“In you, you mean,” said the great fellow, smiling.
“Oh, no,” said Grey, naïvely, “I think it was in you.”
“Well, I don’t know,” replied Chumbley, thoughtfully; “she has been very attentive and kind certainly, but then she has been far more so to Hilton and Miss Perowne. Why I saw her peel an orange for old Hilton with her own fair—I mean dark—fingers.”
“I suppose it is the Malayan way of showing courtesy to a guest,” said Grey, in an absent tone of voice, as her eyes were wandering from Captain Hilton to Helen Perowne and back; and then, in spite of herself, she sighed gently, a fact that did not pass unnoticed by Chumbley, who made of it a mental note.
Meanwhile, the half-savage banquet went on with fresh surprises from time to time for the guests, who were astonished at the extent to which the Malay Princess had adopted the best of our English customs.
Perhaps the most critical of all was Mrs Bolter, who did not scruple about making whispered remarks to her brother about the various delicacies spread around.
“If Henry does not come soon, Arthur,” she whispered, “I shall send you to fetch him. By the way, those sweets are very nicely made. Taste them.”
“Thank you, dear Mary, no,” he said, quietly, as he turned an untasted fruit round and round in his long, thin fingers.
“Arthur, how can you be so absurd?” whispered his sister. “The people will be noticing you directly.”
“What have I done, my dear Mary?” he replied, looking quite aghast.