A handsome, fair-moustachioed young aide-de-camp, looking very smart in his evening uniform with white lapels, was fluttering round, his dinner list in his hand, and introducing people who already knew each other.

He looked distinctly worried, so did the private secretary--sallow-faced, of a clerkish type, and obviously without social qualifications--who was also wandering round and trying ineffectively to do the right thing.

The aide-de-camp rushed forward to shake hands with Joan, exclaiming in a relieved undertone: 'Oh, Mrs Gildea, do help me.

I believe I've made an awful hash of it all.

People out here,' he murmured, 'ain't used to viceregal etiquette as she is interpreted in Ceylon--that was my last post you know.