"No; they must come with me. As long as I remain in the house I have a better chance of obtaining an interview."
They found Eola in the garden looking at the roses. Her favourites were all back in their places, a dozen beautiful La France plants. Whether they were the originals she could not say. The pruning was always a severe process that deprived the bushes of individual features and made them all of one pattern. Mrs. Hulver was not far off; and the gardener, beaming with satisfaction at the thought that his full wages were assured, was half concealed behind a bank of ferns where he was pretending to be very busy picking off dead leaves. Eola greeted Ananda with a friendly welcome that set him at ease; talked of her roses and other matters of no importance.
"I want to thank you, Miss Wenaston, for all that you sent yesterday by Mr. Alderbury," he said.
"You must thank my housekeeper. It was her thought. Mrs. Hulver! Mr. Ananda is very grateful to you for thinking of him in his need."
Mrs. Hulver, thus encouraged, approached and cast her shrewd grey eyes over the visitor. His neat European dress and manner met with her approval.
"I am glad the food was acceptable. I saw to the cooking of it myself. Mr. Alderbury told me that you had been obliged to live on biscuits—poor stuff for young stomachs. What a man wants is a hot meal once a day. There should be meat as well as bread or rice. I wasn't able to send you any meat, Mr. Ananda."
"I don't eat meat, so it was all right."
"Do you like fish?"
"Yes; and vegetables curried; but I have not tasted a curry since I landed."
"Then you've gone to bed hungry more often than not in spite of your biscuits. As William—that was my second husband—used to say: 'Sharp stomachs make short tempers.' The best temper will sour under starvation."