door-curtain, the girl glided to the darkness of the room, and Barlow,
lifting from its niche the iron lamp, followed. Within, she pointed to
the door that lay open and Barlow, half in rebellion, softly closed it.
As he turned he saw that she had dropped from their holding cords the
heavy brocaded silk curtains of the window.

His limbs were numb from the long ride with the weight of the girl's
body across his thighs; he was tired; he was mentally distressed over
the messengers he had failed to locate, and this, the almost forced
intrusion of Bootea into his bedroom, the closed door and the curtained
windows, her doing, was just another turn of the kaleidoscope with its
bits of broken glass of a nightmare. He dropped wearily into a big
cane-bottomed Hindu chair, saying; "Little wilted rose, cuddle up on
that divan among the cushions and rest, while you tell me why we sit in
_purdah_."

The girl dragged a cushion from the divan, and placing it on the floor
beside his chair, sat on it, curling her feet beneath her knees.

Barlow groaned inwardly. If his mind had not been so lethargic because
of the things that weighted it, like the leaden soles upon a diver's
boots, he would have roused himself to say, "Look here, a chap can't
pull a girl who is as sweet as a flower and as trusting as a babe, out
of trouble and then make bazaar love to her; he can't do it if he's any
sort of a chap." All this was casually in his mind, but he let his
tired eyes droop, and his hand that hung over the teak-wood arm of the
chair rested upon the girl's shoulder.

"Bootea will soon go so that the Sahib may sleep, for he is tired," she
said; "but first there is something to be said, and I have come close