It was as if he had
said, "By Jove! fancy I've had a bit too much of that champagne--better
look out."
Nana Sahib and the Captain were sitting side by side, and the Gulab,
when she had finished the song, had swept her sinuous lithe form back
in a graceful curtsy in front of the two, and, as if by accident, a red
rose had floated to the feet of Captain Barlow. Surely her soft, dark,
languorous eyes had said: "For thee."
With a cynical smile Nana Sahib picked up the rose and presented it to
Barlow saying: "My dear Captain, you receive the golden apple--beauty
will out."
Barlow's fingers trembled with suppressed emotion as he took the flower
and carefully slipped it into a buttonhole.
Elizabeth, who sat next him, saw this by-play, and her voice was cold
as she commented: "Homage is a delightful thing, but it spoils
children."
Nana Sahib leaned across Barlow: "My dear Miss Hodson, these dancers
always play to the gods--it is their trade. But there is safety in
caste--in _varna_, which is the old Brahmin name for caste, meaning
colour. When the Aryans came down into Hind they were olive-skinned
and the aborigines here were quite black, so, to draw the line, they
created caste and called it _varna_, meaning that they of the light
skin were of a higher order than the aborigines--which they were.
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