Mrs. Crespin sat down listlessly. “Well—” she said wearily, “I am listening.”
“You are very curt, Mrs. Crespin,” Rukh said pleadingly, leaning his arm on the writing-table, as he seated himself at it again, and leaning his chin on his hand. “I’m afraid you bear me malice—you hold me responsible for the doubtless trying situation in which you find yourself.”
“Who else is responsible?” she demanded, and her voice was certainly curt—as curt as it was cold.
“Who?” the Raja echoed. “Why chance, fate, the gods, Providence—whoever, or whatever, pulls the strings of this unaccountable puppet-show. Did I bring you here? Did I conjure up the fog? Could I have prevented your dropping from the skies? And when once you had set foot in the Goddess’ precinct, it was utterly out of my power to save you—at any rate the men of your party.” The woman curdled at the significance he threw lightly but clearly into those last words, but she neither moved nor looked; her face was mask-like, expressionless, and her pallor took no change. “If I raised a finger,” Rukh went on evenly, but saying it all very earnestly, “to thwart the Goddess, it would be the end of my rule—perhaps of my life.”
“You know that is not true,” the woman flashed out at him, her very contempt firing her to retort—which she had meant not to do, let him say what he might. “You could easily smuggle us away, and then face the people out. What about your troops?” she demanded. She was not pleading—yet.
“A handful, dear lady—a toy army,” Rukh murmured regretfully, but vastly amused too. “It amuses me to play at soldiers. They could do nothing against priests and people, even if they were to be depended upon. And,” he added emphatically, “they, too, worship the Goddess.”
The woman smiled bitterly. “What you really mean, Raja,” she said, looking him full in the eyes, “is that you dare not risk it—you haven’t the courage.”
“You take a mean advantage, Madam,” the Raja sighed. “You abuse the privilege of your sex in order to taunt me with cowardice.”
“Let us say, then,” she replied bitterly, “that you haven’t the will to save us.”
He leaned across the corner of the writing-table, and with a beseeching gesture, begged, “Reflect one moment, Madam. Why should I have the will, at the risk of all I possess, to save Major Crespin and Dr. Traherne? Major Crespin is your husband—does that recommend him to me? Forgive me if I venture to guess that it doesn’t greatly recommend him to you.” Lucilla gave him a haughty, outraged stare, but he continued, as if he had not seen it. “He is only too typical a specimen of a breed I detest: pigheaded, bull-necked, blustering, overbearing.” Lucilla Crespin’s rings were cutting her fingers, but she gave him no sign. “Dr. Traherne is an agreeable man enough—I dare say a man of genius.”