“Yes,” replied Hector, thinking of Jane.
“And so do I!” said the princess, thinking of the stranger who had stared at her, bold, unashamed, that day in the bazaar.
And they sighed and looked at each other, rather like two sentimental children, unhappy, yet, somehow, more pleased than otherwise at their own unhappiness, and left the mausoleum; and they returned through the streets of the town, acclaimed by peasant and noble, by merchant and priest, back to the palace whose turrets and domes burned under the rays of the late afternoon sun like the plumage of a gigantic peacock, in every mysterious blend of blue and green and purple.
As usual, the outer courtyard was a warren of teeming humanity and humanity's wives and children and mothers-in-law and visiting country cousins: saises and grass cutters, cooks and courtiers and mahajuns and paunchy assistants of Gulabian, villagers from the countryside come to present a petition or to call on friend and relative in the palace service, desert men who had brought the slim taxes of the farther lands, wealthy thakur sahebs, landed gentle men, in immaculate white and immense turbans, Babus fondly hugging huge account books bound in soft Bokhara leather, sellers of shawls and perfumes, of Persian brocade and gold-threaded Fyzabad muslin and all the many other things which are bought by the women of the harem; all talking, laughing excitedly … raising shrill voices of welcome as the princess, by Hector's side, passed through the gate,
