Would he continue, I wondered vaguely, as, with my
elbows on the table, I tore into strips the lemon-leaf that floated in
my finger-bowl--would he continue, through life, to shelter her from his
other clever friends as now he attempted to shelter her from her mother?
In that case he would have to domicile her, poor dear, behind the
curtain, like the native ladies--a good price to pay for a protection
of which, bless her heart! she would be all unaware. I had quite stopped
bemoaning the affair; perhaps the comments of my husband, who treated
it with broad approval and satisfaction, did something to soothe my
sensibilities. At all events, I had gradually come to occupy a high
fatalistic ground towards the pair. If it was written upon their
foreheads that they should marry, the inscription was none of mine;
and, of course, it was true, as John had indignantly stated, that
Dacres might do very much worse. One's interest in Dacres Tottenham's
problematical future had in no way diminished; but the young man was so
positive, so full of intention, so disinclined to discussion--he had
not reopened the subject since that morning in the saloon of the
Caledonia--that one's feeling about it rather took the attenuated form
of a shrug. I am afraid, too, that the pleasurable excitement of such
an impending event had a little supervened; even at forty there is no
disallowing the natural interests of one's sex. As I sat there pulling
my lemon-leaf to pieces, I should not have been surprised or in the
least put about if the two had returned radiant from the lawn to demand
my blessing. As to the test of quality that I had obligingly invented
for Dacres on the spur of the moment without his knowledge or
connivance, it had some time ago faded into what he apprehended it to
be--a mere idyllic opportunity, a charming background, a frame for his
project, of prettier sentiment than the funnels and the hand-rails of a
ship.

Mr. Tottenham had ten days to spend with us. He knew the place well;
it belonged to the province to whose service he was dedicated, and he
claimed with impressive authority the privilege of showing it to Cecily
by degrees--the Hall of Audience today, the Jessamine Tower tomorrow,
the tomb of Akbar another, and the Deserted City yet another day. We
arranged the expeditions in conference, Dacres insisting only upon the
order of them, which I saw was to be cumulative, with the Taj at the
very end, on the night precisely of the