"I intend to retain the dress and habits of English life," he replied with decision. Then, after a slight pause that seemed to the listeners to be shadowed by some strange unknown danger, he continued: "But this is not all. After much thought and deliberation I have also adopted the religion of England."
A dead silence greeted this announcement. Its full meaning did not immediately strike the listeners. Bopaul glanced from one to the other. The expression on the face of his own father held his attention. It was a curious mixture of astonishment, dismay, and incredulity. The jaw dropped; the eyes opened to their widest extent, and the brows were like two rainbows, so arched had they become. Bopaul had that insane desire to laugh which seizes men and women at a crisis fraught with possible disaster; he turned his back on the company to hide his trembling lips. An inarticulate sound made him look round. It came from his own parent, who struggled in vain to frame a question.
Bopaul divined its import. Was he, too, a renegade, a 'vert? He controlled his lips and strangled his ill-timed mirth. A sign in the negative set his father's mind at rest on that point, and enabled the older man to give his undivided attention to what was passing between Pantulu and his son.
Pantulu, like his friend, had been struck dumb by the shock of Ananda's statement. He moistened his lips, and after a few ineffectual attempts accomplished articulation. His voice sounded strange and unlike his usual tone.
"You have—adopted—the religion of—England, my son! I fail to grasp your meaning!"
"I have become a Christian."
Ananda spoke clearly, but with a doggedness that seemed a little forced. Under his calmness lurked timidity. Bopaul detected it and again his lips quivered, this time with the ghost of a scornful smile. It required a magnificent courage and enormous endurance for a caste man to make such a change. If he knew Ananda aright his friend had no great store of either courage or endurance. His Christianity would soon be knocked out of him when the family had him back again in the old home away from foreign influences, unless he, Bopaul, was very much mistaken.
Pantulu dropped his feet to the ground, raised himself by the arms of the lounge on which he was seated, and rose without haste to his full height. The folds of his soft white muslin cloth fell over his lower limbs, the flowing drapery giving him an oriental dignity that was patriarchal. He wore a dark-blue serge coat, a white shirt and linen collar, with tie to match the coat. Everything was of the best quality and fitted his aristocratic well-made figure without fault. On the little finger of his right hand shone a diamond of rare beauty, his only ornament. The sparkle of the gem caught Ananda's eye as the hand was slightly raised in growing horror.
"A Christian! a Christian!" he repeated. Then lowering his hand he seemed to shake off the horror by an effort of will. "I have not understood you, my son. There is some mistake. Whatever strange customs you may have thought fit to adopt during your stay in England, you must drop them now. They have served their purpose, and they must be thrown aside like the strange weeds that as a child you gathered in the jungle, and cast upon the dust heap on your return before entering the house. You have returned to the home of your fathers a Hindu, an orthodox Hindu, a Vishnuvite. Even now at this moment the Swami, our guru, waits at our house in Chirapore to see the ceremonies performed that will restore your caste and purify you from the pollution of these western habits."
The voice grew firmer until it rang out like a sharply-struck bell. Yet for all its firmness there was a strain of desperate entreaty running through it, as though the speaker waited in passionate hope for confirmation of his assertions. That confirmation did not come. Ananda, as he stood before his father, shifted uneasily from one foot to the other; and as the elder ceased speaking he said falteringly—