"No, no!--literally.... Blown flowers of intense truthfulness, and buds on the burst.... Well!--she _said_, as near as I remember: 'Miss Arkroyd said if Mr. Challis didn't smell too strong of smoke, only Mr. Elphinstone wasn't to hear.' And then she got away up the second flight with some alacrity. I thought she was afraid I might propose investigation, and Elphinstone was still in the neighbourhood." Judith is intensely amused. "I shall have to give that child one of Sibyl's bead necklaces. Turquoise. It goes with her eyes exactly--they have just the violet tinge." She closed her own again on the slight subject, but it has suggested a weightier one. "Couldn't you give Estrild a little Visigoth _ingénue_--I mean Ostrogoth--to wait upon her?" "What!--and train the little Rankshire beauty to the part? Think of her parents--the stage!--merciful Heaven!..." But Challis stops suddenly, discomposed by a discomposure in his hearer. "Never mind," says she, shaking it off. "You didn't mean it. You're forgiven! Go on." "I naturally didn't think of it from that point of view. The cases are so entirely different." "Never mind!" Judith repeats her words with more emphasis. "You _are_ forgiven. Now go on about the Ostrogoths." "I could put the little beauty in; she would be very useful as a set-off to Estrild. Besides, I want to get rid of Isarnes the Cappadocian, and she would work in...." Judith interrupts him, calling to the little attendant, who comes in answer from somewhere within hearing. "Child!" she says--"bring me that hand-mirror off my dressing-table," and when it comes, continues, interrupting a recommencement of the Cappadocian, "That's right!--give it me. Now put your face over my shoulder and look in." The order is complied with, but an inexplicable apology follows: "Please, miss, I know. Because I looked. And I've tried monkey-soap, and it won't wash out." The seriousness of the young voice is heart-rending. Judith bursts out laughing, but consoles: "It wasn't that, child! But I like you to be a funny little goose, so don't stop! Now take away the glass, and let the monkey-soap alone, for Heaven's sake!... You got a good view, Mr. Dramatist?... Well!--you saw what I mean. Now, tell me what you were saying about the Cappadocian." "Why, you see, he ought to make a showy end, after dyeing his hands in the blood of so many inoffensive persons, and killing a Sarmatian bison with a single blow in the arena. He might be just giving a hideous laugh of triumph, and his innocent victim might be struggling vainly in the grasp of a giant--it would be Jack Potter; you know what a biceps he has--and a sudden arrow would be shot from across the Danube and pierce his brain through the eye...." "Of course--shot by What's-his-name?--the man that wouldn't embrace Christianity, but does heroic deeds. You know, Challis, you'll have to make him embrace Christianity. What _is_ the use of being unpopular?"