"I have hardly heeded his looks," said Helen, weakly; and then she flushed crimson as she saw Mr Harley's mocking smile. "Doosid strange, those fellows can't come into a gentleman's drawing-room without their skewers," said Chumbley, coming up and overhearing the last words. "I say, Miss Perowne, you ought to have stayed and heard the doctor give us a lecture on Ophir and Solomon's ships. Capital, wasn't it, Hilton?" "Really I hardly heard it," replied the young officer, approaching Helen with a smile; and the Resident met the lady's eye, and gave her a mocking look, as he rose and made place for the new-comer, who was welcomed warmly. "I was thinking about our hostess, and wondering how long it would be before we were to be emancipated from old customs and allowed to enter the drawing-room." "Yes, it is strange how we English cling to our customs, and bring them out even to such places as this," said the lady, letting her eyes rest softly upon those of the young officer, and there allowing them to stop; but giving a quick glance the next moment at the Rajah, who, with a fixed smile upon his face, was sending lowering looks from one to the other of those who seemed to have ousted him and monopolised the lady's attention. "I never felt our customs so tedious as they were to-night," said Captain Hilton, earnestly; and bending down, he began to talk in a subdued voice, while the gentlemen proceeded to discuss mercantile matters, the probability of the neighbouring Malay princess--the Inche Maida--taking to herself a lord; the latest move made by the governor; and other matters more or less interesting to the younger men. At last Chumbley, seeing that Harley was chatting with Grey Stuart, crossed over to the doctor's little lady, who had rather a troubled, uneasy look in her pleasant face as she watched her brother, the chaplain, hanging about as if to catch a word let drop by Helen now and then. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER NINETEEN. SIGNS OF THE TIMES. "Well, Mrs Bolter," drawled Chumbley, "who's going to carry off the prize?" "What prize?" cried the little lady, sharply. "The fair Helen," said the young man, with a smile. "You, I should say," said Mrs Bolter, with more asperity in her tone. "Chaff!" said Chumbley; and he went on, slowly, "Won't do, Mrs Doctor; I'm too slow for her. She had me in silken strings for a week like a pet poodle; but I soon got tired and jealous of seeing her pet other puppies instead of me, and I was not allowed to bite them, so--" "Well?" said the doctor's wife, for he had stopped. "I snapped the string and ran away, and she has never forgiven me." "Harry Chumbley," said the doctor's wife, shaking her finger at him, "don't you ever try to make me believe again that you are stupid, because, sir, it will not do."