Let your temptation lead you then, entirely, and good luck to you, my boy." "Didn't I tell you, O'Moy," answered the captain, mollified a little by the sympathy and good feeling peeping through the adjutant's boisterousness, "that poverty is just hell.

It's my poverty that's in the way." "And is that all?
Then it's thankful you should be that Sylvia Armytage has got enough for two." "That's just it." "Just what ?" "The obstacle.

I could marry a poor woman.

But Sylvia--" "Have you spoken to her ?" Tremayne was indignant.

"How do you suppose I could ?" "It'll not have occurred to you that the lady may have feelings which having aroused you ought to be considering ?" A wry smile and a shake of the head was Tremayne's only answer; and then Carruthers came in fresh from Lisbon, where he had been upon business connected with the commissariat, and to Tremayne's relief the subject was perforce abandoned.
Yet he marvelled several times that day that the hilarity he should have awakened in Sir Terence continued to cling to the adjutant, and that despite the many vexatious matters claiming attention he should preserve an irrepressible and almost boyish gaiety.
Meanwhile, however, the coming of Carruthers had brought the adjutant a moment's seriousness, and he reverted to the business of Captain Garfield.