'Thanks! but everything is delightful; simply fascinating! In spite of what Mr. Keene said this morning, I begin to wish I were a native.'

'For the sake of the satin?' asked Lewis, who was following close behind with Rose. Gwen flashed back a brilliant look at him.

'No! not the satin. That game would not be worth the candle.'

Apart from the question of satin, Mrs. Boynton had excuse for admiring the mise en scène. The violet sky, spangled with stars, seemed made apparently but for one end--to hap and hold that terraced roof which was clearly outlined against it by the light streaming from the pavilions on to the fretted white marble balustrades. At the corners were shadowy cupolas, and there in the arched summer-house at the farther end, close upon the velvet darkness, was a table set with silver and glass, fruits and flowers. At one side, so as to divide the ladies equally, was Rose, in her habit, doing the duty of hostess with a little air of gravity and preoccupation; at the other, Gwen, in her soft clouds of muslin, keeping the men in a state of admiring gratification through their eyes and their ears. They gathered round her too, when, dinner being over, they adjourned to the balconies for coffee and cigars. It was deliciously cool; a faint breeze stirred Rose's hair as she sat a little apart from the others watching the twinkling lights go up and down the stair which formed the only tie between that world on the roof and that world in the courtyard below.

'We ought to go to bed early,' said Lewis, Coming to stand before her. 'You are half-asleep--no wonder, after last night!--and Gwen is what superstitious Scotch folk call "fey." Then, if we have to join that detestable hawking-party to-morrow morning, we shall have to get up at five.'

'You needn't go unless you like,' she replied curtly. 'Mrs. Boynton has cried off.'

'I am not Mrs. Boynton's personal assistant, Miss Tweedie; I happen to be your father's--so duty calls.' As he spoke he seated himself on the balustrade and leant forward, his elbows on his knees, to watch the group on the other side of the arcade.

'If I didn't know that Gwen despises that sort of thing,' he went on in dissatisfied tones, 'I should say she had rouged this evening. Her way of showing fatigue, I presume; though, of course, neither of you have the common-sense to confess you are tired. Women are all ascetics at heart; at least they believe in the virtue of martyrdom. They have different ways of showing it, that's all. Gwen spends her fatigue in dress-making and conversation to please, and you, I'll go bail, haven't even a proper bandage on that scorched arm----'

'Mr. Gordon!'

'Yes! I saw you imagined I was blind--suppose we say like to imagine it; but I really had my eye-glass, Miss Tweedie. Besides, it doesn't require microscopic sight to see some things.'