"Don't you?" he said, smiling and half closing his eyes. "As you please, most chilling and proud of beauties. What lucky men those are who find themselves allowed to bask in the sunshine of your smiles! There, that is the proper, youthful way of expressing it poetically, is it not?" "If you wish to insult me, pray say so, Mr Harley, and I will at once leave the room," said Helen, in a low voice, as if wishful that the Rajah should not hear her words, but making the Malay's countenance lower as he saw the familiar way in which she was addressed. "Insult you? All the saints and good people past and to come forbid! It is you who, after making me your slave, turn from me, the elderly beau, to listen to the voice of our dusky charmer. I don't mind. I am going to chat and listen to little Grey Stuart. I shall be patient, because I know that some day you will return to me cloyed with conquests, and say, `Neil Harley, I am yours!'" "I do not understand you," she cried, quickly. "Let me be explicit then," he said, mockingly. "Some day the fair Helen will come to me and say, with her pretty hands joined together, `Neil Harley, I am tired of slaying men. I have been very wicked, and cruel, and coquettish. I have wounded our chaplain; I have slain red-coated officers; I have trampled a Malayan sultan beneath my feet; but I know that you have loved me through it all. Forgive me and take me; I am humble now--I am yours!'" "Mr Harley!" she exclaimed, indignantly. "How dare you speak to me like this in my father's house." As she spoke her eyes seemed to flash with anger, and he ought to have quailed before her; but he met her gaze with a calm, mastering look, and said slowly: "Yes, you are very beautiful, and I do not wonder at your triumph in your power; but it is not love, Helen, and some day you will, as I tell you, be weary of all this adulation, and think of what I have said. I am in no hurry; and of course all this will be when you have had your reign as the most beautiful coquette in the East." "Mr Harley, if you were not my father's old friend--" "Exactly, my dear child; old friend, who has your father's wishes for my success with his daughter--old friend, who has known you by report since a child. I have been waiting for you, my dear, and you see I behave with all the familiarity accorded to a man of middle age." "Mr Harley, your words are insufferable!" said Helen, still in a low voice. "You think so now, my dear child. But there: I have done. Don't look so cross and indignant, or our friend the Rajah will be using his kris upon me as I go home. I can see his hand playing with it now, although he has it enveloped in the folds of his silken sarong in token of peace." "I beg you will go," said Helen, contemptuously; "you are keeping the Rajah away." "Which would be a pity," said the Resident, smiling. "He is a very handsome fellow, our friend Murad."