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 Lilamani--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 spit