"Oh, come along, do! there's a good chap, and let's get out of the way," repeated Captain Dering, sharply. "It's Father Narâyan, I suppose,--he's as mad as a hatter, and boshes the whole business--at least, so Delamere said. I told you we were a bit early, but you would start; still it's too bad of the old man to have his chapel in the front hall! Come along! and let us wait in the garden--it looks an awfully jolly one--awfully--" He paused, perhaps at the change, this time, from gloom to glare, perhaps at the sudden sense of anticipation, the sudden quickening of the pulse of life, which made him draw a long breath involuntarily. It was not unfamiliar to him, that sudden stir of vitality, of expectation; and with a curious smile on his face he crossed to the edge of the marble plinth on which the passage opened, and leaning over the balustrade, looked down to a terrace below, and so on to the garden itself. A perfect wilderness of common flowers, sown broadcast, lay at his feet, hemming in a shallow marble tank, which was nearly covered with the dewy leaf-cups of the lotus, and set round with mosaic arabesques. From this tank two aqueducts led to the edge of the terrace, and ended in steep slopes of fretted marble, where cascades had once wimpled and dimpled down to the water-maze which lay below--a shiny lake, cobwebbed over by narrow marble paths just wide enough for the bare, flying feet of a laughing girl. Beyond was scented shade, with glints of water-courses gleaming here and there; while here and there came a peep of a latticed balcony overhanging the river; a balcony just large enough for a laughing girl and her lover. Yet there was not even a butterfly to be seen hovering over the flowers. All was still, all was silent, until Vincent Dering's careless laugh echoed through the stillness, the silence. "Can't you imagine it--all lit up--they used to put coloured lamps behind the cascades, I'm told, and play 'Catch who can' up and down and all around the place! On the whole I expect they enjoyed themselves--better than the type-writing girls of to-day do, for instance." "Got beastly sick of enjoying themselves before they had done with it, I expect," replied Lance, succinctly, "especially if there was always such a confounded strong smell of orange blossoms. Bah! I'd prefer a polecat; but," he gave a distasteful glance at his companion, "I believe you like strong scents."