They were playing "The
Blue Danube."
She listened to it as one in a dream, and while she listened the tears
gathered in her eyes. How was it she had been so slow to understand?
Would she ever make it up to him? She wondered how long he meant to
keep her in suspense. It was not like him to linger thus if he had
indeed received her message. She hoped he would come soon. The waiting
was hard to bear.
She called to mind once more the last words he had spoken to her.
He had said that he would not swoop a second time, but she could
not imagine him doing anything else. He would be sudden, he would be
disconcerting, he would be overwhelming. He would come on winged feet
in answer to her call, but he would give her no quarter. He would
neither ask nor demand. He would simply take.
She caught her breath and hastened to divert her thought,
realising that she was on the verge of the old torturing process of
self-intimidation which had so often before unnerved her.
The throng about her had lessened considerably. Glancing downwards,
she discerned at the foot of the steps the old beggar who so
persistently haunted the Residency gates, incurring thereby Lady
Bassett's alarmed displeasure. He was crouching well to one side in
the familiar attitude of supplication. There were dozens like him in
Ghawalkhand, but she knew him by the peculiar, gibbering movement of
the wiry beard that protruded from his chuddah.
Pages:
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413