And for her proud, still courage, he maddened for her anew. He disliked while he feared and admired her people, he despised her creed—as indeed he did all creeds and beliefs, though deep in his blood something both love and reverence of the Buddha held and was quick—but he desired her fiercely as a collector desires the one rare and priceless specimen his cabinets lack. He wanted to own her, but, more than that, he longed to gain from her some personal response to the very personal feeling towards her, the kindling inclination that tingled and throbbed his being.
The sun had quite gone when he too left the garden, only the white sheen of the far, high mountains lighting it—for the stars had not come yet.
At the sound of a foot, he sprang up from the bench. It was not the fall of a native foot, he knew, and it was a woman’s tread.
She was threading her way back through the garden—the ayah stood quietly waiting at the side-door of the palace-wall. He had ordered strictly that no one should oppose the Ferenghi lady in aught, save her passing from the palace precincts, but he wondered how she had found her way back through the long, twisting palace labyrinths—no one whose tongue she knew, no one who knew hers.
She was gathering flowers—one here, one there, selecting them carefully, and when she had chosen a few, she moved quietly on until she reached him. He had thought she had not seen him, but she must have done so, for her joining of him was deliberate.
She spoke first.
“May I,” she asked quietly, “see my husband?”
“Is it necessary?” Rukh asked.
“I wish it,” she told him gently.
“Why?” he demanded. “You did not love him!”