Siyah Yamin interrupted a malicious leer at Ibrahîm with scant courtesy.
"Peace, fool! Go fetch the portrait of me Diswunt painted, these gentlemen would see it."
"Well?" she added when, a minute or two afterward four pairs of Eastern eyes were gazing at a picture which offended every canon of Eastern art. Here were no tiny smooth surfaced stipplings, no delicate dottings of jewellery no faultless complexion, no plastered hair. Even its size, its composition were unconventional. This was a life-sized face--the face and no more--peering out of a white swathing veil which filled up the small oval panel on which it was painted. But it stood there, propped against the humanity-grimed wall, a veritable marvel in the fierce determination to be quit of all convention which showed in its every touch.
The fighting quails called from their shrouded cages below, the sounds of the bazaar drifted upward, and on these sounds came Ibrahîm's sudden contemptuous laugh.
"Thou shouldst keep it as a scarecrow for unwelcome lovers," he said idly. "By God! Even hot lust would fly from such a churail."[[11]]
Siyah Yamin flushed angrily and bent forward to look at the picture more closely. Something there was even in its outrageous originality which she, as woman, recognised as true.
"The lad meant well, being my lover," she murmured softly, then her eyes turned to Mirza Ibrahîm with a whole world of malice in them.
"Thou shouldst get him to paint such an one for thee of Âtma Devi, friend; it might serve to heal thee of--of her scant courtesy--to say nothing of her bruises!"
The Lord Chamberlain grew purple with rage. "Curses on her!" he cried. "How didst hear? Did the jade dare to tell----"
The courtesan interrupted him with absolute contempt. "Truly thou hast a poor purblind brain concerning women, Mirza. Couldst not see, man, with half an eye that Âto is not of those who speak of insult? Nay! 'Twas old Deena yonder--who spends half his time with vice and half with virtue--who, when thou wast attempting to thrust thyself upon her, saw thee put through the door, and trundled down the stair like a bad baby! Fie upon thee, sonling!"