"Really?" said Nick, still smiling.
"Don't you believe me?" she said.
He laughed. "Not quite, dear; but that's not your fault. What are you going to wear to-night?"
Nick could switch himself from one subject to another as easily as a monkey leaps from tree to tree, and when once he had made the leap no persuasion could ever induce him to return. Olga knew this, and abandoned the discussion, albeit slightly dissatisfied.
They separated soon after to dress for the Rajah's dinner. Olga had chosen a dress of palest mauve, and very fair and delicate she looked in it. In a crowd of girls she would doubtless have been passed over by all but the most observant, but she was not one of a crowd at Sharapura. There were not many girls in that region, or Noel Wyndham's volatile fancy had scarcely strayed in her direction.
She told herself this with a faint smile, as she took a final glance at herself when her ayah had finished. There never had been any personal vanity about Olga, and that night she told herself she looked positively ugly. What in the world did Noel see in her, she wondered? It seemed incredible that any man could find anything to admire in the colourless image that confronted her.
And yet as she went up the Palace steps with Nick into the blaze of light that awaited them, he was the first to greet her, and she saw his eyes kindle at the sight of her after a fashion that made her heart contract with a sudden pain for which at the moment she was wholly at a loss to account.
"I say, you look topping!" he said, smiling down at her with pleasing effrontery. "Do you know you are very nearly late? I've been watching out for you for the past ten minutes."
"What a waste of time!" said Olga; but she returned his smile, for she could not do otherwise.
"No! Why? I had nothing better to do," he assured her. "And my patience is well rewarded. Hope you're keen on music. I've brought my banjo for the Rajah's edification. It's better than a tomtom anyway. I wonder if the fates have put us next to each other. I'll lay you five rupees to a sixpence that they haven't."