“I am impressed by the fact,” said the Englishman, with a sneer, “that your royal blood is not so pure after all.”
“And why not?” returned Kāra, composedly. “Is it not from the mother we descend? Who my grandfather may have been matters little, provided Hatatcha, the royal one, is my granddame. Perhaps my mother never considered who my father might be; it was unimportant. From her I drew the blood of the great Ahtka-Rā, who lives again in me. Robbed of your hollow ceremonial of marriage, you people of Europe can boast no true descent save through your mothers—no purer blood than I, ignoring my fathers, am sure now courses in my veins; for the father, giving so little to his progeny, can scarcely contaminate it, whatever he may chance to be.”
The other, paying little heed to this discourse, the platitudes of which were all too familiar to his ears, reflected deeply on the strange discovery he had made through this unconventional Egyptian.
“Then,” said he, pursuing his train of thought, “your knowledge of your ancestry and the life and works of Ahtka-Rā was obtained through your grandmother?”
“Yes.”
“And she has not disclosed to you how it is that she knows all this?”
“No. She says it is true, and I believe it. Hatatcha is a wonderful woman.”
“I agree with you. Where did she get the money that enabled her to amaze all England with her magnificence and splendor?”
“I do not know.”
“Is she wealthy now?”