She started. "Oh, really, Nick!" she said again, this time with a touch
of annoyance in her tone.

He smiled as he heard it. "It's coming, I assure you. You see, the
station is short of girls, and our young friend is impressionable. He is
the sort of amorous swain who gets engaged to a dozen before he settles
down to marriage with one. The question for you to decide is, are you
going to be one of the dozen?"

"No, that I certainly am not." Olga spoke with undoubted emphasis, and
having spoken rose and laid her hands upon Nick's shoulders. "I don't
think he would be so silly as to ask me," she said. "And if he did, I
certainly should not be silly enough to say Yes."

"I'm glad to hear that anyway," said Nick briskly. "I was afraid you
might accept him out of sheer boredom."

"Nick! I'm not bored!"

He looked at her quizzically, as if he did not quite believe her.

"I am not bored," she reiterated, with something like vehemence. "I am
happier with you than with anyone else in the world."

"Really?" said Nick, still smiling.

"Don't you believe me?" she said.

He laughed. "Not quite, dear; but that's not your fault. What are you
going to wear to-night?"

Nick could switch himself from one subject to another as easily as a
monkey leaps from tree to tree, and when once he had made the leap no
persuasion could ever induce him to return. Olga knew this, and
abandoned the discussion, albeit slightly dissatisfied.

They separated soon after to dress for the Rajah's dinner. Olga had
chosen a dress of palest mauve, and very fair and delicate she looked in
it. In a crowd of girls she would doubtless have been passed over by all
but the most observant, but she was not one of a crowd at Sharapura.
There were not many girls in that region, or Noel Wyndham's volatile
fancy had scarcely strayed in her direction.

She told herself this with a faint smile, as she took a final glance at
herself when her _ayah_ had finished. There never had been any personal
vanity about Olga, and that night she told herself she looked positively
ugly. What in the world did Noel see in her, she wondered? It seemed
incredible that any man could find anything to admire in the colourless
image that confronted her.

And yet as she went up the Palace steps with Nick into the blaze of
light that awaited them, he was the first to greet her, and she saw his
eyes kindle at the sight of her after a fashion that made her heart
contract with a sudden