“Well—I will call the girls,” she said at last. “I will test you. You must tell me from which of them I received the piece of jade.”
She clapped her hands and the girls came hurrying from the far end of the room, standing in a line self-consciously. They were used to being admired, and it was quite in keeping with the probabilities that every one of them had been bought and sold at some early stage of her career, but there was novelty in this ordeal, and they did not seem to know what to make of it.
“That one,” said Vasantasena, nodding at the nearest, “is much the most popular.”
“She has no other merit,” said the Lama, and the girl looked bewildered—piqued.
“And that one at the other end is the cleverest. She has the quickest wit of all of them. She might have stolen it.”
“If so she would have kept it,” said the Lama, watching the girls’ faces. “The fourth from this end. She is the one. Let the others go.”
At a nod from Vasantasena eight girls returned to the window-seat and one stood still. She was the same who had admitted Maitraya and Ommony, only now all her self-possession had departed; she seemed to fear the Lama as a cornered dove fears a snake. She was trembling.
“Why are you afraid?” the Lama asked, as gently as if he were talking to a woman he would woo; but the girl made a gesture to her mistress for protection from him.
“She is afraid because you have read rightly,” said Vasantasena. “I, too, am afraid. Are you in league with gods or devils?”
“That is not well,” said the Lama. “Whom have I harmed?”