Dinner passed gaily, Miss Percival away. Ingram was loquacious, though rather caustic; Chevenix a good foil, easy-tempered, always at a run, a very fair marksman for all his random shooting. His was that happy disposition which finds Nature at large, including men, as precisely there for his amusement. He relished, never failed to relish, the works of God. But then he had perfect health. Mrs. Devereux was something of a grandee, though not quite so much of one as she suspected. Her white hair towered; she wore black velvet and diamonds. Mrs. Wilmot was very much of a pretty woman, and knew to the turn of a hair how much. She had the air of a spoiled child, which became her; was golden and rosy; could pout; had dark blue eyes, which she could cloud at will, and fill, as we know, with tears. She excelled in pathetic silences, to which her parted lips gave an air of being breathless. She was beautifully dressed in cloudy, filmy things, and had a soft, slight, drooping figure. Innocence was her _forte_: her rings were superb. One odd thing was noticeable, and noticed intensely by Chevenix, that Ingram hardly ate anything, though he pretended to a hearty meal. It came, Chevenix saw, to dry toast and three glasses of wine, practically. But he made great play with knife and fork, and talked incessantly. He revealed himself at every turn of his monologue--for it came to be a monologue--as one of those men whose motives are so transparently reasonable to themselves that they need never be at the trouble to explain or defend any act of theirs. He was witty, though occasionally brutal, as when he spoke of a dragoman he had had in Egypt, whose defence of his _harem_ had cost him his place. This man, a cultivated Persian, had proposed hospitality to his patron in Alexandria, where he lived. Accepted, he had made a great supper for Ingram, invited his friends and acquaintances, procured musicians and dancing-girls. It was magnificent, Ingram allowed. The trouble came afterwards, when the native guests had gone their ways and patron and host were together. Ingram proposed a visit to the ladies--“the civil thing, it appeared to me. But no, if you please! Mirza turned very glum, pronounced it not the custom: I must excuse him, he says. But I say, Will they excuse _me_, my good man? He makes a sour face, so of course I know that they won't, and that he knows they won't. Then he marches away upon some errand or another, and when he comes back finds me tapping at a door. You never saw such a change in a chap; upon my soul, it was worth it. He went white, he went grey, he went livid. His eyes were like stars. No, I'm wrong. They were not. They were like the flaming swords which kept Adam and Eve out of the garden. Magnificent police arrangements in Eden, they had. I heard his breath whistle through his nose like the wind at a keyhole. He says 'You mistake, sir. You forget. Or do I deserve to be