Then she recounted her meeting with a soldier from Agra, and what he had told her of Siddha. At first she spoke guardedly, but ended in repeating all that Salim had discovered about Faizi’s wife.
The consequence of this tale was as Nipunika had feared. As though lifeless, Iravati sat there, gazing before her; and some minutes of silence ensued before she spoke. Then she sprang to her feet, asking, with a passion unwonted to her, “Who told you all this? Was it a soldier? Speak the truth, with no shifts or excuses.”
“Noble lady,” answered Nipunika, “how should I dare to deceive you, and what reason could I have for doing so? The man from whom I heard what I have now repeated to you is a servant of the Prince.”
“Then the whole story is a lie!” cried Iravati. “I understand it all now. What a contemptible plot!” she added to herself; and then turning to her servant,—“It is well, my good Nipunika, and I thank you for your report, which you brought, I doubt not, prompted by the real interest you take in me. But now that I know where it comes from I care not for it. Leave me now for the moment, and in future do not have to do with the man who told you these tales.”
Still the arrow had been better aimed than Iravati would allow, either to herself or to her servant; and left alone, she sat for a long time, her head leaning on her hand, thinking over the possibilities and probabilities of what she had heard. But she felt her courage rise again when, some time after, leaving her apartment, she met Prince Salim in one of the galleries, whose return had not been announced to her. It was all plain to her. No one else had invented the whole slander in order to estrange her from Siddha; and she bent her head coolly and half contemptuously in acknowledgment of her visitor’s respectful greeting.
“Iravati,” he said, “you would have reason for surprise at my return here after our last, and for me discouraging interview, if the explanation had not been given you by what has come to your ears through your servant, and which I could not personally tell you.”
“I understand well,” said Iravati, without anger, but without circumlocution, “that you think scandal may aid you where persecution has failed; but this I had not expected, and, above all, from you.”
“Scandal!” repeated Salim; “that would indeed be a contemptible manner of attaining the goal of my passionate, and for you not injurious, wishes, and a very vain one. Of what avail would such tales and empty gossip be? But it is different when truth is supported by proofs.”
“How? Proofs! What do you mean?”
“I mean the kind of proofs that the strictest judge cannot condemn. You know Siddha’s handwriting, do you not?”