By this time the whole room was in a ferment of disdain and concealed envy. Suddenly, as if the excitement had not been already great enough for one morning, Rai-Khizar-Pál appeared on the threshold, and looked eagerly down the room. Every head was turned to him: Ahalya’s too, but leisurely, and with an indifference that was noticeable. Scarcely did she take the trouble to lift her eyelids, as the Rajah came slowly forward. Her husband’s eyes were busy, however, during his ceremonious progress; and he read a deal of history in that walk. It would have been impossible for him not to have made the comparison between Ahalya and those from whom she had so studiously withdrawn herself. Beside their dark, heavy, sensual faces, hers, in its clear-cut, Persian fairness, stood out as a rose among thistles, as gold beside brass. This morning, after three days without her, the Rajah appreciated her more keenly than usual; and, before her indifference, his displeasure melted like mist in the sun. Stopping to speak with no one else, he went to her, amid a sensible but scarcely audible murmur of disappointment. Ahalya looked up only when he bent over her; but she smiled at him for greeting, and he asked nothing better. “My lotus-flower! My heart’s delight!” he said, gazing thirstily at her fair face. “Ahalya! Thou wilt dance no more nautch dances at the theatre?” For a moment she seemed to hesitate. Then, because she had had enough of playing for the time, she answered, truthfully enough: “Nay, lord. I—am sorry that I danced the poppy dance.” Rai-Khizar longed to take her in his arms; but this, in the face of all the zenana, even he scarcely ventured to do. So, bending low over her, he whispered: “In two hours come to the marble bath, and we will eat together, alone, by the fountain there. Make thyself beautiful for me, rose of Iran!—my treasure!—my child!” Then, with the smile that he gave only to her, the Rajah turned away, and left the room without speaking to any other in it. Ten minutes after he had gone Ahalya also departed, running the new gantlet of hurt and angry glances with less indifference than she had borne her humiliation an hour before. Her pride served her well in trouble; but ill-natured jealousy always cut her to the quick; and she had found but light armor against it. Returning to her own room, she bathed, and let Neila dress her as the Rajah commanded. Her garments were silken tissues of palest pink, delicate as rose-petals. Her waist was girdled with gold and pearls; and her hair braided and bound up with golden threads. When Neila had finished her she was a picture, and she knew it, perhaps, though she took small delight in it; for the unexpressed thought in her heart was that she would have matched her raiment with her love; and Rai-Khizar-Pál she loved as a father, as a venerable and powerful man; her master, but never the lord of her heart.