But soon he had no need to surmise it; for before long Violet began to confide all her sorrows to him and the recital made his heart bleed for one so young and beautiful mated to a selfish wretch who was as blind to her suffering as he was to her charm.  The younger man’s chivalry was up in arms, and he felt that such a boor did not deserve so bright a jewel.  At times Frank was tempted to confront the callous husband and force him to open his dulled eyes to the bravely-borne misery of his neglected wife and realise how fortunate he ought to consider himself in being the owner of such a transcendent being.  But the next moment the infatuated youth was convinced that Norton was incapable of appreciating so rare a woman, that only a nature like his own could understand or do full justice to the perfections of hers.  Such is a young man’s conceit.  He rejoiced to know that his poor sympathy could help in a measure to make up to Violet for the happiness that she declared that she had missed in life.  And so he gladly consented to play the consoler; and she, for the pleasure of being consoled, continued to pour out her griefs to him.

But if Frank was unconscious of the danger of his post as sympathising confidant to another man’s young and pretty wife, others were not.  Her husband, of course, was as blind as most husbands seem to be in Anglo-Indian society.  For in that land of the Household of Three, the Eternal Triangle, it is almost a recognised principle that every married woman who is at all attractive is entitled to have one particular bachelor always in close attendance on her, to be constantly at her beck and call, to ride with her, to drive her every afternoon to tennis or golf or watch polo, then on to the Club and sit with her there.  His duty, a pleasant one, no doubt, is to cheer up her otherwise solitary dinner in her bungalow on the nights when her neglectful husband is dining out en garcon.  No cavaliere servente of Old Italy ever had so busy a time as the Tame Cat of the India of to-day.  And the husband allows it, nay seems, as Major Norton did, to hail his presence with relief, as it eases the conscience of the selfish lord and master who leaves his spouse much alone.

But if the Resident saw no harm or danger in the young officer constantly seeking the society of his pretty wife others did.  At first Frank’s well-wishers tried to hint to him that there was likelihood of his friendship with her being misunderstood.  But he laughed at Raymond’s badly-expressed warning and rather resented Major Hepburn’s kindly advice when on one occasion his Company Commander spoke plainly, though tactfully, to him on the subject.  Then Violet’s enemies took a hand in the game.  Mrs. Trevor, having failed to decoy him to her bungalow for what she called “a quiet tea and a motherly little chat,” cornered him one afternoon when he was on his way to the Residency and spoke very openly to him of the risk he ran of being entangled