sent to watch Angelina and her circle while they were preparing the
vegetables and the dinner entrees. After the luncheon dishes had
been discussed, they were both proclaimed admirable. It was a true
bit of Italian finesse on the part of the Marchesa to lay a share
of the responsibility of the first meal upon the Colonel, who was
notoriously the most captious and the hardest to please of all the
company; and she did even more than make him jointly responsible,
for she authorised him to see to the production of a special curry
of his own invention, the recipe for which he always carried in his
pocket-book, thus letting India share with Italy in the honours of
the first luncheon.

"My congratulations to you on your curry, Colonel Trestrail," said
Miss Macdonnell. "You haven't followed the English fashion of
flavouring a curry by emptying the pepper-pot into the dish?"

"Pepper properly used is the most admirable of condiments," the
Colonel said.

"Why this association of the Colonel and pepper?" said Van der
Roet. "In this society we ought to be as nice in our phraseology
as in our flavourings, and be careful to eschew the incongruous.
You are coughing, Mrs. Wilding. Let me give you some water."

"I think it must have been one of those rare grains of the
Colonel's pepper, for you must have a little pepper in a curry,
mustn't you, Colonel? Though, as Miss Macdonnell says, English
cooks generally overdo it."

"Vander is in one of his pleasant witty moods," said the Colonel,