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Alexina felt an impulse to throw her cup straight across the room at the back of that well-shaped head. Suddenly he shook hands with his host, nodded to the others and left the room. Alexina set her cup and saucer down on the table, forebore to interrupt her hostess, who was known to talk steadily in order to avoid questions, and walked quickly and deliberately out after him.

Groome's room as the clock struck two, the old Ballinger clock that had seemed to toll the hours on a deep note of solemn acquiescence for the past six weeks. She crossed the hall and entered Alexina's room without knocking. Mortimer, during the past fortnight, had moved from the room adjoining his wife's to one at the back of the house, lest it should be necessary to call Alexina in the night.

"But, Heavens!" she complained, the second afternoon, lolling back in a wooden arm-chair on the hotel gallery; "isn't there anything to do?" Alexina and the young man in clerical garb were her audience. He was the Reverend Harrison Henderson, and had charge of the Episcopal Church of Aden and lived at the hotel. He seemed a definite and earnest man. His blond profile was strong.

Alexina found shorthand depressing, and after spending an hour or more over it one afternoon she gave it up in despair and went over to see Miss Sarah. As she entered the sitting room Mrs. Millard stood talking to Mrs. Leigh.

Nothing had occurred of special interest during her absence, except that on one occasion, when Alexina was reading at a short distance from the camp, she had a narrow escape from a young panther. On discovering the animal, she had the presence of mind, however, to stand perfectly still, while she summoned her soldiers and servants to her assistance.

Something like a council of war took place in the Wilburs' drawing-room several evenings before the opening. Charlotte, supposed to be studying in the library, became an interested listener, shielded from view by the half-drawn hangings. Alexina Russell was the first comer. Charlotte had not yet made up her mind about Alex, she was so different at different times.

A ladder, however, abridged the distance, and Alexina, obeying a gesture from Joan, climbed as hastily as her narrow skirt would permit and peered through the outside shutters, which had been carefully closed. The room was not dark, however. The electricity had been turned on and shone down upon an amazing sight.

Poor Alexina, forced to submit, her mother placidly impervious to coaxings, tears, and storms, had finally compromised the matter to the satisfaction of herself and of her own close chosen friend, Aileen Lawton.

Alexina requested him to sell her some corn and oxen; he replied, in what seemed the spirit of a true gentleman, that for twenty-four hours he was her host, that consequently he had abdicated his position as a trader, and could think of nothing but giving her an honourable reception.

Perhaps she did; she never talked about it afterwards, and Alexina never saw her with it; it died in the summer, soon after its coming. When she did see the two again, her uncle and Emily, on her own return to Louisville in the late fall, the embarrassing playfulness had left Uncle Austen. Perhaps the steely coldness of his manner was worse.