ly a shout came from the room
inside, and one of them, crying "Hazur!" with instant alacrity,
stretched himself mightily, loafed upon his feet and went in, emerging a
moment later carrying written sheets, with which he disappeared into the
regions below. The staircase took a lazy curve and went up; under it,
through an open window, the sun glistened upon the shifting white and
green leaves of a pipal tree, and a crow sat on the sill and thrust his
grey head in with caws of indignant expostulation. A Government peon in
scarlet and gold ascended the stair at his own pace, bearing a packet
with an official seal. The place, with its ink-smeared walls and high
ceilings, spoke between dusty yawns of the languor and the leisure which
might attend the manipulation of the business of life, and Hilda paused
for an instant to perceive what it said. Then she walked behind her card
into the next room, where a young gentleman, reading proofs in his
shirt sleeves, flung himself upon his coat and struggled into it at her
approach. He seemed to have the blackest hair and the softest eyes and
the neatest moustache available, all set in a complexion frankly
olive, amiable English cut, in amiable Oriental colour, and the whole
illumined, when once the coat was on and the collar perfectly turned
down, by the liveliest, most engaging smile. Standing with his head
slightly on one side and one hand resting on the table, while the
other saw that nothing was disarranged between collar and top waistcoat
button, he was an interjection point of invitation and attention.

"The Editor of the Chronicle?" Hilda asked with diffident dignity, and
very well informed to the contrary.

"NOT the editor--I am sorry to say." The confession was delightfully
vivid--in the plenitude of his candour it was plain that he didn't
care who knew that he was sorry he was not the editor. "In journalistic
parlance, the sub editor," he added. "Will you be seated, Miss Howe?"
and with a tasteful silk pocket handkerchief he whisked the bottom of a
chair for her.

"Then you are Mr. Molyneux Sinclair," Hilda declared. "You have been
pointed out to me on several first nights. Oh, I know very well where
the Chronicle seats are!"

Mr. Sinclair bowed with infinite gratification, and tucked the silk
handkerchief back so that only a fold was visible. "We members of the
Fourth Estate are fairly well known, I'm afraid, in Calcutta," he said.
"Personally, I could sometimes wish it w