'My dear father,' said Rose helplessly, when she first caught sight of her parent in a khim-khâb coat and baggy trousers. She might have said more, had not Mrs. Boynton's grave compliment on his appearance sent the girl away impatiently to lean over the balcony once more, and wonder if they were ever going to bring breakfast.
To her, when he appeared, went Dan Fitzgerald, without even a look at the others.
'Thanks, Miss Tweedie,' he said in a low tone. 'I hadn't time to say it last night. I _had_ lost myself, and your voice---- However, it can be only "_thank you_," and you have that.'
Rose, with a smile, let his hand linger in hers for a second as their eyes met; honest, friendly eyes.
And George Keene also passed straight to her.
'Better! That is all right. By Jove, you were bad, when I found you outside the fuss when it was all over. You would have fainted, if it hadn't been for the whisky and water--which, by the way, I stole from Gordon's flask----'
'You didn't tell him?' interrupted Rose quickly.
'Not I! I knew you wanted it kept dark about the scorch. It's better, I hope? Why, you have curled your hair over the cut on your forehead. What a dodge!'
His young face was overflowing with a sort of pride in her pluck, when Mrs. Boynton came up. She was in a mood which craved attention, and some of her slaves had passed her by to give Rose the first word.
'What are you two discussing so eagerly?' she began. 'Good-morning, Mr. Keene. How delightfully commonplace you look in exactly the proper breakfast costume for a young Englishman!'
George blushed. He would have given worlds to say that she looked anything but commonplace, but was too young to venture on it. But he looked the sentiment, and Gwen smiled bewilderingly back at him. She was made that way, and could not help it.
'Isn't it quaint up here?' she went on, leaning over the balustrade and looking, as Rose had been doing, at the servants filing up the steps with silver dishes of sausages and bacon, and all the accessories of an orthodox English breakfast, regardless of the feelings of their pig-loathing hosts. 'I declare, I have fallen in love with everything.'
'Yourself included, I hope,' added Lewis, joining the group; or, to put it politely, you have fallen in love with everything, and everything has fallen in love with you. And no wonder. The fact is, Gwen, that you do suit your present environment to perfection. I should not have believed the thing possible--but so it is.'