“Have it your own way, my dear. You have your own way of doing things, and I suppose you’ll stick to it. Of course it was too much to expect you to consider me in your anxiety to serve your brother?”
“I did consider you,” bluntly. “Sure I’d have asked you for the money if I hadn’t.”
“You wouldn’t have got it, I assure you.”
“Well, didn’t I save you the unpleasantness of refusing?”
“I wonder you didn’t take that as a reason for robbing my desk! It don’t matter, of course, that every tongue in the Agency and in the Fort is buzzing over my wife and myself, and inventing new scandals every day?”
“Oh, people will talk!” with superb detachment. “If there’s nothing handy to talk about, they’ll make it up. The Agency people know there’s no harm about us, anyhow, and as for the Fort, I’d like to know what business it is of theirs?”
“That’s it, precisely. You have poked your nose into Khemistan politics, my dear. You may have discovered by this time that there are two parties among the Khans—old Gul Ali’s, which wants peace with the English, and the one headed by young Kamal-ud-din, which would like to turn us out neck and crop. It has worried me no end lately to find Kamal-ud-din and his set all so uncommonly cock-a-hoop, and I can tell by Bayard’s letters that he’s worried too. Well, to-day the reason came out, when I saw Kamal-ud-din in durbar wearing that blue dinner-plate of yours. I thought I couldn’t be mistaken, but I made up my mind to come home and ask you before saying anything, in case it was merely the fellow to it. I fancy they were rather disappointed that I didn’t kick up a dust, but afterwards they invited me into the garden to see a new pavilion they are building. All the young Khans and their hangers-on were there, and I saw they were egging on little Hafiz-Ullah to say something. Presently he burst out, with a nasty little giggle, ‘The Istunt Sahib has not congratulated my cousin on recovering the talisman of his house.’ Kamal-ud-din was smirking so vilely that I couldn’t doubt any longer the thing was yours, and that you had let me in for something unpleasant——”
“I don’t see why. They might have stolen it,” broke in Eveleen.
“And then directed my attention to it, while you had said nothing of losing it? No, my dear, pardon me; I am beginning to know your ways by this time. I took a good look at the object, and said in a bored sort of voice, ‘Curious! I could almost believe it had a look of a jewel that belonged to my wife, and that I bade her get rid of, because English people don’t wear such things.’ They were a good bit taken aback at that, but one of the hangers-on put in, ‘Yes, it came from the Istunt Sahib’s house.’ I looked him down and said—precious sternly, I promise you,—‘You mean his Highness has bought it from the goldsmith Mrs Ambrose sold it to. I hope he didn’t let him make too much on the transaction.’ They saw there was no change to be had out of me—the Munshi told me afterwards they had their story all pat of your having sent the thing to Kamal-ud-din with your salams, and if I had shown any sign of anger or surprise, out it would have come—and began to offer explanations in a hurry. The talisman had been carried off fifty years ago by a captain of the guard who quarrelled with the Khans of that day, and contrived to escape with his life. He was heard of afterwards as a soldier of fortune in South India, but no one knew what became of him and the stone at last. I was able to supply the rest of the story, of course, and they were grateful, having a lurking doubt whether they had got the right thing after all. It seems the stone brings good luck to its possessor, which is the reason of all the secret jubilation that has been worrying me. When they had said all they had to say, I smiled superior, and remarked what a satisfaction it was to Mrs Ambrose and myself to have been the means of restoring such an interesting relic to his Highness’s family, and so came away.”
“But we have not restored it to them, and we won’t! I never sold it—only pawned it.”