“I shall dream of him in the night.” “A calm, shining and awful figure, with a golden skin and slanting eyes, standing over you in a transfiguration; a visitor from some untroubled Nirvana; a being without thoughts, looking with wonder at your thought-troubled face. Not that thought troubles you much, my Juno.” “Oh yes, it does,” protested Ruby. “I wonder and wonder—sometimes for hours. But not like you, Licky. You’re strange and say funny things.” Lychnis suddenly changed her mood. “That’s for Ambrose to put down in his book. Dear Ambrose——” She took his arm and studied his face. He felt her eyes on him like the eyes of a violet. “Ambrose is a little Chinese,” she said. “He’s calm.” Then suddenly: “You can’t tell what thoughts are going on behind his serene, pink forehead. Does he ever give you the shivers, Ruby?” “Oh, never!” cried Ruby. Then they took him for a walk in the groves of the bamboo, one on each arm, and Lychnis whispered to him: “What terrific nonsense I’ve been talking!” They mounted Terence’s tower, and purple night stole over the Lotus Lake, and a myriad fireflies flickered over the forest. 21 Next morning there was a council of the Sages. It was very hot, and the Sages lay in chairs on a lawn before the Pavilion. “The position is as follows,” said the chairman. “I have received an invitation, very much resembling a command, to make a ceremonial call, along with the rest of you, upon the Mandarin who inhabits the rock-island in the Lotus Lake. The invitation, or command—one moment, please, Sprot—is written in English, and the Mandarin’s name appears to be Lung, or, as he kindly translates, Dragon. The question is, Shall we go? Now, my friend.” “I say, Certainly not,” Sprot burst out. “Who is he, that we should obey his commands? I vote we don’t go, just to show him we’re free, independent Englishmen!” Quentin whistled a few bars of the National Anthem. “And in the alternative?” queried Lord Sombrewater. “Stay here,” replied Sprot firmly. “But that would hardly be courteous.” “Why? They’re only Chinese. A lot of dirty, hugger-mugger, gibbering Orientals. But let’s go away altogether, if you like. I don’t want to stay. A place like this, where nothing ever happens, gets on my nerves. I want to go back to England and see a good old flaring advertisement of Beecham’s Pills. You know where you are, then.” “And supposing,” asked Sir Richard, “they won’t let us go back?” “What d’you mean?” Sprot went pale all at once. Lord Sombrewater’s eyes were suddenly on Frew-Gaff. “Will you enlarge that a little, Richard?”