The only other man to talk with now and then was Blake the British resident, a gentleman so far above Quorn's social standing that, in spite of mutual respect, anything like intimacy was out of the question. Actually, at times, Blake and Quorn were suspicious of each other. Secretly, Blake was determined, at all costs, even at the risk of his official career, to keep the Ranee on her throne and to support her modernizing efforts. Openly, Quorn was her stanch and loyal servant, cheerfully willing to run all risks and to defy temple Brahmins or any one else in her behalf. But Blake's official position as resident agent of the British-Indian government obliged him to seem critical and sometimes even threatening, so that the two men did not always understand each other. * * * * * As for the Ranee, there was no understanding her at all. Like Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth and Napoleon, she had blossomed at the age of nineteen and burst suddenly into full maturity of intellect and statecraft. The last of her royal race, she resembled a marvelous flower on a dying vine, whose whole strength had gone into this last effort. Raised within the customary _purdah_ that prevented contact with the outer world, she had contrived, with the aid of Bamjee, who would do anything for money, to import books and to learn three languages. She knew everything that has been printed about Napoleon, Frederick the Great, George Washington, Lincoln and Grant. She had read modern novels, and was more familiar with modern views than many people are who see newspapers every morning. And she had unbelievable courage. She had broken _purdah_ and defied the temple Brahmins. If she had been ugly it might not have mattered so much, but a beautiful young girl arouses comment, and when she rode through the streets in breeches with no women in attendance, even those who benefited by her modern views were scandalized. She opened hospitals. She superintended sanitary improvements. She pulled down rat-infested tenements and built new houses for the poor. And--deadliest offense--she defied the Brahmins' wrath by refusing to do penance for having broken the rigid laws of caste. In consequence, her throne was rather less secure than if it had been raised on powder barrels. The temple Brahmins were doing their utmost to produce anarchy, so that the British-Indian government would have to intervene and either reduce her to the status of a puppet queen or, possibly, depose her altogether. Everybody knew that. Quorn, in particular, knew it. That was why he staged the daily circus. They were her elephants; they should help to make her popular.