"About six. Is that too early for you?"
"Don't talk rot! Send the gee to our camp, and I'll be ready."
"Good! Now can I offer you any refreshment—will you have a cup of tea or coffee, or," he ventured, in view of the cigarettes, "a peg?"
"Nothing, thank you." She rose a little reluctantly. "Now I must get back——"
"Have you a lantern?" he inquired, for the sudden Indian dusk had descended.
She looked out of the tent. "No, I never thought of it, but I can find my way all right."
"I'll come with you——"
She protested. He paid no attention; and presently they were stumbling along side by side in the wake of a peon who marched ahead swinging a hurricane lantern, and banging a staff on the ground to scare possible snakes that at this season, waking from their winter sleep, were apt to lie curled in the warm dust, a danger to pedestrians.
"Are you married?" she asked him suddenly.