"The dress the Begum-_sahiba_ wore last night is one of them," interrupted Akbar, quietly; "it belonged to Anâri Begum, _Huzoor_, and there are plenty more like it. And all are really the _Huzoor's_; no one else's." Laila looked down on the trays with a new interest. "Did it really belong to--to _her?_" she asked; "and the jewels also?" "The jewels also. There are plenty of them. And if Anâri Begum was really the Begum-_sahiba's_ grandmother, then the jewels are hers by right." "She can come if she wishes," interrupted Laila, impatiently. "I see thy craft, Akbar, but I care not for that. Yet it will be fun to receive her as--as a Begum. And no harm either, since the _missen_ ladies receive her, I know, and her like--when they will come! It will be at night, of course, to ensure her privacy, so Pidar Narâyan need know nothing. Only"--she paused, a change swept over her face, leaving it dimpled, cunning, full of mischief and cajolery. "I do naught for naught! If I please thee, thou must please me! If thou art their messenger, thou must be mine also; or I tell Pidar Narâyan!" Akbar-_khân's_ wicked old eyes positively leered approval; he waggled his head and chuckled. Wherefore not? Was there a better, more careful messenger in the world than he, or one more capable of deft arrangings? "I want none," she put in with a quick distaste, a shrinking from his manner. "'Tis but to take a note to Dering-_sahib_; he must know somewhat before he comes with the other _sahib logue_ this afternoon. There is no arrangement needed, no fuss." How could there be, she asked herself, as, after the old sinner had gone off, charmed at this renewal of a once familiar occupation, she sat on the window-sill looking down on the roof of the balcony where she had been so content. For what could be simpler than to make it quite clear that you were real, that you did not pretend, that you were not even afraid? That, briefly, you were not like Mrs. Smith, who took so much--one could not help seeing that!--and gave so little--one could not help seeing that, also! For what was a "Thanks! many, Captain Dering," in return for all the trouble he lavished on her? So it came to pass that when Vincent Dering went to the palace that afternoon, some words were haunting heart and brain, as Juliet's words must have haunted Romeo's. No more; no less. But they slid into and filled up the blanks between some words of his own which he had spoken carelessly, not five minutes before he had first seen Laila, and which came back to his memory unbidden. "It isn't altogether despicable to let yourself loose in Paradise without an _arrière pensée_ of flaming swords, especially if you can give pleasure to someone else thereby! One could play Romeo and Juliet in this garden nicely."