her go under the palms.

And, "Damn it all, she's not a flirt," did not a certain youthful sahib
who worshipped openly at her shrine exclaim, as he thought, in the
unpleasantly heated watches of the night, of that moment when she had
smiled down sweetly into his adoring eyes, as his cheek brushed her
hand while she was arranging her habit, and he her stirrup leather.

How _were_ they to know that, distracted by an ever-increasing fear,
and lost in an overwhelming love, Leonie had no more remembrance than
the man in the moon of the fact that she had danced with the one, and
smiled upon the other.

It was the final flare of the season in the shape of a ball at
Government House; one of those mixed massed gatherings to which you are
invited either on account of your rank, or your unblemished reputation,
or the fact that you've had the forethought to inscribe your name in
the visiting-book.

Leonie was standing with Jan Cuxson near an open door under a revolving
fan which disturbed the outer masses of the hair she had piled
haphazard upon the top of her small head, catching the great coils
together with huge pins, and strengthening the entire structure by
means of a finely wrought, diamond-hilted steel dagger, looted in the
Mutiny by a not over-punctilious forbear.

"I wonder you don't cut your hair to bits," had once remarked before a
multitude, an envious dame, whose curls reposed cosily in a box o'
nights, and who had grave doubts as to the sincerity of Leonie's tawny
locks.

"I run it through in its sheath," Leonie had replied, pulling the
sheathed dagger out as she spoke, so that her hair had fallen in a
jumbled scented mantle all over her, causing the men to put their hands
in their pockets, or behind their backs, and the women to mechanically
pat their heads; just as you fidget unconsciously with your veil, or
the curls above your ear, when someone of your own sex, and far better
turned-out, happens upon your horizon.

On this night her absurdly small feet made her head look almost top
heavy, just as the uncorseted small waist emphasised the width of her
shoulders, and the violet shadows enlarged the opalescent weird eyes
looking wearily on the scene around her.

Why didn't she go back to England if she hated it all so much?

Because she couldn't! Because India held her and she waited upon Fate
as patiently as ever did Mr. Micawber.

"Lady Hickle ought to go to the hills, she's looking absolutely fagged!"