'Now go and get your topi,' said Berengaria, as we finished, 'and I will show you round the garden.'
I went off to my room, and got Ermyntrude to unearth the topi I had provided myself with at home. In Bombay and on the journey I had gone about in an ordinary hat under a thick parasol, but since everybody told me I should die soon if I did that any more I felt it was time to adopt that topi. It struck me then as I put it on that it looked rather funny, and not quite like those I had seen about the streets of Bombay, but I concluded that, coming from such a well-known London shop, it must be that mine was only a much superior article to those that I had come across out here. I thought the piece of silk that hung down behind quite elegant in an Early Victorian sort of style.
When I rejoined Berengaria in the veranda, I thought she must be suddenly taken with convulsions.
'It's no use my trying not to laugh, Nicola, because I must,' she cried at last, letting herself go, and laughing till the tears rolled down her cheeks.
I looked at her as one person who doesn't see the joke always will look at another person who does. Berengaria jumped up and kissed me impulsively.
'You dear,' she laughed, 'you look just like one of the ladies in those old pig-sticking pictures in John's study.'
