Neither had ever
seen anything so beautiful, so fascinating, so impudently lovely. She
was laughing at them; each knew it, yet neither felt resentful.
"Well?" she asked in Hindustani, and arched her eyebrows questioning.
And Colonel Kirby stammered because she had made him think of his
mother, and the tender prelude to a curtain lecture. Yet this woman
was not old enough to have been his wife!
"I-I-I came to ask about a friend of mine--by name Risaldar--Major
Ranjoor Singh. I understand you know him?"
She nodded, and Kirby fought with a desire to let his mind wander.
The subtle hypnotism that the East knows how to stage and use was
creeping over him. She stood so close! She seemed so like the warm
soft spirit of all womanhood that only the measured rising and
falling of her bosom, under the gauzy drapery, made her seem human
and not a spirit. Subtly, ever so cunningly, she had contrived to
touch a chord in Colonel Kirby's heart that he did not know lived any
more. Warrington was speechless; he could not have trusted himself to
speak. She had touched another chord in him.
"He came here more than once, or so I've been given to understand,"
said Kirby, and his own voice startled him, for it seemed harsh. "He
is said to have listened to a lecture here--I was told the lecture
was delivered by a German--and there was some sort of a fracas
outside in the street afterward.
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