one day, and asked her if she would not go out. She put down her work, rose at once, smiling, and declared that she should be delighted. There had been a big regimental guest night the day before, and Colonel Colquhoun had dined at mess, and was consequently irritable. Acquiescence is as provoking as opposition to a man in that mood, and he chose to take offence at Evadne's evident anxiety to please him. "She makes quite a business of being agreeable to me," he' reflected while he was waiting for her to put her hat on. "She requires me to be on my good behaviour as if I were a school-boy out for a half-holiday, and thinks it her duty to entertain me by way of reward, I suppose."