d, and Sir Lionel was either very absent-minded or else very
obstinate not to give it, I'm not sure which; but if I were a betting
character I should bet on the latter. I begin to see that his
dragon-ness may be expected to leak out in his attitude toward Woman as
a Sex. Already I've detected the most primitive, almost primaeval, ideas
in him, which probably he contracted in Bengal. Would you believe it, he
insisted on my putting on a veil to travel with?--but I haven't come to
that part yet.

As for Mr. Burden, as I said, he disappeared from our view; but I doubt
if we disappeared from his. You may think this is conceited in me, but,
as he took off his Panama in saying good-bye, he contrived to peer at me
round an unfortified corner of the Dragon, and the look he flung me said
more plainly than words: "This is all right, but I'm hanged if I don't
see it through," or something even more emphatic to that effect.

Sir Lionel was surprised when he saw my luggage, which we picked up when
he'd claimed his own.

"I thought young ladies never went anywhere without a dozen boxes," said
he.

"Oh, mamma and I travelled half over Europe with only one trunk and two
bags between us," I blurted out, before I stopped to think. Then I
wished the floor would yawn and swallow me up.

He did stare!--and his eyes are dreadfully piercing when he stares. They
are very nice-looking gray ones; but I can tell you they felt like
hatpins.

"I should have thought you were too young in those days to know anything
about luggage," said he.

That gave me a straw to clutch. "Madame de Maluet has told me a great
deal." (So she has, about one thing or another; mostly my own faults.)

"Oh, I see," he said. It must have seemed funny to him, my saying that
about the trunks, as Ellaline's mother died when E. was four.

He hadn't much luggage, either; no golf clubs, or battle-axes, or
whatever you play about with in Bengal when you aren't terrorizing the
natives. He sent the brown servant off in one cab with our things, and
put me in another, into which he also mounted. It did seem funny driving
off with him, for when I came to think of it, I was never alone with a
man before; but he was gawkier about it than I was. Not exactly shy; I
hardly know how to express it, but he couldn't help showing that he was
out of his element.

Oh, I forgot to tell you, he'd shaken hands with the Mock Dragon, and
shunted him off just as ruthlessly as he did the boy.