“Who is Sundran?”
“My servant, my ayah. She says that Englishmen love other women besides their wife, who is only like the chief wife in our country, and that Englishwomen are not so good as Indian ladies, because they are not shut up.”
“Sundran must be sent away. She tells you falsehoods,” said George indignantly.
“She shall not be sent away,” retorted Nouna, flashing out at once into passion. “She loves me. It is she who tells me of the land where I was born, who sings me my Indian songs, and tells me the tales of my own country. She shall not go.”
George did not press the point, though he made an inward vow to remove this most noxious influence as soon as he had authority over the wayward creature before him.
“And doesn’t some one else love you, Nouna?” he asked reproachfully, looking into her flashing eyes; “some one whom you are treating very cruelly this evening?”
The appeal melted her at once, or rather it turned the passion of anger into a passion of affection. She threw her arms round his neck and fervently kissed his mouth, nestling her red lips under his moustache, and scratching his left ear fearfully with the beadwork on her mantle.
“I am not cruel, I love you,” she said earnestly. “I came here to-night because I could not live without seeing you again; only I will not marry you; I have made up my mind to that.”
“But why, Nouna, why?” asked poor George in consternation.
“We are not of the same race; we should not be happy; Rahas is right. If I made you angry, you would look as you did to-night, and you would kill me.”