He felt that he must be making progress; thus far he had been no less inane than any average lover of the stage or fiction. And he wondered: was she laughing at him, softly, there in the shadows?
"You see," she said, amused at his relapse into reverie, "you're incurable and ungrateful. I'm trying my best to be attractive and interesting, and you won't pay me any attention whatever. There must be something on your mind. Is it this mysterious errand that brings you so unexpectedly to India—to Kuttarpur, Mr. Amber?"
"Yes," he answered truthfully.
"And you won't tell me?"
"I think I must," he said, bending forward.
There sounded a stealthy rustling in the shrubbery. The girl drew away and rose with a startled exclamation. With a bound, a man in native dress sped from the shadows and paused before them, panting.
Amber jumped up, overturning his chair, and instinctively feeling for the pistol that was with his travelling things, upstairs in the Residency.
The native reassured him with a swift, obsequious gesture. "Pardon, sahib, and yours, sahiba, if I have alarmed you, but I am come on an errand of haste, seeking him who is known as the Sahib David Amber."
"I am he. What do you want with me?"
"It is only this, that I have been commissioned to bear to you, sahib."