"Put some clothes on, Tess!"

"I'm plenty warm."

"Maybe. But there's some skate looking at you from the garden. What's
the matter with your kimono?"

However the dawn wind was delicious, and the night-gown more decent
than some of the affairs they label frocks. Besides, the East is used
to more or less nakedness and thinks no evil of it, as women learn
quicker than men.

"All right--in a minute."

"I'll bet there's a speculator charging 'em admission at the gate," grumbled
Dick Blaine, coming to stand beside her in pajamas. "Sure you're right,
Tess; those are swans, and that's a dawn worth seeing."

He had the deep voice that the East attributes to manliness, and the
muscular mold that never came of armchair criticism. She looked like
a child beside him, though he was agile, athletic, wiry, not enormous.

"Sahib!" resumed the voices. "Sahib! Protector of the poor!" They
whined out of darkness still, but the shadow was shortening.

"Better feed 'em, Tess. A man's starved down mighty near the knuckle
if he'll wake up this early to beg."

"Nonsense. Those are three regular bums who look on us as their preserve.