Page:The Slave Girl of Agra.djvu/125

 "Cold words these, Mihr-un-Nissa, and I would fain believe them to be dictated by the formal duty of a wife than by the warm heart of a woman."

"A woman who is married, great Prince, has no heart but that of a wife."

"You speak like the great Kazi of Agra! I did not seek you to-night, Mihr-un-Nissa, to listen to texts from the Koran."

"I speak like a woman, mighty Prince, who is married and wishes to be a faithful wife; and the Koran teaches us the duties of a wife."

A pause ensued. The Prince was restless in his seat, and chafed under chilling words from her whom he was determined in his heart to win. Yet he was afraid of offending her if he declared his passion too warmly.

"Pardon me, Mihr-un-Nissa," he said at last, "but the patient who suffers from a burning fever will sometimes disobey his physician, and the wretch who suffers from unquenchable love will sometimes forget the texts of the Scriptures. If I have judged you rightly, Mihr-un-Nissa, there was some response in your woman's heart to that passion which will never be effaced from mine. And even our sacred books point to means of union when two hearts are attracted towards each other by an indissoluble tie."

"I understand you not, my lord. I am already united to a man by the holy ties of matrimony."

"Those holy ties can be dissolved by a divorce which our Mullas and learned men will sanction under my bidding. We are not like the Hindus, among whom the wife is tied to her lord for ever, and sometimes follows him even to the funeral pyre."