"Mr Remington, may I have the privilege of mixing for you an American cocktail?" said his host. "There are many spurious editions of the cocktail throughout Europe, and, indeed, the world; but it is essentially an American drink, and, if you will allow me to play the part of `bar-tender,' I think I may please you." Mr Muirhead's cocktail, which he mixed from the ingredients handed to him by the attendant, was a superlative success. Raife said: "Splendid! how do you do it?" At this moment Hilda Muirhead entered. The Oriental atmosphere at night-time is a thing apart. There is a subtle, undefinable charm about an Oriental apartment, which combines with it just sufficient of the modern to add to luxury. Mr Muirhead's reception-room had been adapted as a dining-room for Raife's benefit, and was sumptuous. There were rich oriental draperies and soft divans, with subdued lights; in the centre, a perfectly-appointed dinner-table for three, on which was cream-coloured napery, silver, cutlery and sparkling glass. The whole scene was a wealth of many colours, subdued and harmonised. The sombre black and white of the Western evening dress of men took its place in the soft light and deep shadows. This was the setting and background when Hilda Muirhead entered the room. The introduction was both formal and informal. "Mr Remington, I present my daughter, my only daughter." Then to Hilda he said: "Are you ready, my dear; shall dinner be served?" They were, indeed, a handsome trio around the table in the rich apartment of a hundred colours, lights and shadows all welded. Skilled were the movements of the attendants which brought the dishes-- the _plats_ which Mr Muirhead had ordered well, as a polished and travelled American. Raife hated women less at that time than for many months past. Hilda Muirhead displayed the well-bred and experienced side of her character, and made a charming hostess. Her delicately-tinted, clinging gown revealed a neck and bust of daintily-tinted alabaster, with rounded arms. A pearl necklace was the only article of jewellery that supplemented this confection, which adorned a simple American girl. The environment, the charm of Mr Muirhead's conversation, and the subdued grace of the fascinating girl who confronted him, presented to Raife an aspect of "Americanhood" that he had not conceived possible. There are many degrees of trippers from the United States and elsewhere. If these were trippers, then they possessed an exalted rank amongst trippers. No! they were not trippers. They were aristocrats of a type that Sir Raife Remington, Bart., had not previously encountered.