“Shoo, you brute!” said one, of the girls on the verandah, and continued speaking when the crow had flown farther afield.  “Well, the manager says we are not to go to the bazaar to-night on any account!”

“Why ever not?”

“Says there’s a row or something brewing—­something to do with the natives and their religion!”

The girl with the reddish-brown hair put a final polish to the nails, which damned her everlastingly, as she spoke condescendingly of one half of her forbears; while the other, a bona fide blonde as to hair, half opened the long sleepy brown eyes, which, combined with the shape of her silken-hosed leg from ankle to knee branded her even before she uttered a word.

“Don’t believe it,” the latter replied.  “It’s a do on the part of the guide to get more backsheesh; you simply can’t trust these natives a yard.  I’ll tell you what, though,” she sat up with an energy surprising in one of her kind, “let’s ask Lady Hickle.  She’s such a pet, and there’s nothing she doesn’t know about the place, she’s been here a whole month.”

Followed a short spell of peace in which Leonie raised her hand to summon her ayah squatting on the dressing-room matting, and put an end to the incessant chattering.

But bolts do not wait upon the clapping of hands before they crash down upon your defenceless head from out the blue, and the one destined for her from all time hurled itself at her from out a wispy cloud of Eurasian gossip.

“Oh! but we can’t do that!” announced the peevish high-pitched voice.

“Why not?”

“Ma says we’re not to be with her alone.  There’s all sorts of weird tales going round about her.  Thought you knew.  They say she killed her first husband, and tried to stab someone in Calcutta with that dagger she wears in her hair; that she lives on the q.t. with a native—­he gave her that gorgeous necklace of pink pearls; has been seen with him in the compound after dark—­Ma watched—­and she’s positively dotty at the full moon.  Fact!  Mrs. Oswald told Ma that there’s no doubt that she’s quite mad at times.”

The blonde slid her slightly bowed, silken-hosed limbs to the ground, her face the colour of greenish putty through the superstitions of one half of her forbears.

“Let’s go and find your ma!” said she.  “It’s full moon to-night.”

And after their departure Leonie sat very still on the edge of the bed, with one foot tucked under her, and the other bare and very perfect stretched down to the matting; the netting fell in folds behind her, and her eyes stared into the corner where a one time nameless, unshaped spook, having taken form and name at last, stood mouthing at her from the shadows.

She started violently and looked down when her body-woman touched the arched instep with her wrinkled, dusky hand.

Keenly intuitive, as are all the peoples of India, she had crept noiselessly across the matting and crouched at Leonie’s feet in her desire to be near the beloved child in her distress.