turn off the ground in their effort to disentangle their
one and only bit of covering.

Everyone sat still until the disentanglement had taken place, upon
which event the dancers once more advanced in force, each selecting a
special man victim, until Jill, absolutely helpless and afraid of
raising native wrath by allowing even a glimmer of a smile to appear,
buried her pretty head on the marchese's over-padded shoulder, which
action he of course took for a sign of encouragement, responding to it
by slipping his arm round the girl's waist, but circumspectly enough so
that it should not be seen by the Can-King's relations, while Jill
prayed for strength to resist until the end.

The end came in a positive Catherine-wheel exhibition of posturing, and
a deathly silence on the part of the audience; the men not daring to
make any comment, the women not daring to look at each other, until the
widow, suddenly seizing upon the situation, clapped her little hands
roguishly, and avowed in a babyish voice that "_C'etait bien gentil et
original, n'est ce pas_," which she didn't think at all really.

Anyway her opinion served as a break, so that on the exit of the
dancers in single file, which was ten-fold more trying to the
spectators than their entry, with stretching of cramped limbs and
stereotyped utterances such as "how very Eastern," "so unexpected," the
entire party rose to their feet, the dragoman holding a hurried
whispered conversation with the men who each, and successively, and
vehemently, shook their heads, leaving the women asking of themselves
how on earth they were to continue existing relations with the men
during the interminable weeks to Australia.

Jill, feeling almost faint from suppressed emotion and a revival of
hunger, stood a little on one side watching them. An Eastern dancing
house is a strange place in which to make the final decision of one's
life, but in just such a spot she made hers. She knew that she had
only to make up the tale of a lost boat, and something would be done
for her; in fact she could probably go as lady's maid to the Americans
on their _tour de monde_, having overheard them complaining bitterly of
their own French maid who had not been retrieved at Algiers. But her
whole soul suddenly rising in mutiny against the stultifying
civilisation of the West, she finally made up her mind to stay with the
strangers until the hour came when she could slip out of the hotel
where they were st