"They must keep open very late at your shop," she remarked.
He hesitated a moment before he answered, "Very late."
"And I suppose you haven't dined?" she went on. "You must come back with me, and dine at the hotel. I cannot go on to the party now, at any rate; my clothes are in rags, and, besides, it must be quite late."
"Do you know your way back to the hotel?" he asked, as the time went on and the jampannis remained, to all appearance, as dead as ever.
"No, I have never walked down this way, and it is far too dark to attempt it now," said Elma very decidedly.
The time passed pleasantly enough while they waited, and more than once their light-hearted laughter rang out into the night.
At last they heard a pattering of bare feet coming down the road. The stranger hailed in Hindustani, and the natives stopped and began an excited jabbering all together, which the stranger answered in their own language.
"These are the jampannis who were killed," he announced to Elma. "If you wish it, I will send one of them with a message to your mother, and the others can fetch a couple of jampans to take us to the hotel."
"You seem to know Hindustani very well," she remarked, when the men had been sent on their various errands.
"Yes, I have been some little time in India," he answered, "though I have only been a few days at Simla. Will you allow me to introduce myself? My name is Angus McIvor."