“Then you have no knowledge of wireless telegraphy?”
“None,” Traherne replied disgustedly. And that well done self-disgust entirely convinced the Raja of Rukh—and he boasted again.
“I may tell you, then,” he said with a sort of suave, princely truculence, “that that hissing is the sound of the wireless transmission. I am in communication with India.”
“You have a wireless expert here then?” Crespin asked incredulously—taking up Traherne’s cue at last.
“Watkins”—the Raja laughed—“that invaluable fellow—he is my operator.”
“And with whom do you communicate?” Traherne asked, as if he, for his part, did not believe a word of the fairy tale.
“Do you think that quite a fair question, Doctor?” Rukh retorted with a smile. “Does it show your usual tact? I have my agents—I can say no more.”
No one made any comment, or seemed inclined to keep the ball, or any ball, rolling.
The Raja waited a courteous moment or two, and then turned to Mrs. Crespin, and asked her, “Shall I ring for the ayah, Madam, to see you to your room?”
“If you please,” she told him. She longed to stay or to go with her husband and their countryman—to be with them through the hideous strain of the night; but she thought it wiser not to make the request. Dr. Traherne would make it, if he deemed it advisable or worth while to venture it. But neither Traherne nor her husband spoke, and she rose almost immediately, as if to go. But as Rukh’s finger was on the bell, she went to him quickly, staying his hand with a gesture of hers. “No,” she begged him, “wait a moment. Raja, I have two children. If it weren’t for them, don’t imagine that any of us would beg a favor at your hands.” It was bravely said, and Antony Crespin had never admired her more, but Basil Traherne bit his lip. It was ill-advised of her, no doubt of that. But if English men proverbially blunder and aggravate their own dilemma when they stand with their backs to a wall and fight against overwhelming odds, an English woman may be forgiven for doing it now and then. And Lucilla Crespin’s English blood was up.