Helen essayed to speak, but her emotion choked her utterance; and always watchful of his slightest movement, she still sat with her eyelids drooping, and he went on in excellent English, but with the metaphorical imagery so loved of Eastern people: "Always beautiful; but now, robed as a princess of my nation, decked with Malayan flowers, your white skin softened to the sun-kissed nature of a beauty of our land, you shine before me like some star." Still she remained silent, and he went on: "They have done their work well, and could you but see your beauty with these eyes of mine, you would not wonder that I should have thought the hours weary that kept me from your side. Helen--beautiful Helen, you used not to hide those eyes from mine. Look up; let me see them once again. We are alone here now. No prying creatures of your English people can see us. I have prayed to Allah that this hour might come, and now that I am here, humble--thy very slave--where is thy look of welcome--where is the tender look? For in thy maiden coyness say what thou wilt; but let thine eyes speak to me of love as they used so often at thy English home." "How dare you!" she cried, finding words at last; "how dare you insult me by such a speech!" and she rose imperiously from her seat. "How dare you have me dragged from my home like this, and submitted by your orders to this disgraceful treatment, to make me look like one of your degraded race?" "If my race be degraded," he said, quietly, "I try to elevate it by choosing you." "I desire--I insist, sir, that you have me taken to my father now--at once." The Rajah smiled, and crossed his arms over his breast. "Let me think," he said. "Take you back? No; I could not take you back save as my wife. Your English people would have me shot." "You were my father's guest, sir," continued Helen. "You were admitted to his house as friend, and you have behaved to him with the basest treachery. See! Look at me! It was by your orders I was disfigured thus!" "Treachery!" he said, quietly. "No, there was no treachery, when I came as a prince and rajah, and said to the English merchant, `I love your daughter: I will stoop and make her my wife.'" "Stoop!" cried Helen, with a flash of her beautiful eyes. "Yes," he said, "stoop! She has confessed her love!" "It is false!" cried Helen. "Not with words, but with her fierce dark eyes," he continued. "`I shall offend my people, but what of that? Love is all-powerful. I will dismiss all my wives, and she shall reign alone.' I went and said all that, as an English gentleman would have asked your hand, and what followed?" Helen's eyes were fixed upon him sternly, and her heart condemned her, but she did not speak.