He did not rise at first to greet her, for Jinendra’s priest was fat; there was no gainsaying it.  After about a minute a sort of earthquake taking place in him began to reach the surface; he rocked on his center in increasing waves that finally brought him with a spasm of convulsion to the floor.  There he stood in full sunlight with his bare toes turned inward, holding his stomach with both hands, while Yasmini settled herself in graceful youthful curves on the cushioned bench, with her face in shadow, and the smirking maid at her feet.  Then before climbing ponderously back to his perch on the throne the priest touched his forehead once with both hands and came close to a semblance of bowing, the arrogance of sanctity combining with his paunch to cut that ceremony short.

“Send the girl away,” he suggested as soon as he was settled into place again.  But Yasmini laughed at him with that golden note of hers that suggests illimitable understanding and unfathomable mirth.

“I know the ways of priests,” she answered.  “The girl stays!”

The priest’s fat chops darkened a shade.

“There are things she should not know.”

“She knows already more in her small head than there is in all thy big belly, priest of an idol!”

“Beware, woman, lest the gods hear sacrilege!”

“If they are real gods they love me,” she answered, “If they have any sense they will be pleased whenever I laugh at your idolatry.  Hasamurti stays.”

“But at the first imaginary insult she will run with information to wherever it will do most harm.  If she can be made properly afraid, perhaps—­”

Yasmini’s golden laugh cut him off short.

“If she is made afraid now she will hate me later.  As long as she loves me she will keep my secrets, and she will love me because of the secrets—­being a woman and not a belly-with-a-big-tongue, who would sell me to the highest bidder, if he dared.  I know a Brahman.  Thou and I are co-conspirators because my woman’s wit is sharper than thy greed.  We are confidants because I know too much of thy misdeeds.  We are going to succeed because I laugh at thy fat fears, and am never deceived for a moment by pretense of sanctity or promises however vehement.”

She said all that in a low sweet voice, and with a smile that would have made a much less passionate man lose something of his self-command.  Jinendra’s priest began to move uneasily.

“Peace, woman!”

“There is no peace where priests are,” she retorted in the same sweet-humored voice.  “I am engaged in war, not honey-gathering.  I have lied sufficient times today to Mukhum Dass to need ten priests, if I believed in them or were afraid to lie!  The shroff will come to ask about his title-deed.  Tell him you are told a certain person has it, but that if he dares breathe a word the paper will go straight to Dhulap Singh, who will destroy it and so safely bring his lawsuit.  Then let Dhulap Singh be told also that the title-deed is in certain hands, so he will put off the lawsuit week after week, and one who is my friend will suffer no annoyance.”