"If any man can, I am sure that it is you," she said.
Praise from Duare was sweet. In all the time that I had known her she had said only one other kind thing to me, and later she had retracted that.
"I could work miracles if only you loved me, Duare."
She straightened haughtily. "You will not speak of that," she said.
"Why do you hate me, Duare, who have given you only love?" I demanded.
"I do not hate you," she replied, "but you must not speak of love to the daughter of a jong. We may be together for a long time, and you must remember that I may not listen to love from the lips of any man. Our very speaking together is a sin, but circumstances have made it impossible to do otherwise.
"Before I was stolen from the house of the jong no man had ever addressed me other than the members of my own family, except a few loyal and privileged members of my father's household, and until I should be twenty it were a sin in me and a crime in any man who should disregard this ancient law of the royal families of Amtor."
"You forget," I reminded her, "that one man did address you in the house of your father."
"An impudent knave," she said, "who should have died for his temerity."
"Yet you did not inform on me."