Queen Lucia

atured mood that same night after dinner, for the Guru had again made a visit to the kitchen with the result that instead of a s

a splash in his soup plate, and thereupon had bowed and smiled and scurried away to the kitchen to intercept the next abomination. Then returning with the little cur

his room, and had shambled away in his red slippers, the discussion which Robert had felt himself obliged to open with his wife, on the subject of hav

aha - I should say Guru, my dear,"

ages of love, north, east, south, and west. So she sent a rather spiky one in the direction of her husband who was sitting due east, so t

. "Even the Guides can't tell whe

should stop here till he

tinued

thing," she said. "I

ce of the fish curry, Rob

e said. "Can't you engage him as t

, and indeed the two were outpoured together, like hot and cold taps turned on

say, you never can tell where a Guru may be call

y remembered Georgie's story about Rush and

hristian Scientist, and you've left that little sheep-fold now. You used to talk about false claims I remember. Well her claim to be a cook is the falsest I ever h

avage breast; it blew upon him as the wind on an AEoli

in me to ask what sort of arrangement you propose. I haven't a word to say against him, especially when he goes to the kitchen; I only want to k

of which came sounds of breathing so deep that it sounded almost like snoring. But she seemed to detect a timbre of spirituality about it which convinced her that

pointing to his well-furnished plate, and told him that every atom of that beef or mutton and potatoes, turned from the moment he swallowed it into chromogens and toxins, and that his apparent appetite was merely the result of fermentation. For herself her platter was an abominable mess of cheese and protein-powder and apples and salad-oil, while round her, like saucers of specimen seeds were ranged little piles of nuts and pine-branches, which supplied body-building material, and which she weighed out with scrupulous accuracy, in accordance with the directions of the "Uric Acid Monthly." Tea and coffee were taboo, since they flooded the blood with purins, and the k

he had no touch of pity for him, since she knew that there was no such thing as cold or heat or pain, and therefore you could not feel cold. But now, since, according to the new creed, such things as uric acid, chromogens and purins had no existence, she could safely indulge in decent viands again. But her unhappy husband was not a real gainer in this respect, for while he ate, she

r note, nor have sent Georgie to deliver it, nor have professed so violent an interest in the Guru. What then was the correctly diabolical policy to pursue? Should Daisy Quantock refuse to take him to Mrs Lucas altogether, with a message of regret that he did not feel himself sent? Even if she did this, did she feel herself strong enough to throw down the gauntlet (in the shape of the Guru) and, using him as the attraction, challenge darling Lucia to mutual combat, in order to decide who s

ting all about that turned its attention to the second, and the third, taking headers into each in turn, without deciding which, on the whole, was the most enchanting of

keep him enti

im for all he is wo

ll I get G

I give L a

her very pretty housemaid to make the beds that morning, saying tha

ask him to

sh's. When she had begged him to order anything he wanted and cause it to be put down to her account, she had not actually contemplated brandy. Then remembering that one of the most necessary conditions for progress in Yoga, was that the disciple should have complete confidence in the Guru, she chased that

rung up like mushrooms during the night. Georgie would be matching silks at the draper's, and very naturally he would carry them from the obscurity of the interior to the door in order to be certain about the shades, and keep his eye on the comings and goings in the street, and very naturally Mr Lucas on his way to the market gardener's to enquire whether he had yet received the bulbs from Holland, would tell him that Lucia had received t

s box of cigarettes, and being rather puzzled by a bulge in Georgi

d not hear - to adopt a mixed metaphor - the sound of the diligent practice of that classical morsel going on inside. Probably the soft pedal would be down, but he had marvellously acute hearing, and he would be very much surprised if he did not hear the recognisable chords, and even more surprised if, when they came to practise the piece together, Lucia did not give him to understand that she was reading it

ion, came in to Riseholme to do shopping, or transact such business as the majestic life at The Hall required, she always came on foot, or in very inclement weather in a small two-wheeled cart like a hip-bath. At this moment, steeped in conjecture, who should appear, walking stiffly, with her nose in the air, as if suspecting, and not choosing to verify, some faint unpleasant odour, but Lady Ambermere herself, coming from the direction of The Hurst. . . . Clearly she must have got there after Peppino had left, or he would surely have mentioned the fact that Lady Ambermere had been at The Hurst, if she had been at The Hurst. It is true that she was only coming from the direction of The Hurst, but Georgie put into practice, in his mental processes Darwin's princ

re," said Lady Ambermere majest

your own arms," said Georg

ousin of her deceased husband. Sometimes when she talked to Georgie she said "we," implying thereby his connection with the aristocracy, and t

being at them," she said with the quick wit for which Riseholme pronounced

e did not mind that. In fact, he would not

ss and fetch it f

rs like a vulgar street boy," said Lad

ing, with the prudence of middle-age, that he would not really be called

f Lady Ambermere would not permit rude vulgar whistling, of which he was hopelessly i

I have nothing else to do. But who is this wonderful creature she is expecting? Is it an Indian conjurer? If so, I should like to see him, because when Ambermere was in Madras I remember one coming to the Residency who had cobras and

g snakes, and gave a short precis of the ascertained hab

mere. "I was always against lumping all dark-skinned people together and cal

hout the need of his spectacles could see Peppino, who had spied Lady Ambermere from the door of the market-gard

to get rooms at the Arms fo

sked Georgie breathl

ay at the Arms for two ni

-" began

though who the Bracelys were, I have never been able to discover. But when George Shuttleworth wrote to me saying that he and his wife were intending to stay here for a couple of days, and proposing to come over to The Hall to see me, I thought I would just look in at the Arms myself, and see that they were promised proper

lodging and the use of the cart like a hip-bath when Lady Ambermere had errands for her to do in Riseholme, so what could a woman want more? In return for these bounties, her only duty was to devote herself body and mind to her patroness, to read the paper aloud, to set Lady Ambermere's patterns for needlework, to carry the little Chinese dog under her arm, and wash him once a week, to accompany Lady Ambermere to church, and never

s joke ready o

as Miss Lyall been doing while her ladyship an

, as punctually as a cuckoo clock

ight onto the step of the moto

hs, Georgie," she said.

footman mounted onto the box. At that moment Peppino with his bag of bulbs, a little out of breath, squeezed his way between two ca

rejuvenating visit to his dentist, and the tarsomeness of being betwixt and between had been quite forgotten by him when he saw her awake to Siegfried's line on the mountain-top. "Das ist keine mann," Siegfried had said, and, to be sure, that was very clever of him, for she looked like some slim beardless boy, and not in the least like those great fat Fraus at Baireuth, whom nobody could have mistaken for a man as they bulged and heaved even before the strings of the breastplate were uncut by his sword. And then she sat up and hailed the sun, and Georgie felt for a moment that he had quite taken t

l. But with the eye of the true general, he saw that he could most easily break the surrounding cordon by going off in the direction of Colonel Boucher, because Colonel Boucher always said "Haw, hum, by Jove," before he descended into coherent speech, and thus Georgie could forestall him with "Good morning, Colonel," and pass on before he got to business. He did not like passing close to those slobbering bull-dogs, but something had to be done . . . Next moment he was clear and saw that the other spies by their original impetus were still converging on each other and walked briskly down towards Lucia's house, to listen for any familiar noises out of

ng spying that went on round about the Green, but she often saw a good deal from her window. He wondered what Mrs Quantock was meaning to do. Apparently she had not promised the Guru for the garden-party, or else Lady Ambermere would not have said that Lu

ner, without saying anything whatever to Lucia about it, and just see what would happen next. Georgie was a Bartlett on his mother's side, and he played the piano better than Lucia, and he had twenty-four hours' leisure every day, which h

in the familiar alto, and there wa

rgino mio!" sh

towards her. The manly seething of his soul's insurrection rebuked him, b

no." ("And why do I say it in It

talk," she said. "Me want 'oo

d Georgie, now quite

ell me about black man. Him no snakes have? Why Mrs Quanto

d Georgie relapsing

be the Mozart trio. Will you come over tomorrow morning and read i

with her rea

she says she doesn't know if he'll come. What does that mean? Is it possible that s

l, and divine the secret disloyalty that he had been contemplating. If she had continued to look into him, he might not only have confessed to the gloomiest suspicions about Mrs Quantock, but have let go of h

u," she said. "N

ight up to the Guru, bowed and smiled and clearly introduced herself. In another moment he was showing his white teeth and salaaming, and together

at friend of mine. This is Mr Pillson, Guru; Guru, Mr Pillson. The Gur

ie. "We met before in a

So pleased,"

id Lucia, "It is c

from the Guru. He was not sure if he had the makings of a Bo