been so unmistakably humorous. She did not attempt to make the embrace a
lingering one, however, and Netta Ermsted took her impetuous departure
with a piqued sense of uncertainty.

"I wonder if she really has got any brains after all," she said aloud,
as she sped away in her "rickshaw." "She is a quaint creature anyhow. I
rather wonder that I bother myself with her."

At which juncture she met the Rajah, resplendent in green _puggarree_
and riding his favourite bay Arab, and forthwith dismissed Mrs. Ralston
and all discreet counsels to the limbo of forgotten things. She had
dubbed the Rajah her Arabian Knight. His name for her was of too
intimate an order to be pronounced in public. She was the Lemon-scented
Lily of his dreams.




CHAPTER II

THE RETURN


Stella's first impression of Bhulwana was the extremely European
atmosphere that pervaded it. Bungalows and pine-woods seemed to be its
main characteristics, and there was about it none of the languorous
Eastern charm that had so haunted the forbidden paradise. Bhulwana was a
cheerful place, and though perched fairly high among the hills of
Markestan it was possible to get very hot there. For this reason perhaps
all the energies of its visitors were directed towards the organizing of