shions apologised for the absence of chairs. A bowl of
roses, rigidly arranged in alternate lines of flower and fern, filled
the room with fragrance. In front of each guest a snowy dome of rice,
ringed about with a strange assortment of curries, gleamed on a silver
salver. A quaint array of flat baskets held fragments of roast chicken
and kid; unleavened cakes of a peculiarly greasy nature did duty for
bread; and the only concessions to civilisation were knives and forks,
table-napkins, and champagne.

"Why shouldn't we have the courage of our barbarism, and do without
knives and forks as well?" Quita had suggested airily, at the outset;
and a faint look of horror convulsed Mrs Mayhew's bird-like face.

Her husband saw it, and came promptly to her aid.

"No forks, no champagne!" he retorted, laughing; and Quita picked up
her fork straightway.

"Hobson's choice!" she said, in a tone of mock resignation. "It would
be sheer brutality to deprive six men of champagne!"

She was sitting now on a cushion, at the Resident's right hand, feet
tucked away under her skirts, and a napkin laid across her knee. On
this she had set a leaf piled with saffron-tinted rice, which she was
exploring eagerly for incidental sultanas and yellow lumps of sugar,
exchanging bulletins, from time to time, with Desmond, who had taken
her in to dinner, and in whom she speedily recognised a morning quality
of mind that matched her own.

Lenox, sitting opposite between Honor and Elsie, acutely aware that his
legs were too long for the occasion, almost forgot the torment of the
past week in looking and listening, and wondering how he had ever
attained even a passing hold upon a spirit so lightly poised, so
compact of volatile essences, that he shrank, almost with awe, from the
bare thought of subjecting her uncaptured loveliness to the pains and
penalties of marriage. He sat for the most part in silence; content to
let the ripple of her voice and laughter play over him like water over
parched earth. Her voice had drawn him irresistibly from the first.
It was a thing of exquisite modulations. It thrilled like a caress.
Its clear, cool tones, pure from passion, intoxicated him like the
rarefied atmosphere of the heights. Once or twice she flung him a
question or a remark, as if compelling him to be aware of her
existence. He answered her with grave politeness, and an occasional
direct look, before which her eyes fell, as if dazzled by a hel