her hands. "No, I'm afraid I can hardly agree with you
there. After all, our worst enemies are those of our own household, by
which of course I mean our immediate surroundings. It is this awful
necessity to live, to eat and to have a place to sleep in. Of course you
are thinking of what Talleyrand said to the young aristocrat who wanted
to live for nothing."

"Yes," said Ernshaw, "I know that. He said he didn't see the necessity,
and I am not altogether certain that he was wrong, but you----"

"Yes, I," she replied in a tone that had a thrill of angry reproach
running through it, "I, as you know, am--well--a superfluous woman, one
who isn't wanted, a sort of waste product of the factory that we call
civilisation."

"I am afraid you people are getting far too serious in your
conversation," said Carol from her end of the table opposite Sir Arthur.
"No, Dora, I really can't allow it; social problems are not in the menu
to-night, and you and Mr. Ernshaw will have to keep them for some other
time. Meanwhile, suppose we leave the rest for their smokes, and you
come with me and run through that song you are going to sing; we haven't
tried it together for quite a long time, as Mr. Rayburn said when we
were on the other side of the Atlantic. Come along."

As she rose from her chair, Koda Bux, who had been standing immovable
behind his master, opened the door, and as Carol, daintily and yet most
plainly dressed, passed through, his sombre eyes lit up as though by an
inspiration of long past days, and his teeth came together and he said
in his soul:

"It is the daughter of the Mem Sahib; what marvel is this! If there is
vengeance to be done, may mine be the hand. Inshallah! I should die
content, even if it was only a minute afterwards. He has his kismet, and
I have mine. Allah will give it to me; but they may be the same. Once
the roomal round his neck, and his breath would be already in his mouth.
Dog and son of a dog, he would be better dead!"

It had been arranged that Carol and Dora should take up their abode with
Sir Arthur, so that Carol might be married from her father's house.
Under the circumstances it was only natural that the wedding was to be
absolutely private, and it was already decided that immediately after
the wedding Rayburn and Carol should leave for a month in Paris, and
then go on to Western Australia, where most of Rayburn's mining
properties were. He also owned one side of a street in Perth and a
coun