“She is of course very much flattered by your proposal—one which she says she will think over most carefully; but she is so surprised, that she can only ask you to give her time. I see you understand me?”
The Rajah nodded again in a quick, eager way.
“English girls do not say yea all at once to a proposal like yours; and if you will wait a few months—of course being good friends all the time—we shall be able to speak more about the subject.”
Mr Perowne, merchant, and man of the world, meant to say all this in a quick, matter-of-fact, frank way, but he stumbled, and spoke in a halting, lame fashion, growing more and more unsatisfactory as the young Malay prince came closer to him.
“I—I think you understand me,” he said, feeling called upon to say something, as the Malay glared at him as if about to spring.
“Yes—yes!” hissed the Malay. “Lies—all lies! I came for friend. You mock—you laugh in my face—but you do not know. I say I came for friend—I go away—enemy!”
He went on speaking rapidly in the Malay tongue, his rage seeming to be the more concentrated from the cold, cutting tone he adopted. Then, nearly closing his eyes, and giving his peculiar type of features a crafty, cat-like aspect, he gazed furiously at the merchant for a few minutes, and then turned, and seemed to creep from the house in a way that was as feline as his looks.