She did not answer, but nerved herself more and more, and to her great joy she felt that it was anger rather than fear that now filled her breast, though she told herself that perhaps diplomacy might be more successful than threats.
“It is because I have stayed so long,” he said, half mockingly; and then, speaking once more in his low, passionate tones—the tones Helen had thought so musical in the drawing-room of their home at the station—he whispered:
“I could not have hoped for so great a change. You are a thousand times more beautiful than you were before.”
Helen essayed to speak, but her emotion choked her utterance; and always watchful of his slightest movement, she still sat with her eyelids drooping, and he went on in excellent English, but with the metaphorical imagery so loved of Eastern people:
“Always beautiful; but now, robed as a princess of my nation, decked with Malayan flowers, your white skin softened to the sun-kissed nature of a beauty of our land, you shine before me like some star.”
Still she remained silent, and he went on: “They have done their work well, and could you but see your beauty with these eyes of mine, you would not wonder that I should have thought the hours weary that kept me from your side. Helen—beautiful Helen, you used not to hide those eyes from mine. Look up; let me see them once again. We are alone here now. No prying creatures of your English people can see us. I have prayed to Allah that this hour might come, and now that I am here, humble—thy very slave—where is thy look of welcome—where is the tender look? For in thy maiden coyness say what thou wilt; but let thine eyes speak to me of love as they used so often at thy English home.”
“How dare you!” she cried, finding words at last; “how dare you insult me by such a speech!” and she rose imperiously from her seat. “How dare you have me dragged from my home like this, and submitted by your orders to this disgraceful treatment, to make me look like one of your degraded race?”
“If my race be degraded,” he said, quietly, “I try to elevate it by choosing you.”
“I desire—I insist, sir, that you have me taken to my father now—at once.”
The Rajah smiled, and crossed his arms over his breast.