'Isn't it quaint up here?' she went on, leaning over the balustrade and looking, as Rose had been doing, at the servants filing up the steps with silver dishes of sausages and bacon, and all the accessories of an orthodox English breakfast, regardless of the feelings of their pig-loathing hosts. 'I declare, I have fallen in love with everything.'
'Yourself included, I hope,' added Lewis, joining the group; or, to put it politely, you have fallen in love with everything, and everything has fallen in love with you. And no wonder. The fact is, Gwen, that you do suit your present environment to perfection. I should not have believed the thing possible--but so it is.'
As he sat on the coping with his back to the landscape, he bent forward looking at her critically--'No!' he went on; 'I should not have thought it possible, but you look the part.'
'It must be awful, though, to be a native,' remarked George fervently. His eyes were on Colonel Tweedie as he spoke. That conspicuous failure was, however, only partly responsible for his opinion. In a more or less crude form the childish hymn of gratitude for having been born in order to go to a public school survives wholesomely amongst young Englishmen.
'I don't know,' dissented Gordon languidly. 'A civilised conscience is a frightful interference with the liberty of the subject. Personally, I object to the native views of comfort, pleasure, and all that. But I can imagine some very good fellows preferring them. They are not nearly such a strain on the nervous system. For instance, Gwen, were you really the Shah-zâdi you look, there would have been no necessity for sending back those brocades over which I found you weeping half an hour ago. You would have appropriated them without demur. Wouldn't she, sir?'
The Colonel gave his little preparatory cough, and looked grave.
'It wasn't a brocade, Colonel Tweedie,' protested Gwen. 'It was simply the most lovely piece of old-gold satin in the world. It stood up of itself, and yet was absolutely invertebrate in its folds. Perfect! The same on both sides too. I had half a mind to be double-faced myself, and take it when Mr. Gordon's back was turned.'
'Why didn't you?' retorted the latter cynically. 'You are the only one of us who would not be criminally responsible for the action. Isn't that so, sir?' He was mischievously amused by his chief's evident dislike to the subject.
'Should I be responsible?' asked Rose, surprised.
'Your father would be, for your action. Wouldn't you, sir?'