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Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

"Plain Tales from the Hills"

"
The first syllable was always more than she could manage, and she
made funny little gestures with her rose-leaf hands, as one throwing
the name away, and then, kneeling before Trejago, asked him, exactly
as an Englishwoman would do, if he were sure he loved her. Trejago
swore that he loved her more than any one else in the world. Which
was true.
After a month of this folly, the exigencies of his other life
compelled Trejago to be especially attentive to a lady of his
acquaintance. You may take it for a fact that anything of this kind
is not only noticed and discussed by a man's own race, but by some
hundred and fifty natives as well. Trejago had to walk with this
lady and talk to her at the Band-stand, and once or twice to drive
with her; never for an instant dreaming that this would affect his
dearer out-of-the-way life. But the news flew, in the usual
mysterious fashion, from mouth to mouth, till Bisesa's duenna heard
of it and told Bisesa. The child was so troubled that she did the
household work evilly, and was beaten by Durga Charan's wife in
consequence.


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