breathless smile.
One thing is sure: I shall never let Crocker know that I came away like that. If he believed me at all, which I doubt, he would certainly think me weaker than I am. I may be a complicated, finicky person; but I do not believe I am as weak as he would think me if he knew.
As I was walking along the corridor I heard other footsteps, and looking across the dim, flower-scented court, just managed to distinguish a rather ponderous figure proceeding slowly among the shadows on the other side. We met at the top of the stairs. It was Sir Robert.
I felt myself coloring furiously; and he wore a shamefaced expression. For such is the curious hypocrisy of man when caught in his more or less constant relationship with the one completely universal and unchangeable of his institutions.
“Well,” said he, rather awkwardly, “it is a very pleasant place, the way they keep it up.”
“Very,” I replied.
“And what is all this?” He was looking at my boxes, in the arms of the boy at my elbow. “Purchases? Here?”
“That is my phonograph,” I explained, quite unnecessarily.
“Your what?” He said this much as Crocker had said it.
“My phonograph,” I repeated.
He stood looking at me, with knit brows. Then, “Ah, ha!” he said, musing. “So that was it! I could n't explain that music—hours of it—and the repetitions. I begin to see. You are the authority on Oriental music.”
I bowed coldly.
Sir Robert began smiling—an old man's smile. I started down the stairs, but he kept at my side.
We went on to the outer door together without a word, and waited while the boy called rickshaws for us. I looked at Sir Robert. He was still smiling.
“Let me congratulate you,” he said then, rather dryly. And his left eyelid drooped in what was grotesquely like a wink. “You have the distinction, I believe, of being quite the most practical man in the world. You will go
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