The indifferently good but pretentious meal was served in the tiny court. Dunlap’s and Singleton’s boisterous mood jarred Jim. He found himself watching the other guests of Monsieur Carlos’ hostelry. At adjacent tables parties of tourists were making merry while waiting for the P.&O. steamer to carry them from Cleopatra’s land to golden Italy, and from a dance-hall came the fantastic music of the nautch women’s instruments. In half an hour the hotel was empty of all the diners save Jim, who lingered until the shabby proprietor, Monsieur Carlos, informed Monsieur le Capitaine that after ten the court was closed, but the verandas were at Monsieur’s disposal for his kummel and cigarettes. Jim ascended the creaking staircase to the broad veranda partly hidden from the road by its screen of blooming roses gleaming like stars against the shadowed foliage. Here and there a tight, pink-tipped bud shone like a tiny flame. The moon had risen and illumined the entire place with an uncanny brilliance, turning the night into an unreal day. Jim sank into a chair. The air was heavy with the perfume of the rose-trees. In the distance he could hear the barbarous clash of the dancing women’s cymbals. It was their trade-night with two ships in the harbor. Jim took from his pocket a leather portmonnaie and drew from it the picture of Diana that he had cut from the paper in the hospital. He had never willingly thought of her since the day he received his aunt’s letter. As he sat on the deserted veranda, with the torn page lying on his knee, he was conscious of a sudden, intangible feeling of apprehension. Diana was the tenderest memory of his boyhood. Why did he fear this marriage with Henry? Vainly he studied the picture, trying to gain from the cheap illustration some knowledge of the woman into which Diana had grown. He tried honestly to face the truth of his great anxiety concerning the marriage. He knew that through his convalescence when the longing to go home had overmastered the soldier in him, the thought of renewing his friendship with Diana had been his happiest anticipation. He sought to reassure himself that his disappointment was selfishness—that he feared to find Diana absorbed in new interests, with his place completely crowded out of her life. Then a vision of Henry, sullen and defiant as he had last seen him, flashed before him.... Yet might not Henry’s character have been redeemed by his love for Diana? Jim knew that the meagre fortune of Sir Charles Marjoribanks could not be a material factor in the marriage. This proved his most reassuring thought. Then his memory reverted to Diana, and he recalled the child Di, who had clung to him on the morning of his departure and begged him to return. He remembered how as a boy he had often played that he was her knight, and fought the unseen foes that were supposed to lurk in the alleyways of the giant trees. Was it a prophetic vision of the future?