"Does friendship follow on acquaintance?" she questioned back. "In that case, you and I should be friends, Colonel Boucicault, for I have met you more often than the Rajah."
"Then he has marked his joy in your acquaintanceship with remarkable generosity," he retorted.
"Is generosity your translation for hospitality, Colonel Boucicault?"
"The Rajah's hospitality is well known. He gives liberally. He expects a return. And he is impressionable. There is such a thing as love at first sight, Miss Fersen."
He was watching her with a hungry anticipation, but she neither winced nor turned from him. Her calm gaze met his, and there was no change in its rather sleepy placidity. But the enigmatic smile which he remembered quivered at the corners of her mouth.
"And there is also such a thing as contempt at first sight," she remarked casually, "and that is much what I felt for you, Colonel Boucicault."
"You are an outspoken enemy," he answered, with a quick drawing in of his breath. She looked down for an instant and saw that his big, brutal-looking hands shook.
"You have remarked on my outspokenness before."
"Yes, and I even admire it. But my admiration, Miss Fersen, cannot influence my sense of duty. I am chief in command in Gaya. The social as well as the military authority rests in me. And where I see that a certain individual is lessening our prestige, corrupting our morals, or even upsetting the routine of our social life, then I have the power to expel that individual—to make Gaya and India impossible——"
"If, to speak clearly, you refer to me, Colonel Boucicault," she interrupted, "then perhaps I shall have the pleasure of travelling in the same boat with you to England."