"She can come if she wishes," interrupted Laila, impatiently. "I see thy craft, Akbar, but I care not for that. Yet it will be fun to receive her as--as a Begum. And no harm either, since the missen ladies receive her, I know, and her like--when they will come! It will be at night, of course, to ensure her privacy, so Pidar Narâyan need know nothing. Only"--she paused, a change swept over her face, leaving it dimpled, cunning, full of mischief and cajolery. "I do naught for naught! If I please thee, thou must please me! If thou art their messenger, thou must be mine also; or I tell Pidar Narâyan!"
Akbar-khân's wicked old eyes positively leered approval; he waggled his head and chuckled. Wherefore not? Was there a better, more careful messenger in the world than he, or one more capable of deft arrangings?
"I want none," she put in with a quick distaste, a shrinking from his manner. "'Tis but to take a note to Dering-sahib; he must know somewhat before he comes with the other sahib logue this afternoon. There is no arrangement needed, no fuss."
How could there be, she asked herself, as, after the old sinner had gone off, charmed at this renewal of a once familiar occupation, she sat on the window-sill looking down on the roof of the balcony where she had been so content. For what could be simpler than to make it quite clear that you were real, that you did not pretend, that you were not even afraid? That, briefly, you were not like Mrs. Smith, who took so much--one could not help seeing that!--and gave so little--one could not help seeing that, also! For what was a "Thanks! many, Captain Dering," in return for all the trouble he lavished on her?
So it came to pass that when Vincent Dering went to the palace that afternoon, some words were haunting heart and brain, as Juliet's words must have haunted Romeo's. No more; no less. But they slid into and filled up the blanks between some words of his own which he had spoken carelessly, not five minutes before he had first seen Laila, and which came back to his memory unbidden. "It isn't altogether despicable to let yourself loose in Paradise without an arrière pensée of flaming swords, especially if you can give pleasure to someone else thereby! One could play Romeo and Juliet in this garden nicely."
Well, he had played it for an hour or two, swept off his feet by chance. Whether he would continue to play it was unsettled till her note came. That ended his vague reluctance, and he went over to the palace, eager as any lover could be for the interview she suggested in "the old place when it grows dusk, and the people will mostly have gone."
For those of the camp who were bound to follow the Viceroy's whim of riding by the old road--the pilgrims' road--while the big camp went round by the longer, easier route, had promised to look in on the palace on their way past it, for a cup of tea, a good-by. Since already, the functions over, the dream-city had begun to melt away; the Hosts of the Lord-sahib were passing on.
"Glory be!" said the Commissioner with heart-felt gratitude, "we've done our worst and leave you to take the consequences. That's sound policy. Anyhow, we are ahead of everybody on the road to heaven, and the pilgrims will have to swallow the dust of our feet! I wonder how they'll like it." He was in wild spirits, like a schoolboy escaped from school; yet as he paused to shake hands with Dr. Dillon, he said aside, "Any more cases?"
"Two," said the doctor, laconically, "both dead. It is a bad type."
His hearer's face was unmovable as he turned to Mrs. Smith, who stood close by. "Good-by, my dear lady," he said cheerfully, "remember me house is yours if you, or the child, want it. Doctor, couldn't you conscientiously recommend change of air to the hills? Couldn't ye swear the close proximity to an open canal and a gaol is unwholesome? If ye could, you'd oblige a grass-widower, whose wife is at Baden-Baden--or is it Marienbad?--living prodigally, while he has to fill himself with husks which no self-respecting swine would eat. Faith, me dear madam, I'd bless you if you'd come and kill the cook. It's a woman's work; not a man's."