"Ay! there are too few of us," she echoed with an effort, "but I will be back ere the light goes."
Too few! Yes, too few. She had known that for some time; and if it were so in their youth and strength, what would it be in the old age which must come upon them as it had upon the Baba-jee, who, as she passed in to the wide courtyard in order to fetch the big brazen water vessel, nodded kindly, asking where his son had lingered.
"He watchas the corn heaps till I return. It must be so, since there are so few of us."
The nod changed to a shake, and the cheerful old voice trembled a little over the echo.
"Ay! there are few of us."
All the way down to the shallow tank, set, as it were, in a crackle-edge of a sun-baked mud, the phrase re-echoed again and again in Uma-devi's brain till it seemed written large through her own eyes in the faces of the village women passing to and fro with their water-pots. They knew it also; they said it to themselves, though as yet none had dared--save Mai Râdha, with her cowardly hints--to say to her that the time had come when the few ought to be made more. Ah! if Shiv-deo's younger brother had not died before his child-wife was of age to be brought home, this need not have been. Though, even then, a virtuous woman for her husband's sake ought----
Uma-devi, down by the water-edge, as if to escape from her own thoughts, turned hastily to spread the corner of her veil over the wide mouth of the brazen pot and with a smaller cup began to ladle the muddy water on to the strainer. But the thought was passionate, insistent. Ought! What was the use of prating about ought? She could not, she would not let Shivo take another woman by the hand. How could they ask her, still young, still beautiful, still beloved, to give him another bride? Why, it would be her part to lift the veil from the new beauty, as she lifted it from the now brimming water-pot--so----
Uma Himāvutee! what did she see? Her own face reflected in the brass-ringed water, as in a mirror set in a golden frame! Clear as in any mirror her own beauty--the lips Shivo had kissed--the eyes which held him so dear; all, all, unchanged. Ah! but it was impossible! That was what the pious old folk preached--what the pious young folk pretended. She poised the brazen vessel on her head, telling herself passionately it was impossible. Yet the sight of the wide courtyard, empty save for Baba-jee creeping about to feed the milch kine and do what he could of woman's work, revived that refrain of self-reproach, "There are too few of us." Shivo himself had said it--for the first time it is true, but would it be the last? Wherefore? since it was true. She set down the water-pot and began to rekindle the ashes on the hearth, thinking stupidly of that reflection of her own face. But water was like a man's heart; it could hold more faces than one.
"Ari, hai! sister," called Mai Râdha, pausing at the open doorway to look in and see the house-mistress clapping unleavened bread between her palms with the hot haste of one hard pressed for time. "Thou hast no rest; but one woman is lost in these courts. I mind when thy mother-in-law lived and there were young things growing up in each corner. That is as it should be."
A slow flush darkened Uma's face. "Young things come quick enough when folks will," she retorted passionately. "Give me but a year's grace, gossip, and I, Uma-devi, will fill the yard too--if I wish it filled. Ay! and without asking thy help either."