She had hidden the flower. She extended her hand.
“Do you mind?” he asked.
“Do I object? No. You are kind.”
He took the smudged hand—took it with a hand that trembled—and bent his smudged face so close to it that she must have felt his breath beating on it, hot and quick. He made two dabs with the end of the towel.
Chitta, whom they had both sadly neglected, pounced upon them from her lair among the shadows. She seized the hand and, jabbering fifty words in the time for two, pushed Cartaret from his work.
“I’m not going to hurt anybody,” said Cartaret. “Do, please, get away.”
The Girl laughed.
“Chitta trusts no foreigners,” she explained.
She spoke to Chitta, but Chitta, glowering at Cartaret, shook her head and grumbled.
“I do not any more desire to order her about,” said The Girl to Cartaret. “Already this evening I have wounded her feelings, I fear. She says she will allow none but herself to minister to me. You, sir, will forgive her? After all, it is her duty.”