"I beg yours," came the instant reply. "I mistook you for a friend. Good-night!"
As he paced his horse on, choosing the longer way to Duryagunj, by the narrow lanes clinging to the city wall, the remembrance of that frank good-night lingered with him. For a friend! What a name to call Herbert Erlton! Poor little soul! The thought, by its very intolerableness, drove him back to the other, roused by her first words:
True! Even this Delhi lying before his very eyes was far from him. How would it take the news which by now, as he had said, must have filtered through the bazaar? He could imagine that. He knew, also, that the Palace folk must be all discussing the Resident's garden party, with a view to their own special aims and objects. But what did they think of the outlook on the future? Did they also say _Delhi dur ust?_
One of them was saying it on a roof close by. It was Abool-Bukr, who, on his way home, had given himself the promised pleasure of retailing his virtuous afternoon's experiences to Newâsi; for his two-months-wed bride had not broken _him_ of his habit of coming to his kind one, though it had made _her_ graver, more dignified. Still she broke in on his thick assertion--for he had drunk brandy in his efforts to be friendly with the sahibs--that he had seen an Englishwoman of her sort, with the quick query:
He laughed mischievously. "And thou art not jealous of my wife!--or sayest thou art not! She was but like thee in this, aunt, that she is of the sort who would have men better than God made them----"
He shook his head. "Women, Newâsi, are as the ague. A man is ever being made better or worse till he knows not if he be well or ill. And both ways God's work is marred, a man driven from his right fate----"
"But if a man mistakes his fate as thou dost, Abool," she persisted. "Sure, if Jewun Bukht with that evil woman, Zeenut----"
He started to his feet, thrusting out lissome hands wildly, as if to set aside some thought. "Have a care, Newâsi, have a care!" he cried. "Talk not of that arch plotter, arch dreamer. Nay! not arch dreamer! 'tis thou that dreamest most. Dreamest war without blood, men without passion, me without myself! Was there not blood on my hands ere ever I was born--I, Abool-Bukr, of the race of Timoor--kings, tyrants, by birth and trade? The blood of those who stood in my father's way and my father's fathers. I tell thee there is too much tinder yonder----" He pointed to where, across the flat chequers of moonlit roofs, inlaid by the shadows of the intersecting alleys the cupolas of the Palace gates rose upon the sky. "There is too much tinder here," he struck his own breast fiercely, "for such fiery thoughts. Why canst not leave me alone, woman?"