ed he contrived to get the excited prince out of
Brabazon House without a scene, forbearing to question him till a motor
car had borne them swiftly to the great hotel where the Maharajah was
staying. But as soon as they were alone in the dining-room of the suite
which his patron for the time being rented there escaped him the two
words--

"She refused?"

Bhagwan Singh, Maharajah of Sindkhote, walked unsteadily to the
sideboard and poured out half a tumbler of neat brandy. He drank it at a
gulp, and then turned to his European mentor, restored to the outward
semblance of his customary Oriental calm. A good-looking man with a pale
olive complexion, jet black moustache and features of the full-faced
Eastern type, he was by no means ill-favoured, though in his lazy eyes
there were infinite possibilities of malevolent cruelty.

"Sit down, my dear Nugent, and talk," he said, tossing a gold
cigarette-case across the table. "Yes, she not only refused my offer of
marriage, but laughed at me--treated me, the descendant of a hundred
kings, as a joke. By God! I could have killed her twenty minutes ago,
as she stood smiling disdainfully at me among the palms. But that brandy
has steadied me for a better way. She shall be mine yet, though not as
Maharanee now. I will have my way with her, and then she shall sweep out
the harem."

"That is rather a tall order, Prince," rejoined Nugent, watching the
other narrowly. "You will never accomplish that unless you kidnap her,
and to convey an unwilling maiden from England to India presents, to my
prosaic mind, a good many initial difficulties."

"Difficulties? Yes, but I will give you twenty thousand pounds to help
me to surmount them. And I do not even ask you to devise the scheme for
humbling this proud Englishwoman to the dust. When you told me that
Violet Maynard would laugh me to scorn I did not believe you, but all
the same I, Bhagwan Singh, prepared a plan for meeting the contingency.
It depends, however, on one point. Has the girl a lover already?"

"No; I can reassure you as to that. She has admirers, of course--with
her attractions that goes without saying. But she is perfectly
heart-whole--so far," was Nugent's reply.

"Then success is certain, for I will provide her with a lover," the
Maharajah rejoined, evidently expecting an outburst of surprise at the
apparent paradox.

But his cunning eyes searched Travers Nugent's face in vain for signs of
any such emotions. It was