"It is silence firstly; second, a security for silence."

"The first part is easy."

"Nay, difficult. A woman can keep silence, but men chatter like the apes,
in every coffee shop."

His bargain-driver's eyes watched hers intently, unable to detect the
slightest clue that should start him guessing. He was trying to identify
a man, not a woman.

"How shall I give security for silence?" he asked.

"I already hold it."

"How? What? Where?"

The money-lender betrayed a glimpse of sheer pugnacity that seemed
to amuse his tormentor.

"Send thy jackal out of ear-shot, tiger."

He snapped at his parasite angrily, and the man went away to sit down. Then:

"Where are the title-deeds of the house you say you own?" she asked
him suddenly.

Mukhum Dass kept silence, and tried to smother the raging anger in his eyes.

"Was it Mukhum Dass or another, who went to the priest in the temple