Beighton did her best to bear up; but she wept in the presence of the
people. No training could help her through such a disappointment. Kitty
unstrung her bow with a vicious jerk, and went back to her place, while Barr-
Saggott was trying to pretend that he enjoyed snapping the bracelet on the
snubby girl's raw, red wrist. It was an awkward scene--most awkward. Every one
tried to depart in a body and leave Kitty to the mercy of her Mamma.
But Cubbon took her away instead, and--the rest isn't worth printing.
HIS CHANCE IN LIFE.
Then a pile of heads be laid--
Thirty thousand heaped on high--
All to please the Kafir maid,
Where the Oxus ripples by.
Grimly spake Atulla Khan:--
"Love hath made this thing a Man."
--Oatta's Story.
If you go straight away from Levees and Government House Lists, past Trades'
Balls--far beyond everything and everybody you ever knew in your respectable
life--you cross, in time, the Border line where the last drop of White blood
ends and the full tide of Black sets in. It would be easier to talk to a new-
made Duchess on the spur of the moment than to the Borderline folk without
violating some of their conventions or hurting their feelings. The Black and
the White mix very quaintly in their ways.
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