It was as if she awaited an answer from beyond her own brain, and for answer there came to her the sudden vision of Philip Flint. He seemed to be standing before her. She saw his blue eyes, heard his slow, pleasant voice. What did it mean? Aghast at her thoughts, shadowy and indefinite though they were, she rushed back to the drawing-room, shaking, unstrung, with the feeling that she had committed murder in her heart. She was a wicked creature! Oh, why had she married Robert? Why had she not stayed at The Chestnuts with grandmamma and the aunts, ignorant, safe, however dull? Nothing but evil had come of her yearnings for India, and there was no one to whom she could turn for help, for advice, for sympathy.
In trembling haste, but without purpose, she put on a hat and went out into the compound. Involuntarily she glanced around for Sher Singh, but for a wonder he was nowhere to be seen, and impulsively she decided to call on Mrs. Antonio—anything to escape from the harassing fancies that beset her.
The house occupied by the Antonios was no distance, built as it was on a further portion of the fort walls; it stood prominent against the copper-coloured sky, encouraging the venture....
Mrs. Antonio was at home. As Stella sat in the drawing-room awaiting her appearance she noticed a curious smell; it recalled to her mind Mrs. Piggott's belief that the doctor, if not his wife as well, indulged in the hookah. And why not, queried Stella, if they liked it? though the taste was not easy to understand judging by the acrid odour! The room felt fusty, was crammed with a strange assortment of cheap bric-a-brac overlaid with dust, and the heat was insufferable.
When Mrs. Antonio appeared she presented what Stella's former school-fellows at Greystones would have described as "a sight for the blind," clad as she was in a terrible yellow dressing-gown, a bath towel bound turban-wise about her head.
"Please excuse, Mrs. Crayfield dear," she apologised. "I have been washing my hair. I did not wish to keep you waiting. Does your ayah prepare you areca-nut wash? It is best thing!"
"I will remember," said Stella, who had brought a bountiful supply of shampoo-powders with her from England. "Champa has not told me about it."
"Oh, my, that ayah of yours, that Champa! She is a lazy," continued Mrs. Antonio; she unwound the towel and rubbed her grey locks as she talked. "Where did you get her?"
"She was engaged by Sher Singh, our head servant."
"Yes, and that Sher Singh!" Mrs. Antonio peered at her visitor through a screen of wet hair. "He is a badmash."