further than to say that I consider all the lady's fears were
groundless. She has been well treated. There was no need to call
for _my_ aid. The army is hard to defeat, Captain, and always was!"

"I had not myself regarded any officer in the light of an oppressor
of the distressed amanuensis," he went on. "But come now, who is
she? You started to call her 'Countess.' Since when have
countesses gone into secretarying? Tut! Tut! and again, my dear
man, Tut!"

"Sir," replied Carlisle, "I recall that when I was a youth, some of
us, members of the Sabbath-school class, occasionally would ask our
teacher a question on the Scriptures which he could not answer. In
that case he always said, 'My dear young friends, there are some
things which are not for man to know.'"

"I accept my temporary defeat," said Dunwody slowly. "We'll see.
But come, now, Captain, time is passing and the tables are yearning
for trouble. The army is distinguished not alone in love.
Draw-poker hath its victories, not less than war. I told Jones and
Judge Clayton and one or two others that I was pining for a little
game of draw. What do you say? Should not all lesser questions be
placed in abeyance?"

"That," said the other, "comes to me at the present moment in the
nature of an excellent compromise measure. I am agreed!"

Fencing thus, neither sure of his adversary, they now made their
way to one of the larger saloons, which ordinarily was devoted to
those who preferred to smoke, mayhap to chew, perhaps even to do