"Why so"? asked Ahmad with assumed astonishment.
"Why so," retorted Prasad angrily. "How canst thou ask, why so, after thy cajolery"?
Ahmad shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly. "Friend, Prasad," he asserted. "I give thee my word, no man in the Darbar was more astonished than Ahmad Khan when the Rani grasped the sword of state herself."
For once he spoke the truth honestly.
"Of that I make no complaint," retorted Prasad. "If the Rani so wished it, hers was the prerogative; though a strange one for a woman to assert."
"Then to what hast thou taken so much offense"? asked the Mohammedan with apparent innocence.
Prasad, in turn, regarded Ahmad with a look of astonishment.
"Art thou so guileless, O Ahmad Khan"? he asked, "after all that has passed between us, not to imagine that I might be offended with the Rani's action, in giving to another—a stranger—that which she knew I besought of her favor."
"Ah! as to that, my Prasad," returned Ahmad, pacifically, "there may have been many reasons in the Rani's mind, apart from the chief one given. She may have assumed thou wouldst not have cared for the lesser honor conferred upon Dost Ali—by the way a handsome fellow too; or, woman like, mind, I say no word against the beauty, wisdom, and courage of the Rani, she may have admired the gallant bearing of this fellow. A new favorite, perchance. Thou must remember, good Prasad, she is a woman as well as Rani, and turneth her gaze first upon one, then toward another."
Prasad's brow scowled threateningly.