She was quiet a moment, her finger to her lips. Her anger had gone, and she was once more the being of swift and joyous fancies.
"Look—the moon is showing between the trees. It has made a white pool at my feet, Tristram Sahib. Do you remember what you told me—how at night-time you sat by the village fire and listened to Ayeshi's stories of the great past? You promised that one day I should listen, too. Now I claim fulfilment. We will sit round the moonlight and warm our hands at it, and Ayeshi shall tell the story that his Sahib loves best. Shall it be so?"
"Yes," he answered.
Both Mrs. Smithers and the soft-footed native servant, whom she now marshalled in with a forbidding air of distrust, were waved imperiously aside.
"No—coffee and Smithy are civilized—and we are miles from civilization. We are on the borders of the jungle. If I listened, I should hear the howl of the jackals—so I shan't listen, for I detest jackals. There are monkeys overhead peeping at us and chattering soft insults—and birds pluming themselves for sleep. The moonlight will be on our faces, and it will be like the firelight. And the river shall make the music to Ayeshi's story."
She slipped down on to the stone floor and sat there, cross-legged, her chin cupped in her hand. The circle of pale silver reflected itself back on to her earnest face and painted faint, mocking shadows at the corners of her composed lips. Ayeshi crouched dreamingly on the lower step of the verandah. On the other side of the little circle, Tristram sat with Wickie drowsing at his feet, his hands outstretched as though, to please her fancy, he warmed them at the firelight. Once, as Ayeshi told his story, he looked across at her and his face was haunted with weariness and suffering and famished desire.
Thus Ayeshi told of the Rani Kurnavati and her Bracelet Brother.
* * * * *
The moonlight faded. With Ayeshi's last words a chill darkness crept over them, hiding them from one another and silencing them. It was as though they had indeed warmed themselves at a fire which had gone out, leaving them to the grey ash of their dreams.
Silently Ayeshi had risen and untethered the horses and led them towards the gates of the compound. But Tristram lingered, standing on the steps of the verandah, his face turned from the woman who looked down at him.