The room, too, in which this mystic princess sat, was strange and wonderful. There were no doors visible, for the four walls were throughout covered by paper of foreign manufacture, representing spacious Tyrolese landscapes and incidents of the chase. When Lavender had first entered this chamber his eye had been shocked by these coarse and prominent pictures--by the green rivers, the blue lakes and the snow-peaks that rose above certain ruddy chalets. Here a chamois was stumbling down a ravine, and there an operatic peasant some eight or ten inches in actual length, was pointing a gun. The large figures, the coarse colors, the impossible scenes--all this looked, at first sight, to be in the worst possible taste, and Lavender was convinced that Sheila had nothing to do with the introduction of this abominable decoration. But somehow, when he turned to the line of ocean that was visible from the window, to the lonely shores of the island and the monotony of colors showing in the still picture without, he began to fancy that there might be a craving up in these latitudes for some presentation, however rude and glaring, of the richer and more variegated life of the South. The figures and mountains on the walls became less prominent. He saw no incongruity in a whole chalet giving way and allowing Duncan, who waited at table, to bring from this aperture to the kitchen a steaming dish of salmon, while he spoke some words in Gaelic to the servants at the other end of the tube. He even forgot to be surprised at the appearance of little Mairi, with whom he had shaken hands a little while before, coming round the table with potatoes. He did not, as a rule, shake hands with servant-maids, but was not this fair-haired, wistful-eyed girl some relative, friend or companion of Sheila’s, and had he not already begun to lose all perception of the incongruous or the absurd in the strange pervading charm with which Sheila’s presence filled the place? He suddenly found Mackenzie’s deep-set eyes fixed upon him, and became aware that the old man had been mysteriously announcing to Ingram that there were more political movements abroad than people fancied. Sheila sat still and listened to her father as he expounded these things, and showed that, although at a distance, he could perceive the signs of the times. Was it not incumbent, moreover, on a man who had to look after a number of poor people and simple folks, that he should be on the alert? “It iss not bekass you will live in London you will know everything,” said the King of Borva, with a certain significance in his tone. “There iss many things a man does not see at his feet that another man will see who is a good way off. The International, now--” He glanced furtively at Lavender.