“Not the least. I’ll send an embrocation over to the Guest House. I heard you were settled in there.”
“Why have you not answered my letters?” he asked, going straight for the point, but not reaching it, owing to buckets of rain. His companion, new to the country, cried, as the drops drummed on his topi, that the bees were renewing their attack. Fielding checked his antics rather sharply, then said: “Is there a short cut down to our carriage? We must give up our walk. The weather’s pestilential.”
“Yes. That way.”
“Are you not coming down yourself?”
Aziz sketched a comic salaam; like all Indians, he was skilful in the slighter impertinences. “I tremble, I obey,” the gesture said, and it was not lost upon Fielding. They walked down a rough path to the road—the two men first; the brother-in-law (boy rather than man) next, in a state over his arm, which hurt; the three Indian children last, noisy and impudent—all six wet through.
“How goes it, Aziz?”
“In my usual health.”
“Are you making anything out of your life here?”
“How much do you make out of yours?”
“Who is in charge of the Guest House?” he asked, giving up his slight effort to recapture their intimacy, and growing more official; he was older and sterner.