-I picture them like small granulated
sugar--added to the condiments, and soon dissolved out of sight. The
deed was done; the cook returned to Bloomsbury and Ram Singh to
Gloucester Road, to await with the patient certainty of the East the
consummation of a great vengeance.

II

My wife was at Kissengen, and I was dining with the Caerlaverocks en
garcon. When I have not to wait upon the adornment of the female
person I am a man of punctual habits, and I reached the house as the
hall clock chimed the quarter-past. My poor friend, Tommy Deloraine,
arrived along with me, and we ascended the staircase together. I call
him "my poor friend," for at the moment Tommy was under the weather.
He had the misfortune to be a marquis, and a very rich one, and at the
same time to be in love with Claudia Barriton. Neither circumstance
was in itself an evil, but the combination made for tragedy. For
Tommy's twenty-five years of healthy manhood, his cleanly-made
up-standing figure, his fresh countenance and cheerful laugh, were of
no avail in the lady's eyes when set against the fact that he was an
idle peer. Miss Claudia was a charming girl, with a notable bee in her
bonnet. She was burdened with the cares of the State, and had no
patience with any one who took them lightly. To her mind the social
fabric was rotten beyond repair, and her purpose was frankly
destructive. I remember some of her phrases: "A bold and generous
policy of social amelioration"; "The development of a civic
conscience"; "A strong hand to lop off decaying branches from the trunk
of the State." I have no fault to find with her creed, but I objected
to its practical working when it took the shape of an inhuman hostility
to that devout lover, Tommy Deloraine. She had refused him, I believe,
three times, with every circumstance of scorn. The first time she had
analysed his character, and described him as a bundle of attractive
weaknesses. "The only forces I recognise are those of intellect and
conscience," she had said, "and you have neither." The second time--it
was after he had been to Canada on the staff--she spoke of the
irreconcilability of their political ideals. "You are an Imperialist,"
she said, "and believe in an empire of conquest for the benefit of the
few. I want a little island with a rich life for all." Tommy declared
that he would become a Doukhobor to please her, but she said something
about the inability of Ethiopians to change