She smiled again, meeting his unwavering gaze with a frank good-humor which for him was more wonderful even than her beauty. No woman—and for that matter, no man—had ever dared to look him in the eyes with such a laughing, fearless challenge.
"Yes, I am the Rajah," he answered. Then, after a pause, he added with great simplicity, "You are very beautiful."
She laughed outright, and the laugh, which rang like the peal of a silver bell through the vaulted chamber, filled him with a sudden sense of her danger. She stood with her back turned indifferently on the golden image, an Unbeliever whose shod feet were defiling the sacred precincts, an object, then, for hatred and revenge—not for him, truly. In his eyes she was still an emissary from Brahma, and thus in herself half sacred; but he knew well enough that such would not be the opinion of the few fierce priests who worshiped in the temple.
"You are not safe here," he said, with an energy which was new to him.
"Come!"
He led her hurriedly out of the sanctuary into the great entrance hall.
There he slackened speed and waited until she reached his side.
"For a foreigner it is not safe to enter the temple," he explained. "Had any one but myself found you, I could not answer for the consequences."
"They would have harmed me?"
"It is possible."
"That would have been terrible!" she said, glancing at him with eyes that expressed rather a daring courage than fear.
"Most terrible," he assented earnestly.