Page:Quartette - Kipling (1885).djvu/21

 cadenced howl of the coolies—veritable blue-devils they seemed to me—going to their huts after the day's work was done. "What an ass I was to leave England!"

"Don't dress," my host had said; but the bearer had laid out my kit, and of his wisdom had selected evening dress, and, too indifferent to ask for any other, I put it on mechanically. "Ready for the Opera, by Jove!" I said savagely, as I glanced at my reflection in the glass. "I've a great mind to take everything off, and go to dinner streaked with his infernal blue dye, like an ancient Briton in his woad."

Clang went a gong, and a moment later a servant stood before me with folded hands, muttering some gibberish, which I took to be an announcement that dinner was served. Down a dimly-lighted passage I followed the messenger who had summoned me, and a sudden turn to the left brought me at once to the dining-room. The planter met me in the doorway, and looking beyond him I saw a lady. "It is his daughter!" I thought, with a quick feeling of satisfaction that I had not attired myself in the costume of an ancient Briton. "What a pretty girl!"

"Laura, let me introduce Mr. Scott to you," said my host with great cordiality. "He will be our guest for some time, I hope; and you must do all you can to make him comfortable."

"The pretty girl was his wife, then-and not his daughter! She welcomed me kindly in a few words, holding out her hand with a frank grace that was peculiarly winning, and without further formality we took our seats at the dinner-table.

Though I was conscious of a feeling of disappointment which I did not stop to analyse, in discovering that the relationship between my host and hostess was not that of father and daughter, I yielded myself gladly to the influence of the latter's presence. "If all the women are like this one," I thought gaily, "The place will not be so bad after all."

The light from the centre lamp fell full upon the charming figure of Laura, the shining shoulders and arms half hidden under their thin muslin drapery, and the beautifully-shaped head covered with little rings of light-brown curling hair, short and crisp as that of a child of three years old. When I spoke to her she looked me straight in the face with eyes which, seen by the lamp-light and under the shadow of their heavy lashes, I imagined to be brown, but which in reality were in colour and texture