"A little more sugar, if you please, and one of those cakes with the chocolate, dear," was the reply, given with a stretching of the limbs into the curves of a cushioned chair. "Do you know, Belle, India is a most delightful country. If Blanche Amory had lived here she would not have had to say, 'Il me faut des emotions.' They sit at the gate, so to speak, and the contrasts give such a zest to life. You, with that white gown and all the accessories (as the studio-slang has it) are like pâté de foie after the black bread of the Spartans. If you have done your tea, go to the piano, there's a dear girl, and play me a valse; Rêves d'Amour for choice; that will put the truffles to the pâté."
Kirpo squatting at the gate, waiting for vengeance, heard the gay notes. "What a noise!" she said to herself; "no beginning or end, just like a jackal's cry. I wish he would send the letter."
It came at last; and Kirpo, for one, always believed that to it she owed the fact that Râmu was caught, tried, sentenced, and imprisoned for a whole year; for as she used to say, in telling the tale to her cronies, "I hadn't a cowrie or an ornament left, so it would have been no use complaining to the police."
The Lâlâ, too, impressed a like belief on the indignant Râmu. "'Tis true enough," he said, "that it is tyranny to deny a man his right to teach his wife caution; but there!--she went straight to Raby sahib, and now you are in for a whole year without a friend to stand treat, my poor Râmu."
Râm Lâl's teeth chattered at the prospect of desertion. "But you will stand by me still, master?" he asked piteously.
"Wherefore, Râmu? Even a buniah leaves old scores alone when there is a receipt-stamp on the paper," chuckled the usurer. "Pray that thou hast not the same warder, oh my son! and come back to me, if thou wilst, when the time is over." He happened to be in high good spirits that morning owing to a slip on John Raby's part in regard to the signing of some contract which promised to put rupees into the Lâlâ's private pocket. So much so, that he went to the rest-house in order to gloat over the prospect in his unconscious partner's presence. It was the first time that the latter had seen him since Kirpo's appeal and confession, for John Raby had purposely avoided an interview until the trial, with its possibility of unpleasantness, was over. Now he calmly shut the door, and made the practical joker acquire a thorough and yet superficial knowledge of the ways of the ruling race, finishing up by a contemptuous recommendation to vinegar and brown paper.
"I've been fighting your battles, dear," he said, coming into his wife's room, and leaning over to kiss her as she lay resting on the sofa. A pile of dainty lace and muslin things on the table beside her, told tales for the future.
"My battles, John? I didn't know I had any enemies here." Or any friends she might have added, for those three months in the rest-house had been inexpressibly lonely; her husband away all day, and no white face within fifty miles.
"Enemies? No, Belle, I should say not; but I have, and what's mine's yours, you know." Then, half amused, half irritated, he told her of Kirpo's visit.
Her eyes sought his with the puzzled look which life was beginning to put into them. "I suppose it was intended as an insult," she said; "but when a man has half a dozen wives, some married one, some another way, it,--it doesn't seem to matter if they are married or not."