Monny looked excited, but firm. Luckily, as she does it so often, it's
becoming to her to look firm. (I have noticed that it's not becoming to
most girls. It squares their jaws and makes their eyes snap.) But the
spoiled daughter of the dead Cannon King at her worst, merely looks
pathetically earnest and Minerva-like. This, I suppose, is one of the
"little ways" she has acquired, since she gave up kicking and screaming
people into submission. As Biddy says, the girl can be charming not
only when she wants to be, but quite often when she doesn't.

The man with the green turban was no longer engaged in hypnotizing. He
had retired within himself, and appeared oblivious to the outer world.
Yet nobody jostled the tall, straight figure which stood with folded
arms, lightly leaning against a tree. The colour of his turban was
sacred in the eyes of the crowd; and when Miss Gilder, leaning over the
terrace railing beckoned him, surprise rather than jealousy showed on
the faces of the unwanted dragomans. As for the wearer of the turban,
he did what I expected and wished him to do: paid not the slightest
attention to the gesture. Whatever the motive for his masquerade, it
was not to attract anything feminine.

I smiled sardonically. "That's a nice hat you've got on, Miss Gilder,"
I remarked.

"Do you collect girls' hats?" she asked sweetly. "But mine isn't
eligible yet for your collection. Let me see, what did you say he was?
Oh, a Hadji!" And she shrilled forth sweetly, her voice sounding young
and clear, "Hadji! Hadji! Effendi! Venez ici, s'il vous plait. Please
come here."

I could have been knocked flat by a blow of the smallest, cheapest