'Touch me not! I am no thief; they are mine!' panted Sobrai as the policeman dragged her forward. Then, as the sense of indignity came to her, she fought desperately. 'I am no thief--I am no common woman. Touch me not, I am Sobrai of the Nawâb's house! The pearls are his. I am princess, I say? Will none help me? Oh! Lateef, Lateef! say it is true!'
She had broken from her captor with sudden irresistible passion, and thrown herself at the feet of some one who had newly pushed his way into the crowd; so, her hands clasping a pair of thin legs, she looked in frantic appeal to the thin face of the kite-maker.
But Lateefa knew his part of hanger-on to nobility better than to admit anything derogatory to its honour. He essayed to pass on with his quaint cry--
'Use eyes and choose,
Use and choose.'
It was, perhaps, an unfortunately well-known one; and many of those present, seeing the girl's brocades and remembering her gestures, hesitated; while one said--
'He is Lateefa of Jehân's house for sure. She hath his name pat. Mayhap she says truth!'
The sergeant of police pulled out another pair of handcuffs with evident joy.
'There is room for both in the lock-up,' he said cheerfully.
Lateefa gave a jerk to the string he held, which sent the single kite, which he always reserved as his trade-mark, skimming downwards in the gloom, to rise again higher than ever.
'Mayhap! I am Lateef, for sure, as God made me. And she is what the devil made her--a woman!'