"You promised to do nothing that Government might object to." "Well; will they object to my religion ?" she retorted, mocking him.

"Has the British _raj_ at last screwed up its courage to the point of trespassing behind the purdah and blundering in among religious exercises ?" No man in his senses ever challenges a woman's argument until he knows the whole of it and has unmasked its ulterior purpose.

So King sat still and said nothing, knowing that that was precisely what she did not want.
"You must make terms with me, heaven-born!" she went on, changing her tone to one of rather more suggestive firmness.

"The _Kali-Yug_ (age of darkness) is drawing to a close, and India awakes! There is froth on the surface--a rising here, an agitation there, a deal of wild talk everywhere, and the dead old government proposes to suppress it in the dead old ways, like men with paddles seeking to beat the waves down flat! But the winds of God blow, and the boat of the men with the paddles will be upset presently.

Who then shall ride the storm?
Their gunners will be told to shoot the froth as it forms and rises! But if there is a wise man anywhere he will make terms with me, and will set himself to guide the underlying forces that may otherwise whelm everything.