They strolled to the veranda steps in silence; then again they said "Good-night," and Kennard vanished swiftly in the darkness.
"Won't you borrow one of our lanterns?" she called after him, remembering with horror the danger of snakes.
There came no answer, for at that moment Rafella's husband drove in at the gate.
"Were you calling to someone?" he inquired, with surly suspicion, as he joined her in the veranda.
For the first time in her life Rafella told a deliberate lie. "No," she said, her heart fluttering painfully with fear and shame. "I had only just come out to listen for the trap.
CHAPTER VI
THE BACHELORS' BALL
The rhythm of the immortal "Blue Danube" waltz swung through the big Indian ballroom. It was long before two-steps, Bostons, tangos were dreamed of, when, at any rate in India, the pas de quatre was still a novelty, and the "Washington Post" had not yet been introduced. Almost everyone was dancing; the only onlookers were a few partnerless, or non-dancing men, and a sprinkling of senior people whose exile in the East was nearly over. The aged white man or woman is seldom to be encountered in India; they have "done their time" and gone home--or to their graves. Sometimes they stay to live out last years in some more or less salubrious region, but such settlers are dying out, and, with easier transit home, are not replaced; for though living may be less expensive, and cheap luxuries attractive, there is always the loss of prestige and the desire to end their days in England.