Sobrai sate stunned, silent, then dropped her head between her knees. So the _portière_ slid sideways, letting in a shaft of sunlight, a stronger whiff of carbolic, and the rumble of a passing vehicle. But only for a second; for in the carriage which came rapidly down the swept and garnished bazaar, ablaze with sunlight, there were ladies, and Miss Leezie, therefore, drew back decorously; to continue gazing, however, through a side slit. 'He hath his _mems_ with him,' she explained to the drowsy crew roused by the rumble. 'Two, and one is beautiful as a _houri_. But they wear no fringe. Is that to be "fassen," think you? 'Tis as well to be in it.' And, as the carriage passed, the slit grew wider and wider as one pair after another of bold black eyes noted the lack of fringe in Grace Arbuthnot and Lesley Drummond, who were accompanying Sir George so far, on their way to be shown over one of the hospitals by the Head Sister; under whom, it so happened, Lesley had served when, after modern fashion, she had 'gone in for a year's nursing.' 'It is certainly most beautifully clean; it ought to be healthy enough,' was her remark now, as she drove past, ignorant not only of the eyes that were turning her into a fashion plate, but of everything in the environment. 'It couldn't well be cleaner,' assented Grace, with a faint reservation in her voice; but she, too, was unconscious of those watching eyes, those mimicking minds. 'Quite so,' admitted Sir George dubiously. 'Everything is done that can be done, of course; but it is uncommonly hard to make a bazaar healthy.' He glanced back, as he spoke, at the balcony above the soda-water shop. The children, little naked happy brown creatures, were playing in the sunshine. The shopkeepers stood up to _salaam_. An _ekka_ load or two of soldiers in uniform, their legs dangling outwards on all sides, their red bodies jammed to shapelessness in the effort to find sitting room on the jimp seat till the whole looked like a huge toy crab on wheels, rattled past towards the Artillery parade-ground, their songs and laughter audible above the rattle. So, abruptly, the bazaar ended, and the cantonment church showed its spire above some stunted trees. The sweepers, having finished the gutters by this time, were at work on the church compound clearing away the litter of yesterday's services; and they drew up in line, the _darogha_ with his disinfectants at their head, to _salaam_, brooms in hand, as the carriage drove past.