Shafto, as requested, climbed the stairs leading up to a wide veranda, on which opened a sitting-room, lined with teak wood and lighted by long glass doors.  Here he was confronted by a little Burmese woman with a beaming face.  She wore a short white jacket, an extraordinarily tight satin petticoat, or, tamain of wonderful butterfly colours, enormous gold ear-rings, and a flower stuck coquettishly behind her left car.  At first he supposed her to be a picturesque attendant, but when she extended a tiny hand loaded with rings and murmured “Pleased to see you!” he realised that he was addressed by the mistress of the house.

“This is my wife,” announced Salter as he entered.  “Mee Lay, here’s Mr. Shafto, one of our new assistants, just out from England; I hope you can give him a good dinner?”

“Oh yes, it will be all right,” and once more she beamed upon her guest, “I will go and see about it now.”

And in spite of her tight skirt, Mee Lay glided out of the room with an air of surpassing grace.

“I dare say you are surprised to see that Mrs. Salter is of this country,” said her husband, as he sank into a chair; “but it is by no means an uncommon match here.  Burmese women are very good-humoured and capable; they make capital wives, and there is no denying the fascination of the Burmese girl—­always so piquant and smiling and dainty.  They have also a wonderful capacity for business and money-making, and a real hunger for land; some of the best plots in and about Rangoon have been picked up by these shrewd little creatures.  The men-folk, on the other hand, are incurably lazy.  They loaf, gamble and amuse themselves and leave their women-kind to trade, or to weave silks and manufacture cheroots; numbers of them are in business.  Mee Lay, my wife owns and runs a good-sized rice mill; and if you were to look into the back compound you would see it entirely surrounded by her matted paddy-bins, biding a rise in the market.”

A yet further surprise awaited Shafto, in the shape of a little sallow girl, with clouds of crimped golden hair, beautifully dressed in European style, in a white embroidered frock and wide silk sash.

Rosetta had inherited the high cheek-bones and short nose of her mother’s race, the blue eyes and firm jaw of her Yorkshire parent.  On the whole, she was an attractive child.

Miss Rosetta Salter received the strange gentleman with overpowering condescension, and spoke English in a thin, squeaky voice.  In a flatteringly short time she had descended from her high horse, and accepted Shafto as a friend, revealed her age (eight years) and told him all about her French doll and her new brown boots—­also from Paris.

The dinner, which was announced directly after the return of Mrs. Salter, proved to be excellent, well cooked and a novelty.  For the first time Shafto tasted real curry, also mango fool.  The appointments were exclusively European, with the exception of a massive silver bowl, filled with purple orchids, which adorned the centre of the table.  Two snowy-clad Madras servants waited with silent dexterity and conversation never flagged.  Salter discoursed of chummeries and the Blankshire passengers, and Mrs. Salter thoughtfully prepared the new arrival for the alarming insects of Lower Burma, whilst Rosetta, for her part, kept up an accompaniment on a high chirruping note.