Page:Henry rideout--The siamese cat.djvu/84

 breaths, of scant relief. Their coolie had hardly set down his baskets, before Aunt Julia was drooping beside them, propped against the ancient wall.

"Well," she panted, "this is a preposterous, preposterous—" words and breath failed her. "I would not stir," she declared feebly, "for all the Buddhas of the Five Worlds."

Laura knelt beside her in some anxiety; but her next remark was reassuring:

"Don't crouch and stare in that undignified posture, like a native! The time for any solicitude was before we started—before you dragged me out on this preposterous—" Again she found no word sufficient.

The tartness of her tone made Chao Phya regard her gravely with his goblin eyes. He stretched, rubbed himself against the wall in a slant, voluptuous curve, and lay down at the edge of the shadow in the doorway.