"Do you know nothing of men at all, then?"
"Nothing, Sahib, nothing," she answered, falling on her knees
suddenly at his feet, and raising her hands towards him. "This will
be my bridal night with the Sahib. The Nothing told me to please
you, to do all you told me. What shall I do? how shall I please
you?"
Hamilton looked down upon her: his brain seemed whirling; the
pulses along his veins beat heavily; new worlds, new vistas of life
seemed opening before him as he looked at her, so beautiful in her
first youth, in her unclouded innocence, full, it is true, of
Oriental passion, with a certain Oriental absence of shame, but
untouched, able to be his, and his only.
Before he could speak again, or collect his thoughts that the
girl's words had scattered, her soft voice went on:
"Surely the Sahib is a god, not a man. I have seen the men across
the footlights: there were none like the Sahib. I said to my
mother, 'I do not like men, I do not want them; what shall I do?'
And my mother said, 'There is no hurry, my child; we will wait till
a rich Sahib comes.' But you are not a man, you must be a god, you
are so beautiful; and I am the slave of the Sahib, for ever and
ever."
She looked up at him, great lights seemed to have been lighted in
the midnight pools of her eyes, the curved lips parted a little,
showing the perfect, even teeth; the rounded, warm-hued cheeks
glowed; the lids of her eyes lifted as those of a person looking
out into a new world.
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