he
native servants follow in a separate boat, and even the electric light
is turned on as part of the luxury. This was a long low craft, very
broad, thatched like a country cottage afloat. In the forepart lived the
native owner, and his family, their crew, our cooks and servants; for
they played many parts in our service. And in the afterpart, room for a
life, a dream, the joy or curse & many days to be.

But then, I saw only one thing--Vanna sat under the trees, reading, or
looking at the cool dim watery vista, with a single boat, loaded to the
river's edge with melons and scarlet tomatoes, punting lazily down to
Srinagar in the sleepy afternoon.

She was dressed in white with a shady hat, and her delicate dark face
seemed to glow in the shadow like the heart of a pale rose. For the
first time I knew she was beautiful. Beauty shone in her like the flame
in an alabaster lamp, serene, diffused in the very air about her, so
that to me she moved in a mild radiance. She rose to meet me with both
hands outstretched--the kindest, most cordial welcome. Not an eyelash
flickered, not a trace of self-consciousness. If I could have seen her
flush or tremble--but no--her eyes were clear and calm as a forest pool.
So I remembered her. So I saw her once more.

I tried, with a hopeless pretence, to follow her example and hide what I
felt, where she had nothing to hide.

"What a place you have found. Why, it's like the deep heart of a wood!"

"Yes, I saw it once when I was here with the Meryons. But we lay at the
Bund then--just under the Club. This is better. Did you like the ride
up?"

I threw myself on the grass beside her with a feeling of perfect rest.

"It was like a new heaven and a new earth. What a country!"

The very spirit of Quiet seemed to be drowsing in those branches
towering up into the blue, dipping their green fingers into the crystal
of the water. What a heaven!

"Now you shall have your tea and then I will show you your rooms," she
said, smiling at my delight. "We shall stay here a few days more that
you may see Srinagar, and then they tow us up into the Dal Lake opposite
the Gardens of the Mogul Emperors. And if you think this beautiful what
will you say then?"

I shut my eyes and see still that first meal of my new life. The little
table that Pir Baksh, breathing full East in his jade-green turban, set
before her, with its cloth worked in a pattern of the chenar leaves
that are the symbol of Kashmir; t