The answer came quick, so quickly that it left the hearer with that breathless sense of pained relief that the worst is over, which comes with the clean sharp cut of a surgeon's knife.
'I am Chândni of Delhi. I want the Hodinuggur pearls which the Huzoor took out of the Ayôdhya pot.'
There was no mincing of the matter here; none of that beating about the bush which, as a rule, Gwen loved. Yet the directness did not displease her; it seemed to rouse in her a novel combativeness, taking form in similar effrontery and cool assertion.
'I don't know what you are talking about,' she said indifferently, 'and I don't want you. Go!'
Her Hindustani, though limited, was of the imperative order and suited the occasion; yet it evoked one of Chândni's shrill mocking laughs.
'The mem sahiba mistakes. She is not as I am, a daughter of the bazaars, and if it comes to words Chândni hath two to her one. So I come quietly to ask reasonably for my rights; not to dispute after the manner of my kind. There is no need to tell the mem sahiba the story. She remembers it perfectly. She knows it all as well as I. But this she does not know: The pearls are mine, and I will have them back, or their price in revenge.'
'I think you are mad!' cried Gwen more hastily. 'Go! go instantly, or I will call the servants.'
'That were not wise! Lo! I know all about the papers of safety, which Manohar Lâl gave in exchange for the little sahib's rupees. But the pearls went not once, but twice.'
'Twice!' The involuntary echo had a surprise in it which angered the courtesan.
'Yes, twice! The mem knows that as well as I do. The Ayôdhya pot----'
'Was stolen from me in the palace,' put in Gwen; 'you stole it, I dare say.'
Again Chândni laughed. 'If I did, what then? The mem got it again and sent it back through the post for more pearls. But we did not send it thus; we sent it by the little sahib, who gave it to the mem, and she sent the key in return. The papers are about the first pearls. These are the second, and there is no safety paper about them.'
'It is not true!--it is a lie--he never took them--he never gave them to me,' cried Gwen, her courage, oddly enough, failing before what was to her an absolutely novel and unfounded accusation. 'I will not listen! Go! or I will call.'