There she seated herself and waited.
In front of her the stream of people passed by talking and laughing, within view, within earshot if only one raised one's voice a trifle above the ordinary note.

Yet there was no other couch near.

One might talk at will and not be overheard.

It was, to Violet Oliver's thinking, a good strategic position, and there she proposed to remain till Shere Ali found her, and after he had found her, until he went away.
She wondered in what guise he would come to her: a picturesque figure with a turban of some delicate shade upon his head and pearls about his throat, or--as she wondered, a young man in the evening dress of an Englishman stepped aside from the press of visitors and came towards her.
Before she could, in that dim light, distinguish his face, she recognised him by the lightness of his step and the suppleness of his figure.

She raised herself into a position a little more upright, and held out her hand.