Excerpt from The Silence of the Maharajah Out in India at a certain English station which was generally admitted to be so cially fast, with that unique sort of fast ness peculiar to anglo-indian life, the leader of the most rapid set was a hand some, dashing woman, known to the irrev erent as Lolly, and to the more orthodox as Mrs. Claude Annesley. She was the wife °of Colonel Claude Annesley, of course, but this fact had to be strongly borne in upon the minds of those who were not thoroughly well acquainted with her, be cause at first sight she did not appear to be the wife of anybody. She gave you the impression of being a free lance among women, joyously insolent and in dependent; and the bonds of matrimony seemed to press very lightly on her frivolous, butterfly soul. She was not what one would call positively young any longer, being a trifle over forty, but she was so slim and light on her feet, besides know ing exactly what kind of corsets would give her the most perfectly pliant and svelte figure, that she was generously allowed by her men friends (though not by her woman rivals) to pass for being still in the early thirties. She went in thoroughly, too, for all the newest methods of skin treatment and succeeded in pre serving a fresh, and even brilliant, natural complexion, despite the heats of India. She was tall and brown-haired, with dark eyes Which had a Sparkle of the devil's own mischief in them; she had very white, even teeth, and could smile bewitchingly. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.