She smiled.
“But I’m busy, you know!” she said. “Come along to the godown with me.”
He followed her; he was wearing a black alpaca jacket, because he had to go to the resident presently.
“How’s Ida?” asked Eva. “Did she sleep well after her séance of last night?”
“Only fairly well,” said Frans van Helderen. “I don’t think she ought to do any more. She kept waking with a start, falling on my neck and begging me to forgive her, I don’t know what for.”
“It didn’t upset me at all,” said Eva, “though I don’t understand it in the least.”
She opened the godown, called the cook and gave the woman her orders. The cook was latta;[1] and Eva loved teasing the old thing.
“La ... la-illa-lala!” she cried.
And the cook gave a start and echoed the cry and recovered herself the next moment, begging for forgiveness.
“Throw down, cook, throw down!” cried Eva, in Malay.