During vac. the Decadents would sometimes meet in Town, and See Life—­a singularly uninteresting and unattractive side of Life (much more like Death), and the better men among them—­better because of a little sincerity and pluck—­would achieve a petty and rather sordid “adventure” perhaps.

Augustus had no head for Mathematics and no gift for Languages, while his Classics had always been a trifle more than shaky.  History bored him—­so he read Moral Philosophy.

There is a somewhat dull market for second-hand and third-class Moral Philosophy in England, so Augustus took his to India.  In the first college that he adorned his classes rapidly dwindled to nothing, and the College Board dispensed with the services of Augustus, who passed on to another College in another Province, leaving behind him an odour of moral dirtiness, debt, and decadence.  Quite genuine decadence this time, with nothing picturesque about it, involving doctors’ bills, alimony, and other the fine crops of wild-oat sowing.

At Gungapur he determined to “settle down,” to “turn over a new leaf,” and laid a good space of paving-stone upon his road to reward.

He gave up the morning nip, docked the number of cocktails, went to bed before two, took a little gentle exercise, met Mrs. Pat Dearman—­and (like Mr. Robin Ross-Ellison, General Miltiades Murger and many another) succumbed at once.

Mrs. Pat Dearman had come to India (as Miss Cleopatra Diamond Brighte) to see her brother, Dickie Honor Brighte, at Gungapur, and much interested to see, also, a Mr. Dearman whom, in his letters to her, Dickie had described as “a jolly old buster, simply full of money, and fairly spoiling for a wife to help him blew it in.”  She had not only seen him but had, as she wrote to acidulous Auntie Priscilla at the Vicarage, “actually married him after a week’s acquaintance—­fancy!—­the last thing in the world she had ever supposed ... etc.” (Auntie Priscilla had smiled in her peculiarly unpleasant way as the artless letter enlarged upon the strangeness of her ingenuous niece’s marrying the rich man about whom her innocent-minded brother had written so much.)

Having thoroughly enjoyed a most expensive and lavish honeymoon, Mrs. Pat Dearman had settled down to make her good husband happy, to have a good time and to do any amount of Good to other people—­especially to young men—­who have so many temptations, are so thoughtless, and who easily become the prey of such dreadful people and such dreadful habits.

Now it is to be borne in mind that Mrs. Dearman’s Good Time was marred to some extent by her unreasoning dislike of all Indians, a dislike which grew into a loathing hatred, born and bred of her ignorance of the language, customs, beliefs and ideals of the people among whom she lived, and from whom her husband’s great wealth sprang.

To Augustus—­fresh from very gilded gold, painted lilies and highly perfumed violets—­she seemed a vision of delight, a blessed damozel, a living Salvation.