"I'll take you back with me," he said, "if you will come."
She started a little. "Oh, no!" she said.
"Why 'Oh, no'?" he enquired.
She was silent for a moment, her face downcast. "I couldn't leave
Nick—possibly—out here," she said then.
"Why not? Can't the little god take care of himself?"
"No. And I wouldn't let him if he could. I shouldn't feel easy about him. He—he—I feel as if he is trying to walk a tight rope every day."
"It's a sort of thing he ought to do very well, I should say," observed
Max. "But what is he doing it for?"
She looked up. "He thinks he is getting on splendidly," she said. "He and the Rajah are such friends! But the Rajah isn't everybody, and I'm not sure even of him. Someone tried to blow up the fort with a bomb not so very long ago."
"Oh, that's the game, is it?" said Max. "You think a similar little joke might be played on Nick, and if so you want to be there to see."
She smiled faintly, in a sense relieved that he did not treat the matter too seriously. "It makes one a little nervous for him," she said, "though of course there may be no reason for it."