"You English think woman has no power in the East. Rubbish! She is more powerful here than anywhere else. Even polygamy gives her power—for a time, at all events. While she is first favourite she rules everything, and when she ceases to be that—" the Princess laughed again, closed her eyes, and said: "She who doesn't take her revenge has an ass for uncle."
Helena's heart began to beat so violently that she could scarcely speak, but she said—
"You mean that some woman will betray this man——"
"What is more likely? They all fall that way sooner or later, my beauty. This one has taken a kind of vow of celibacy, they say, but what matter? When I was as young as you are there was nothing I loved so much as to meet with a man of that sort. It was child's play, my darling."
All the blood in Helena's body was now boiling under the poison of a new thought.
"I hear he says he will come back in glory, and then Egypt will be at his feet. Bismillah!" said the Princess, raising her eyes in mock reverence, and then laughing gaily she added—
"Perhaps—who knows?—before that time comes some woman of the harem may find her opportunity. Jealousy—envy—revenge—one may see how the world goes without eyes, my beauty!"
Helena sat motionless; she was scarcely able to breathe.
"Good luck to her, I say!" said the Princess. "She'll do more for Egypt than all the Nunehams and Sirdars put together."
Then she looked round at Helena and said—