The next day the whole
Station was made aware of the startling change in the Rajah's attitude and
the means by which it had been brought about, but no one, not even those
who were disposed to judge the matter in its most serious light, guessed
what passed within the palace previous to the sending out of the now
famous invitation. For the greater part of the English community the whole
thing was rather a bad joke, with the Rajah for its victim. That a pretty
woman should have unbarred the gates which no other force, diplomacy or
cunning had been able to stir was a matter for light, somewhat
contemptuous laughter. Rajah Nehal Singh was nicknamed the Impressionable
Swain. He and Beatrice Cary were linked together either in good-natured
chaff or malicious earnest, and curiosity, thanks to the dullness of the
season, strained itself in expectation.
Thus, beyond the marble gates the world laughed, and inside Life and Death
had faced each other and for a moment hung in the balance.
It was toward the cool of the evening. Behar Asor and the prince paced
slowly backward and forward in the chief entrance hall of the palace,
plunged in a conversation which was to mark a final stage in their
relationship toward each other. Both knew it, and on both faces was
written the same determination--a determination curiously tempered and
moulded by the character of the man himself. On Behar Asor's furrowed,
withered face it was resolve, armed with treachery and all the hundred and
one weapons of oriental cunning.
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