Tess could not remember ever having seen such eyes.  They were baffling by their quality of brilliance, unlike the usual slumbrous Eastern orbs that puzzle chiefly by refusal to express emotion.  The Rajput bowed and said nothing, so Tess offered him a chair, which Chamu drew up more fussily than ever.

“Have you had breakfast?” she asked, taking the conscious risk.  Strangers of alien race are not invariably good guests, however good-looking, especially when one’s husband is somewhere out of call.  She looked and felt nearly as young as this man, and had already experienced overtures from more than one young prince who supposed he was doing her an honor.  Used to closely guarded women’s quarters, the East wastes little time on wooing when the barriers are passed or down.  But she felt irresistibly curious, and after all there was Chamu.

“Thanks, I took breakfast before dawn.”

The Rajput accepted the proffered chair without acknowledging the butler’s existence.  Tess passed him the big silver cigarette box.

“Then let me offer you a drink.”

He declined both drink and cigarette and there was a minute’s silence during which she began to grow uncomfortable.

“I was riding after breakfast—­up there on the hill where you see that overhanging rock, when I caught sight of you here on the veranda.  You, too, were watching the dawn—­beautiful!  I love the dawn.  So I thought I would come and get to know you.  People who love the same thing, you know, are not exactly strangers.”

Almost, if not quite for the first time Tess grew very grateful for Chamu, who was still hovering at hand.

“If my husband had known, he would have stayed to receive you.”

“Oh, no!  I took good care for that!  I continued my ride until after I knew he had gone for the day.”

Things dawn on your understanding in the East one by one, as the stars come out at night, until in the end there is such a bewildering number of points of light that people talk about the “incomprehensible East.”  Tess saw light suddenly.

“Do you mean that those three beggars are your spies?”

The Rajput nodded.  Then his bright eyes detected the instant resolution that Tess formed.

“But you must not be afraid of them.  They will be very useful—­often.”

“How?”

The visitor made a gesture that drew attention to Chamu.

“Your butler knows English.  Do you know Russian?”

“Not a word.”

“French?”

“Very little.”

“If we were alone—­”

Tess decided to face the situation boldly.  She came from a free land, and part of her heritage was to dare meet any man face to face; but intuition combined with curiosity to give her confidence.

“Chamu, you may go.”

The butler waddled out of sight, but the Rajput waited until the sound of his retreating footsteps died away somewhere near the kitchen.  Then: