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The solitude was at last broken by the approach of one feminine figure, who, though the evening was cold, wore the print gown and the tilt-bonnet of summer time. Tess instinctively thought it might be Marian, and when she came near enough to be distinguishable in the gloom, surely enough it was she. Marian was even stouter and redder in the face than formerly, and decidedly shabbier in attire.
He called her Artemis, Demeter, and other fanciful names half teasingly, which she did not like because she did not understand them. "Call me Tess," she would say askance; and he did. Then it would grow lighter, and her features would become simply feminine; they had changed from those of a divinity who could confer bliss to those of a being who craved it.
Truly, Tess and Madelene formed a strange contrast his bride with the red gold of her curls and eyes holding him a willing captive, and this bright-eyed, brown-skinned, little creature, before him with that eloquent, calling appeal of money for his mother. Never before had he thought any one could for any reason whatever come between him and Tessibel Skinner.
Even the shoes fitted, and when Yasmini walked the length of the room with Tess's very stride and attitude Tess got her first genuine glimpse of herself as another's capably critical eyes saw her a priceless experience, and not so humiliating after all.
But that was only like the first goal in the very first chukker of the game as you shall learn soon!" "Then surely I know!" said Tess excitedly. "In the grounds of the palace across the river, that you escaped from the night before you came to see me, there is quite a little forest of pipals."
The answer to that question could be seen any day near the place they call the Old Gate, where beggars sit in rags. "Shall I offer him money?" whispered Tess. "For God's sake, no, lady! The man's a decent soldier. He'd refuse it and we'd all be in the apple-cart! Leave him to me." He turned again on the Rajput. "You know who I am, don't you?
There was an interval of four years and more between Tess and the next of the family, the two who had filled the gap having died in their infancy, and this lent her a deputy-maternal attitude when she was alone with her juniors. Next in juvenility to Abraham came two more girls, Hope and Modesty; then a boy of three, and then the baby, who had just completed his first year.
Tess had not known till now what was really meant by that. There are degrees of dampness, and a very little is called being wet through in common talk.
She had found a pair of Daddy's old cast-off boots, tied rags about her feet, and clambered into them. How like a woman she felt with covered legs! True, the water gushed in through the holes that Daddy had cut in the soles on the rocks, but the tops were whole and Tess looked upon them with pride. When the daylight flooded the cabin Tess blew out the candle and viewed her work with delight.
"He's tired, that's all," she said hastily, "and he has got a lift home, because our own horse has to rest to-day." "Bless thy simplicity, Tess," said her companions. "He's got his market-nitch. Haw-haw!" "Look here; I won't walk another inch with you, if you say any jokes about him!" Tess cried, and the colour upon her cheeks spread over her face and neck.
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