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 exasperated. “Peace, Parrot-Face! I admit it. Jayashri's beauty was overpowering—as the moon's on the fourteenth day. Her little, white feet were lisping twin flowers, her little nose was …”

“Spare us the enumeration of her physical perfections,” laughed Hector. Then, seriously: “Thou didst tell her?”

“Yes. A word or two about the prophecy of the blades. She said that true love means utter trust, utter confidence, and so just a word or two I told her, my lord!”

“But sufficient to give a clue to her—brother, the Babu!”

“Enough, too,” croaked the old nurse, “to throw this land into turmoil, to cause the Babu Bansi to send messages along the devil wires to Belait—to Europe—and then to smash the devil machinery, so that the other son of a noseless mother, the Babu Chandra, stalks into the presence of Aziza Nurmahal and speaks words bloated with arrogance! Yes! Thou didst tell her enough, O Armenian, to plant the seeds of rebellion in this

And she gave a terse and vituperative history of the events that had disturbed the peace of Tamerlanistan, just about the time of the memorable card game at Dealle Castle when Hector had lived up to the traditions of the Wade family and had shouldered the guilt of his elder brother … the memory came to him now, and with it a slight bitterness, too, a slight elation.

For, after all, he said to himself, if it had not been for the card scandal, for the Wade traditions, he