Laila, who had risen also, stood silent, looking taller and slimmer than usual in her guise of Beatrice. It seemed to have brought out the fact that she had some of the best blood of Italy in her veins. Vincent Dering had recognized this fact--which Father Ninian had taken care to communicate to him as soon as the latter had found out that, nominally at any rate, the former was a Roman Catholic, and therefore a possible lover--when he had gone up to apologize to the girl for having missed that second dance, owing to his duties as steward. The recognition had him vaguely sorry for the girl; sorry also for the old man who, evidently, dreamt such idle dreams. He did not mean to marry a Begum! He crossed over to her now, offering his arm, but she refused it, saying she did not want supper. "But you are enjoying yourself, surely?" he said. "Oh, yes! thank you," she answered; "only it isn't real, of course. It doesn't mean anything." Dr. Dillon, who was within hearing, looked down at her sharply. "Perhaps, my dear young lady, it is as well it doesn't. So let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!" She looked up at him quite shocked. "Oh! I didn't mean that, of course; that is wrong. I only meant that things don't match--the place and the people, I mean. Except one or two--those for instance." She pointed out Roshan Khân who, dressed as himself, was taking advantage of the emptiness of the garden during supper time, to go round it with old Akbar Khân as guide, the latter in the wildest antics of alacrity. "Did you ever see such a funny figure?" continued the girl, with an odd little laugh. "He is quite crazy with joy. He told me to-day this was the first time for forty years that he had been himself! That he has been bewitched." "I believe I've been bewitched too," said Vincent, suddenly. "Let us all go back forty years." Dr. Dillon swung his feet further over, and dropped to the ground almost between them. "That would effectually annihilate two of the company, and reduce me to cutting my teeth; and I want the use of them at supper. Come along and have something solid, Miss Bonaventura; there is nothing so indigestible as fancy sweets." But she was firm, and moved away to where a small staircase led from the balcony to the upper storey. She did not care for supper, she repeated, and she had to mend her dress; someone had trodden on it, and she would not be able to dance till it was mended. "Don't forget ours--the first _extra_," called Vincent after her. She turned where the narrow stair, after climbing the outside wall, against which it clung like a swallow's nest, ended in the shadow of an archway. "I shall be back in plenty of time," she said. Vincent thought he had never seen her look so nice, so young, so fresh, so smiling.