"Ha, ha! Well named, 'a conventicle' indeed! I'll undertake for my girl, she'll not darken that door again. Why, the poor sweet girl only took a peep to get a sight of your fine English missus. No harm in that, Alfred!" said the woman in an ingratiating tone.
"Well, what's past is past! Do you agree then that you cease to annoy me in any way? If you do, I'll send my horse-keeper to turn you out. Mind what I say! You haven't any legal claim on me—not for a single pie, but I'll open my purse this time because you're down in your luck. Here's a ten-rupee note, and see you stick to your bargain."
"Certainlee," snapped the woman, as her long brown fingers closed on the note, and turning she hobbled away.
"Well, that's over for this time," muttered Mr. Rayner, "but if I hadn't stopped the creature she would have forced her way into the verandah in no time, then there would have been misery to pay; and just as I was trying to throw off all my worries too, and Hester and I were sitting in the landau like two doves in this glorious moonlight."
CHAPTER XVIII.
There is no doubt that one of the minor pleasures of the hot Indian hours for the mem-sahib is a morning spent in a cool corner of the verandah while the hawker unfastens his bales of goods and displays his fascinating wares; and that pleasure is enhanced when shared by the companionship of a sympathetic friend of the feminine gender, or even one of the masculine if he is of the right sort.
Hester had invited Mrs. Fellowes to share the pleasant responsibility of choosing the Christmas presents for home, and she considered herself fortunate in securing her busy friend. A happy, wholesome-minded woman in all things, Mrs. Fellowes admitted that she enjoyed the display of the beautiful wares, and even entered into the spirit of the oriental chaffering which made part of the stock-in-trade of those Eastern pedlars.
It was Rayner Dorai himself who had given orders to his butler to fetch the important functionaries. He had been commanded to summon Yacoob, a little old Mussulman who had more than once presented himself with appealing eyes to inquire whether the mem-sahib would permit him to show his wares—"no buying, seeing only!"
Hester had succumbed once to the temptation, and had bought a trifle; but since that occasion she had resisted Yacoob's appeals, promising that when she required such things she would not fail to buy from him. Veeraswamy had therefore been duly dispatched to Triplicane, the Mussulman quarter, where he said he knew Yacoob dwelt. On the way, however, he happened to encounter Ismail, another hawker, accompanied by a couple of coolies carrying his bales, which betokened him rather a superior gentleman of the trade. Here was an opportunity which Veeraswamy could not resist. Announcing to the Mussulman that he had been commissioned by Rayner Dorai to fetch a hawker, he intimated to Ismail that in return for a little backsheesh he might be the fortunate man.