en rose.

"Somewhat, indeed," I responded politely, my mind darting back to that
girl in the red jersey who had sat cross-legged like a Turk on the
sand, and told me that I loved her. What would the Governor-General
have thought of that girl?

Again a pause, and now Miss Jencks addressed Margarita,
affectionately, but firmly--oh, very firmly!

"What do you find so absorbing out of the window, my dear?"

Margarita started like a forgetful child, blushed a little, murmured
impatiently in French and then smiled delightfully at me.

"But this is Jerry, Miss Jencks, Roger's and my Jerry," she said
beseechingly. "You do not mean that I must be polite to Jerry?"

"Most assuredly," returned Miss Jencks. "When a gentleman, even though
he be an old friend, makes a journey to see one after a long absence,
he expects and deserves to be entertained!"

Roger caught my eye, made his old whimsical grimace, and rooted deeper
into the guide-books. Margarita sighed gently, seated herself in a
high carved chair and inquired, with her lips, adorably, after my
health and my journey, but laughed naughtily with her eyes, an
accomplishment so foreign to my knowledge of her as to reduce me to
utter banality; which suited Miss Jencks perfectly, however, so that
she resigned the conversational rudder to her pupil and concerned
herself with knitting a hideous grey comforter (for the Seaman's Home,
I learned later), giving the occupation a character worthy the most
_comme-il-faut_ clubman.

A neat, black uniformed _bonne_ brought in tea, in the English
fashion, and Margarita served us most charmingly under the eagle eye
of Miss Jencks, eating, herself, like a hungry school-girl, and
stealing Roger's cakes impudently when the sometime directress of the
Governor-General's household affected a well-bred deafness to her
request for more. After tea Miss Jencks departed with her knitting
and we three were comfortably silent; Margarita dreamy, I all in a
maze at her, Roger relishing my wonder. The hyacinths smelled strong
in the growing dusk, the Chinese dragons burned against the wall:
colour and odour were alike a frame for her beauty and her richness. I
can never wholly separate that hour in my memory from the visions of a
fever and the burning heat of worse than the African Desert.

Later we sat about the candle-shaded dinner table, a meal where
English service faded in the greater glory of French cooking, and I
rebelled with Roger at Miss J