'Why did you send old Fuzli away?' asked Rose suddenly. They had risen as they were speaking, and she had been standing by the window listening with a certain weariness in her face to her father's ornate regrets.
'The old reason, "_I do not like thee, Dr. Fell_,"' laughed Gwen. 'I suppose it is very illogical--therefore, as Lewis would say, very womanly'--but I can't help disliking my world by instinct.'
'That is monstrously unkind,' broke in the Colonel, eager as a boy over the opportunity, 'when your world can't help doing the reverse.' There is something very satisfactory apparently in a compliment to the person who makes it, and the Colonel felt and looked quite lighthearted over his.
'When you have got rid of us all, Miss Tweedie,' said Lewis Gordon in a low tone which yet covered Gwen's little laugh, 'you should go out and have a jolly ride. I'm not using Bronzewing--she frets at waiting--so she is at your service, if you care----' he paused in quick surprise--
Such a very little thing upsets a woman's balance at times; and Bronzewing had been the one subject over which she and Lewis had never quarrelled since the day of his accident. It was foolish, but the look on her face made him turn hastily from the window to his cousin, and catch at the first thing likely to give the girl time to recover herself.
'I believe your ayah's coming here, Gwen; at least I see one of those little covered dhoolies descending from your house, and if there are to be _purda-nishin_ women about, sir, it is time we men were going.'
'Don't be ridiculous, Lewis. It is somebody going to pay a visit to the khansaman's wife. The ayah wouldn't be _purdah_, and she wouldn't dare to come here; and if she did, I am not going to make a zenana out of Colonel Tweedie's drawing-room.'
'But you could go into Rose's sitting-room, of course,' protested the Colonel; 'couldn't she, dear?'
'But indeed, good people,' began Gwen, laughing, 'it can't----'
Just then a servant, entering stolidly, announced a woman waiting to see Mem Boynton sahib.
'I told you so,' cried Lewis joyfully, 'and, as a matter of fact, we ought to be off, sir. It will take us a good twenty minutes to the Secretariat.'
'Show the woman into the Miss Sahib's office,' cried the Colonel fussily. 'Rose, my dear----'