"I shall be delighted," he stammered. "I will run up one afternoon." Of course when he said this he had very little intention of keeping his promise. To enjoy a mild sort of flirtation with an exceedingly pretty girl was one thing. To go to her house and make the acquaintance of her brother, who he was certain was not a gentleman, was quite a different proposition, and might land him in all sorts of unpleasant complications. He also had an uneasy conviction that Miss Burton was remarkably self-assured for such a young woman. She had spoken of blushing when she gave him the invitation, but she had not done so. Not the faintest colour showed on her cheek, and the glance that met his was perfectly steady and unwavering. She must either be very innocent, or, young as she was, she had acquired the experience and self-possession of a much older woman. He would like to think it all out. The girl nodded in a friendly fashion, and tripped away, leaving Hugh Murchison to finish his tea, and ponder over what had happened. CHAPTER TWO. When Hugh got back to his quarters the first thing he did was to hunt up his great friend Jack Pomfret. He found that young gentleman stretched in front of a blazing fire--it was a very chilly March--and smoking a cigar nearly as big as himself. Jack Pomfret, it may be said, was quite a small man, of about the size and weight that would be associated with the coxswain of a 'Varsity boat. Next to Murchison, perhaps Pomfret was the most popular man in the regiment. He was certainly the poorest, for although he came of an aristocratic family, the said family had very little to bless themselves with. If it had been left to his immediate relatives, Jack would have had to enter a line regiment, and subsist on his pay, supplemented by more or less regular small remittances from his hard-up father. But fortune had smiled on Jack when he was in his cradle. A rich great-aunt had been his godmother, and from the date of his christening had taken him under her wing. She had been crossed in love when quite a girl, and would never marry. Jack Pomfret had a handsome, but not an extravagant, allowance now, and he would come into his great-aunt's fortune when she died. Jack always complained that his aunt was a bit thrifty, and did not fully understand the imperative necessities of a young subaltern in an expensive regiment like the Twenty-fifth. As a matter of fact, Miss Harding, his mother's youngest sister, suffered from acute indigestion, existed principally on soda-water and biscuits, lived in a comparatively small house with one manservant and two maids, and saved a great deal every year out of a large income. She loved Jack very much, but she had little or no sympathy with the follies and indiscretions of youth. She had a hazy sort of idea that an officer should live within his pay, as she lived well within her income. Needless to say that Jack had long disabused her of this silly idea.