'See here, my sister, this is for the truth. 'Tis not often thy sort are asked for it; but I ask nothing else. I will take nothing else.'
Checked thus in her languid welcome to the unknown guest, Chândni looked distastefully at the hundred-rupee note thrust into her hand, then at the giver; though both were to her liking. The latter she recognised instantly, having seen him among the party at Hodinuggur. So her seed of slander had taken root already.
'My lord shall have that which he requires, surely. Wherefore else are there such as I?'
The cynical truth of her answer showed him her wit at once, and he acknowledged it frankly when, half an hour afterwards, he felt himself baffled by the calm simplicity of her story. Most of it he had already heard, and the rest showed still more unpleasant details to have raked up should the worst come to the worst. Azîzan, he was told, had been a palace lady, with whom George had had clandestine meetings, over which he had first become mixed up with the intrigues about the water. The key of the sluice had been sent from Simla, whether by the Mem or the Miss, or the sahib himself, Chândni did not know, could not say. Was she not telling the Huzoor the bare truth she knew to be true, and nothing else?
'And how much do you want to keep all this quiet?' he asked calmly, when she had finished. It was as well to know her price, at any rate.
For an instant the immediate temptation to take the bird in the hand made the courtesan hesitate. Then she struck boldly for higher game.
'The pearls, Huzoor! The pearls, or my revenge!' This man, with the cool, refined face and the contempt which made her involuntarily remember the Miss sahib's also, affected indifference now, and would most likely offer her some paltry sum. She could afford to wait for the change which was sure to come; for she was not in the least afraid of anything Lewis could do, and, without being absolutely insolent, took care to show him the fact as she lolled about at her ease, chewing betel ostentatiously. She had nothing to gain here by affecting delicacy, so he might see her at her coarsest and worst; it contrasted better with his brains.
The result being that Lewis Gordon came into Gwen's Boynton's drawing-room for his next interview looking depressed; partly because he had been riding through a tepid shower-bath. For recurring rain had washed away the bright promises of the morning and was falling drearily over the rank, dank grasses and beating down the fringes of delicate ferns growing upon the dripping branches of the oak trees, until they lost shape and became nothing but a green outline against the grey mist.