Mrs. Mallowe rattled downhill, having satisfied herself, by a
glance through the fringe of her sunshade, of the effect of her
words.

The shot went home. Of a surety Otis Yeere was somebody in this
bewildering whirl of Simla had monopolised the nicest woman in
it, and the Punjabis were growling. The notion justified a mild
glow of vanity. He had never looked upon his acquaintance with
Mrs. Hauksbee as a matter for general interest.

The knowledge of envy was a pleasant feeling to the man of no
account. It was intensified later in the day when a luncher at the
Club said spitefully, 'Well, for a debilitated Ditcher, Yeere, you are
going it. Hasn't any kind friend told you that she's the most
dangerous woman in Simla?'

Yeere chuckled and passed out. When, oh, when would his new
clothes be ready? He descended into the Mall to inquire; and Mrs.
Hauksbee, coming over the Church Ridge in her 'rickshaw, looked
down upon him approvingly. 'He's learning to carry himself as if he
were a man, instead of a piece of furniture, and,' she screwed up
her eyes to see the better through the sunlight 'he is a man when he
holds himself like that. O blessed Conceit, what should we be
without you?'

With the new clothes came a new stock of self-confidence. Otis
Yeere discovered that he could enter a room without breaking into
a gentle perspiration could cross one, even to talk to Mrs.
Hauksbee, as though rooms were meant to be crossed. He was for
the first time in nine years proud of himself, and contented with