"Have a care, man," she said sternly, as he crushed her closer to him, "or we shall quarrel; and 'tis not good for me to quarrel--now."
He released her quickly, yet cautiously; gentle as he was, he was always forgetting, he told himself, that she was doubly precious to him--now.
"Lo! dear heart!" he said penitently, "we have not quarrelled these five days."
"Not since I was angry because the tire-woman overdyed my hands with henna," she replied mischievously. "And thou didst tell me there were worse evils for tears. As if I cared; so long as my hands were not pretty ... for thee." She held them up for him to admire. And they were pretty. Delicate, and curved, and pink, like rose-petals. He kissed them dutifully; so much he knew was expected of him, and he loved the task.
"And as penance for rudeness, man," she went on, her face all dimples, "thou wert to write me a love ode on the subject. Hast done it, sirrah?"
"That have I," assented her lover husband gladly. "Dost know, little one, I string more pearls now than ever; but thou--thou hast not written one line since we were married; yet thou hadst the prettiest art."
Ma'asuma lay back on her resting-place and laughed softly. "Someday, stupid, I will tell thee why. But now for thy verses."
Babar caught up his lute and sat tuning it, his eyes wandering away to the girdle of snows that clipped the blue hill-horizon. They were in the garden of the New Year; alone, save for that dear grave yonder where the jasmine flowers were drooping their scented waxen stars.
Dear mother! How glad she would have been to see Ma'asuma, to think of the grandson who was so soon to make life absolutely perfect. Yes! the cup of life, the Crystal Bowl could hold no more. He lost himself in dreams, to be roused by an impatient, "Well! I listen."
Then he turned and smiled at her as he began with exaggerated expression.