“Then that is all. There is nothing more,” soberly concluded his companion. “The letters at Suez and Aden are, of course, to be mere billets de voyage. The correspondence at Allahabad may cover all of moment. Can you not give me a safe letter and telegraph address at Delhi?”
“Give me your notebook,” said Alan Hawke, as he carefully wrote down the needed information: “Ram Lal Singh, Jewel Merchant, 16 Chandnee Chouk, Delhi.”
“There’s the address of my native banker; and as trusty a Hindu as ever sold a two-shilling strass imitation for a hundred-pound star sapphire. But, in his way he is honest—as we all are.” And then Alan Hawke boldly said: “How shall I address you at Allahabad?”
The flashing brown eyes gleamed a moment with a brighter luster than pleasure’s glow. “You have my visiting card, Major,” the woman coldly said. “I travel with a French passport, always en regie.”
“By God! she has the nerve!” mused Alan Hawke, as he hastily said: “And now, as we have settled all our little preliminaries, when am I to know whether you trust me or not?”
He was pressing his advantage, for her precipitate departure would rob him of the expected effect of Casimir Wieniawski’s disclosures. “If I find you en ami de famille, at Delhi, so that you can confidentially approach Sir Hugh Johnstone, the ci-devant Hugh Fraser, your task will be soon set for you, and your reward easily earned; but under no circumstances are you to make the slightest attempt to a confidential acquaintance with this wonderful Nadine. That is my affair.” The tone was almost trifling in its lightness, but Alan Hawke recognized the hand of iron in the velvet glove.
“And now, Sir,” coquettishly said Madame Berthe Louison, “you have been a squire of dames in your day. Tell me of social India, for, while I shall get a good maid out at Calcutta, I must depend upon Munich, Venice, and Brindisi for my personal outfit. I know the whole United Kingdom thoroughly. The Englishman and his cold-pulsed blonde mate at home are well-learned lessons. The Continent, yes, even Russia, I know, too,” she gayly chattered; “but the Orient is as yet a sealed book to me, and I would be helpless in Father India, without the womanly gear appropriate to the social habits of your countrywomen.”
“You have lived in England?” briefly demanded Alan Hawke, in some surprise at her frank admissions.
“Yes, too long!” sternly answered Madame Louison, who was enjoying a cigarette, as she signed to the maid to leave them alone. “I detest the foggy climate,” she added, a little late to temper the bitterness of the remark.
“I will lull this watchful feminine tiger,” the Major secretly decided, as he began a brilliant sketch of the social life of the strange land of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. “I presume, of course, that you do not care to appear with a fifty-pound Marshall & Snell grove outfit, as if you were the wife of an Ensign in a marching regiment. I will give you the real life our women lead out there. You could have secured a splendid London outfit by a little time spent in making the detour.”