On the stroke of eleven Mary got up and walked down the broad staircase, and through the great hall, and out on to the steps beside the very splendid man beside her, and they stood under the moon, whilst a nightingale bubbled for a moment, and yet they were silent.

“Dear old girl,” said Jack Wetherbourne, as he pushed open the little gate in the wall which divided their lands, and waved his hand in the direction of the old Tudor house.

“Dear old Jack,” murmured Mary as her capable hand reached for a chocolate as she sat on the window-seat and waited until she heard the faint click of the gate, upon which she waved her handkerchief.

Prosaic sayings, prosaic doings, but those three prosaic words meant as much, and a good deal more to them, than the most exquisite poetical outburst, written or uttered, since the world began, might mean to us.

CHAPTER XXVII

By degrees Jill had become accustomed to the habits of the East, sleeping peacefully upon the cushion-laden perfumed divan, sitting upon cushions beside the snow-white napery spread upon the floor for meals, eating the curiously attractive Eastern dishes without a single pang for eggs and bacon and golden marmalade, revelling in her Eastern garments, from the ethereal under raiment to the soft loose trousers clasped above her slender ankles by jewel-studded anklets, delighting in the flowing cloaks and veils and over-robes and short jackets of every conceivable texture, shape, and colour, passing hours in designing wondrous garments, which in an incredibly short time she would find in the scented cupboards of her dressing-rooms.

Then would she attire herself therein, and stand before her mirror laughing in genuine amusement at the perfect Eastern picture reflected, and drawing the veil over her sunny head, and the yashmak to beneath her eyes, and a cloak about her body, would summon the Arab to her presence.

Which shows that knowing nothing whatever about the Eastern character, she merely added a hundredfold to her attractions, for if there is one thing a man of the East has brought to perfection, it is his enjoyment of procrastinating in his love-making, passing hours and days and weeks, even months in touching the edge of the cup, until the moment comes when, raising it to his lips, he drains it to the last drop.

To keep herself physically fit she had found strenuous recreation in two ways.  Firstly, she had made known that her wish was to learn something of the dancing of the East, whereupon for a sum which would have made Pavlova’s slender feet tingle in astonishment, the finest dancer in all Egypt and Asia had, for many months, taken up her abode in the beautiful house especially built for honoured guests just without the wall.