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 afterward that Miss Howe was disappointing.  She certainly went out of her way to be normal.  Since it was her daily business 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 only very slightly dashed 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 an inert tendency to remain seated.  The Aide-de-Camp 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 Captain Corby spoke, who looked silently responsive.

“We’re coming away so early,” said Mrs. Barberry, buttoning her glove.  Hilda had begun to smile, and, indeed, the situation had its humour, but there was also behind her eyes an appreciation of another sort.  “Don’t,” she said to Alicia, in the low, quick reach of her prompting tone, as if the other had mistaken her cue, but the moment hardly permitted retreat, and Alicia turned an unflinching, graceful front to the lady in the Department of Education.  “Then I think I must ask you,” she said.