That sense of prisonment--the prisonment of pleasure--lay heavy on Lesley as she paused, half-unconsciously, before a tiny latticed retreat--the daintiest little retreat in the world--which, just at the opposite end of the shining cross from the gilt summer-house, rose out of the water. Made of marble fretwork, with a domed top, it looked like a lace veil moulded into the form of a singing-bird's cage; and its latticed seclusion was only connected with the causeway on either side of it, by a foot-wide ledge of mosaic.
Lesley, having been in the garden before, knew the purpose this retreat had served in the past, and her involuntary pause beside it prolonged itself in half-disdainful wonder. For this had been the sanctuary. Here had been refuge even from the pleasures of the garden, and hither, if any woman, high or low, chose to appeal for redress, majesty itself had been bound to come and listen, leaving majesty and manhood behind it.
That, at least, was the idea. The retreat itself was more suggestive of beauty gaining in power by seclusion; and Lesley's lip curled with more disdain as she looked at the finnikin filagree cage.
Her expression, however, changed to curiosity as she realised that some one was sitting inside it. She crossed the ledge of mosaic swiftly, and, stooping under the laced edge of a low arch, went in.
It was not beauty that she found. It was a wrinkled anxious-faced old woman, who rose in a salaam, then literally prostrated herself at the girl's feet. Lesley had been long enough in India, now, to judge rightly of the poverty shown in the dress. The blue-striped trousers, tight to the knee and full above, the short whity-brown cotton veil were to be seen--more or less dirty, more or less ragged--in every poor Mohammedan quarter. Yet there was something refined in the worn face, blurred with recent tears, which looked into hers apprehensively, as the owner rose to salaam again, leaving a small roll of paper bound with coloured silks upon the marble floor.
Lesley was puzzled for an instant; then it flashed upon her that this must be some belated petitioner for justice in the old style, who had heard, probably, that the Lord-sahib was in the garden. Such rolls of paper--without the silken tie, however--were often thrust into the carriage when Sir George was in it.
So she hunted round her sparse vocabulary, but finally fell back on the first phrase most newcomers to India learn, namely, 'Kya mankta?' (what do you want?)
It is an admirable beginning, though, unfortunately, the sympathetic curiosity of it seldom becomes impersonal to the speaker! It produced another salaam, and such a flood of polished speech that Lesley retired to English incontinently. 'Is it for the Lord-sahib?' she asked hurriedly, picking up the roll and pointing with it to the distant summer-house.
The title produced a fourth salaam, and Lesley, with some relief, stooped under the fretted arch again, and began to retrace her steps towards the others.
Sir George, she knew, had been doubtful if business would allow him to put in an appearance at the entertainment at all; but some one would be sure to know what message ought to be sent back to the petitioner, who, as Lesley left the bird-cage, settled herself down in it again to wait, with great precision.