“Tell us something about Akbar.”
“Ah, you have heard the name of Akbar. Good. Hamidullah—whom you shall meet—will tell you that Akbar is the greatest of all. I say, ‘Yes, Akbar is very wonderful, but half a Hindu; he was not a true Moslem, which makes Hamidullah cry, ‘No more was Babur, he drank wine.’ But Babur always repented afterwards, which makes the entire difference, and Akbar never repented of the new religion he invented instead of the Holy Koran.”
“But wasn’t Akbar’s new religion very fine? It was to embrace the whole of India.”
“Miss Quested, fine but foolish. You keep your religion, I mine. That is the best. Nothing embraces the whole of India, nothing, nothing, and that was Akbar’s mistake.”
“Oh, do you feel that, Dr. Aziz?” she said thoughtfully. “I hope you’re not right. There will have to be something universal in this country—I don’t say religion, for I’m not religious, but something, or how else are barriers to be broken down?”
She was only recommending the universal brotherhood he sometimes dreamed of, but as soon as it was put into prose it became untrue.
“Take my own case,” she continued—it was indeed her own case that had animated her. “I don’t know whether you happen to have heard, but I’m going to marry Mr. Heaslop.”
“On which my heartiest congratulations.”
“Mrs. Moore, may I put our difficulty to Dr. Aziz—I mean our Anglo-Indian one?”
“It is your difficulty, not mine, my dear.”