She turned away to hide her disappointment. It was the thought of the honor that was his in the eyes of the province, and not that he was to marry her, that set the lights dancing in his eyes! She hated him then for his very love; it was so sure and confident in its right to overlook hers in this petty attention from a mere boy, who had once condescended to praise her girlish beauty.
“When is the Prince coming?” she questioned, ignoring his clumsy attempt to take her hand.
“During the feast of Hari Raya Hadji,” he replied, smiling.
She kicked some sand with her bare toes, amongst the garrulous chickens.
“Tell me about the Prince.”
Her mood had changed. Her eyes were wide open, and her face all aglow. She was wondering if he would notice her above the bridesmaids,—if it was not for her sake he was coming?
And then her lover told her of the gossip of the palace,—of the Prince’s life in the Sultan’s court,—of his wit and grace,—of how he had learned English, and was soon to go to London, where he would be entertained by the Queen.
Above their heads the wind played with the tattered flags of the palms, leaving openings here and there that exposed the steely-white glare of the sky, and showed, far away to the northward, the denuded red dome of Mount Ophir.
The girl noted the clusters of berries showing redly against the dark green of some pepper-vines that clambered up the black nebong posts of her home; she wondered vaguely as he talked if she were to go on through life seeing pepper-vines and betel-nut trees, and hot sand and featherless hens, and never get beyond the shadow of the mysterious mountains.
Possibly it was the sight of the white ladies from Singapore, possibly it was the few light words dropped by the half-grown Prince, possibly it was something within herself,—something inherited from ancestors who had lived when the fleets of Solomon and Hiram sought for gold and ivory at the base of the distant mountains,—that drove her to revolt, and led her to question the right of this marriage that was to seal her forever to the attap bungalow, and the narrow, colorless life that awaited her on the banks of the Maur. She turned fiercely on her wooer, and her brown eyes flashed.