"So are we all," retorted Philip cynically. "We ought to manage it between us, somehow."
As they passed the coolies' huts a big strapping woman with her face hidden in her veil came out and salaamed.
"Who is that?" asked Philip at once. The last few days had brought him a curious dissatisfaction with Belle's surroundings. Despite the luxurious home she seemed out of keeping with Afzul and his bandits, the tag-rag and bobtail of squalid coolies swarming about the place, and the stolid indifference of the peasants beyond the factory.
"A protégée of John's. He got her out of trouble somewhere. He says he has the biggest lot of miscreants on the frontier on his works. They don't look much, I must allow; but this woman seems to like me. She has such a jolly baby. I had to doctor it last week. How's Nuttu to-day, Kirpo?"
The woman, grinning, opened her veil and displayed a sleeping child.
"Isn't he pretty, Philip?" said Belle softly. "And see, they have pierced his nose and ears like a girl's."
"For luck, I suppose. May God spare him to manhood," prefaced Philip piously, in native fashion before he asked the mother if it were not so.
She shook her head. "No, Protector of the poor! All my boys are healthy. He is called Nuttu, so that as he thrives some one else of the same name may dwindle and pine. That is why." She hugged the baby to her with an odd smile.
"She could not have meant that there was really another child whose death she desired," said Belle as they went on.
"I would not answer for it if I were you. They are a queer people. By Jove! How that woman does hate some one; I'm glad it isn't you, Belle!"