He decided to turn the set-back into at any rate a minor victory and went in person to the kitchen for chupatties such as the servants ate.  Then, returning to the top of the steps he intimated that the earth-defilers might draw near and receive largesse, contriving the impression that it was by his sole favor the concession was obtained.  Two of them came promptly and waited at the foot of the steps, smirking and changing attitudes to draw attention to their rags.  Chamu tossed the bread to them with expressions of disgust.  If they had cared to pretend they were holy men he would have been respectful, in degree at least, but these were professionals so hardened that they dared ignore the religious apology, which implies throughout the length and breadth of India the right to beg from place to place.  These were not even true vagabonds, but rogues contented with one victim in one place as long as benevolence should last.

“Where is the third one?” Tess demanded.  “Where is Pinga?”

They professed not to know, but she had seen all three squatting together close to the little gate five minutes before.  She ordered Chamu to go and find the missing man and he waddled off, grumbling.  At the end of five minutes he returned without him.

“One comes on horseback,” he announced, “who gave the third beggar money, so that he now waits outside.”

“What for?”

“Who knows?  Perhaps to keep watch.”

“To watch for what?”

“Who knows?”

“Who is it on horseback?  A caller?  Some one coming for breakfast?  You’d better hurry.”

The call at breakfast-time is one of the pleasantest informalities of life in India.  It might even be the commissioner.  Tess ran to make one of those swift changes of costume with which some women have the gift of gracing every opportunity.  Chamu waddled down the steps to await with due formality, the individual, in no way resembling a British commissioner, who was leisurely dismounting at the wide gate fifty yards to the southward of that little one the beggars used.

He was a Rajput of Rajputs, thin-wristed, thin-ankled, lean, astonishingly handsome in a high-bred Northern way, and possessed of that air of utter self-assuredness devoid of arrogance which people seem able to learn only by being born to it.  His fine features were set off by a turban of rose-pink silk, and the only fault discoverable as he strode up the path between the shrubs was that his riding-boots seemed too tight across the instep.  There was not a vestige of hair on his face.  He was certainly less than twenty, perhaps seventeen years old, or even younger.  Ages are hard to guess in that land.

Tess was back on the veranda in time to receive him, with different shoes and stockings, and another ribbon in her hair; few men would have noticed the change at all, although agreeably conscious of the daintiness.  The Rajput seemed unable to look away from her but ignoring Chamu, as he came up the steps, appraised her inch by inch from the white shoes upward until as he reached the top their eyes met.  Chamu followed him fussily.