At Eva's, people strolled about, walked through the galleries, sat down wherever they pleased; everybody talked to everybody. There was not the same ceremony as at the resident's, but there was all the chic of a French drawing-room, with an artistic touch to it. And it had become a habit for the ladies to dress more for Eva's days than for the resident's receptions: at Eva's they wore hats, a symbol of extreme elegance in India. Fortunately, Léonie did not care; it left her totally indifferent. Léonie was now sitting in the middle gallery, on a couch, and remained sitting with the raden-aju, the wife of the regent. She liked that: everybody came up to her, whereas at her own receptions she had to do so much walking, past the row of ladies along the wall. Now she took her ease, remained sitting, smiling on those who came to pay her their respects. But, apart from this, there was a restless movement of guests. Eva was here, there and everywhere. "Do you think it's pretty here?" Mrs. van der Does asked Léonie, with a glance at the middle gallery. And her eyes wandered in surprise over the dull arabesques, painted in distemper on the pale-grey walls, like frescoes; over the teak wainscoting, carved by skilful Chinese cabinetmakers after a drawing in the Studio: over the bronze Japanese vases, on their teak pedestals, in which branches of bamboo and bouquets of gigantic flowers cast their shadows right up to the ceiling. "Odd ... but very pretty! Unusual!" murmured Léonie, to whom Eva's taste was always a conundrum. Withdrawn into herself as into a temple of egoism, she did not mind what others did or felt, or how they arranged their houses. But she could not have lived here. She liked her own lithographs--Veronese and Shakespeare and Tasso: she thought them distinguished--liked them better than the handsome carton photographs after Italian masters which Eva had standing here and there on easels. Above all, she loved her chocolate-box and the scent-advertisement with the little angels. "Do you like that dress?" Mrs. van der Does asked next. "Yes, I do," said Léonie, smiling pleasantly. "Eva's very clever: she painted those blue irises herself, on Chinese silk...."