“It is not going as far as Mr. Ram Chand.”
“But the money, the money—they will never pay an adequate salary, those savage Rajahs.”
“I shall never be rich anywhere, it is outside my character.”
“If you had been sensible and made Miss Quested pay——”
“I chose not to. Discussion of the past is useless,” he said, with sudden sharpness of tone. “I have allowed her to keep her fortune and buy herself a husband in England, for which it will be very necessary. Don’t mention the matter again.”
“Very well, but your life must continue a poor man’s; no holidays in Kashmir for you yet, you must stick to your profession and rise to a highly paid post, not retire to a jungle-state and write poems. Educate your children, read the latest scientific periodicals, compel European doctors to respect you. Accept the consequences of your own actions like a man.”
Aziz winked at him slowly and said: “We are not in the law courts. There are many ways of being a man; mine is to express what is deepest in my heart.”
“To such a remark there is certainly no reply,” said Hamidullah, moved. Recovering himself and smiling, he said: “Have you heard this naughty rumour that Mohammed Latif has got hold of?”
“Which?”
“When Miss Quested stopped in the College, Fielding used to visit her . . . rather too late in the evening, the servants say.”