rm, and Alicia may possibly have
reflected as she surveyed her completed work, how much better than
capering captains she could have done in Chelsea, though it cannot be
admitted likely that she would harbour, at that particular instant, so
ungracious a thought. And indeed it was a creditable party, it would
almost unanimously call itself, next day, a delightful one. Miss Howe
made the most agreeable excitement, you might almost have heard the
heart-beats of the wife of the literary civilian, as she just escaped
being introduced, and so availed herself of the dinner's opportunity for
intimate observation without letting herself in a particle--most clever.
Mrs. Barberry, of course, rushed upon the spear, she always did, and
made a gushing little speech with every eye upon her in the middle
of the room, without a thought of consequences. The A.D.C. was also
empresse, one would have thought that he himself was acting, the way he
bowed and picked up Hilda's fan--a grace lingered in it from the minuet
he had danced the week before, in ruffles and patches, with the daughter
of the Commander-in-Chief. Duff got out of the way to enable the newly
introduced Head of the Department of Education to inform Miss Howe that
he never went to the theatre in Calcutta himself, it was much too badly
ventilated; and Stephen Arnold arriving late, shot like an embarrassed
arrow through the company to Alicia's side, and was still engaged there
in grieved explanation when dinner was announced.

There were pink water-lilies, and Stephen said grace--those were the
pictorial features. Half of the people had taken their seats when he
began; there was a hasty scramble, and a decorous half-checked smile.
Hilda, at the first word of the brief formula, blushed hotly; then
she stood while he spoke, with bowed head and clasped hands like a
reverently inclining statue. Her long lashes brushed her cheek; she drew
a kind of isolation from the way her manner underlined the office. The
civilian's wife, with a side-glance, settled it off-hand that she was
absurdly affected; and indeed to an acuter intelligence it might have
looked as if she took, with the artistry of habit, a cue that was not
offered.

That was the one instant, however, in which the civilian's wife,
observing the actress, was gratified; and it was so brief that she
complained afterwards that Miss Howe was disappointing. She certainly
went out of her way to be normal. Since it was her daily bus