The Ranee smiled as sweetly as if she were Machiavelli himself in woman's raiment. Blake, as the official representative of the British-Indian government, with authority to advise and keep watch and report, was no bugbear to her--not though on the strength of his reports the British-Indian government might send commissioners to rule in her name and reduce her to the status of a puppet-queen. He was a sportsman and a gentleman--insuperable handicaps in dealing with a woman who understood both qualities and had the wit to play the game according to his rules, but with her own rules added. "I might need you," she said, gazing at him. "For the present let us call this a private conversation. Confidential--under the seal of hospitality. Then, if it gets too serious, I could consent to your breaking the seal of confidence, without having to tell you it all from the beginning." * * * * * Blake should have taken his leave. But he loved her too well, in a fatherly, middle-aged bachelor fashion. She was too amusing to be left, and also too likely to do something recklessly behind his back that might cost him months of letter-writing to his government to explain away. He was lazy and hated writing letters. His purpose was to keep her on the throne in spite of her own recklessness, and in spite of all her enemies, if he could manage it by any gentlemanly means. He repeatedly risked his own good standing with his government to cover the strategic errors due to her inexperience. "Highly irregular," he said, frowning. "However, I will stay if you wish." And then came Quorn--at first a message from him, saying he was downstairs in the front hall threatening mayhem to the palace servants who kept him waiting there. "Daughter of the Dawn, he uses strange oaths, yet he is not drunk." Then Quorn himself, treading the heels of the servant sent to bring him--Quorn in his turban, with a ready-made blue serge jacket on over his Indian costume, and in his right hand the _ankus_ of office, the iron hook with which he normally controlled Asoka's ponderous movements. Servants standing near him shuddered at it. The Ranee dismissed the servants. "Miss," he began, then hesitated, being vague on the subject of etiquette. Besides, Blake's presence bothered him. He liked Blake, but he was too much a restraining influence on the Ranee to be suffered without some resentment. Also he knew that Blake disliked that form of address to a reigning Ranee. The Ranee nodded. She liked Quorn to call her miss--it sounded so enormously more honest than titles such as Bamjee and her servants used. She valued Quorn more highly than a dozen Blakes, and at that without robbing Blake of credit. It is only fools and knaves who undervalue one man because they recognize the different merits of another. She was neither a fool nor more of a knave than any statesman has to be. "Yes, Mr. Quorn?"