There was no one in the house, no one in the little yard behind it; but Lateefa had been there not long ago, for the clippings of his trade littered one corner, and two draggled kites, their strings still fastened to wooden pegs in the wall, lay huddled in another.
Dilarâm might know; a message might be left with her.
As Khôjee stumbled up the dark stairs to a balcony for the first time in her life, she tried to straighten her veil, but her hands trembled; it would not fold decorously.
There were three or four drowsy women lounging in the room at the door of which she stood, beset by a sudden shyness, and three of them tittered at the unusual sight; but the fourth said severely--
'What dost here, sister? This is no place for thy sort.'
'I--I seek Lateefa,' she faltered, and the others tittered louder.
'Peace, fools!' said Dilarâm angrily. 'Dost mean Lateefa the kitemaker?'
But Khôjee had found her dignity. 'Yea! Lateef of the House of the Nawâb Jehân Aziz, on whom be peace. Tell him, courtesan, that Khôjeeya Khânum----' She paused, doubtful of her message, and, in the pause, the jingles on Dilarâm's feet clashed once more as she rose to do honour to a different life.
'Let the Bibi sahiba speak,' she said in her most mellifluous tones. 'We in the freedom of vice are slaves to the prisoners of virtue.'
'Tell him,' said Khôjeeya Khânum, 'that it is well with the prison and the prisoners. That they need no service.'