Dr. Traherne accepted the hint, and turned away his eyes and attention, giving them both again to the door.
There was a pause—the English “sahibs” busy each with his own thoughts, the English servant still, and patiently waiting, apparently interested in nothing on earth, and, if occupied or busy, entirely so with his own vacuity. As a matter of fact, Watkins gladly would have beat a soft-footed retreat, but he had had his orders, and he would obey them. For Watkins, as he had more than hinted in the courtyard of the Green Goddess’ temple, knew who buttered his bread, and knew acutely how sharp and sure the knife was by means of which that butter was spread.
Crespin broke the pause. Something the Raja of Rukh had said, down there by the temple, scarcely had struck him at the moment, but he had remembered it persistently, and the more he’d thought of it the more it had rankled, and he had been chewing it over in an impotent way ever since. He went at it now, “Your master spoke of visits from European ladies—do they come from Russia?” he questioned.
“From various parts, I understand, sir,” the man replied discreetly, but added tonelessly, “Mostly from Paris,” but an eye twitched slightly, as if it might under easier circumstances have winked not unlasciviously.
“Any here now?” Crespin asked roughly—and there was a rough lump in his throat—and Traherne knotted his hands, and went a stride nearer the door.
“I really couldn’t say, sir,” was all Watkins would own.
“They don’t dine with His Highness?” Traherne asked crisply.
“Oh, no, sir,” the valet assured him, adding, “’Is ’Ighness sometimes sups with them.”
“And my wife—Mrs. Crespin—?” Crespin began miserably—asking it because he was tortured indeed, and after all this bounder was British too.
“Make your mind easy, sir,” Watkins told him staunchly, speaking with a genuine something of kindness and more respectfully than he had before—perhaps because after all he was, or at least had been, British—“the lady won’t meet any hundesirable characters, sir. I give,” he added a touch pompously, “strict orders to the—female what took charge of the lady.”