It was clear that she took no delight in easy victories, for she laughed aloud at the quizzical expression on his face. He guessed that if she could have conquered him at the first attempt a day would have found her weary of him; there was deliberate wisdom in his plan for the present to seem to let her win by little inches at a time. He reasoned that so she would tell him more than if he defied her outright. He brought an ivory footstool and set it about a yard away from her waxen toes. And she, watching him with burning eyes, wound tresses of her hair around the golden dagger handle, making her jewels glitter with each movement. “You pleased me by refusing wine,” she said. “You please me--oh, you please me! Christians drink wine and eat beef and pig-meat. Ugh! Hindu and Muslim both despise them, having each a little understanding of his own. The gods of India, who are the only real gods, what do they think of it all! They have been good to the English, but they have had no thanks. They will stand aside now and watch a greater jihad than the world has ever seen! And the Hindu, who holds the cow sacred, will not support Christians who hold nothing sacred, against Muhammadans who loathe the pig! Christianity has failed! The English must go down with it--just as Rome went down when she dabbled in Christianity. Oh, I know all about Rome!” “And the gods of India?” he asked, to keep her to the point now that she seemed well started. He was there to learn, not to teach. “I know them, too! I know them as nobody else does! They are neither Hindu, nor Muhammadan, but are older by a thousand ages than either foolishness! I love them, and they love me--as you shall love me, too! If they did not love both of us, we would not both be here! We must obey them!” None of the East's amazing ways of courtship are ever tedious. Love springs into being on an instant and lives a thousand years inside an hour. She left no doubt as to her meaning. She and King were to love, as the East knows love, and then the world might have just what they two did not care to take from it. His only possible course as yet was the defensive, and there is no defense like silence. He was still. “The sirkar,” she went on, “the silly sirkar fears that perhaps Turkey may enter the war. Perhaps a jihad may be proclaimed. So much for fear! I know! I have known for a very long time! And I have not let fear trouble me at all!” Her eyes were on his steadily, and she read no fear in his, either, for none was there. In hers he saw ambition--triumph already--excitement--the gambler's love of all the hugest risks. Behind them burned genius and the devilry that would stop at nothing. As the general had told him in Peshawur, she would dare open Hell's gate and ride the devil down the Khyber for the fun of it. “Au diable, diable et demie!” the French say; and like most French proverbs it is a wise one. But whence the devil and a half should come to thwart her was not obvious.