'Nay! nay!' whimpered Dalel with a maudlin shake of the head, as he sought comfort in finishing the tumbler. 'We will succeed yet; but the boy hath no youth in his veins. I know not how to take him as the others. Yet have we done our best----' 'Best,' echoed the woman scornfully. 'Stale old tricks. A gold piece under his plate at dinner forsooth! That was soon over in a beating for the servant who should have seen it put there. A dish of oranges stuffed with rupees which the same servant, wise man, kept for himself. A gun he would not take! a dinner he would not eat! a horse he would not ride! Even a woman he would not look at. What care I? there be others who will. Stale old tricks indeed! insipid as uncooled water on a summer's day, or that thing yonder'--she pointed to the opposite balcony--'compared to me. Think not I did not see thee ere I came out, oh! Dalel. Not that I care. There be others, and Delhi is but a day's journey.' 'Mayhap the tricks are old,' he muttered in sullen discomfiture. 'Hast new to advise?' She laughed. 'Not to thee; thou hast not the wit for it. And there is naught new. The crazy potter is right when he saith the world is in the dust. Sure every ploughman knows, that no matter what the surface be, the sand lies under all. Thou hast but to dig deep enough.' She had moved forward to lean against the plinth. In the action her thin draperies clung to the long curve of her limbs from hip to ankle. Her right hand supported her head, which was thrown back against it, so that the arm framed her face. It was the attitude of the Medea in Pompeian frescoes; the face of a Medea also till the downward glance of her eyes met an upward one from the sutara-player. Then with a flash and a laugh the pomegranate blossom flew out into the sunlight and fell at the young man's feet. Dalel clutched at her savagely amid a volley of coarse English oaths. 'Let me go, beloved!' she giggled. 'Did I not say the sand lay under all? What! art jealous? jealous of Chândni the courtesan? Wouldst have me Dalelâh since thou art Dalel? If that be so, I will put thee in good temper again.' She snatched at an old banjo hanging on a nail, sank down amid her draperies like a cobra on its coil, and began recklessly to sing 'Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,' while Dalel waggled his head, but half mollified. 'Thou canst not dance it though,' he maundered sleepily. 'Not as 'twas pictured in the English papers at the Jubilee Institute. Thou art no good at all. I will change thee for a half-caste girl. Yet if there be no money in the treasury? Lo! Fate is hard, and I have done my best.'