A fine sensuous appreciation of the indolence it was possible to enjoy
in the East clung about her. "To live on a plane that lifts you up like
that--so that you can defy all criticism and all convention, and go
about the streets like a mark of exclamation at the selfishness of the
world--there must be something very consummate in it or you couldn't go
on. At least I couldn't."

"I suppose I do look odd to you." Her voice took a curious soft,
uplifted note. "I wear three garments only--the garments of my sisters
who plant the young shoots in the rice-fields, and carry bricks for the
building of rich men's houses, and gather the dung of the roadways to
burn for fuel. If the Army is to conquer India it must march bare-footed
and bare-headed all the way. All the way," Laura repeated, with a tremor
of musical sadness. Her eyes were fixed in soft appeal upon the other
woman's.

"And if the sun beats down upon my uncovered head, I think, 'it struck
more fiercely upon Calvary'; and if the way is sharp to my unshod feet,
I say, 'At least I have no cross to bear.'" The last words seemed almost
a chant, and her voice glided from them into singing----

"The blessed Saviour died for me,
On the cross! On the cross!
He bore my sins at Calvary,
On the rugged cross!"

She sang softly, her body thrust a little forward in a tender swaying--

"Behold His hands and feet and side,
The crown of thorns, the crimson tide.