"You would like to have a little talk, wouldn't you?" she said. Her
manner took Lindsay a trifle aback; it suggested that she conferred this
privilege so freely. "To-morrow--let me see, we march in the morning,
and I have an open-air at four in the afternoon--the Ensign takes the
evening meeting. Yes, I could see you to-morrow about two or about
seven, after I get back from the Square." It was not unlike a
professional appointment.

Lindsay considered. "Thanks," he said, "I'll come at about seven--if you
are sure you won't be too exhausted to have me after such a day."

He saw that her lids as she raised them to answer were slightly reddened
at the edges, testifying to the acridity of Calcutta's road dust, and
a dry crack crept into the silver voice with which she said
matter-of-factly, "We are never too exhausted to attend to our Master's
business."

Lindsay's face expressed an instant's hesitation; he looked gravely the
other way. "And the address?" he said.

"Almost next door--we all live within bugle-call. The entrance is in
Crooked Lane. Anybody will tell you."

At the door Ensign Sand was conspicuously waiting. Lindsay said "Thanks"
again, and passed out--she seemed to be holding it for him--and picked
his way over the gutters to the shop of his Chinaman opposite. From
there he watched the little company issue forth and turn into Crooked
Lane, where the entrance was. It gave him a sense that she had her part
in this squalor, which was not altogether distressful in that it also
localised her in the warm, living, habitable world, and helped to make