Which shows yet again how inadequately causes and effects are appreciated here on earth.  The dubious Mr. Hopkins may well have been moved by mercenary considerations.  But this fact had nothing to do with the unsatisfactory issue of the affair.  In other words, even as the Saint, in the matter of that volcanic eruption, had previously gotten the praise for what was not his merit, so now this sinner was blamed for what was not his fault.  Had the sub-committee waited till the crack of doom, it would have made no difference whatever to the general trend of Mr. Keith’s sententious irrelevancies.

Perhaps, if they had caught him in a better humour, he might have had the decency to invite them to luncheon after the funeral.

Even this was problematical.

CHAPTER XXVII

The funeral was a roaring success.  The display of ecclesiastics and choristers was unusually fine.  Torquemada had seen to that part of the business.  It was his duty henceforward to cherish the bereaved representative of Nicaragua—­a possible convert, at his hand, to the true faith.  The Clubmen, headed by the excellent Mr. Richards, wore their gravest faces.  Furthermore, in view of the lady’s quasi-official position, the authorities of the island were present in full numbers; the Militia, too, looked superb in their picturesque uniforms.  And so large was the unofficial attendance, so deafening the music, so brilliant the sunshine, so perfect the general arrangements that even the deceased, captious as she was, could hardly (under other circumstances) have avoided expressing her approval of the performance.

There was an adequate display of fictitious grief among her social equals.  Madame Steynlin, in particular, carried it off—­to outward appearances—­with remarkable success.  She looked really quite upset, and her hat, as usual, attracted the attention of all the ladies.  Madame Steynlin’s hats were proverbial.  She was always appearing in new ones of the most costly varieties.  And never, by any chance, did they accord with her uncommon and rather ripe style of beauty.  Madame Steynlin was too romantic to dress well.  She trimmed her heart, and not her garments.  A tidy little income, however, enabled her to eke out lack of taste by recklessness of expenditure.  This particular hat, it was observed, must have cost a fortune.  And yet it was a perfect fright; it made her look fifteen years older, to the delight of all the other women.

What cared Madame Steynlin about hats?  Her distressful appearance was not feigned; she was truly upset, though not about the death of the Commissioner’s lady.  With an effort whose violence nobody but herself could appreciate she had managed to extricate herself from the lion—­like embraces of Peter the Great—­to what purpose?  To perform an odious social duty; to waste a fair morning in simulating grief for the death of a woman whom she loathed like poison.  Nobody would ever understand what a trial in altruism had been.  Nobody, in fact, ever gave her credit for a grain of self-abnegation.  And yet she was always trying to please people—­denying herself this and that.  How harshly the world judged!