"Do I look so uncivilised?" he asked, with laughing eyes. "Highly. You are the nearest approach to pre-historic man I have yet seen," said she, and thus was unjust to Jim. "I am sorry----" "Oh, there's no need to apologise. I daresay Circe found Ulysses very agreeable." "Homer says so," answered Askew, who appeared to be well read; "but if I am Ulysses, you must be Circe." "I accept the compliment!" "Is it a compliment?" asked the pre-historic man, daringly. "Unless meant for one it should not have been said." "Beg pardon. I'm several kinds of ass. But I did mean it civilly, you know. Circe was a clever woman, whose magic turned men into outward semblances of their real characters." Lady Jim smiled scornfully. "And if my magic could transform these," she glanced disparagingly round the place, "what a menagerie it would be! Pigs, and snakes, and parrots, and----" "Dogs." "Of the mongrel kind, Mr. Askew. Do you speak of yourself?" He nodded laughingly. "Dogs are so devoted!" "That means you wish to attach yourself to me," said Leah, gravely. "I might take you at your word--I need a friend; but Ulysses deserted Circe." Askew laughed, and gazed admiringly at her beautiful, pensive face. "We talk parables, I think," he said, with assumed lightness. "Prehistoric man always did, I understand." "On the contrary, his speech was direct and blunt!" "Mine will be now," smiled Lady Jim. "This cup has been empty for five minutes, and you never offered to----" The young man took the tiny cup hastily. "But for the publicity of the place, I would ask you to tread upon my prostrate body." Leah eyed his lithe, active figure as he went to the bamboo table presided over by Lady Frith. He was really a delightful sailorman, she reflected, and quicker than most of his sex to understand the unspoken. It might be more amusing to drop Demetrius and flirt with him. But then, his face was too honest, and he might object to being made use of. "Men of that kind are so dreadfully in earnest," sighed Leah, with a sense of irritation; "they think a woman always means what she says." Askew walked lightly over the mosaic floor with a fresh cup of tea and a plate of hot cakes. Some man bustled in his way, and he stopped to avoid an upset of his burden. At the moment, he glanced towards the Moorish door which admitted triflers into the winter paradise. To Lady Jim's wonderment, he started, and a look of surprise overspread his expressive face. Her eyes turned at once in the direction of the entrance, and she beheld Jim blinking his eyes at the dazzle of light. He looked heavy and sullen, which hinted that the interview with the Duke had not been successful. But Leah forgot that momentous question for the moment, as her quick brain was trying to understand Askew's look of surprise. Before she could ask herself what he could possibly know about Jim, he approached with the tea.