Talbot Mundy

“ He was no one-sided, overbalanced ladies’ man, but an all around soldier, with sporting instincts, ready wit, and steel wire nerve. But Yasmini—perhaps a hundred pounds of her—could hold him at her mercy! He did not understand the circumstance. On his way to her he had walked with the gait and buoyancy of youth in search of fresh adventure. In her presence he could only sit and let his ears grow red and finger his mustache.
“Are there no other officers whom you could bring with you?” she purred. ”

“ Boileau whistled.
“I hadn’t heard of it.”
“And if the officers of your famous Regiment should visit me from time to time, and see what passes here, and know what company I keep, whom I receive, of what they speak, then—then men will still talk, for no woman’s tongue is the equal of a man’s at slandering! But they will talk to little purpose.” ”

“ He thought it must be something passing in her mind that reached him telepathically. After a few years in the East even the most materialistic, incredulous of men come to believe implicitly in things that savants of the West call foolishness. ”