at, the call, is
rarely explainable on reasonable grounds--it is a matter of a higher
dispensation; just two pairs of eyes settle the whole business; one
look and the thing is done.

The Sahib would see her in a new light--in an appealing light. In her
thoughts there was nothing of a serious intent; just that to look upon
him, perhaps to see in his eyes a friendly pleasure, would be
intoxication.

So Ajeet took her to the palace to dance, but, of course, he had to
cool his heels without the _durbar_ chamber--smoke the hooka and chat
with other natives while the one of desire was within.

The girl had an exquisite sense of the beauty of simplicity--both in
dress and manner, and in her art; it was as if a lotus flower had been
animated--given life. Her dancing was a floaty rhythm, an undulating
drifting to the soft call of the _sitar_; and her voice, when she sang
the _ghazal_, the love-song, was soft, holding the compelling power of
subdued passion--it thrilled Barlow with an emotion that, when she had
finished, caused him to take himself to task. It was as if he had
said, "By Jove! fancy I've had a bit too much of that champagne--better
look out."

Nana Sahib and the Captain were sitting side by side, and the Gulab,
when she had finished the song, had swept her sinuous lithe form back
in a graceful curtsy in front of the two, and, as if by accident, a red
rose had floated to the feet of Captain Barlow. Surely her soft, dark,
languorous eyes had said: "For thee."

With a cynical smile Nana Sahib picked up the rose and presented it to
Barlow saying: "My dear Captain, you receive the golden apple--beauty
will out."

Barlow's fingers trembled with suppressed emotion as he took the flower
and carefully slipped it into a buttonhole.

Elizabeth, who sat next him, saw this by-play, and her voice was cold
as she commented: "Homage is a delightful thing, but it spoils
children."

Nana Sahib leaned across Barlow: "My dear Miss Hodson, these dancers
always play to the gods--it is their trade. But there is safety in
caste--in _varna_, which is the old Brahmin name for caste, meaning
colour. When the Aryans came down into Hind they were olive-skinned
and the aborigines here were quite black, so, to draw the line, they
created caste and called it _varna_, meaning that they of the light
skin were of a higher order than the aborigines--which they were. A
white skin is like a shirt-of-mail, it protects morally, socially