“My dearest kid, don’t be an ass. If you stayed one minute longer, you’d ruin the best memory of my life. I mean it. Off with you.”...
He stood with one arm flung up in a reassuring gesture of farewell until the bamboo raft with its sandy-haired occupant vanished around the dim curve of the river. The night was falling with the velvet precipitation of the tropics—even while he stood its dark mantle was about him; new perfumes stole from its folds, troubling and exquisite, and one by one its jewels shone out—the small, ruddy fires of the kampong, an occasional lantern swinging hurriedly by and, square by square, the distant windows in the Sultan’s residence, flashing aggressive as a challenge. He lowered his arm somewhat abruptly. Very gay to-night, the Sultan’s residence; gayer than was its wont—gay as for some high festivity. The imperial Bhakdi was not greatly given to such prodigal display of oil and tallow; his mentor eyed the illumination critically, and then, with the old indifferent shrug, swung leisurely off through the blackness toward the shadow deeper than the surrounding shadows that was home. He ran lightly up the crazy steps, felt for the latch—and drew back his hand as sharply as though he had touched hot coal. He had touched something more startling than any coal; the groping fingers had closed on emptiness. The latched door was open.
“Ghundi!” His voice cut sharply into the dark space that a few minutes before had been a room, green-cushioned, white-matted, commonplace, and serene. “Ghundi!”
Silence—haunted and ominous. The Honourable Tony leaned against the door frame and addressed the shadows.
“Of course, this is frightfully jolly! I’d have laid out a mat with welcome drawn up all over it if I’d had the faintest notion of what was in store for me—though that would have been a bit superfluous, come to think of it! You seem to have managed nicely without any mat at all. I hope you’ve made yourself quite at home?”
Silence. The Honourable Tony did not move, but he raised his voice.
“Mrs. Potts! I say, I hope you’ve made yourself quite at home?”
From the hushed depths came a small, frantic commotion.
“Ah, be qui-yet!” The desperate whisper came toward him in a rush. “Be qui-yet, I do implore!”
“Oh, my dear girl, come now! Silence may be golden, and all that—and naturally I’m enormously flattered at finding you lurking around the corners of my humble abode, but before we do away with the human voice entirely, why not have a go at straightening out one or two minor matters? The first being just precisely what in the devil you’re doing here instead of on Ledyard’s boat?”