‘I can’t remember, Stella answered.

‘You’re lying,’ Chrissie accused her. ‘You must have a pretty good idea. Was it fifty francs, a hundred, or more?’

Stella shook her head and went on eating the ice cream made in three different colours and flavours which had been served with fresh fraises des bois and whipped cream.

‘Answer me!’ Chrissie ordered.

‘I really don’t know how much it was,’ Stella prevaricated. ‘I had lost a great deal of what he gave me.’

‘And how much was that?’

‘A thousand francs.’

Chrissie gave an exclamation that was half a choke and brought her clenched fist down on the table, making the glasses ring.

‘You stupid, brainless fool!’ she cried. ‘A thousand francs and you actually gambled with it? Why didn’t you put it in your pocket and tell the Rajah you had lost it?’

‘It wouldn’t have been true for one thing,’ Stella answered mildly. Besides, he would have seen I was not playing.’

‘You could have put on a few francs,’ Chrissie conceded, ‘but it makes me see red to think that, having been so stupid as to gamble and to lose, you returned him what was left. Can’t you get into your thick head that we’ve got to save, that every franc we put aside will seem worth its weight in gold when we return to London?’

‘I’m sorry, Chrissie.’ Stella said quietly.

‘Sorry! That’s all you ever say,’ Chrissie shouted. ‘What’s the point of being sorry if you don’t try and do better next time? You had better get double out of the Rajah tonight to make up for it.’

Stella put down her spoon and pushed her plate away from her.

‘I can’t ask him for anything more. He was ever so kind about the pearls.’

‘And when are you going to get them?’ Chrissie enquired.

‘Well, if it comes to that, I don’t want them,’ Stella answered,

‘I spoke to the girl that owns them last night – “the Ghost” as they call her, and she was sweet. She talked to me, Chrissie, as if I was a friend, someone of her own world. I wouldn’t want to take her pearls from her – they belonged to her mother.’

It was then that Chrissie screamed and, screaming, rose from the table to stamp about the room raging and cursing until the native servant who had been waiting on them peeped round the doorway, uncertain of what was occurring.

It was some time before Stella was allowed to speak, but when she could hear her own voice, it was only to murmur that she was sorry and didn’t mean to upset Chrissie so much. but Chrissie was not to be appeased and raged on and on until finally physical pain brought her voice to a standstill.