only his pale face--a shade lighter than his little blonde
moustache--showed his last night's excesses. He was mechanically
reaching for his sword and staring confusedly at the papers on his
table when his servant interrupted:

"Major Bromley arranged that Lieutenant Kirby takes your sash this
morning, as you're not well, sir; and you're to report for special
to the colonel," he added, pointing discreetly to the envelope.

Touched by this consideration of his superior, Major Bromley, who
had been one of the veterans of last night's engagement, Calvert
mastered the contents of the envelope without the customary
anathema of specials, said, "Thank you, Parks," and passed out on
the veranda.

The glare of the quiet sunlit quadrangle, clean as a well-swept
floor, the whitewashed walls and galleries of the barrack buildings
beyond, the white and green palisade of officers' cottages on
either side, and the glitter of a sentry's bayonet, were for a
moment intolerable to him. Yet, by a kind of subtle irony, never
before had the genius and spirit of the vocation he had chosen
seemed to be as incarnate as in the scene before him. Seclusion,
self-restraint, cleanliness, regularity, sobriety, the atmosphere
of a wholesome life, the austere reserve of a monastery without its
mysterious or pensive meditation, were all there. To escape which,
he had of his own free will successively accepted a fool's
distraction, the inevitable result of which was, the viewing of
them the next morning with tremulous nerves and aching eyeballs.

An hour later, Lieutenant George Calvert had received his final