They did _not_ diminish his disquiet. On the contrary, he became every moment more excited as he turned them over. “_These_ are all from Central India!” he said, laying aside part of the bouquet. “They are rare, even there: and I have never seen them in any other part of the world. _These_ two are Mexican—_This_ one—” (He rose hastily, and carried it to the window, to examine it in a better light, the flush of excitement mounting to his very forehead) “—is, I am nearly sure—but I have a book of Indian Botany here—” He took a volume from the book-shelves, and turned the leaves with trembling fingers. “Yes! Compare it with this picture! It is the exact duplicate! This is the flower of the Upas-tree, which usually grows only in the depths of forests; and the flower fades so quickly after being plucked, that it is scarcely possible to keep its form or colour even so far as the outskirts of the forest! Yet this is in full bloom! _Where_ did you get these flowers?” he added with breathless eagerness. I glanced at Sylvie, who, gravely and silently, laid her finger on her lips, then beckoned to Bruno to follow her, and ran out into the garden; and I found myself in the position of a defendant whose two most important witnesses have been suddenly taken away. “Let me give you the flowers!” I stammered out at last, quite ‘at my wit’s end’ as to how to get out of the difficulty. “You know much more about them than I do!” “I accept them most gratefully! But you have not yet told me—” the Earl was beginning, when we were interrupted, to my great relief, by the arrival of Eric Lindon. To _Arthur_, however, the new-comer was, I saw clearly, anything but welcome. His face clouded over: he drew a little back from the circle, and took no further part in the conversation, which was wholly maintained, for some minutes, by Lady Muriel and her lively cousin, who were discussing some new music that had just arrived from London. “Do just try this one!” he pleaded. “The music looks easy to sing at sight, and the song’s quite appropriate to the occasion.” “Then I suppose it’s ‘Five o’clock tea! Ever to thee Faithful I’ll be, Five o’clock tea!’” laughed Lady Muriel, as she sat down to the piano, and lightly struck a few random chords. “Not quite: and yet it _is_ a kind of ‘ever to thee faithful I’ll be!’ It’s a pair of hapless lovers: _he_ crosses the briny deep: and _she_ is left lamenting.” “That is _indeed_ appropriate!” she replied mockingly, as he placed the song before her. “And am _I_ to do the lamenting? And who for, if you please?” She played the air once or twice through, first in quick, and finally in slow, time; and then gave us the whole song with as much graceful ease as if she had been familiar with it all her life:—