“Damn this sly Scotsman! Why does he not show up?” was the chafing soliloquy of the Major, now anxious to seal his re-entree into Delhi society with the open friendship of the most powerful European civilian within the battered walls of the wicked city. He needed all his nerve now, for Hugh Fraser Johnstone was a past master of the arts of dissimulation. In fact, the mauvais quart d’heure was really due to the innate womanly weakness of Mademoiselle Justine Delande. This guileless Swiss maiden had been carried off her feet by the romantic episode of the morning. Her cool palm still tingled with the meaning pressure of the handsome Major’s hand! She had hastened away to her own apartment, as a wounded tigress seeks its cave for a last stand! The concealment of the diamond bracelet was a matter of necessity, and, with a beating heart, she buried it deep under the poor harvest of paltry Delhi trinkets which she had already gathered, with a mere magpie acquisitiveness. Alan Hawke had builded better than he knew, when he selected this same bauble. He had been guided by a chance remark of Ram Lal’s. “Give her that,” said the crafty old jeweler. “She has priced it a dozen times since her first coming here.” It was the Ultima Thule of personal decoration to her. The Swiss governess reserved the secret delight of donning the glittering ornament until she was positive that no tell-tale spy had observed her innocent assignation with her sister’s chivalric friend. “He must be rich and powerful,” she murmured as she fled from her room to play the safety game of being found with the heiress when her Prince Charming should arrive. Miss Nadine Johnstone failed not to observe the unusual color mantling her sedate friend’s cheeks. “You look as if you had received some good news. Is the mail in?” queried Miss Johnstone. “Not yet. I hastened back, for I forgot to take my watch and was belated. I fear I am late, even now, for tiffin,” demurely replied the Swiss maiden, dropping for the first time in her life into the baleful arts of the other daughters of Eve. She had broken the ice of propriety in which her past life had been congealed and an insidious pleasure now thrilled her quickened veins, as she felt herself possessed of a secret, one linking her to an attractive member of the dangerous sex, and a hero of romance, a very Don Juan in seductive softness. Her knees trembled at a sudden summons to report to the Master of the marble house, forthwith.