Ahmed Ismail smiled.
"Truly, Huzoor."
"Do you carry your troubles to your wife? Is she your companion as well as your wife? Your friend as well as your mistress?"
Ahmed Ismail laughed.
"Yet that is what the Englishwomen are," said Shere Ali.
"Perhaps, Huzoor," replied Ahmed, cunningly, "it is for that reason that there are some who take and do not give."
He came a little nearer to his Prince.
"Where is she, Huzoor?"
Shere Ali was startled by the question out of his dreams. For it had been a dream, this thought of capturing Violet Oliver and plucking her out of her life into his. He had played with it, knowing it to be a fancy. There had been no settled plan, no settled intention in his mind. But to-night he was carried away. It appeared to him there was a possibility his dream might come true. It seemed so not alone to him but to Ahmed Ismail too. He turned and gazed at the man, wondering whether Ahmed Ismail played with him or not. But Ahmed bore the scrutiny without a shadow of embarrassment.
"Is she in India, Huzoor?"