“Often of an evening, I feel I need fostering,” she owned, glancing up yearningly into his face. “Fostering, eh?” he chuckled, refilling with exuberance her glass. “Why is it that wine always makes me feel _so good_?” “Probably, because it fills you with affection for your neighbour!” “It’s true; I feel I could be very affectionate: I’m what they call an ‘amoureuse’ I suppose, and there it is....” There fell a busy silence between them. “It’s almost too warm for a fire,” she murmured, repairing towards the window; “but I like to hear the crackle!” “Company, eh?” he returned, following her (a trifle unsteadily) across the room. “The night is so clear the moon looks to be almost transparent,” she languorously observed, with a long tugging sigh. “And so it does,” he absently agreed. “I adore the Pigeons in my wee court towards night, when they sink down like living sapphires upon the stones,” she sentimentally said, sighing languorously again. “Ours,” he assured her; “since the surgery looks on to it, too....” “Did you ever see anything so ducky-wucky, so completely twee!” she inconsequently chirruped. “Allow me to fill this empty glass.” “I want to go out on all that gold floating water!” she murmured listlessly, pointing towards the lake. “Alone?” “Drive me towards the sweet seaside,” she begged, taking appealingly his hand. “Aggie?” “Arthur--Arthur, for God’s sake!” she shrilled, as with something between a snarl and a roar, he impulsively whipped out the light. “H-Help! Oh Arth----” Thus did they celebrate the “Royal engagement.” XIII Behind the heavy moucharabi in the little dark shop of Haboubet of Egypt all was song, _fête_ and preparation. Additional work, had brought additional hands, and be-tarbouched boys in burnooses, and baskets of blossoms, lay strewn all over the floor. “Sweet is the musk-rose of the Land of Punt! Sweet are the dates from Khorassân ... But bring _me_ (O wandering Djinns) the English rose, the English apple! O sweet is the land of the Princess Elsie, Sweet indeed is England----” Bachir’s voice soared, in improvisation, to a long-drawn, strident, wail. “Pass me the scissors, O Bachir ben Ahmed, for the love of Allah,” a young man with large lucent eyes, and an untroubled face, like a flower, exclaimed, extending a slender, keef-stained hand. “Sidi took them,” the superintendent of the Duchess of Varna replied, turning towards an olive-skinned Armenian youth, who, seated on an empty hamper, was reading to a small, rapt group, the _Kairoulla Intelligence_ aloud. “‘Attended by Lady Canon-of-Noon and by Lady Bertha Chamberlayne (she is a daughter of Lord Frollo’s[9]) the Princess was seen to alight from her saloon, in a _chic_ toque of primrose paille, stabbed with the quill of a nasturtium-coloured bird, and, darting forward, like the Bird of Paradise that she _is_, embraced her future Parents-in-law with considerable affection....’”