At that moment Colonel Daye’s tall grey hat came into view, threading the turbaned crowd in obvious quest. Rhoda did not see it, and Doyle immediately found a short cut to the house which avoided the encounter. He had suddenly remembered several things that he wanted to say. They climbed a flight of marble stairs covered with some dirty yards of matting, and found themselves almost alone in the Maharajah’s drawing-room. The Viceroy had partaken of an ice and gone down again, taking the occasion with him; and the long table at the end of the room was almost as heavily laden as when the confectioner had set it forth. “A little pink cake in a paper boat, please,” she commanded, “with jam inside”; and then, as Doyle went for it, she sat down on one of Pattore’s big brocaded sofas, and crossed her pretty feet, and looked at the chromolithographs of the Prince and Princess of Wales askew upon the wall, and wondered why she was making a fool of herself. “I’ve brought you a cup of coffee: do you mind?” he asked, coming back with it. “His Highness’ intentions are excellent, but the source of his supplies is obscure. I tried the champagne,” he added apologetically: “it’s unspeakable!” No, Miss Daye did not mind. Doyle sat down at the other end of the sofa, and reflected that another quarter of an hour was all he could possibly expect, and then—— “I am going home, Miss Daye,” he said. Since there was no other way of introducing himself to her consideration, he would do it with a pitchfork. “I knew you were. Soon?” “The day after to-morrow, in the _Oriental_. I suppose Ancram told you?” “I believe he did. You and he are great friends, aren’t you?” “We live together. Men must be able to tolerate each other pretty fairly to do that.” “How long shall you be in England?” “Six months, I hope.” She was silent, and he fancied she was thinking, with natural resentment, that he might have postponed his departure until after the wedding. Doyle hated a lie more than most people, but he felt the situation required that he should say something. “The exigency of my going is unkind,” he blundered. “It will deprive me of the pleasure of offering Ancram my congratulations.” There was only the faintest flavour of mendacity about this; but she detected it, and fitted it, with that unerring feminine instinct we hear so much about, to her thought. For an instant she seemed lost in buttoning her glove; then she looked up, with a little added colour. “Don’t tamper with your sincerity for me,” she said quickly: “I’m not worth it. It’s very kind of you to consider my feelings, but I would much rather have the plain truth between us—that you don’t approve of me or of the—the marriage. I jar upon you—oh! I see it! a dozen times in half an hour—and you are sorry for your friend. For his sake you even try to like me: I’ve seen you doing it. Please don’t: it distresses me to know that you take that trouble——”