"She's idle," she said judicially, "and she's hasty, but she's sorry
afterwards. The more awful her temper, the quicker she's sorry. The
night after you left--"

"Thank you, Pixie, you can spare us further domestic revelations!" cried
Esmeralda, flushing in lovely confusion, and keeping her face turned
away from the merry blue eyes so persistently bent upon her. "There's
one comfort, Mr Hilliard. You know the worst of me now, and there is
nothing more to dread. Pixie has spoiled my chance of posing as a
blighted genius, and shown me as just a bad-tempered, discontented girl
who has not the sense to be satisfied with her position. I'm sorry, for
it would have been interesting to hear you talk like the clever,
intellectual people in books, and perhaps, if I had kept very quiet and
agreed with all you said, you wouldn't have discovered my ignorance for
quite a long time to come."

"But, dear me, you would have discovered mine! I couldn't have kept it
up for an hour. You surely don't expect me to lecture on improving
topics!" cried Hilliard, in such transparent amaze that Esmeralda could
not but be convinced of his sincerity.

"Then you are not clever either!" she exclaimed. "What a relief! Now
we can just talk comfortably, and not pretend any more. But at any rate
you have seen more than we have. Have you travelled much? What have
you seen? What countries have you been in?"

"I can hardly say straight off. Let me count. France, Belgium,
Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Greece, Turkey--"

The "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" of astonishment had been steadily gaining in
volume, but at the sound of this last name they reached a perfect shriek
of delight. There was something so very strange and mysterious about
Turkey that even to see a man who had visited its borders gave one a
thrill of excitement. Pixie's premeditated boast that she had been in
Surbiton died upon her lips, and Esmeralda's eyes grew soft with wonder.

"Turkey! Oh, you are a traveller! What on earth made you go to
Turkey?"

"It was part of a tour on which my uncle took me after leaving the
University, and I went even farther afield than that,--to Palestine and
Egypt. You would like Egypt even better than Turkey, Miss Joan, for
there, thanks to our rule, you have picturesqueness without squalor,
whereas Turkey does not stand a close inspection. We were thankful to
leave Constantinople after a very few days, but were sad indeed to turn
our backs on