"Anak," he said softly, as they left the hot, red streets, filled with lumbering bullock-carts and omnipresent rickshas, "why do you look away when I talk of our marriage? Is it because the Koran teaches modesty in woman, or is it because you are over-proud of your husband when you see him among other men?"
He looked at her keenly, and as he saw the red blood mantle her cheek, he smiled and went on:--
"It was good of you to wear the sarong I gave you, and your best kabaya and the flowers I like in your hair. I heard more than one say that it showed you would make a good wife in spite of our knowing one another before marriage."
"You think that it was for you that I put on all this bravery?" she asked, looking him straight in the face. "Am I not to be your wife? Can I not dress in honor of the young Prince and--Allah?"
He turned to stammer a reply. The hot blood mounted to his temples, and he grasped the girl's arm so that she cried out with pain.
"You are to be my wife, and I your master. It is my wish that you should ever dress in honor of our rulers and our Allah, for in showing honor to those above you, you honor your husband. I do not understand you at all times, but I intend that you shall understand me. Sudah!"
"Tuan Allah Suka!" (The Lord Allah has willed it), she murmured, and they plodded on through the hot sand in silence.
After his return they saw the Prince often, and once when Anak came down to the wharf to bring a durian to the captain of the launch from her father, the old punghulo, she met him face to face, and he touched her cheek with his jewelled fingers, and said she had grown much prettier since he left.
Noa was not angry at the Prince, rather he was proud of his notice, but a sinister light burned in his eyes as he saw the flushed face and drooping head of the girl.
And once the Prince passed by the punghulo's home on his way into the jungle in search of a tiger, and inquired for his daughter. Anak treasured the remembrance of these little attentions, and pondered over them day after day, as she worked by her mother's side at the loom, or sat outside in the sand, picking the flossy burs from the betel-nuts, watching the flickering shadows that every breeze in the leaves above scattered in prodigal wastefulness about and over her.