“Perhaps you are strong-minded,” said Stella. “I am not, oh, not a bit. I am one of the old-fashioned silly women. I like to be left alone and to do my own way. Perhaps it’s a silly way, but it’s mine. And so you have had business on the island, Mr. Stanford? Have you seen that lady again--that lady with the black eyes and the yellow hair? She will not like it at all if she doesn’t see you. She was very attentive to you during the voyage. Now, you can’t deny that she was attentive. She was a great deal nicer to you than you deserved. And such a pretty woman! To be sure that was not the natural colour of her hair. She had done something to it; up at the roots you could see that it had once been quite dark. Well, why not, if she likes yellow hair better? It is going quite out of fashion, so there can be no bad object in it, don’t you know.” Stella laughed largely, but her visitor did not respond. He looked more annoyed, Katherine thought, than he had any occasion to be, and her pride was roused, for it seemed to her that they both looked at herself as if the woman who had paid attention to Mr. Stanford could have anything to do with her. She changed the subject by asking him abruptly if he felt the rigour of the English climate after his long life in India. “Yes--no, a little,” he said. “They say that we bring so much heat with us that we do not feel it for the first year, and as I shall have to go back----” “Are you going back? Why should you go back?” said Stella. “I thought you civil servants had such good times, not ordered about like soldiers. They always said in the regiment that the civilians were so well off; good pay and constant leave, and off to the hills whenever they liked, and all sorts of indulgences.” “I am afraid the regiment romances,” said Stanford, “but I do not complain. On the whole I like India. One is sure, or almost sure, of being of some use, and there are many alleviations to the climate. If that was all, I should not at all mind going out again----” “Ah, I understand,” said Stella. And then she added quickly, “I am so sorry I can’t ask you to stay to dinner to-night. We have a grand function coming off to-night. The lawyer is coming down, and we are to hear how we stand, and how much money we are to have. I think I hear him now, and I can’t let Charlie steal a march and tackle him before I am there. Katherine, will you look after Mr. Stanford till I come back? I don’t trust Charlie a step further than I see him. He might be doing some silly thing and compromising me while I am sitting here talking, but as soon as ever I can escape I will come back.”