Bellairs looked keenly vexed, and she hastened to add:-- "Not because I am--indifferent. No, no. I can't explain why the feeling came. It was gone in a moment. And now--" "Now you are happy?" He caught her hand and she left it in his. "Yes, very happy." Bellairs bent over her and kissed her--as he lifted himself up a white hand appeared on the rail of the companion that led from the lower to the upper deck of the _Hatasoo_. Clarice wearily dragged herself up. She was wrapped in a shawl and looked very ill. Betty ran to help her. "I thought I must get a little air," she said feebly. "How d'you do, Mr Bellairs?" She sank down in a chair. Bellairs felt like a man between two fires. * * * * * Two days later Lord Braydon gave his consent to his daughter's engagement with Bellairs, and Lady Betty ran to tell Clarice. She had not previously said a word to her friend of what had passed between her and Bellairs. He had begged her to keep silence until he had spoken to Lord Braydon, and she had promised and had kept her promise. But now she rushed into the saloon where Clarice was playing Chopin, and, throwing her arms round her friend, told her the great news. The body of Clarice became rigid in her arms. "And the king has consented," Betty cried. The king was her father. "Clarice, Clarice, isn't it wonderful?" "Wonderful! I thought so when you told me. But already I begin to doubt if it is." "To doubt, Clarice?" "To doubt whether anything a man does is wonderful." That was all Clarice said. Then she kissed Betty, and went on playing Chopin feverishly, while Betty told, to the accompaniment of the music, all that was in her heart. "And," she said at last, "I love him, Clarice; I love him intensely. I shall always love him." Clarice played a final chord and got up. Bellairs lunched on the dahabeeyah that day and Clarice met him as usual. Her manner gave no sign of any mental disturbance. Perhaps it was curiously calm. He wondered a little, but was too happy to wonder much. Joy made him cruel, for nothing is so cruel as joy. Only he was glad that Clarice had so much pride, for he thought now that in her pride lay his safety. He no longer feared that she would condescend to a scene, and he even thought that perhaps she did not feel so deeply as he had supposed. "After all," he said to himself exultantly, "there's no harm done. I need not have been so conscience-stricken. What is a pretty speech and a kiss to a woman who has lived, travelled over the world, read widely, thought many things? Now, if I had treated Betty in such a way I should be a blackguard. She could not have understood. She could only have suffered. I will never hurt her--Betty!"