"Don't tell whom?" he asked astonished. Astonished at first, since he had deemed her an emissary of his host, sent to pry in on him for some reason best known to both of them. Then, he reflected, this was only some ruse hatched in her scheming, half-Indian brain, whereby to escape from his clutches; upon which he said:
"Now, look here. No lies. What do you come peeping and prying in on me for in the middle of the night. Perhaps you're not aware that I saw you do so the last time I was here."
"I came to see," she said inconsequently, "if you were comfortable; I am a servant----"
But now Julian laughed so loudly at this ridiculous statement that the girl in hasty terror--and if it was assumed, she must be a good actress, he thought--put up her hand as though she intended to clap it over his mouth.
"Oh!" she whispered, "don't! Don't! He will hear you--or she will----"
"Well, what if they do! I suppose they know you are here just as much as I do. Come," he continued, "come, don't look so frightened, I'm not going to shoot you or harm you in any way. Though, mind you, my dark beauty, you might have got shot if you had timed your visit at a later hour and startled me out of a heavy slumber, or if I had seen those eyes looking in on me in the dead of night However, out with the explanation. Quick."
For a moment the girl paused as though thinking deeply, then she looked up at him with all the deep tropical glow once more in her sombre eyes, and said:
"I won't tell you. No. But----"
"But what?"
"I--will you believe what I say?"