And there was none here. All was rule and regulation. No freedom, no fun, no frivolity; in a way, no choice. But that, she told herself, was the result of Miss Leezie's mean breeding. Dilarâm enjoyed herself more, and so would she, Sobrai Begum of the King's House, if _she_ had the management of affairs! Miss Leezie said it would not pay; but what was money beside amusement? And who was Miss Leezie to judge? A low born, who did not know, who could not play the part! A sudden determination to play it for an hour, and see the result, seized on the girl. She had the necessary dress; an old one of her mother's, which she had brought with her in case. The jewels were trumpery, of course, but they looked well. There would be time for a little fun, perhaps, before her task-mistress returned and the bazaar filled. It was a full hour after this determination of hers, and the dusk had begun to fall, when a young fellow in a red coat came lounging through the still empty bazaar. He had just come out of a six weeks' sojourn in hospital, and so his pockets were full, for a soldier's, with unstopped ration money. He had, indeed, intended to lavish some of it at the sports, and so celebrate his return to freedom; but, being still given to invalid habits, he had fallen asleep after barrack dinner, only awaking to find his comrades, and every available conveyance, gone. So, feeling ill-used, he had shirked the walk, sulked for a while, and finally, having nothing else to do, sought the perennial possibilities of the bazaar round the corner. Even that was dreary. Sweetmeat sellers, fruit sellers, liquor sellers, had all followed their clients to the Artillery parade-ground. The very balconies were empty. So, in a mood compounded of recklessness and bitter home-sickness, he kicked up some one in the shop below Miss Leezie's apartments, insisted on drink, and sitting down on a chair placed for him over the gutter, relapsed into a sort of half-fierce, half-sullen torpor. It was not in truth very lively for a fairly well educated boy, who had only himself to thank that he was not--as his schoolfellows were, for the most part--a city clerk with a cycle! But he had been restless, and he had read _Soldiers Three_ and the _Arabian Nights_. He looked savagely round the glowing gloom--for the attractions of a musical ride by torchlight kept even the shopkeepers late, and so the cavernous shadows of their squalid shops were still unlit--and swore under his breath at India, and all its ways and works. No fun, no music-halls, no anything. Nothing worth being wicked about, even.