I have often noticed how radical is the effect of play-acting upon the human mind. Your play-actress throws herself naturally into every character she meets. I could see that it was giving Thalia hardly any trouble to transform herself into a pansy. We went back to the chairs and sat down, but not for long. Consulting her watch, my friend announced that she must be off, she was going to lunch at Delia’s. “At Delia’s!” I remarked. “How people are swallowed up in their houses, to be sure! You would be more polite to say ‘at Delia.’ It’s bad habit, this living in houses.” “I think,” she responded, “that you are losing your social graces. I had quantities of things to tell you, and I am taking them away untold. The garden is too vague a place to receive in. However, never mind, I will try to come again. Your flowers are charming, but it has not been what I call a satisfactory visit. I hope I haven’t bored you.” “How can you say so!” I cried; “I have enjoyed it immensely,” and I tucked her affectionately into her rickshaw and sped her on her way. When she had well started I remembered something, and ran after her. “Well?” she demanded, all interest and curiosity. “It was only to ask you,” I said breathlessly, “if you had noticed what a large number of pansies look like Mr. Asquith?” CHAPTER VI It is a dull and serious day. As my family declare that I have become a mere barometer of my former self, this will perhaps be, but I am not certain, a dull and serious chapter. There are no clouds, there is only a prevailing opaqueness, which shuts down just beyond the nearest ranges, letting through an unpleasant general light that makes the place look like a bad, hard, lumpish study in oils. The stocks, which have come out very elegantly since last week, have a disappointed air and the pansies are positively lugubrious. Only the tall field-daisies and the snapdragons seem not to mind. They plainly preach and as plainly practise the philosophy of flowers taking what they can get in the hope of better things. Like most philosophers in a small way, however, they are not over-distressed with sensibility on their own part, and I cannot see why they should take it upon themselves to cheer up any of the rest of us. I have asked Sropo whether it is going to rain. “Mistress,” he replied, “how should I know?” “Worthy one,” said I, “you have lived in these parts for twenty years. What manner of owl are you that to you it does not appear whether or not it will rain?” “Mistress,” quoth he, with his throaty chuckle, “the rajah-folk themselves do not know this thing.”