"Yes—I’m simply made of dust!" She moved towards the door. Still her aunt lay, fair and white and still. It seemed to the girl, scarcely even breathing. "Do you know, Runkle’s new secretary has come. The famous new Indian secretary—the pure native spring, you know," she cried, with a childish effort at dispelling that uncanny supineness. "He gave me an awful fright." The long drooped lids flickered with a swift upward look of unseeing pupils. "Fright! Why?" "Oh! I don’t know. It was fearfully silly of me. As I was coming along your passage, just now, I saw a hand hold back the curtain for me. I thought it was that Simpson. And as I bounced through I nearly fell into his arms—and found it was a black man—ugh! The famous new secretary, in fact. He stood like a stock, and I squeaked in my usual way. And then he smiled. I don’t like Indians much, but that’s a fine handsome fellow. Looks like a Sikh—I’m boring you. I’m off. Lord, here’s Runkle! Runkle, I’m going to have a bath." She turned with gusto to fling her little glove of defiance afresh in the new-comer’s face—and this time was not disappointed of the effect. "My dear Aspasia!" "Only number two!" "It’s not that you’ve not been warned...." The wrangle of words rose in the air, to end in the inevitable mutual iterations: "Don’t say you’ve not been warned, my dear Aspasia," and "Don’t care, Runkle, I’m going to have a bath." "I am afraid Aunt Rosamond’s not well," was Aspasia’s somewhat spiteful parting shot, as she slipped out behind the door hangings. "Not well!" With his short quick step Sir Arthur came to the bedside. "Would you mind," said his wife, "getting Jani to pull the blinds again; the light is growing too strong!" She wanted the shadows about her, for the struggle was coming, and she felt in her heart that she was doomed to lose. Sir Arthur attended to the detail himself, then hurried back. "Fever? No." Even he could scarcely insist upon this with his stubby finger upon that pulse, the pulse of a life that found itself just now an infinite fatigue. "Below par! I wish, dear, you would for once pay some attention to what I say. It is not that I have any desire to find fault with you, my love, but how many times must I represent to you that it is important to get the early freshness of the day in this climate, and take your rest later?’ "Yes," said Rosamond. She lay waiting for the dreaded blow to fall. It was not long delayed. "It is high time, indeed, that we should all have a change," pursued the Lieutenant-Governor.