iness to
personate exceptional individuals, it seemed to be her pleasure that
night to be like everybody else. She did it on opulent lines; there was
a richness in her agreement that the going was as hard as iron on the
Ellenborough course, and a soft ingenuousness in her inquiries about
punkahs and the brain-fever bird that might have aroused suspicion, but
after a brief struggle to respond to the unusualness she ought to have
represented, Alicia's guests gratefully accepted her on their own terms
instead. She expanded in the light and the glow and the circumstance;
she looked with warm pleasure at the orchids the men wore and the
jewelled necks of the women. The social essence of Alicia's little
dinner-party passed into her, and she moved her head like the civilian's
wife. She felt the champagne investing her chatter and the chatter
of the Head of the Department of Education with the most satisfying
qualities, which were oddly stimulated when she glanced over the brim of
her glass at Stephen, sitting at the turn of the oval, giving a gravely
humble but perfunctory attention to Mrs. Barberry, and drinking water.
The occasion grew before her into a gorgeous flower, living, pulsating,
and in the heart of its light and colour the petals closed over her
secret, over him, the unconscious priest with the sloping shoulders,
thinking of abstinence and listening to Mrs. Barberry.

It transpired when the men came up that there was no unanimity about
going to Government House. The Livingstones craved the necessity of
absence, if anyone would supply it by staying on; it would be a boon
they said, and cited the advancement of the season. "One gets to bed so
much earlier," Surgeon-Major Livingstone urged, at which Alicia raised
her eyebrows and everybody laughed. Lindsay elected to gratify them,
with the proclaimed purpose of seeing how long Livingstone could be kept
up, and the civilian pair agreed, apparently from a tendency to remain
seated. The A.D.C. had, of course, to go; duty called him; and he
declared a sense of slighted hospitality that anybody should remain
behind. "Besides," he cried, with ingenuous privilege, "who's goin' to
chaperone Miss Howe?"

Hilda stood in the midst. Tall, in violet velvet, she had a flush that
made her magnificent; her eyes were deep and soft. It was patent that
she was out of proportion to the other women, body and soul; there was
altogether too much of her; and it was only the men, when Captai