FLIGHT FROM THE PRINCE'S CASTLE 325 



Pjatigorsk, to whose foot the Genii ever banished all 

 offenders. It would bore you if we set out over the 

 same route again. There are so few adventures in 

 these civilized days on the Georgian Road. Where 

 Bradshaw steps in, the spirit of adventure flies away. 



Arrived back in the luxury of our Tiflis hotel, we 

 found Kenneth busy altering his work on ethnology, 

 in which he had placed the Georgians as a little lower 

 than the angels. Nous avons change tout cela ! She — 

 the Georgian houri — had refused him ! What did we 

 think of it ? Was she not guilty of an astounding 

 piece of bad taste ? Did we not consider he had every 

 right to feel justly annoyed ? Was he not correct in 

 supposing himself to be a greater catch than one of 

 these " foreign " princes ? 



A most excellent frame of mind for a lorn lover to 

 have fallen into. He had worked up his grief into a 

 grievance, and lo, it was gone ! 



I didn't trouble to let him into a feminine secret, 

 but I'll whisper it to you if you'll come nearer. A 

 woman very often pretends to be indifferent to a man 

 whom she really loves, just as a man more often than 

 not pretends to love a woman for whom he only 

 entertains complete indifference. 



I am sure Kenneth cherished the delusion that, if he 

 had been able to see as much of his inamorata as English 

 conventions permit he would have brought the thing off, 

 since propinquity is supposed to be everything in love 

 affairs. He forgot that only deep love and transitory 

 gains anything from propinquity. 



Two English sportsmen, raked in from a neighbour- 



