“I did not go there,” she said, “to make bargains with Prince Shan.  I believed as you wished me to believe, that he was here in that box.  I believed that I should have found the house empty, should have found what I wanted and have escaped with it.  Why did you do this thing?  Why did you send me on that errand when you knew that Prince Shan was there?”

“It was my desire that he should know that you are no different from other women,” was the calm reply.  “I was a spy for him.  You are a spy—­against him.”

“It was a deliberate plot, then!” Maggie exclaimed, trying to feel the anger which she imparted to her tone.

La Belle Nita suddenly laughed, softly and like a bird.

“You very, very foolish Englishwoman,” she said.  “A hand leaned down from Heaven, and you liked better to stay where you were, but I am glad.”

“And why?”

“Because I have been his slave,” the girl continued.  “At odd, strange moments he has shown me a little love, he has let me creep into a small corner of his heart.  Now I am cast out, and there is no more life for me because there is no more love, and there is no more love because, having felt his, no other can come after.  Here have I sat with all the tortures of Hell burning in my blood because I knew that you and he were there alone, because I was never sure that, after all, I was not doing my lord’s will.  And now I know that I suffered in vain.  You did not understand.”

Maggie looked across at her visitor reflectively.  She was beginning to regain her poise.

“Listen,” she said, “did you seriously expect me to accept Prince Shan as a lover?”

The girl’s eyes were round with wonder.

“It would be your great good fortune,” she murmured, “if he should offer you so wonderful a thing.”

Maggie laughed,—­persisted in her laugh, although it sounded a little hard and the mirth a little forced.

“I cannot reason with you,” she declared, “because you would not understand.  If you love him so much, why not go back to him?  You will find him quite alone.  I dare say you know the secrets of his lockless doors and hordes of unseen servants.”

La Belle Nita rose to her feet.  About her lips there flickered the faintest smile.

“Young English lady,” she said, “I shall not go, because I am shut for ever out of his heart.  But listen; would you have me go?”

For a moment Maggie’s poise was gone again.  A strange uncertainty was once more upon her.  She was terrified at her own feelings.  The smile on the other’s lips deepened and then passed away.

“Ah,” she murmured, as with a little bow she turned towards the door, “you are not all snow and ice, then!  There is something of the woman in you.  He must have known that.  I am better content.”