"Because I am too giddy, perhaps," replied Rose; yet with all her coquetry she was not without an emotion of genuine pride at the conviction of having inspired so handsome and earnest a young man with an attachment so devoted and pure.
But what was to be the sequel to all this?
As Artemus Ward says, "one is always inclined to give aid and comfort to the enemy, if he cums in the shape of a nice young gal;" and doubtless the old Khan of the Kuzzilbashes seemed to think so too; for to Rose he was unusually kind, and somewhat unwisely was wont at times to praise her to his wife. Once he said,
"The girl is beautiful as a bird of paradise."
"Yes; but quite as dumb and useless—there is nothing in her," replied the lady.
"She knows her own language, not ours. She has splendid eyes, at all events; they might get me six good horses among the Usbec Tartars."
"Yes, lovely eyes certainly; yet they seem out of place anywhere, save in a seraglio," was the sharp response of the Khanum, who evidently disapproved of the praise and the chess-playing; "send her to Ackbar Khan."
"Nay; that suits not my purpose, either for her or her friend," replied the Khan, on whose mind some remarks made from time to time by his wife were beginning to have an effect.
He had seen the open and free intercourse of the Feringhee sahibs, male and female, at the bandstand, at the race-course, in the Cantonments, in the gardens, and other places in and about Cabul, during the previous winter; he had also seen them together in Sinclair sahib's wonderful boat; but there was something in the footing of Rose and Denzil that sorely puzzled him. They were too familiar to be mere friends, and she was not tender enough apparently to be a lover; so, after closely observing them for some days, he came to the conclusion that they were married, and if not, that they ought to be.
Thus with the native suspicion of an Oriental, he began to think that they must be married, and concealed the fact from him for some reason or purpose of their own. He even spoke pretty pointedly on the subject to Denzil, and hinted that if she were his wife, it might prevent her from being sold to the Toorkomans; but the circumstance of her being married to an infidel would not have made much difference to those sons of the desert.