North threw blue, smiling glances to the Turks and wondered if it were
romantic to live in a harem.

At the end of the second course Sir Dafyd raised a glass of wine to
his lips, and, as he glanced about the table, conversation ceased for
a moment.

"Will you drink to my wife's health?" he said. "It has caused me much
anxiety of late."

Every glass was simultaneously raised, and then Sir Dafyd pushed back
his chair and rose to his feet. "If you will pardon me," he said, "I
will go and see how she is."

He left the room, and the wife of the Spanish Ambassador turned to
her companion with a sigh. "So devot he is, no?" she murmured. "You
Eenglish, you have the fire undere the ice. He lover his wife very
moocho when he leaver the dinner. And she lover him too, no?"

"I don't know," said the Englishman to whom she spoke. "It never
struck me that Penrhyn was a particularly lovable fellow. He's so
deuced haughty; the Welsh are worse for that than we English. He's as
unapproachable as a stone. I don't fancy the Lady Sionèd worships the
ground he treads upon. But then, he's the biggest diplomate in Great
Britain; one can't have everything."

"I no liker all the Eenglish, though," pursued the pretty Spaniard.
"The Señora Dar-muth, I no care for her. She looker like she have the
tempere--how you call him?--the dev-vil, no? And she looker like she
have the fire ouside and the ice in."