Obediently the girl rose, left her embroidery lying on the cushions, and went out of the room. When she was gone, Ahalya stretched herself still more lazily on her divan, closed her eyes to the light, and, as if she saw with her mind things more beautiful than real, smiled slightly, and began to sing the swaying melody of the poppy dance. About her was a perfect stillness. Not a sound, not so much as the tones of women’s voices from the interior of the zenana, penetrated to her solitude. Perhaps her reverie was broken by the silence, but she only smiled the more; for it had come to be an uncanny habit with her to smile through her loneliest and saddest hours. Only at those rare times when joy or interest lifted her out of herself did her face show all the strength and purity of its melancholy beauty. Her heritage from her mother was a self-defence of constant concealment, and a kind of inward cynicism, which, never revealed on the surface, was nevertheless constantly nourished and strengthened by the many humiliations of her existence. Just now she was considering her performance of the evening before, and the results of it, when, after she had left the theatre, her lord had come to her in great anger, expecting tears, repentance, and abasement from her, and had got only petulance, rebellion, and remorseless laughter, so that finally, worked into a fierce rage, he had left her alone to wake to a realization of her offence. This realization had by no means come; and she fully expected the Rajah to appear before her that evening humbly craving favor; for experience had taught her that she need never be the first to surrender. Rai-Khizar-Pál loved her far more dearly than she, unhappy child, cared for him, grave, honorable, and just as he was; and it was to her carelessness of favor and the consummate skill with which she let that carelessness be known, that the Lady Ahalya owed the favoritism she enjoyed and the rooms she lived in.