The male voice drifted in through the window upon a pause in the music.

"Well! continuous _sleep-walking's_ not likely to make you look your
best, is it?"

The damnable giggle at the end of the remark brought a frown to Jan
Cuxson's face as he picked up somebody's wrap from a chair, put it
round Leonie and led her unresistingly down the steps into the grounds.

It sounds better to say "grounds" rather than "compound" when speaking
of Government House.

"I--I _hate_ all this," Leonie said impulsively as she sat down on a
marble seat. "I hate India--I--I----"

She flung her head back, and it came to rest upon the man's shoulder,
and she shivered ever so lightly when he pressed it still further back,
pinioning her arms so that she could not move.

"Leonie."

The sudden authority in the voice brought a light to the eyes on a
level with his mouth; she moved unconsciously, and Cuxson suddenly
letting her go caught both her hands in one of his, pulled her round
sideways, and jerked them up to his chin, and she laughed softly as she
fell slightly forward; and laughed even more softly when he crushed her
back again against him with his hands upon her breast.

Both heedless in their love of the eyes watching, of the hidden form,
and above all of that relentless will which causes some of us
uncontrollably to do odd things at odd moments under the Indian stars.

If _only_ he had not hesitated, if only he had turned the face to him
then and there and closed the gold-flecked eyes with kisses.

But instead he held her crushed to the point of agony against him with
his mouth upon the sweetness of her neck, leaving the gold-flecked eyes
to open wider, and still wider as they stared straight into the
shrubbery around, where the flaming poinsettia flowers looked black
under the stars.

"Beloved! Leonie, listen----"

"_Don't!_ please don't!"

She pulled herself free and knelt on one knee upon the bench, with both
hands outstretched against him; and he, not grasping the psychological
points of the moment, sat down dumbly beside her, instead of mastering
her physically, or mentally on the spot as it behoved him to do.

Heavens! what fools some men can be with that jungle animal woman
within their hands.

"Leonie, listen dear, I want you to marry me, dear--soon!"

The words fell upon Leonie's clamouring soul as dismally as the
raindrops of your childhood fell upon the window-pane when you were
waiting to start for a