Three
or four messengers squatted beside the wall, with slumbrous heads
between their knees. Occasionally a shout came from the room inside, and
one of them, crying "_Hazur!_" with instant alacrity, stretched himself
mightily, loafed upon his feet and went in, emerging a moment later
carrying written sheets, with which he disappeared into the regions
below. The staircase took a lazy curve and went up: under it, through an
open window, the sun glistened upon the shifting white and green leaves
of a pipal tree and a crow sat on the sill and thrust his grey head in
with caws of indignant expostulation. A Government peon in scarlet and
gold ascended the stair at his own pace, bearing a packet with an
official seal. The place, with its ink-smeared walls and high ceilings,
spoke between dusty yawns of the langour and the leisure which might
attend the manipulation of the business of life, and Hilda paused for an
instant to perceive what it said. Then she walked behind her card into
the next room, where a young gentleman, reading proofs in his
shirt-sleeves, flung himself upon his coat and struggled into it at her
approach. He seemed to have the blackest hair and the softest eyes and
the neatest moustache available, all set in a complexion frankly olive,
amiable English cut, in amiable Oriental colour, and the whole
illumined, when once the coat was on and the collar perfectly turned
down, by the liveliest, most engaging smile.
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