“His Majesty’s Government will scarcely view it in that light,” Cardew remarked.
“His Majesty’s Government,” Rukh said haughtily, “has to-day, I believe, taken the lives of three kinsmen of mine. Your side has the best transaction by four lives to one.”
Flight-Lieutenant Cardew ended the argument with a contemptuous lift of his broad, young shoulder. “Will you assign us an escort through that crowd?” he demanded.
“Certainly,” the Raja replied smoothly. And at a word from him an officer of his regular troops hurried out. “The escort will be here in a moment, Flight-Lieutenant.”
The Raja of Rukh rose and went to Mrs. Crespin. He stood a moment looking at her quietly. Then he said, including Traherne by his manner, “It only remains for me to speed the parting guest. I hope we may one day renew our acquaintance”—he said pointedly to Lucilla Crespin—“oh, not here,”—in reply to her shudder—“I plainly foresee that I shall have to join the other Kings in Exile. Perhaps we may meet at Homburg or Monte Carlo, and talk over old times. Ah, here is the escort.”
As the aeroplane rose in the gathering dusk, Lucilla Crespin turned her face away from the Kingdom of Rukh. But Dr. Traherne fixed his eyes on castle and temple as long as the sight of them held.
Neither was thinking of the other as their rescue-ship rose and clove the air—the man and woman so terribly, so irrevocably betrothed. She had no thought now but of two children to whom she was going—hers only now. And Traherne was thinking of a boy at Harrow he had greatly respected.
Rukh turned back into the hall as the English left it. He strolled across to the throne his blood had owned for so many ages, and stood regarding it for a long time. He sighed, then laughed—a little sadly—in the hideous face of the Goddess that backed the throne, drew his case from the pouch in his jeweled sleeve, and lit a cigarette at the sacred brazier, drew its first fragrant whiff, standing there before his well-nigh lost throne, and went slowly out onto the balcony.
When the plane rose slowly up from Rukh, the Raja still stood on the balcony—and he watched it out of sight.
“Well, well,” he said, to the fresh cigarette he was lighting, “she’d probably have been a damned nuisance.”