"Miss-_sahib_ indeed!" interrupted Mumtâza with a forced giggle. "Who knows she is that? Not even Pidar Narâyan." "Wherefore?" asked Roshan coldly. "Her mother was Bonaventura-_sahib's_ child and heir. That is certain; else the Government would not have continued the grants given to him by the Nawab." An expression of infinite cunning crossed the old lady's face; she tucked another budget of _pân_ into her cheek, preparatory to a lengthy explanation. "Not if it was payment for evidence given, by which Government could find excuse for seizing the rest, and sending innocent people to die in Calcutta? Thou knowest the tale, Roshan? How Pidar Narâyan said no word when everyone was searching, after Bun-avatâr's death, for Anâri Begum, who had disappeared, and how, when the land was being taken, he appeared with a baby, a baptized baby, and swore it was Bun-avatâr's lawful heir--that he himself had married them. Mayhap he did. But, look you, Anâri was in the palace _zenâna_ ere she disappeared. Who is to say she is not thy cousin twice over?... I say not that she is, look you, but who can tell. Yet this is certain, Roshan; she hath Anâri Begum's eyes. For I have seen her; but a month ago the Miss who reads brought her, not knowing of these tales; for Pidar Narâyan keeps a silent tongue. Her name is Laila,[3] and thine Roshan.[4] Is not that a fate? and she hath thy grand-aunt's eyes; ay! and thy grandfather's land too; for would it not have been Walidâd's, if Bun-avatâr had not ousted him from the _wazeer_-ship with singing birds?" Roshan Khân stood up feeling as if he was being suffocated. It was ten years since he had had experience of the fine-drawn meshes of vague, almost useless, conspiracy for which Indian women have such vast capability; it was ten years since, with eyes open to his own advantage, he had cast in his lot loyally with the Government he served. In that time there had not been wanting--there never is in India--others, less scrupulous, ready to trade on his connection with a dispossessed family, and his possible sense of injustice. He had known how to treat them. But this idea bit shrewdly at a feeling which men of his stamp have inevitably--the desire for a wife more suitable to their own culture than they can hope to find among their own people. He gave an uneasy laugh. "These be dreams, indeed, grandmother. To begin with, Pidar Narâyan--" "Pidar Narâyan! Pidar Narâyan!" echoed the old diplomatist tartly, "Art turned Hindoo, that thou dost count Narâyan[5] the Creator of all?" Then she suddenly clapped her hands together in absolute impatience and anger. "Yet is it true. He _is_ the cause of all! But for him Bun-avatâr would have been as an over-fried fritter, a burst bladder, a drum on a hen's back! But for his teaching thee to fence--"