"Yes. The vicar there is as frantic a ’Romanist’ as he is, and together they’ve had a rare old quarrel with the farmer who grows corn where you got the harvest-bug bites, and objects to excavations. I think father forgets at times he’s a nineteenth century Christian.... He is awfully annoyed at the general opinion that Silchester only dates from Christian times in Britain and that the Temple to Venus is really a Christian church. That’s what comes from a Classical education.... Now I shall get into a row with your spouse for keeping you up. Besides. You don’t _really_ care for the others...." _Sibyl_: "To be frank, I don’t. You were the only one that interested me.... I ... well, then, Roger, this is the last good-bye but one..." (extends her hand on which he imprints a kiss). "That’s quite enough show of affection; Sophie might come back at any moment and forget we are cousins. By the bye, it might be wise if you got some one—I dare say Francis would—to introduce you to the Feenixes before you go. They might serve to mitigate the hostility of Bennet Molyneux. Only don’t fall in love with Suzanne and desert _me_! She’s got the Colonies, it’s true, but I’m going to have the Foreign Office before you’re back.... You mark my words! Ta-ta! Coming, Sophie." *CHAPTER VI* *THE VOYAGE OUT* Lucy said to herself she had never felt so miserable in her life as she did during the first night on board the _Jeddah_, the British India Co.’s steamer that was taking her to East Africa. She occupied one of the upper berths in the cabins off the Ladies’ Saloon, in which there were, as far as she could reckon, five or six other occupants, including the stewardess, who passed her time alternately snoring on a mattress in a coign off the main entrance and waiting on such of the ladies as were sea-sick.