She halted, resting one hand upon a tree-trunk. He caught the glint of a bracelet on her white arm, and, being a man to notice details, observed a design worked in heavy relief upon it--a design that, in the half-tone of the early night, was almost indistinguishable.
"No," came the answer from under the veil, in a voice with a soft, thrilling timbre. "No."
He was still studying the bracelet out of the corner of his eye, and he perceived that the intricate workmanship represented a king-cobra; its hood was lifted in bizarre relief.... A barbaric ornament for a white woman to wear, he thought.
"But, really," he persisted, "it isn't quite safe for you to go along this road. Beasts, you know."
A pause. He saw the dark pools of her eyes upon him.
"Thank you," she murmured. "I thought I was going to the dâk bungalow."
With that she turned and moved away in the direction of the metalled main highway.
"Now, that's queer," he observed to himself, staring after her. "Anybody with even bad sight could see that this road...." Certainly she was at the compound gate. Why had she falsified?
He removed his helmet and furrowed his hair--a characteristic gesture; then, still watching the woman, he jerked the reins and trotted toward the bungalow.
A native servant in a white cotton _chuddah_ and turban switched on the light in the living-room as Trent entered.
"Has Manlove Sahib come in, Ganeesh?" asked the Englishman.
Trent placed his helmet upon the table and sank into a chair.
"I sha'n't want anything to eat, so you may as well go. If Manlove Sahib hasn't eaten, he can go to the barracks."
As the native quitted the room, Trent, at a sudden thought, called after him.
"Ganeesh," he said, as his servant reappeared, "has anyone been here this afternoon?"
Still puzzling over the strange woman, he removed a pipe and a sack of tobacco from his shirt pocket, and when he had filled the bowl he lighted it. For several minutes he drew upon the amber stem, looking abstractedly into the whorls of smoke; then he picked up a brown volume from the table and opened it at a leaf that was turned under.
Here was another trait that Gaya had not discovered. Frequently when he was tired he turned to poetry--sometimes to books on the art-treasures and ancient lore of India, Indo-China and China--for relaxation.