Dekko gave a sudden piercing screech: 

“You damned, dirty lot!” he yelled.  “You——­”

And some doubted the bird’s sojourn on a sailing-vessel in the full-rigged, full-mouthed days of 1840!

Her grace rapped the razor-edged beak sharply and returned to the other two just in time to hear her maid’s answer to some question: 

“Sergeant O’Rafferty of the Irish Guards, Miss Jill.  He demeaned himself by marrying a barmaid, miss.”

As already mentioned, love and marriage had passed Maria Hobson by.

Arrived at the hotel, their spirits went up with a bound.

What had come to them out there in the desert town?  Had they all been stricken with some dreadful depression?  Of course the child was safe in this laughing, dancing, happy throng, and at the sight of her god-mother she would leave her partner and run to her; would throw her arms about her, and hug her in her loving way.

Owing to the crowds of people and the crush of cars, little if any notice had been taken of their arrival; the luggage was coming up later.

“Wait a minute here, Hobson,” had said her grace.  “Jill, come and see if you can recognise Damaris by the picture you saw of her—­the prettiest girl in Egypt!”

They stood at the side door of the ballroom and scanned the laughing couples sitting in rows in the throes of the cotillon.  Ellen Thistleton, with the royal asp of ancient Egypt with a slight list to starboard above her heated countenance, stood alone in the middle of the room, with a glass of champagne in one hand.

Before her stood Mr. Lumlough and the colonel for whom the gilded asp was being worn at such a rakish angle.

She stood for quite some seconds in her conspicuous position, as though debating within herself upon the choice.  As Mr. Lumlough subsequently remarked to his panting partner, in his customary slang, “She had a nerve!”

Then, with head on one side, she coyly handed the Veuve Clicquot to the thankful young man, and allowed herself to be gathered to the heart of the portly, jubilant colonel, who, loving her, saw the jaunty gilded asp as a nimbus around her head.

Of Damaris there was no sign, and the old lady’s heart, through some unaccountable terror, seemed as if it would sink into her small crimson shoes, though outwardly she showed no sign of the fear that gripped her.

“I expect she has gone upstairs, or out into the grounds to give Wellington a run—­I don’t see him anywhere.  Come, Hobson; give me your arm to the lift.”

A deep growl welcomed them as the maid opened the sitting-room door and switched on the light as the ladies entered.  Wellington lay near the balcony window, head on paws, with the book his mistress had given him between his teeth.  He rose slowly, very slowly, eyes red, ruff bristling round the spiked collar, growling menacingly.

“My dear,” said the duchess quietly, “just stand still.  Damaris has gone away.  He is always like this when she has left him.  Hobson, go and see if you can find Jane Coop.  I hope to goodness you don’t.”