On Monday mornings too, after her debauch in city ways, Miriam found it necessary to be aggressively European. She would even go so far as to eat the lightly-boiled egg of civilisation for her breakfast--the egg which calls for saltcellars and spoons, in other words for refinement and luxury. And when her husband had departed in the green box with his law-books, she would yawn dutifully in all three rooms, till nature could no more. So she would send surreptitiously for the cook's wife and baby, and adjourn to a hurdle-closed verandah where her visitors could be properly screened from the new world. Since, let the master do as he chose, there would have been noses on the green in the servant's house had its womenkind allowed the tips of theirs to be seen by strangers! So Miriam would be comparatively content till the advent of the green box sent her back to three rooms, and a pair of bronze slippers. On the whole, this double life of hers was a very fair example of most lives in Shark Lane where, despite all the high aspirations after truth and reality, it was quite impossible to reach either; since every one was quite aware that they were trying an experiment, and that a doubtful one. This was the case more especially in the last house in Shark Lane, just where it merged into the more fashionable River Road. Here, at the corner, a very decorative pair of posts announcing that Mr. Chris Davenant lived within, stood cheek by jowl beside a similar pair with Mr. Lucanaster's name upon them; and though one of the two houses was screened, it was screened by trellises and creepers, behind which a pale pink dress could often be seen fluttering in company with the owner of the other house. For Mrs. Chris Davenant claimed her full share of Western liberty. So large a share, indeed, that one morning a few days after the races, Krishn Davenund, as Shark Lane persisted in calling him, sate looking hopelessly at his untouched breakfast; in this case also that lightly-boiled egg of civilisation. It stood in a correct silver egg-stand beside a charming arrangement of ferns and flowers; for Miss Genevieve Fuller, now Mrs. Chris, had been that curious product of latter-day London, a vulgar girl of good taste. As she had walked along the streets, her fringe delicately wanton beneath the white veil whose black spots were never permitted to rest in unbecoming places, her cold blue eyes had settled unerringly on all the daintiest creations in the shop windows. And she would pause before a hand-painted _sortie de bal_ or a belaced silk undergarment, and say with equal frankness to her companion, male or female, 'My! that would give poor little me a chance, wouldn't it?'