"I won't be disagreeable any more," thought Hilton, "but take things as they come, and be off at the first opportunity." "'Pon my word," thought Chumbley, "this is better than that hot room at the fort. One always seems to be swallowing hot sunshine like melted butter with everything there one eats." The result was that Hilton forgot all about Helen Perowne for the time, and found himself comparing Grey Stuart with the Inche Maida as the two opposite poles of womanly beauty--the acme of the dark, and the acme of the fair. But his thoughts were to a great extent turned from the ladies to the dinner, and following Chumbley's example, he ate heartily, drank pretty liberally of the wine--to drown care, he said--and by the time that the dessert was commenced he had concluded that life would after all be bearable without the society of Helen Perowne, who was, he told himself, a contemptible coquette. He recanted from that declaration soon afterwards, the terms being, he thought, too hard; and then he fell into a state of wonderment at his contented frame of mind. "I shall begin to think soon that the wound is after all not very deep." "Your friend seems to be getting resigned to his lot," said the Princess, in a low voice to Chumbley, as, after dinner, they sat by the open window with a little table covered with fruit by their side, Hilton having kept his place. "Yes, I suppose so," said Chumbley, thoughtfully; and then, to turn the conversation into another channel, "How do you manage to get such good claret here?" "Oh," she said, laughing, "I am able to get most things here to help out the wants of our country. It is easy to have such things from Singapore. You like it?" "It is delicious." "I am glad," she said, with a satisfied smile. "I reserve it for my best friends." "Then why give it to us, your prisoners--and enemies?" said Chumbley, sharply. "I was trying to show you that you were my friends, and not my enemies," said the Princess, quietly. "But you treat us like prisoners, Princess." "Only for your good. You shall both be free and lords of the place whenever you will." "But, my dear madam," said Hilton, from his place by the larger table, "this is the nineteenth century--Chumbley, a little more claret? You seize us as a baron might have seized people three or four hundred years ago, and yet you treat us as an English lady would her guests." "It is what I have tried to do--this treatment," she said, simply. Then with spirit, "What is it to me what people did a long while back? I hope, Mr Chumbley, you are satisfied." "With my dinner?" said the latter. "Yes, perfectly, for my part. It only wants a cup of coffee." "Not poisoned?" said the Princess, with a laughing, malicious look at her guest, as she thus recalled to him his suspicions at the _fete_. As she spoke she clapped her hands, and coffee was brought in little silver cups upon a silver tray.