The only way to do, is never to trust any of them!" The Major was busied in carefully taking a mental measurement of Mademoiselle Justine, who, still well on the sunny side of forty, was really a very comely replica of her severer intellectual sister.

Justine Delande still lingered in that temperate zone of life where a fair fighting chance of matrimony was still hers.

"If a ray of sunshine ever steals into the flinty bosom of a Swiss woman, there maybe a gleam or two still left here," mused the Major, most adroitly avoiding all reference to Justine's rosebud charge, and only essaying to place her entirely at her ease.
But, in proportion as he gracefully labored, the frightened governess began to realize the danger of her situation.
"I hope that no one will observe us," she said, speaking rapidly and under her breath.

"Mr.Johnstone is so eccentric, so haughty, and so very peculiar!" Her distress was evident, and the gallant Major at once hastened to allay her fears.
"I have already thought of that.

My old friend, Ram Lal, has a lovely garden in rear of his house and there we will be entirely unobserved.
For I have so much that I would say to you." It was with a sigh of relief that the frightened woman hastily passed through Ram Lal's spacious snuggery in rear of his jewel mart and was soon ensconced in a little pagoda, where Major Hawke seated himself at her side and skillfully took up his soft refrains.
In half an hour they were thoroughly en ban rapport, for the graceful Major Hawke adroitly conversed with his laughing eyes frankly beaming upon the lonely woman.