ower, the touch of a hand, or the feel of a piece
of stuff.

Love, sudden, overpowering oriental love consumed the man, passion
scorched his soul, and desire shook him from his dark head to the
slender feet.

He was awake and the girl was asleep, and craving to set his seal upon
her in her unconsciousness, he bent towards her until the fierceness of
his breath disturbed the lacey frill about her breast, bringing to view
the jewel suspended from a golden chain.

Instantly his joined hands were raised towards his face mechanically in
prayer, his eyes burned with the fanaticism of his creed, and his face
became old in knowledge.

The dividing line? the lifted veil? Nay! nothing but a jewel with the
form and the colouring of a cat's-eye, which had cunningly winked up at
him from the secret places of the girl's bosom; so that she returned to
her cabin with her body unscathed, and her soul on the edge of the
precipice.

And the most razor-tongued, detested colonel mem-sahib of the line in
India thanked her stars that the mosquitoes had roused her frantically,
but just in time, to see the trailing edge of Leonie's indecorous night
attire disappear through the door.

Aloofness, allied to perfect shoes and silken hose, will find a woman
more enemies on board than all the pretty faces and frocks in the
world; and if, in addition, she _can_ heap on such items as a seductive
face and figure; and if gossip via the newspapers can and _does_ supply
information as to the contents of her pass-book, plus savoury rumours
concerning mysterious incidents in her past; well! 'twere better for
that woman to stop at home, bob her hair, and take to that field of
literature which is not bound on any side by the hedge of convention.

So it came about that her friends, after stumbling up the gangway at
the Kidderpore Docks, with handkerchiefs held against their noses to
protect them from the effluvia wafted from Garden Reach, lifted their
eyebrows slightly at the frostiness of the adieux between their guest
and her fellow-passengers.

And no one in the scramble and flurry noticed the elderly pock-marked
ayah who had been engaged as Leonie's bodywoman as she lifted the hem
of the mem-sahib's skirt and laid it against her forehead, and touched
the instep of the high caste native when he passed behind the girl and
disappeared in the crowd of his countrymen which opened up a way before
him.

An ayah, who, to the utter astonishment of her f