it. She had got so used to it as people do get used to things in India, that she seemed quite surprised to see it, and the only guess she ventured on was that they must have brought it along to mend the harness with in case it broke.
And then as I contemplated that eighteenth door that wouldn't lock a brilliant idea struck me. I, too, would use a little bit of string. I began to search my trunks with hope renewed, but soon it began to dawn upon me that that was the one thing that I did not possess. Then it was that I resorted to a bootlace. I remember Aunt Agatha once saying that give a woman a bootlace and a hairpin, and there are few things she can't do. So I carefully tied those jhilmils together with a bootlace. I didn't flatter myself that it was very strong, but even a bootlace was better than nothing between me and that dreadful compound and the dâk bungalow outside. Then I looked timidly into the almirahs, and prodded my dresses to make sure there was nothing inside. Then I lowered the light. I should have liked to keep it on full, but it was such a tiny one that I doubted its capacity to last the whole night through, and to be left in the dark was too awful a possibility to contemplate. Then I crept under the mosquito-net into bed, and tucked myself in.
There was only one consolation about that room. It was quite impossible for anyone to be hiding under that camp-bed.
Now I always have objected to sleeping with my face turned away from the door. Of course that is
