For an hour they sat together murmuring questions and reply, heart answering to heart, eyes reading eyes, and hand enfolding hand; until at last Yasmini rose to leave him and he stood like a lord of squadroned lances to watch her go.

“Moon of my existence!” was his farewell speech to her.

“Dear lord!” she answered.  Then she turned and went, not looking back at him, walking erect, as one whose lover is the son of twenty kings.  Without a word she took Tess and Hasamurti by the hand, and, looking straight before her with blue eyes glowing at the welling joy of thoughts too marvelous for speech, led them to the lane—­the village street—­and the door in the wall again.  The man was still gazing after her, erect and motionless, when Tess turned her head at the beginning of the lane; but Yasmini never looked back once.

“Why did you never tell me his name?” Tess asked; but if Yasmini heard the question she saw fit not to answer it.  Not a word passed her lips until they reached the house, crossed the wide garden between pomegranate shrubs, and entered the dark door across the body of a sleeping watchman—­or a watchman who could make believe he slept.  Then: 

“Good night!” she said simply.  “Sleep well!  Sweet dreams!  Come, Hasamurti—­your hands are cleverer than the other women’s.”

Daughter of a king, and promised wife of a son of twenty kings, she took the best of the maids to undress her, without any formal mockery of excuse.  Two of the other women were awake to see Tess into bed—­ no mean allowance for a royal lady’s guest.

Very late indeed that night Tess was awakened by Yasmini’s hand stroking the hair back from her forehead.  Again there was no explanation, no excuse.  A woman who was privileged to see and hear what Tess had seen and heard, needed no apology for a visit in the very early hours.

“What do you think of him?” she asked.  “How do you like him?  Tell me!”

“Splendid!” Tess answered, sitting up to give the one word emphasis.  “But why did you never tell me his name?”

“Did you recognize him?”

“Surely!  At once—­first thing!”

“No true-born Rajputni ever names her lover or her husband.”

“But you knew that I know Prince Utirupa Singh.  He came to my garden party!”

“Nevertheless, no Rajputni names her lover to another man or woman—­ calling him by his own name only in retirement, to his face.”

“Why—­he—­isn’t he the one who Sir Roland Samson told me ought to have been maharajah instead of Gungadhura?”

Yasmini nodded and pressed her hand.