Lady Munro was leaning back in a hammock-chair, half asleep over her novel; Sir Douglas puffed at his fragrant cigar, and protested intermittently against all the hardships he had been called upon to endure; Evelyn, with the conscientiousness of an intelligent schoolgirl, was sketching the Nærodal; and Mona leaned idly against a hillock, her hands clasped behind her head, her face for the moment a picture of absolute rest and satisfaction. "Why don't they bring the coffee?" said Lady Munro, stifling a yawn. "Evelyn, do go and enquire about it, do!" "It has not been served on the verandah yet," said Evelyn, without looking up from her work, "and you know they are not likely to neglect us." "No, indeed," said Mona. "I can assure you it is a great privilege to poor little insignificant me to travel in such company. I have long known that the god of hotel-keepers all over the world is the hot-tempered, exacting, free-handed Englishman. I used to think it a base superstition, but now that I have all the privileges of a satellite, I see that it is a wise and beneficent worship." "You pert little minx!" said Sir Douglas, trying to control the twitching at the corners of his mouth. "And I have also learned," continued Mona unabashed, looking at her aunt, "that a fascinating manner of languid dignity, mingled with a subtle Anglo-Indian imperiousness, is worth a whole fortune in 'tips.' I mean to cultivate a far-off imitation of it." "Mona, you are too bad!" Lady Munro had become much attached to her niece, but she never felt quite sure of her even now. "My own belief is," said Evelyn dreamily, "that the respect with which we are treated is due entirely to Nubboo." "Well, he does give an air of distinction to the party, I confess," Mona answered. "When he is on the box of the calesch I shall feel that nothing more is required of me." At this moment a stolid, fair-haired girl, in picturesque Norwegian dress, appeared with a tray of cups and saucers, and Nubboo followed with the coffee. There was a perpetual dispute between them as to who should perform this office. Each considered the other a most officious meddler, and they ended, not very amicably, by sharing the duty between them. "What a jumble you are making of the world!" laughed Mona, as she watched the retreating figures. "How do you reconcile it with your sense of the fitting to bring together types like those? A century hence there will be no black, no white; humanity will all be uniformly, hideously, commonplacely yellow!" "God forbid!" ejaculated Sir Douglas, with orthodox social horror of the half-caste. "Who the deuce taught these people to make coffee?" "I am sure we have reason to know," sighed his wife, "that it is impossible to _teach_ people to make coffee." "_Nascitur non fit_? I suppose so, but it is curious--in a savage nation;" and he drank the coffee slowly and appreciatively, with the air of a professional wine-taster.