Although she had no idea why she was in such haste, she inwardly fretted at the hours lost, but passed them with outward patience in the shade of the jungle trees; eating what was brought her, and sleeping away the afternoon stretched on a rug; unconscious of the fact that her bearer sat behind her head, fanning her face gently, and with the lightest and deftest of fingers removing the various insects, long and short, fat and thin, smooth or horny, which seemed to have taken unlimited return tickets for the journey over her body.
They had been for some time on the way, the coolies trapesing behind to the tune of some monotonous chant; and the moon was beginning to fling handsful of silver out of her heavenly mint when Leonie, overcome by a most unromantic craving for tea, gave the order to halt.
"How much farther is it?" she asked, as she busied herself with a spirit lamp and a tin of evaporated milk.
Her bearer looked up at the moon.
"Another half-hour, mem-sahib, and we reach the outer walls of the temple—ah! allow me——"
Leonie had dropped a teaspoon and was bending to pick it up, but instead, straightening herself with the kind of snap an over-strung violin string gives when it breaks, took one step forward and fixed her eyes on her servant's face.
"Of course," she said, speaking half to herself, "of course—no wonder I thought I knew you—I saw you in London once—and it was you I saw on the station—and your voice——" she clasped her hands together and took a step quickly backwards—"you were the guide in the tiger hunt, you—you have been following me—you are dogging me—hunting me down—why—tell me why? What harm have I done you?—tell me?"
Her eyes, which were shining strangely in the quickly falling night, swept the man before her from head to foot, and she instinctively threw out her hands and took another step backwards as she realised at last his extraordinary beauty.
"Why is the mem-sahib afraid? What has her servant done to cause trouble to her soul? He meant but to lighten her load, and make smooth her path."
Leonie, with the desire common among women to hide the tell-tale expression of their faces by the movement of their hands, knelt and began fiddling among the tea things.