So Ajeet took her to the palace to dance, but, of course, he had to cool his heels without the _durbar_ chamber--smoke the hooka and chat with other natives while the one of desire was within. The girl had an exquisite sense of the beauty of simplicity--both in dress and manner, and in her art; it was as if a lotus flower had been animated--given life. Her dancing was a floaty rhythm, an undulating drifting to the soft call of the _sitar_; and her voice, when she sang the _ghazal_, the love-song, was soft, holding the compelling power of subdued passion--it thrilled Barlow with an emotion that, when she had finished, caused him to take himself to task. It was as if he had said, "By Jove! fancy I've had a bit too much of that champagne--better look out." Nana Sahib and the Captain were sitting side by side, and the Gulab, when she had finished the song, had swept her sinuous lithe form back in a graceful curtsy in front of the two, and, as if by accident, a red rose had floated to the feet of Captain Barlow. Surely her soft, dark, languorous eyes had said: "For thee." With a cynical smile Nana Sahib picked up the rose and presented it to Barlow saying: "My dear Captain, you receive the golden apple--beauty will out." Barlow's fingers trembled with suppressed emotion as he took the flower and carefully slipped it into a buttonhole. Elizabeth, who sat next him, saw this by-play, and her voice was cold as she commented: "Homage is a delightful thing, but it spoils children." Nana Sahib leaned across Barlow: "My dear Miss Hodson, these dancers always play to the gods--it is their trade. But there is safety in caste--in _varna_, which is the old Brahmin name for caste, meaning colour. When the Aryans came down into Hind they were olive-skinned and the aborigines here were quite black, so, to draw the line, they created caste and called it _varna_, meaning that they of the light skin were of a higher order than the aborigines--which they were. A white skin is like a shirt-of-mail, it protects morally, socially, in India." "Ultimately, no doubt, Prince. And, of course, a dance-girl is one of the fourth caste, practically an outcast--an 'untouchable,'" Elizabeth commented. Barlow knew this as a devilish arraignment of himself, for he had felt a strong attraction. He said nothing; but he was aware of a feeling of repulsion toward Elizabeth; her harshness, on so slight a provocation, suggested vindictiveness--a narrow exaction.