“There came to me at the yaïlak,” she went on carelessly, “one Khassar Noïane—Noïane means Prince—all in a surcoat of gold tissue with green vines embroidered, and wearing a green cap trimmed with dormouse, and green boots inlaid with stiff gold....
“He was so young ... a boy. I laughed. I said: ‘Is this a Yaçaoul? An Urdu-envoy of Prince Erlik?’—mocking him as young and thoughtless girls mock—not in unfriendly manner—though I would not endure the touch of any man at all.
“And when I laughed at him, this Eighur boy flew into such a rage! Kai! I was amazed.
“‘Sou-sou! Squirrel!’ he cried angrily at me. ‘Learn the Yacaz, little chatterer! Little mocker of men, it is ten blows with a stick you require, not kisses!’
“At that I whistled my two dogs, Bars and Alaga, for I did not think what he said was funny.
“I said to him: ‘You had better go home, Khassar Noïane, for if no man has ever pleased me where I am at liberty to please myself, here on the Lake of the Ghost, then be very certain that no boy can please Keuke-Mongol here or anywhere!’
“And at that—kai! What did he say—that monkey?” She looked at her husband, her splendid eyes ablaze with wrathful laughter, and made a gesture full of angry grace:
“‘Squirrel!’ he cries—‘little malignant sorceress of Yian! May everything high about you become a sandstorm, and everything long a serpent, and everything broad a toad, and everything——’
“But I had had enough, Victor,” she added excitedly, “and I made a wild bee bite him on the lip! What do you think of such a courtship?” she cried, laughing. But Cleves’s face was a study in emotions.
And then, suddenly, the laughing mask seemed to slip from the bewitching features of Keuke Mongol; and there was Tressa Norne—Tressa Cleves—disconcerted, paling a little as the memory of her impulsive confidence in this man beside her began to dawn on her more clearly.