Everybody had been busy, because one or two other guests were expected besides Captain Vidall.

Lali had kept to herself, sending word through Richard that she would not "be English," as she vaguely put it, that day.

She had sent Mackenzie on some mission.

She sat on the floor of her room, as she used to sit on the ground in her father's lodge.

Her head was bowed in her hands, and her arms rested on her knees.