self once more. And then--oh, darling, darling,
you won't let anything or anybody separate us? Promise me that!"

He would have held her in his arms, but she kept him at a distance.
"When papa is himself again," she said, "I shall know better what to
say. I can't promise anything now, Horace."

Horace recognised that no appeal would draw a more definite answer from
her just then; so he took his leave, with the feeling that, after all,
matters must improve before very long, and in the meantime he must bear
the suspense with patience.

He got through dinner as well as he could in his own rooms, for he did
not like to go to his club lest the Jinnee should suddenly return during
his absence.

"If he wants me he'd be quite equal to coming on to the club after me,"
he reflected, "for he has about as much sense of the fitness of things
as Mary's lamb. I shouldn't care about seeing him suddenly bursting
through the floor of the smoking-room. Nor would the committee."

He sat up late, in the hope that Fakrash would appear; but the Jinnee
made no sign, and Horace began to get uneasy. "I wish there was some
way of ringing him up," he thought. "If he were only the slave of a ring
or a lamp, I'd rub it; but it wouldn't be any use to rub that
bottle--and, besides, he isn't a slave. Probably he has a suspicion that
he has not exactly distinguished himself over his latest feat, and
thinks it prudent to keep out of my way for the present. But if he
fancies he'll make things any better for himself by that he'll find
himself mistaken."

It was maddening to think of the unhappy Professor still fretting away
hour after hour in the uncongenial form of a mule, waiting impatiently
for the relief that never came. If it lingered much longer, he might
actually starve, unless his family thought of getting in some oats for
him, and he could be prevailed upon to touch them. And how much longer
could they succeed in concealing the nature of his affliction? How long
before all Kensington, and the whole civilised world, would know that
one of the leading Orientalists in Europe was restlessly prancing on
four legs around his study in Cottesmore Gardens?

Racked by speculations such as these, Ventimore lay awake till well into
the small hours, when he dropped off into troubled dreams that, wild as
they were, could not be more grotesquely fantastic than the realities to
which they were the alternative.

CHAPTER XIII

A CHOICE OF EVILS