"Wouldst thou have it so, sister?" he asked, meaningly. She flushed faintly under her dark skin.
"Nay! Most High," she replied proudly. "For me honour is enough, since I guard the King's."
The words held something of self-revelation in them. He rose and wound his saffron veil closer. "So be it, sister! Guard the King's honour, aye! and his Luck too if thou canst!" he added with a smile as he moved away.
The word roused her to a sense that her chance was departing; she caught at his feet and bowed herself over them in the attitude which in India brings arrest to all in authority; for it is ultimate appeal.
"What is it, sister?" he queried almost mechanically.
"What--what, Most Excellent, of the King's Luck?" she asked tremulously. At the moment other, clearer words failed her.
"What?" he echoed perplexedly, wondering what the woman would be at. "Naught that I know of save that it shone when I saw it yester-evening, and that it will shine still more when the Feringhi jeweller hath spent his Western art upon it," he added with a smile.
"Yester-even," she could scarce speak for surprise, "then--then it is not stolen? The King's Luck is safe?"
"Stolen! Ye Gods, no!" His look of wonder changed to kindly compassion. "Go home, my sister," he said as he might have said to a child. "And dream not so much of the King and his Luck. He is not worth it! So farewell! Yet stay! I owe thee something once more for--thy treatise on Love! I gave thee thy father's titular office did, I not? Well! to-morrow take up his duties! Come to the Great Durbar in thy Châran's dress, and, for once, a woman shall challenge the whole world for Akbar. Lo! it will make some of the durbaries see Shaítan," he interpolated for himself light-heartedly. "But come and fear not--I will warn the Chamberlain to give thee place. So once more farewell, widow----"
Thus far he had spoken with a smile; now his face grew grave. "Lo! despite Akbar, methinks thou wilt die for some man yet; thou art of that quality. Heaven send he be worth the sacrifice!"