Certainly Major Norton did not seem to him to be a man capable of
understanding and valuing so sweet and rare a woman as this. After their
introduction in the Mess Frank's next meeting with him was at his own
table at the Residency, when in due course Wargrave was invited to
dinner after his duty call. Raymond was asked as well; and the two
subalterns were the only guests.

Their hostess looked very lovely in a Paris-made gown of a green shade
that suited her colouring admirably. England did not seem to the young
soldiers so very far away when this charming and exquisitely-dressed
woman received them in her large drawing-room from which all trace of
the East in furniture and decoration was carefully excluded. For the
English in India try to avoid in their homes all that would remind them
of the Land of Exile in which their lot is cast.

Major Norton came into the room after his guests, muttering an
unintelligible apology. He shook hands with them with an abstracted air
and failed to recall Wargrave's name. At table he asked Frank a few
perfunctory questions and then wandered off into his inevitable subject,
entomology, but finding him ignorant of and uninterested in it he
engaged in a desultory conversation with Raymond. He soon tired of this
and for the most part ate his dinner in silence. He never addressed his
wife; and Wargrave, watching them, pitied her if her husband was as
little companionable at meal-times when they were alone. He pictured her
sitting at table every day with this abstracted and uncommunicative man,
whose thoughts seemed far from his present company and surroundings and
who was scarcely likely to exert himself to talk to and entertain his
wife when he made so little effort to do so to his guests.