Far to Seek. Diver Maud

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СКАЧАТЬ my darling! You make me blush!" She drew her sari across her face, hiding, under a veil of lightness, her joy at his outspoken praise.

      "Well, you made me say it. And I'm not sentimentalising. I'm telling a home truth!"

      His vehemence was guarantee of that. Very gently he drew back the sari and looked deep into her eyes.

      "Why should we only tell the ugly ones, like Aunt Jane? Anyway, I've told you my truest one now—and I'm not ashamed of it."

      "No need. It is a jewel I will treasure in my heart."

      She dropped the veil of lightness, giving him sincerity for sincerity as he deserved. "But—Ancient one, have you seen so many girls and women in your long life——?"

      "I've seen a pretty good mixture of all sorts—Oxford, London, and round here," he insisted unabashed. "And I've had my wits about me. Of course they're most of them jolly and straight. Good fellows in fact; talking our slang; playing our games. No harm, of course. But it kills the charm of contrast—the supreme charm. They understand that in India better than we do here."

      The truth of that last Lilámani could not deny. Too clearly she saw in the violent upheaval of Western womanhood the hidden germs of tragedy, for women themselves, for the race.

      "You are right, Roy," she said, smiling into his serious face. "From our—from Hindu point of view, greatest richness of life come from greatest possible difference between men and women. And most of all it is so in Rajputana. But over here. … " She sighed, a small shivering sigh. The puzzle and pain of it went too deep with her. "All this screaming and snatching and scratching for wrong kind of things hurts my heart; because—I am woman and they are women—desecrating that in us which is a symbol of God. Nature made women for ministering to Life and Love. Are they not believing, or not caring, that by struggling to imitate man (while saying with their lips how they despise him!) they are losing their own secret, beautiful differences, so important for happiness—for the race. But marriage in the West seems more for convenience of lovers than for the race——"

      "Yet your son, though he is of the West—must not consider his own inclination or convenience——"

      "My son," she interposed, gently inflexible, "because he is also of the East, must consider this matter of the race; must try and think it with his father's mind."

      "All the same—making such a point of it seems like an insult—to you——"

      "No, Roy. Not to say that——" The flash in her eyes, that was almost anger, startled and impressed him more than any spoken word. "No thought that ever came in your father's mind could be—like insult to me. Oh, my dear, have you not sense to know that for an old English family like his, with roots down deep in English soil and history, it is not good that mixture of race should come twice over in two generations. To you—our kind of marriage appears a simple affair. You see only how close we are now, in love and understanding. You cannot imagine all the difficulties that went before. We know them—and we are proud, because they became like dust under our feet. Only to you—Dilkusha, I could tell … a little, if you wish—for helping you to understand."

      "Please tell," he said, and his hand closed on hers.

      So, leaning back among her cushions—speaking very simply in the low voice that was music to his ears—she told. …

      The telling—fragmentary, yet vivid—lasted less than half an hour. But in that half-hour Roy gleaned a jewel of memory that the years would not dim. The very words would remain. …

      For Lilámani—wandering backward in fancy through the Garden of Remembrance—revealed more than she realised of the man she loved and of her own passionate spirit, compact of fire and dew, the sublimated essence of the Eastern woman at her best.

      Yet in spite of that revealing—or rather because of it—rebellion stirred afresh. And, as if divining his thoughts, she impulsively raised her hand. "Now, Roy, you must promise. Only so, I can speak to Dad and rest his mind."

      Seizing her hand, he kissed it fervently.

      "Darling—after all that, a mere promise would be a fatuous superfluity. If you say 'No Indian wife,' that's enough for me. I suppose I must rest content with the high privilege of possessing an Indian mother."

      Her radiant surprise was a beautiful thing to see. Leaning forward, she took his head in her hands and kissed him between his eyebrows where the caste-mark should be.

      "Must it be October—so soon?" she asked.

      He told her of Dyán, and she sighed. "Poor Dyán! I wonder? It is so difficult—even with the best kind—this mixing of English education and Indian life. I hope it will make no harm for those two——"

      Then they started, almost like lovers; for the drooping branches rustled and Tara stood before them—a very vision of June; in her straight frock of Delphinium blue; one shell-pink rose in her hat and its counterpart in her waist-belt. Canvas shoes and tennis-racquet betrayed her fell design on Roy.

      "Am I despritly superfluous?" she queried, smiling from one to the other.

      "Quite too despritly," Roy assured her with emphasis.

      She wrinkled her nose at him, so far as its delicate aquiline would permit. "Speak for yourself, spoilt boy!"

      But she favoured him with her left hand, which he retained, while she stooped over the hammock and kissed Lilámani on both cheeks. Then she stood up and gently disengaged her hand.

      "Christine's to blame. She guessed you were here. I came over in hopes of tennis. It's just perfect. Not too hot."

      "Still more perfect in here, lazing with Mummy," said graceless Roy.

      "I disown you, I am ashamed!" Lilámani rebuked him only half in jest. "No more lazing now. I have done with you. Only you have to get me out of this."

      They got her out, between them; fussed over her and laughed at her; and then went off together for Roy's racquet.

      She stood in the silvery sunlight watching them till they disappeared round the corner of the house. Not surprising that Nevil said—"No hurry!" If he would only wait … ! He was still too young, too much in love with India—with herself. Yet, had he already begun inditing sonnets, even to the most acceptable eyebrow, her perverse heart would doubtless have known the prick of jealousy—as in Desmond's day.

      Instead she suddenly knew the first insidious prick of middle age; felt dazed, for a mere moment, by the careless radiance of their youth; to them an unconsidered thing: but to those who feel it relentlessly slipping through their fingers …

      Her small fine hands clenched in unconscious response to her thought. She was nearing forty. In her own land she would be reckoned almost an old woman. But some magic in the air and way of life in this cool green England seemed to keep age at bay: and there remained within a flame-like youth of the spirit—not so easy, even for the Arch-Thief to steal away. …

CHAPTER V.

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