Just for a second she put the palm of her ungloved hand against her forehead, sighed quickly, with her head bent forward, then passed through the doorway, turned to the left, stopped and said "Yes?"
And the man, in faultless western clothes save for the white turban which with its regulation folds outlined the pale bronze face, with a look of satisfaction in the dark eyes, salaamed before the beautiful woman who had looked at him questioningly.
"Allow me!" he said simply, bending to pick up the glove she had dropped, the smile of satisfaction deepening as he looked at her again.
She had turned from him, and stock-still was staring into the glass case which lined the wall.
Closer she pressed, until her nose, flattened against the glass looked like a white cherry.
"Kali," she read, "Kali, the Goddess of Death. I thought—I——"
Lower she leant to look at the square stone image numbered thirty-seven.
High breasted, squatting on her crossed legs, garlanded with skulls, with five hands, holding a sword, a thunderbolt, a skull, a snake, a cup, and the other two raised in blessing, the goddess leers at you like a very old woman from behind the glass.
Leonie turned swiftly to find herself alone; and the hunted look in her gold-flecked eyes deepened to horror as she gathered her skirts about her, and fled blindly through the rooms, and down the stairs, and out of the building.
Heading straight down Museum Street for Oxford Street, she ran across the road at the risk of her neck and the wrath of a taxi-driver; gave one terrified backward glance at a law-abiding student from India, who was going to his cheery lodgings in Bloomsbury; and fled into the tea-rooms which lure you outside with the pretty apple-painted ware in the window, and where inside, one beautiful little blonde head shines like a field of ripening wheat.