Leonie was standing with Jan Cuxson near an open door under a revolving fan which disturbed the outer masses of the hair she had piled haphazard upon the top of her small head, catching the great coils together with huge pins, and strengthening the entire structure by means of a finely wrought, diamond-hilted steel dagger, looted in the Mutiny by a not over-punctilious forbear.

“I wonder you don’t cut your hair to bits,” had once remarked before a multitude, an envious dame, whose curls reposed cosily in a box o’ nights, and who had grave doubts as to the sincerity of Leonie’s tawny locks.

“I run it through in its sheath,” Leonie had replied, pulling the sheathed dagger out as she spoke, so that her hair had fallen in a jumbled scented mantle all over her, causing the men to put their hands in their pockets, or behind their backs, and the women to mechanically pat their heads; just as you fidget unconsciously with your veil, or the curls above your ear, when someone of your own sex, and far better turned-out, happens upon your horizon.

On this night her absurdly small feet made her head look almost top heavy, just as the uncorseted small waist emphasised the width of her shoulders, and the violet shadows enlarged the opalescent weird eyes looking wearily on the scene around her.

Why didn’t she go back to England if she hated it all so much?

Because she couldn’t!  Because India held her and she waited upon Fate as patiently as ever did Mr. Micawber.

“Lady Hickle ought to go to the hills, she’s looking absolutely fagged!”

The male voice drifted in through the window upon a pause in the music.

“Well! continuous sleep-walking’s not likely to make you look your best, is it?”

The damnable giggle at the end of the remark brought a frown to Jan Cuxson’s face as he picked up somebody’s wrap from a chair, put it round Leonie and led her unresistingly down the steps into the grounds.

It sounds better to say “grounds” rather than “compound” when speaking of Government House.

“I—­I hate all this,” Leonie said impulsively as she sat down on a marble seat.  “I hate India—­I—­I——­”

She flung her head back, and it came to rest upon the man’s shoulder, and she shivered ever so lightly when he pressed it still further back, pinioning her arms so that she could not move.

“Leonie.”

The sudden authority in the voice brought a light to the eyes on a level with his mouth; she moved unconsciously, and Cuxson suddenly letting her go caught both her hands in one of his, pulled her round sideways, and jerked them up to his chin, and she laughed softly as she fell slightly forward; and laughed even more softly when he crushed her back again against him with his hands upon her breast.

Both heedless in their love of the eyes watching, of the hidden form, and above all of that relentless will which causes some of us uncontrollably to do odd things at odd moments under the Indian stars.