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 would give anything not to be going. Lady Manifold, dowdy and fidgety, and Marjory, shallow and frivolous, all at once seemed the most undesirable of fellow-travellers, while, as for the owner of the deep bass voice, he made me feel murderous already, and the meek little woman who looked up at him admiringly I felt inclined to shake right away. The Delhi Durbar suddenly appeared to me to be what some of the papers had called it—a useless expenditure and an empty circus show. I saw all the tawdriness and glitter of it in a flash.

'Yes,' Lord Hendley was saying, 'one has heard so much of the Durbar, I hope you won't be disappointed.'

Lord Hendley has a most embarrassing habit of apparently reading one's thoughts—or, rather, I should say my thoughts, for, of course, I've never discussed the subject with anybody else. I never mention Lord Hendley's name to anyone if I can help it, and I always turn kind of hot if I hear it mentioned suddenly. I wonder if that really means anything?

I believe I should have got quite gulpy in the throat just then, but, fortunately, a whistle blew and saved me. Immediately there was a general bustle on the platform, and everybody began to kiss everybody else—I mean, of course, all those who were within the table of consanguinity. Those who couldn't kiss began to shake hands hurriedly, and the air was full of last messages and injunctions from fond and anxious friends and relatives. Aunt Agatha was, of course, well to the fore here, and