Yes, he had won. He had broken through the invisible barrier of their caste. He had fought his way into their citadel, and yet——! It was as though he had grasped at shadows and they had eluded him. He knew that he had never been further from them—never more the stranger and pariah. The English blood in him arose against him in triumph. It showed him what otherwise might have remained hidden—what Rasaldû could never have seen—the hearts of these people, their splendid isolation, the impregnable aloofness, their blank denial of himself. As he sat there listening to their quiet, self-certain intercourse, the bandages which he had wrapped about his bleeding pride were ripped off and with them every trace of healing. The sweat stood out on his dark forehead. He hated them. He desired them. He wanted to spit in these serene, immaculate faces. He would have grovelled to them for one word of fellowship. He had as yet scarcely touched the wine before him, but his blood was in an uproar, warring against itself.
Then suddenly he looked up at Rasaldû across the table, staring at him.
Perhaps that silent, deadly exchange lasted no more than a second or two, yet the unbridled ferocity of it rested like a chilling hand on those nearest and passed on down the table so that the last murmur sank into an appalled quiet. Something tigerish had leapt up in the breasts of both men. On the one side the Oriental, wounded in every susceptibility, threw off the mask of English breeding; on the other, the English blood, fevered by the maternal heritage, boiled under the insult of those eyes, broke from its own frail bondage of self-control, and by a mad paradox became native blood, native hatred.
The seconds passed. Then Rasaldû, with an insolent little movement of the shoulders, bent down to Colonel Armstrong on his right and spoke to him in an undertone. The unhappy Colonel listened, tugging painfully at his moustache. Mrs. Compton had half-risen, but Barclay forestalled her. He got up, leaning across towards Rasaldû.
"What's the matter with you?" he said.
Rasaldû's thick lips curled. He looked at Sigrid with the bloodshot, hating eyes of a thwarted animal.
"I don't eat with half-castes," he said.
Barclay seized his glass and threw the contents full into the Rajah's distorted face.
"You swineherd upstart!" he gasped thickly. Then, with a glance that swept the table, he turned and strode out of the room.
The silence continued. No uproar could have been more terrible than its unendingness. The Rajah stood there quite still, his mouth open, the wine trickling from his face on to the immaculate shirt-front—a ridiculous, sinister figure. Mrs. Compton tried to master her voice, to say something, but it was as though a gag stifled her. She saw Sigrid get up—very slowly.