She forgot, perhaps, that on a previous occasion he had seen her
snatch a man's turban from his head and run with it into the room, to
the man's sweating shame. He kicked his shoes off calmly and waited
as a man waits on parade, looking straight into her eyes that were
like dark jewels, only no jewels in the world ever glowed so
wonderfully; he thought he could read anger in them, but that ruffled
him no more than her mockery.
"Enter, then, O farmer!" she said, turning lithely as a snake, to
beckon him and lead the way.
Now he had only a back view of her, but the contour of her neck and
chin and her shoulders mocked him just as surely as her lips were
making signals that he could not see. One answer to the signals was
the tittering of twenty maids, who sat together by the great deep
window, ready to make music.
"They laugh to see a farmer strayed from his manure-pile!" purred
Yasmini over her shoulder; but Ranjoor Singh followed her unperturbed.
He was finding time to study the long room, its divans and deep
cushions around the walls; and it did not escape his notice that many
people were expected. He guessed there was room for thirty or forty
to sit at ease.
Like a pale blue will-o'-the-wisp, a glitter in the cunning lights,
she led him to a far end of the room where many cushions were, There
she turned on him with a snake-like suddenness that was one of her
surest tricks.
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