"Oh, you are really comical," she cried. "How can any girl smoke a cigarette gracefully? In the first place, it is a most unfeminine thing to do. All people must smoke them in the same way, and there can never be anything graceful in the act." "Women don't smoke them the same way," replied the young subaltern, with the air of a man who has observed and learned. "Most of them chew them, and hold them at arm's length, as if they were afraid of being bitten." "It's because they don't like smoking, really, and only do it to be in the fashion. Now, when I am quite in the mood, I actually revel in a cigarette. I am in the mood to-night." Pomfret leaned forward, with a tender expression on his rather homely, but good-humoured, countenance. "That means that you feel happy to-night, eh?" She nodded brightly. "Oh, ever so happy! It is seeing new faces, you know, after weeks of isolation," she added with a touch of almost girlish gaiety. "It seems such ages since we gave a dinner-party. And you and Captain Murchison are so nice. It seems almost like a family gathering." "You like my friend Murchison, then? I am glad, because it is to him I owe the pleasure of your acquaintance." "I think he is a dear, he seems so honest, straightforward, and so reliable." She spoke with apparent conviction. "Were you not dreadfully shocked when he told you, for of course he must have told you, how we got to know each other?" "Not in the least," said Mr. Pomfret stoutly. "I explained to him that people can become acquainted, without being properly introduced in the conventional sort of way." "Ah, then, he had some doubts himself?" flashed Miss Burton. "I expect he was a little shocked, if you were not." "Not in the slightest, I assure you," replied Mr. Pomfret easily. He was not above telling a white lie upon occasions. He remembered too well the remarks that his friend had made upon the girl's unconventional behaviour, but he was not going to admit anything. Miss Burton spoke softly, after a brief pause. "You and Captain Murchison are very great friends, are you not?" "Awful pals," was the genuine response. "You see, he knows all my family. And when I joined the regiment, they deputed him to look after me. He has got a hard task," he added with a laugh. "Oh, not so very hard really, I am sure of that." Norah's voice was very sweet, very caressing. "But you and your friend are of very different temperaments." "In what way?" She smiled. "Oh, in half a hundred ways. Captain Murchison is as true as steel, but also as hard as steel. You, now, are not in the least hard. You are very kind and compassionate, you think the best of everybody." "Don't flatter me too much, please," interjected the bashful Pomfret.