ves look alike to the newcomer in India, but she frowned again
as she chewed the crust of buttered toast and racked her brain
fruitlessly for a clue.

One by one she went over each city and place she had visited, each
railway journey she had made, each hotel she had stayed in. Then had
poured out a cup of tea and given it up.

Having fruitlessly worried over this seemingly insignificant detail of
an Indian day's routine, she had impatiently countermanded the early
tea for the following mornings, and had indifferently left the really
lovely flowers which came up regularly on every tray, to the fantastic
arranging of the little dusky man who looked at her like a wistful
monkey, and slipped nimbly about the room in her service; and who,
likewise, rejoiced greatly over certain backsheesch which he, with the
joy the native has in all intrigue, imagined to be the outcome of love.

I wonder if Europeans in India know with what interest their bearers or
ayahs watch, and what detailed accounts they could and do give of their
masters' or mistresses' love affairs, great and small, legitimate and
illegitimate.

It is to be surmised that they do _not_!

They were not the eyes of the nimble little bearer that were watching
from the bathroom on this particular night, when Leonie very quietly
raised herself in her sleep and, flinging back the netting, sat staring
silently into the corner nearest the door.

She half knelt, half sat, with a faint look of surprise on her face,
which changed slowly to absolute amazement, then to the faintest
suspicion of love and happiness, during which transition her smile
reflected the glorious lights of the seventh heaven.

"Oh, beloved!" she exclaimed, and laughed softly, the sound falling
eerily in the absolute stillness of the night, the shadows dancing
eerily upon the plaster walls as she threw out her arms.

She flung them out in a beautiful abandonment of love, and the hidden
eyes glistened as they watched the fingers slowly curl and clench as a
look of horror crept gradually over the whole face, blotting out its
sweetness and light, changing it into a veritable mask of terror.

A horrible dream! A nightmare!

If you like! The label of casual explanation, tied by the string of
ignorance, never did much harm to any psychological package.

Leonie was apparently asleep and evidently seeing things, so perforce
she must have been dreaming, for what else _could_ she have been doing!

An