"Yes, respect--not much, I confess, but still enough to have made me leave them alone if I had had the chance. Lois has been kind to me. I happen to know that, little as she likes me, she is about the only one in the Station who keeps her tongue from slander and--the truth. As for John Stafford, if he is a narrow-minded bigot, he is at least a man, and that is something to appreciate." "That is just what I think!" Mrs. Cary said conciliatingly. "And therefore he is the very husband for you, dear child." "You think so, not because he is a man, but because he has a position in which it would suit you excellently to have a son-in-law. Well, I have promised to do my best, though I am convinced it is too late." "There is no official engagement between them," Mrs. Cary said hopefully, "and you know your power, Beaty. He already likes you more than enough, and what with Mr. Travers on the other side--All the same," she continued, becoming suddenly petulant, "it's too bad of you to throw away a chance like this." Beatrice covered her face with her hand with a gesture of complete weariness. "I have promised to do my best," she reiterated. "Let me do it my own way. I can not go to-night--I feel I can not. If I went, it would only be a failure. Let me for once be judge of what is best." Her mother sighed resignedly. "Very well. I suppose I can't force you. You can be as obstinate as a mule when you choose. I only hope you won't live to regret it. Good night." This time she did not give her daughter the usual perfunctory and barely tolerated kiss. At the bottom of her torpid, selfish soul she was bitterly hurt and disappointed, as those people always are who have hurt and disappointed others their whole lives, and only a glimmer of hope that Beatrice's determination might have softened made her hesitate at the door and glance back. Beatrice sat just as she had sat the whole evening, in an attitude of moody thought, her fingers still playing with the blood-red ruby, and Mrs. Cary went out, slamming the door violently after her. In consequence of her long and futile appeal, Mrs. Cary had made herself very late, and when she entered the large marquee which Travers had had erected in his garden she found that all the guests had arrived, including Rajah Nehal Singh himself. He stood facing the entrance, and she felt, with a consoling sense of spiteful triumph, how his glance hurried past her, seeking the figure which no doubt above all else had tempted him thither.