Therefore the smell of carbolic was conscientiously mingled with that of decaying melon rinds, sour milk, drains, and musk; and the outcome of the atmosphere was left to Providence.
The immediate result was not savoury; especially in the low stuffy room, as yet shut out from the light and air of the balcony by wadded portières, in which a woman, lounging in one corner, was idly allowing her fingers to flirt on the parchment of a drum--one of those small, quaint drums shaped like Time's hour-glass, which produce what Grace Arbuthnot had told herself was the most restless sound on God's earth.
It had the same passion of unrest, here in this squalid room, though it was scarcely loud enough to stir the air heavy with that horrible compound of smells.
The woman was Miss Leezie herself, as yet negligent in purely native déshabillé; for the afternoon was still young, and she knew that custom would be late owing to the Artillery Sports. Indeed, she was going to them herself, by and by, with some of her apprentices, in a hired carriage. But she was not taking Sobrai; for Sobrai was wilful, oddly attractive withal, and therefore dangerous to the discipline of cantonments. With an evil tongue also, so that Miss Leezie looked over in lazy anger to the opposite corner of the room, whence a shrill assertion that the speaker would not be put upon had just risen.
'Then thou hadst best go back to the city and Dilarâm, fool!' said the mistress of the house sharply; 'for if thou stayest here, it must be to walk sober, as we all do, to the time of the fifes and drums. My house hath a good name, and I will not have it given an ill one for all the apprentices in Nushapore. So if thou wilt not obey, go! There be plenty of that sort, unlicensed, beyond the boundaries. But we are different; we are approved!'
She leant back with palpable pride against a wall which found its only purification from the rub of red coats, and that civilised flavouring of carbolic in the smell of drains and garbage.
Sobrai scowled sulkily. She had set her heart on going to the sports in a conglomerate attire of white flounced muslin, tight silk trousers, nose-ring and kid gloves; preferably on the roof of the hired green box on wheels within which Miss Leezie would sit in dignified state.
'I did not come hither to rot within four walls? I could have done that in the city,' she shrilled, louder still.
'Hold thy peace, idiot!' interrupted Miss Leezie, 'if thou dost dare to raise a commotion now, when at any moment the Lât-sahib himself may come driving past, 'twill be the worse for thee!'
'Wah! thou canst do nothing,' answered Sobrai; feeling cowed, despite the assertion, by Miss Leezie's tone.