The opinion seemed to be general, though perhaps nobody else formulated it exactly in those terms. People went about assuring each other that Mrs. Church was the most charming social success, asserting this as if they recognised that it was somewhat unusual to confer such a decoration upon a lady whose husband had as yet none whatever. People said she was a really fascinating woman in a manner which at once condoned and suggested her undistinguished antecedents—an art which practice has made perfect in the bureaucratic circles of India. They even went so far as to add that the atmosphere of Belvedere had entirely changed since the beginning of the officiating period—which was preposterous, for nothing could change the social atmosphere of any court of Calcutta short of the reconstruction of the Indian Empire. The total of this meant that Mrs. Church had a good memory, much considerateness, an agreeable disposition, and pretty clothes. Her virtues, certainly her virtues as I know them, would hardly be revealed in the fierce light which beats upon the wife of an acting Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal from November until April, though a shadow of one of them might have been detected in the way she behaved to the Dayes. Ancram thought her divine in this, but she was only an honest woman with a temptation and a scruple. Her dignity made it difficult; she was obliged to think out delicate little ways of offering them her friendship in the scanty half hours she had to herself after dinner, while the unending scratch of her husband’s pen came through the portière that hung across the doorway into his dressing-room. What she could do without consulting them she did; though it is not likely that Colonel Daye will ever attribute the remarkable smoothness of his official path at this time to anything but the spirit of appreciation in which he at last found Government disposed to regard his services. The rest was not so easy, because she had to count with Rhoda. On this point her mother was in the habit of invoking Rhoda’s better nature, with regrettable futility. Mrs. Daye said that for her part she accepted an invitation in the spirit in which it was given, and it is to be feared that no lady in Mrs. Church’s “official position” would be compelled to make overtures twice to Mrs. Daye, who told other ladies, in confidence, that she had the best reason to believe Mrs. Church a noble-minded woman—a beautiful soul. It distressed her that she was not able to say this to Rhoda also, to be frank with Rhoda, to discuss the situation and perhaps to hint to the dear child that her non-responsiveness to Mrs. Church’s very kind attitude looked “the least bit in the world like the little green monster, you know, dearest one.” It was not, Mrs. Daye acknowledged, that Rhoda actively resisted Mrs. Church’s interest; she simply appeared to be unaware of it, and sat on a chair beside that sweet woman in the Belvedere drawing-room with the