And so, unshackled and unchaperoned, she had gone her way among her critics, and no one—­not even Tommy—­suspected how deep was the wound that their barely-veiled hostility had inflicted.  In bitterness of soul she hid it from all the world, and only her brother and her brother’s grim and somewhat unapproachable captain were even vaguely aware of its existence.

Everard Monck was one of the very few men who had not laid themselves down before her dainty feet, and she had gradually come to believe that this man shared the silent, side-long disapproval manifested by the women.  Very strangely that belief hurt her even more deeply, in a subtle, incomprehensible fashion, than any slights inflicted by her own sex.  Possibly Tommy’s warm enthusiasm for the man had made her more sensitive regarding his good opinion.  And possibly she was over ready to read condemnation in his grave eyes.  But—­whatever the reason—­she would have given much to have had him on her side.  Somehow it mattered to her, and mattered vitally.

But Monck had never joined her retinue of courtiers.  He was never other than courteous to her, but he did not seek her out.  Perhaps he had better things to do.  Aloof, impenetrable, cold, he passed her by, and she would have been even more amazed than Tommy had she heard him describe her as beautiful, so convinced was she that he saw in her no charm.

It had been a disheartening struggle, this hewing for herself a way along the rocky paths of prejudice, and many had been the thorns under her feet.  Though she kept a brave heart and never faltered, she had tired inevitably of the perpetual effort it entailed.  Three weeks after her arrival, when the annual exodus of the ladies of the regiment to the Hills was drawing near, she became engaged to Ralph Dacre, the handsomest and most irresponsible man in the mess.

With him at least her power to attract was paramount.  He was blindly, almost fulsomely, in love.  Her beauty went to his head from the outset; it fired his blood.  He worshipped her hotly, and pursued her untiringly, caring little whether she returned his devotion so long as he ultimately took possession.  And when finally, half-disdainfully, she yielded to his insistence, his one all-mastering thought became to clinch the bargain before she could repent of it.  It was a mad and headlong passion that drove him—­not for the first time in his life; and the subtle pride of her and the soft reserve made her all the more desirable in his eyes.

He had won her; he did not stop to ask himself how.  The women said that the luck was all on her side.  The men forebore to express an opinion.  Dacre had attained his captaincy, but he was not regarded with great respect by any one.  His fellow-officers shrugged their shoulders over him, and the commanding officer, Colonel Mansfield, had been heard to call him “the craziest madman it had ever been his fate to meet.”  No one, except Tommy, actively disliked him, and he had no grounds for so doing, as Monck had pointed out.  Monck, who till then had occupied the same bungalow, declared he had nothing against him, and he was surely in a position to form a very shrewd opinion.  For Monck was neither fool nor madman, and there was very little that escaped his silent observation.