Wash ye and eat.

The father of my daughter's son is gone away awhile.

So we poor women are dumb and useless.' For proof, she harangued the entire household unsparingly till food and drink were brought; and in the evening--the smoke-scented evening, copper-dun and turquoise across the fields--it pleased her to order her palanquin to be set down in the untidy forecourt by smoky torchlight; and there, behind not too closely drawn curtains, she gossiped.
'Had the Holy One come alone, I should have received him otherwise; but with this rogue, who can be too careful ?' 'Maharanee,' said Kim, choosing as always the amplest title, 'is it my fault that none other than a Sahib--a polis-Sahib--called the Maharanee whose face he--' 'Chutt! That was on the pilgrimage.

When we travel--thou knowest the proverb.' 'Called the Maharanee a Breaker of Hearts and a Dispenser of Delights ?' 'To remember that! It was true.

So he did.