He strode forward as he spoke and began to exchange greetings with Mrs. Anstruther, who rose to meet him. He had to hear the morning's story re-discussed, exclaimed over, criticized. He bore it, without impatience, but with a certain aloofness which gave the subject no chance to endure. He managed skilfully, at last, to divert the conversation into other channels. Anstruther, who had sat between his wife and Miss Van Arlen, had risen to welcome Commandant Rattier. The mishap to the latter's horse engrossed their attention; they wandered off together to examine the wounded limb. After a moment's hesitation Aylmer sank into the vacant chair. He looked round at the girl. Her eyes met his, but her hand, as if acting by some automatic command of the brain, touched her skirt and pulled it toward herself, and away from him. His lips grew a thought more rigid behind the veiling moustache. But his voice was entirely divested of any semblance of pique. "And how is my small cousin?" he asked pleasantly. "Has Selim persuaded him to take that long-deferred siesta?" Old Van Arlen stirred restlessly on his seat. He looked at Aylmer, his lips moved as if to speech, and then closed again. Miss Van Arlen sat up very straight. "Do you mean my nephew?" she asked frigidly. "Your nephew and my cousin," said Aylmer, cheerfully. "I hardly expected to find a relation here when I started this morning." Her eyes grew stormy with suspicion, almost with hate. "Are you sure?" she demanded suddenly. "Quite sure," said Aylmer, halting for a scarcely perceptible moment before her meaning reached him. "I have found only friends--so far." CHAPTER V MR. MILLER Outside their own country two British types carry their caste marks patently. They are the tourist and the officer. Gibraltar abounds with both, the company of the first having an occasional and transient superiority when it is swollen by Transatlantic arrivals or intermittent yachting cruisers. But the officers of the garrison and their wives and daughters are the reigning members of the informal club which makes Society on the Rock. They know each other, they discuss each other; the longer they stay the more parochial grow their interests. Newcomers undergo a period of silent probation. They cannot slip in unobserved. The who and the whence test is applied to each with unction, sometimes without justice, but almost invariably with good-humor. As a consequence everybody, within limits, knows something about everybody else.