Rukh admired the English more than he disliked them. And, too, in the ordinary, human way, to which all flesh is heir he had fallen in love—with, as it chanced, a Western woman.
Abortive, fantastic a dream as ever opium gave, but it brightened his eyes, flushed his face, and set all his sensitive nerves dancing to delicate music.
CHAPTER XXXV
The billiard balls clicked again.
They had not interrupted their game for her, then.
He had sat down at his writing-table when Mrs. Crespin had left him, and now he drew a pad to him, and picked up the pencil again. He began to write; he had found the words he wanted.
“Watkins!” he called, not loudly.
“Yessir?” Watkins had come at once.
The Raja tore the sheet off the pad, and handed it to him.
The valet read it aloud softly. He always read aloud to his master any message he was to transmit, to assure reading and sending it correctly. He read, “‘The lady has come to terms. She will enter His Highness’s household.’ Quite so, sir,” the man said. “What suite will she occupy?”