“Do you realize, Mr. Carlyle, that you and your Government and your soldiers are responsible for the death of thousands of innocent men and women in my country every day?  If England was occupied by the Germans who quartered an army and an administration with their wives and their families and all their expensive paraphernalia on the unfortunate country until the whole nation was reduced to the verge of famine, and the appointment of every new official meant the callous death sentence on a thousand men and women to pay his salary, then if you went to Berlin and wrecked a train you would be hailed a patriot.  What Boadicea did and—­and Samson, so have I. If they were heroes, so am I.”

“Well, upon my word!” cried the highly scandalized Carlyle, “what next!  Boadicea was a—­er—­semi-legendary person, whom we may possibly admire at a distance.  Personally, I do not profess to express an opinion.  But Samson, I would remind you, is a Biblical character.  Samson was mocked as an enemy.  You, I do not doubt, have been entertained as a friend.”

“And haven’t I been mocked and despised and sneered at every day of my life here by your supercilious, superior, empty-headed men?” flashed back Drishna, his eyes leaping into malignity and his voice trembling with sudden passion.  “Oh! how I hated them as I passed them in the street and recognized by a thousand petty insults their lordly English contempt for me as an inferior being—­a nigger.  How I longed with Caligula that a nation had a single neck that I might destroy it at one blow.  I loathe you in your complacent hypocrisy, Mr. Carlyle, despise and utterly abominate you from an eminence of superiority that you can never even understand.”

“I think we are getting rather away from the point, Mr. Drishna,” interposed Carrados, with the impartiality of a judge.  “Unless I am misinformed, you are not so ungallant as to include everyone you have met here in your execration?”

“Ah, no,” admitted Drishna, descending into a quite ingenuous frankness.  “Much as I hate your men I love your women.  How is it possible that a nation should be so divided—­its men so dull-witted and offensive, its women so quick, sympathetic and capable of appreciating?”

“But a little expensive, too, at times?” suggested Carrados.

Drishna sighed heavily.

“Yes; it is incredible.  It is the generosity of their large nature.  My allowance, though what most of you would call noble, has proved quite inadequate.  I was compelled to borrow money and the interest became overwhelming.  Bankruptcy was impracticable because I should have then been recalled by my people, and much as I detest England a certain reason made the thought of leaving it unbearable.”

“Connected with the Arcady Theatre?”