Lord Sombrewater and Ambrose returned to the Yellow Emperor’s Pavilion, smiling and contented with the graceful fortune that seemed to have befallen them. Lychnis stood at the door in a new robe of heliotrope. A deep sash sheathed her hips, and her father, in his pleasure, put an arm round the slender waist and kissed her. Then, “Where’s Such-a-one?” he asked. “There are one or two things we ought to discuss.” But Such-a-one had completely disappeared, so she told him. “Indeed!” said he, turning his expressionless eyes, with a sharp, bird-movement, on Ambrose. 15 Ambrose emerged from his chamber at the side of the house and looked from the verandah across the quivering bamboo-forest. He was composing his description of the morning’s adventure. Somewhere in the neighbourhood he heard the girls chattering, and could not quite locate the sound. Ruby’s voice came, calling him, and when he looked round in bewilderment there was laughter. Then a lattice was pushed open at the other end of the verandah, and Ruby put out her head and shoulders. She had on a new jacket of geranium-red, and her copper hair was piled up with combs of tortoise-shell. “Come in and see Licky and me,” she said. “There’s a door on the verandah round the corner.” He went into their room, making a note of the words “refined elegance” for subsequent use in describing its shape and furniture. There was an effect of green, gold and black; for the walls were green, and the furniture was ebony, with marquetry of brass, tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl. A clear sunlight, tempered by the lattices, showed him all the exquisite appointments. The ebony cupboard, with half-open, gold-enamelled doors, contained a hint of richly coloured clothes, like petals within the sheath. A profusion of silken jackets was scattered over an ebony and ivory commode, and hung on the handle of a lacquered cabinet and over a screen painted with butterflies. The curtains of an ebony bed, like a houseboat, were drawn, disclosing a heap of garments on the swan-white coverlet. Lychnis was seated on a stool by a window, having her hair brushed (but she had forbidden the use of resin) by a Chinese girl with black-bead eyes and almost imperceptible mouth. At her side was a lacquer table, laden with ivory brushes, jade and tortoise-shell combs, pigment trays in rare porcelain. There was a box with a brass mirror in the lid, and tiny drawers for lip-salve, rouge, powder, and pencil for the eyebrows. She had in her slender hands a gilt mirror. She was keeping her head very still, but she put, with her eyebrows, an inquiry as to his state of mind. He indicated satisfaction. “This is very untidy,” he remarked. “How can you be so untidy in this perfectly proportioned chamber?”