“I know how she looked,” said Ommony. “Like a fighting-man with a heartache. That look has often puzzled me. What did she say?”
“She said: ‘Mrs. Cornock-Campbell, it was not intended you should meet Elsa. She is my adopted daughter. There are reasons—.’ And of course at that I interrupted. I assured her I don’t pry into people’s secrets. She asked me whether I would mind not discussing what little I already knew. She said: ‘I’m sorry I can’t explain, but it is important that Elsa’s very existence should be known to as few people as possible, especially in India.’ Of course, I promised, but she agreed to a reservation that I might mention having met the girl, if anything I could say should seem likely to quiet inquisitive people. And that was a good thing, because I had no sooner returned to Delhi than John McGregor came to dinner and asked me pointedly whether I had seen any mysterious young woman at Tilgaun. I think John intended to investigate her with his staff of experts in—what is the right word, John?”
“Worm’s-eye views,” said McGregor. “Not all the king’s horses nor all the king’s men could have called me off, as you did with a smile and a glass of Madeira. Thus are governments corrupted.”
“So you’re the second individual to whom I have opened my lips about it,” said Mrs. Cornock-Campbell, not exactly watching Ommony, but missing none of his expression, which was of dawning comprehension.
“I’m beginning to understand about a hundred things,” he said musingly. “You’d think, though, Hannah would have told me.”
Mrs. Cornock-Campbell smiled at John McGregor. “Didn’t you know he’d say just that? Wake up, Cottswold! This isn’t church! It’s because you’re her closest friend that you’re the last person in the world she would tell. She’s a woman!”
Then there were noises in the garden and Diana left off dreaming on the bearskin to growl like an earthquake.
“An acquaintance of mine,” said Ommony. “If you can endure the smell, please let him in. Or we might try the veranda.”
Diana had to be forcibly suppressed. The butler, a Goanese (which means that he had oddly assorted fears, as well as a mixed ancestry and cross-bred notions of convention, that were skin-deep and as hard as onyx) had to be rebuked for near-rebellion. And Dawa Tsering, with his neck swathed in weirdly-smelling cloth, had to be given a mat to sit on, lest he spoil the carpet. It needed that setting to make plain how innocent of cleanliness his clothes were; and his reek was of underground donkey-stables, with some sort of chemical added. (There were reasons, connected with possible eavesdroppers, why the deep veranda was unsuitable.)
“And the knife, Ommonee?” he asked, squatting cross-legged, admiring the room. “Is this thy house? Thou art a rich man! I think I will be thy servant for a while. Is the woman thy wife? It is not good to be a woman’s servant. Besides, I am a poor hand at obedience. Nay, return me my knife and I will go.”