One of them asked me to dinner for tomorrow.

For today I am altogether free." In the course of the evening Major Mallett received three or four invitations to dances and balls, and, being thus started in society, was soon out every evening.

For the first week he enjoyed the novelty of the scene, but very speedily tired of it.

At dinners the ladies he took down always wanted him to talk about India; but even this was, in his opinion, preferable to the crush and heat of the dances.
"How men can go on with such a life as this," he said to a friend at the club, "beats me altogether, Colonel.

Two or three times in the year one might like to go out to these crowded balls, just to see the dresses and the girls, but to go out night after night is to my mind worse than hunting the rebels through the jungle.