er her secret, over him, the unconscious priest with the
sloping shoulders, thinking of abstinence and listening to Mrs.
Barberry.

It transpired, when the men came up, that there was no unanimity about
going to Government House. The Livingstones craved the necessity of
absence, if anyone would supply it by staying on; it would be a boon,
they said, and cited the advancement of the season. "One gets to bed so
much earlier," Surgeon-Major Livingstone urged, at which Alicia raised
her eyebrows and everybody laughed. Lindsay elected to gratify them,
with the proclaimed purpose of seeing how long Livingstone could be kept
up, and the civilian pair agreed, apparently from an inert tendency to
remain seated. The Aide-de-Camp had, of course, to go; duty called him;
and he declared a sense of slighted hospitality that anybody should
remain behind. "Besides," he cried, with ingenuous privilege, "who's
goin' to chaperone Miss Howe?"

Hilda stood in the midst. Tall in violet velvet, she had a flush that
made her magnificent; her eyes were deep and soft. It was patent that
she was out of proportion to the other women, body and soul; there was
altogether too much of her; and it was only the men, when Captain Corby
spoke, who looked silently responsive.

"We're coming away so early," said Mrs. Barberry, buttoning her glove.
Hilda had begun to smile, and, indeed, the situation had its humour, but
there was also behind her eyes an appreciation of another sort. "Don't,"
she said to Alicia, in the low, quick reach of her prompting tone, as if
the other had mistaken her cue, but the moment hardly permitted retreat,
and Alicia turned an unflinching, graceful front to the lady in the
Department of Education. "Then I think I must ask you," she said.

The educational husband was standing so near Hilda that she got the very
dregs of the glance of consternation his little wife gave him as she
replied, a trifle red and stiff, that she was sure she would be
delighted.

"Nobody suggests _me_!" exclaimed Captain Corby, resentfully. They were
gathered in the hall, the carriages were driving to the open door, the
Barberrys' glistening brougham whisking them off, and then the battered
vehicle in Hilda's hire. It had an air of ludicrous forlornity, with its
damaged paint and its tied-up harness. Hilda, when its door closed upon
the purple vision of her, might have been a modern Cinderella in
mid-stage of backward transformation.

"I could chaper