He closed his fingers jealously over the bronze box. "Not until...."

"You insist on reciprocity?"

"Absolutely."

"That's very unkind of you."

"How?" he demanded blankly.

"You will have it that I must surrender my only advantage--my
incognito. If I tell you how I happen to know who you are, I must tell
you who I am. Immediately you will lose interest in me, because I'm
really not at all advanced; I doubt if I should understand your book if
I had to read it."

"Which Heaven forfend! But why," he insisted mercilessly, "do you wish
me to be interested in you?"

She flushed becomingly at this and acknowledged the touch with a
rueful, smiling glance. But, "Because I'm interested in you," she
admitted openly.

"And ... why?"

"Are you hardened to such adventures?" She nodded in the direction the
babu had taken. "Are you accustomed to being treated with extraordinary
respect by stray Bengalis and accepting tokens from them? Is romance
commonplace to you?"