"So it is my shoulders? I will study again before the mirror. Yes, I can
dance. Soon you shall see me. You shall see all the most wonderful
things in Rajputana."

"But tell me about yourself," Tess insisted, offering the cigarettes again.
And this time her guest accepted one.

"My mother was the Russian wife of Bubru Singh, who had no son.
I am the rightful maharanee of Sialpore, only those fools of English put
my father's
nephew on the throne, saying a woman can not reign. They are no
wiser than apes! They have given Sialpore to Gungadhura who is a
pig and loathes them instead of to a woman who would only laugh at
them, and the brute is raising a litter of little pigs, so that even if he and
his progeny were poisoned one by one, there would always be a brat
left--he has so many!"

"And you?"

"First you must promise silence."

"Very well."

"Woman to woman!"

"Yes."

"Womb to womb--heart to heart--?"