Bowing again, he obeyed.
"Do you think Lady Gerardine will see me?"
She glanced at the clock on the cabinet beside her.
"My aunt will be here," she replied, "in just ten minutes. She is always down at the hour, though nobody comes till half-past." She flung a look of some reproach at the visitor's inscrutable face, and passed her handkerchief over her own hot cheeks. "I think Aunt Rosamond is wonderful," she went on, preparing herself, with a small sigh, to the task of entertaining. "The Runkle—I mean my uncle—is always after her. But I am sure there is not another Lieutenant-Governor's wife in India that does her duty half so well." Here she yawned, as suddenly as a puppy. The visitor still maintaining silence, she paused, evidently revolving subjects of conversation in her mind, and then started briskly upon her choice:
"Of course, you don't know who I am." Two deep dimples appeared in the plump cheeks. "I am Aspasia Cuningham, and I have come to live with my uncle and aunt in India. I wish I had not; I hate it. What is your name?"
"Raymond Bethune."
"Civil?" inquired Miss Aspasia, running her eye over his light-grey suit.
"No, military. Guides. Major," he corrected.
She nodded.
"I see—turbans and things," commented she.