"He means soup," faltered Elflida Norma desperately, wishing herself with the boys who were being regaled with curry and rice in her room, and thereinafter became dumb until the next course, when a sense of duty made her supplement Imân's "fish-bar'l" with the explanation that it was not really fish, which was not procurable, but another form of fowl.
So, in fact, were the side dishes which followed, and in which Imân had so far surpassed his usual self that Elflida was perforce as helpless as her companion for all save eating them solidly in due order. The old man, however, was too much absorbed in the due handling of "bredsarse" with the fowl, which was at last allowed to appear under the title of "roschikken," too much discomforted by the subsidence of his favourite "sikken," a cheese soufflée, to notice silence, or the lack of it, until, just as--the worst strain over--he was perfunctorily apologising for the impossibility of "Hice-puddeen," a fateful cry came from the next room and Elflida started to her feet.
"It's Lily," she began; but Imân frowned her into her seat again, and turned to the anatomy superbly. "Go!" he said with dignity, "and bid the ayah see to Lily-baba."
The result, however, was unsatisfactory, and a certain obstinacy grew to Elflida's small face, which finally blossomed into open rebellion and a burst of confidence.
"You see," she said, those blue eyes of hers almost blinking as she narrowed them with earnestness, "she smells guavas, and they are more her hobby than melons even."
The young man smiled.
"Who's Lily?" he asked; "your sister, I suppose."
"My half-sister," she replied, solemnly. "But she will cry on, you see, if she is not let to come to my place."
"Then let her come--why not?"
"It is an evil custom," began Imân, as the order was given. He knew no graver blame than that even for a whole Decalogue in ruins; but Elflida Norma stamped her foot as she had stamped it in the polka, so he had to give in and thus avoid worse exposures.