He paused; a quick annoyance showed on his face; he turned to Lady Arbuthnot vexedly. 'I must apologise,' he said; 'I never realised till this moment that she must have taken me----' 'For Sir George,' put in Grace quietly. 'Didn't you? Now I was thinking all the time how much better you played the part than he would have done. He is like Lesley. He loathes sentiment. No, Mr. Raymond, I won't take it!' she added, as he tried to unfasten the _râm rucki_. 'Give it to Sir George himself, if you like--there he is, coming to meet us. Or,' she continued, with an elusive, almost mischievous smile, as she went forward to greet her husband, leaving those two on the path together, 'give it back to Miss Drummond! She gave it you first!' Jack Raymond looked after her quite angrily; then laughed, drew out his pocket-book and laid the _râm rucki_ between the folds of some bank-notes. 'I shall end by doing my duty some day, if this goes on, Miss Drummond,' he said resignedly. 'It is really very kind of you all to take so much interest in my spiritual and bodily welfare.' As a rule Lesley would have been ready with a sharp retort. Now she was silent. She was thinking that it was true. She had given the bracelet of brotherhood to him first. And then once more a vast impatience seized her. How unreal, how fantastic it was? How far removed from the security of the commonplace? CHAPTER XVI THE PRISON OF LIFE To old Auntie Khôjee, however, the incident which Lesley had stigmatised as unreal, and fantastic, was quite natural. Her life, and the lives of thousands such as she, dreary, dull, squalid, as they seem to the eyes of Western women, are yet leavened by many wholly unpractical touches which raise them at times to pure romance. The secret worship of the Gods, the thousand and one omens to be sought, or avoided, the endless fanciful ceremonials; all these are, in their monotonous lives, witnessing to the passion for self-effacement in something beyond the woman's own individuality--in something that has to be cajoled and considered, not because it is feared, but because it is loved and must therefore be kept tied to the apron-string--which is Eve's legacy to women of all races and all creeds. So, as the old lady limped through the bazaars, huddled up in a dirty domino, with Grace Arbuthnot's bangle clutched close to her heart, she felt no surprise at what had happened. Her only feeling was one of regret for having so long believed folk's tales of change. If she had only resorted earlier to ancient methods, little Sa'adut's life might perhaps have been spared. Though that, of course, was God's will; just as it was His will also that at the very last gasp she should have been told by a gossip that the Lord-_sahib_ was coming, as the Kings came in past times to entertain their friends in the pleasure-garden.