She spoke in the Jat tongue fluently; but that was not remarkable,
because Yasmini is mistress of so many languages that men say one can
not speak in her hearing and not be understood.

"I am a soldier," answered Ranjoor Singh more than a little stiffly.

"'I am a statesman,' said the viceroy's babu! A Sikh is a Jat farmer
with a lion's tail and the manners of a buffalo! Age or gallantry
will bend a man's back. What keeps it straight--the smell of the
farmyard on his shoes?"

Ranjoor Singh did not answer, nor did he bow low as she intended.
She forgot, perhaps, that on a previous occasion he had seen her
snatch a man's turban from his head and run with it into the room, to
the man's sweating shame. He kicked his shoes off calmly and waited
as a man waits on parade, looking straight into her eyes that were
like dark jewels, only no jewels in the world ever glowed so
wonderfully; he thought he could read anger in them, but that ruffled
him no more than her mockery.

"Enter, then, O farmer!" she said, turning lithely as a snake, to
beckon him and lead the way.

Now he had only a back view of her, but the contour of her neck and
chin and her shoulders mocked him just as surely as her lips were
making signals that he could not see. One answer to the signals was
the tittering of twenty maids, who sat together by the great deep
window, ready to make music.